The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China: Siping, 1946

2. The Manchurian Chessboard, August–September 1945

15 Chinesechess,orxiangqi,likeWesternchess,isagameofstrategy,based on war and played with pieces laid out on a board.1 But while the kings, queens,bishops,knights,castles,andpawnsof Westernchessmovefrom square to square, Chinese chess is played on a grid of ten horizontal and nine vertical lines, with the vertical lines interrupted in the middle by a space representing a river. The players move their generals and advi­ sors, ministers, elephants, chariots, horses, cannons, and soldiers along the vertical and horizontal lines of maneuver, advancing and retreating, blocking,pinning,capturing,andskeweringinanattempttocheckmate or stalemate their opponent. To understand Chinese chess, it is important to understand the board, the pieces, and their positions. The same holds true for under­ standing the civil war in Manchuria. Siping became a focal point in that war in the spring of 1946 not because of its size, but because it happened to be located at a key strategic point on the map. In order to understand the battle of Siping and the lines of retreat and advance that brought the Communists and the Nationalists to a showdown in this otherwise unremarkable railway town, we need to look carefully at the major natu­ ral and manmade geographical features of China’s great Northeast, or Manchuria. We need also to consider the ways in which Japanese and Soviet occupation established the context in which the Communists and Nationalists took their initial positions on the map and in which the early days of the struggle for control over Manchuria was played out. 2 The Manchurian Chessboard August–September 1945 16 The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China Fortress Manchuria From a strategic point of view, Manchuria seems to have been designed specifically as a launching pad for invading China. In 1945 Manchuria consisted of the three provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning (see map 2.1). At the time, these provinces included parts of what is, on a modern map of the People’s Republic of China, the northern corner of the Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia) Autonomous Region.2 To the north and east are the Russian Federation’s Siberia and Far Eastern Province, bothpartsoftheSovietUnioninthe1940s.Tothesouth,borderedbythe Tumen and Yalu Rivers and the Changbai Mountains, is North Korea, a client state of the Soviet Union from 1945 through 1991. From the mouth of the Yalu River the Manchurian coastline swings down around the Liaodong Peninsula and on to the Chinese border town of Shanhaiguan, giving Manchuria several important seaports: Andong(nowcalledDandong),Dalian,Lüshun,Yingkou,andHuludao. The Liaodong Peninsula, pointing south toward the Shandong Penin­ sula, is home to two of these ports (Lüshun and Dalian), thus giving the Liaodong Peninsula special strategic importance and making it a traditional point of entry into Manchuria for Chinese migrants coming by boat from Shandong. Andong, relatively remote, played little role in theeventsof1945through1948.Yingkou,Huludao,Lüshun,andDalian, however, were all key areas in the Civil War. Also important was Qin­ huangdao, a port located in Hebei Province just south of the Great Wall, not far from Shanhaiguan. Onland,theSouthwesternHighlandsandtheGreaterXing’an(Khin­ gan) mountains set the core areas of Manchuria off from China Proper (that is, the agricultural areas below the line roughly demarcated by the Great Wall) and from Inner and Outer Mongolia. The mountainous terrain between China and Manchuria is pierced by several passes. The most important, Shanhaiguan, the “First Pass Under Heaven,” consists of a narrow strip of land, only a few kilometers wide, between the sea and the mountains. Shanhaiguan was the endpoint of the Ming Dy­ nasty’s Great Wall. Because it is the most direct route from the North China plain to Manchuria, a major road and, in modern times, the Bei­ jing–Shenyang railway line passed through Shanhaiguan. The road and 3.147.104.248] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 05:56 GMT) The Manchurian Chessboard, August–September 1945 17 Heilong Jiang(A m u r R . ) Songhua R . Liao R . N e n R . N O R T H K O R E A U S S R MONGOLIA J I L I N R E H E ( J E H O L ) C H A H A R Shenyang Changchun Tao’an Tumen Andong Xingshanzhen Jiamusi Mudanjiang Dalian Chengde Liaoyuan Siping Shanhaiguan Beipiao Jinzhou Harbin Tongliao Zhangwu Qiqihar Suihua Tulerh Beian Blagovescensk Nenjiang Manzhouli Sea of Japan YaluR. T u m enR. Vladivostok Liaoyang Benxi Xingcheng Map 2.1. The three northeastern provinces (Manchuria) and neighboring areas, 1945. Map by Tracy Ellen...