The Bac Ninh Railway (referred to as the Bac Ninh Line) runs from Beiping in the west to Shenyang in the east, and most of the sections wind along the Bohai Bay and run through the narrow And Long Liaoning Corridor, covering a total of more than 800 kilometers. Along the route, there are Tianjin, Tanggu, Qinhuangdao, Yuguan (Shanhaiguan), Jinxi, Jinzhou, Shenyang and other important towns, which are the traffic lifeline connecting North China and Northeast China. On this road, Jinzhou guarded the northern end of the Western Liaoning Corridor, connecting the mountains and looking at the sea, becoming a throat town connecting the northeast and Guannei, and was a necessary land passage for the Northeast Kuomintang army to retreat into Guannei.
Because Jinzhou has such an important strategic position, it has been a place where soldiers must fight since ancient times. In the 40 years of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties alone, there were more than 90 battles and battles here, which was the performance stage of Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, Sun Chengzong, Yuan Chonghuan, Dolgun and other generations of Haojie, and finally ended with the famous Songjin Battle of the Ming Army being annihilated and Jinzhou falling. After history entered 1948, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party had become white-hot, and first evolved into a strategic decisive battle in the northeast.
In order to maintain land ties between North China and Northeast China, the Kuomintang Army Command Headquarters established the Jinzhou Command Post of the Northeast "Suppression General", appointed Fan Hanjie, former deputy commander-in-chief of the army and commander of the Jiaodong Corps, as deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast "Suppression General" and director of the Jinzhou Command Post, and unified command of the 54th Army, the 93rd Army, the New 5th Army, and the New 8th Army belonging to Lu Junquan's Sixth Corps, with a total of about 150,000 people in 14 divisions, to defend the line from Yixian to Shanhaiguan. In addition, a total of 6 divisions of Fu Zuoyi's 13th Army and 62nd Army under the North China "Suppression General" were deployed on the first line from Chengde and Tangshan to Changli, which were connected with Fan Hanjie's department and echoed each other.
After Fan Hanjie took office, he set up his troops and formed a defensive system with Jinzhou as the center, Jinxi and Yixian as the periphery, and Xingcheng and Suizhong with 6 divisions, 1 division to guard Gaoqiao, 3 divisions to guard Jinxi, Huludao, and Xingcheng, and 3 divisions to guard Shanhaiguan and Suizhong. Among them, the status of Jinzhou is the most critical, the city is surrounded by mountains on all sides, easy to defend and difficult to attack, the Kuomintang army has gone through many construction operations in two years, built more than ten miles of earthen city walls around the city and a large number of cement fortifications, bunker groups, fire points, independent support points, the city periphery is densely covered with outer trenches, barbed wire, deer and mine areas, forming a point-by-point, point-based defense system. When Wei Lihuang, commander-in-chief of the Northeast "Suppression General", inspected Jinzhou in August 1948, he was also very satisfied with the city defense fortifications in Jinzhou and admired them. As a result, the city fortifications in Jinzhou are known as "as strong as an iron wall of copper walls".
Under the situation of the northeast battlefield at that time, Wei Lihuang believed that Changchun was alone in the encirclement of the People's Liberation Army, and the Shenyang Nationalist Army could not watch the trap of the communist army go north to rescue, and its future was really worrying. Jinzhou is bordered by Shenyang in the east and Beiping in the west, and once there is something, both sides can send troops to rescue, and there are also access channels on the sea, and the location is sufficient. Coupled with the strong defense of Jinzhou City, the artillery fire of the People's Liberation Army has not seen how strong it is, the ability to attack the stronghold is insufficient, it was so difficult to fight a four-level battle a year ago, and now it is even more difficult to attack Jinzhou.
Fan Hanjie also believed that Jinzhou is located in the depth of western Liaoning, and there are powerful corps in both the east and the west, and if the People's Liberation Army wants to attack, it will need to go south from afar, open the flank to the heavy army group of the Shenyang Nationalist Army, logistics are not easy, and it is really a dangerous move to send troops under the jiancheng of Jinzhou, and it does not dare to go. Nine times out of ten, the People's Liberation Army still has to fight Changchun first, Xutu Shenyang, and Jinzhou is not much danger.
However, neither Wei Lihuang nor Fan Hanjie expected that the PLA high command would have such boldness and dare to drive the main force of the Northeast Field Army to ignore the rear and smash a heavy fist into Jinzhou. On the basis of various intelligence, Chiang Kai-shek judged that the People's Liberation Army was likely to carry out a major move south to the Beining Line, and warned Fan Hanjie in advance, asking him to make preparations as soon as possible. However, Fan Hanjie was immersed in optimism, did not take Chiang Kai-shek's warning too seriously, and even took his wife to Jinzhou to prepare for a long stay. However, a catastrophe is coming.