Eight months after they had marched in, the Red Army prepared to march out of Changchun, Manchuria's capital. As usual, the Russians were careful to leave chaos behind. Some 2,000 airborne Chinese Government troops, aided by 5,000 local auxiliaries, were inside the city. Outside was a Chinese Communist siege army, 60,000 to 70,000 strong. Slogging up from the south to relieve their beleaguered comrades was the Government's crack, U.S.-trained First Army. At Kaiyuan, a rail stop 115 miles away, the 40,000 regulars broke through Communist lines in the first serious battle between...
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