In 1945, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the northeast became a place where both the Kuomintang and the Communists thought of fighting for it at the same time. In fact, for our party, marching into the northeast, as early as May 1945, during the Seventh National Congress of our party, the chairman proposed it. At that meeting, the Chairman referred to the North-East issue in his speeches three times in a row. The first time, before the Seventh National Congress, when he had a discussion with the party, government, and army leaders who had come from various base areas, he mentioned that they should fight for cities, including the northeast.
However, this speech is still relatively general in terms of striving for the northeast. During the meeting, when he participated in the discussion of the North China Group, he made it clear that he had a clear idea of winning the northeast, and he told He Long, Nie Rongzhen, Liu Bocheng, and other senior generals that it was necessary to prepare twenty or thirty brigades, and 150,000 to 250,000 people to leave the military region and drive to the northeast. On June 10, 1945, in his "Speech on the Election of the Seventh Alternate Members of the Central Committee", the Chairman once again mentioned that the northeast is particularly important, and with the northeast, the Chinese revolution has a solid foundation.
At the seventh session, the chairman particularly stressed that to select Lü Zhengcao, then commander of the Jinsui Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, and Wan Yi, commander of the Shandong Binhai Detachment of the Eighth Route Army, as members of the Central Committee for Repair, in fact, they were preparing for military talents, because Lü Zhengcao and Wan Yi were both senior generals of the former Northeast Army, and the intention of making them alternate members of the Central Committee could not be more obvious. However, when it was really time to advance into the northeast, the task fell to the Jireliao Military Region of the Eighth Route Army led by Li Yunchang, which was active in Rehe and Jidong, and at that time, the closest to the northeast of the Jireliao Military Region was the Sixteenth Military Subdistrict, and the commander was Zeng Kelin.
After receiving the task, Zeng Kelin immediately gathered the main forces of the Sixteenth Army Sub-district, plus five independent battalions sent by Li Yunchang, a total of 2,500 people, and quickly marched to the northeast. Then, Comrade Shaq led the main force of the Jidong Military Region of more than 1,500 people and also set off. But the fastest speed was the 2500 people led by Zeng Kelin, who were in Shanhaiguan, encountered the Soviet army, after coordination, the two armies jointly attacked Shanhaiguan, and then, quickly marched to Shenyang, along the way and around Shenyang, gathered a lot of local armed forces, the troops once reached 100,000 people. After that, Zeng Kelin was ordered to return to Yan'an to report on the situation in the northeast, and he proposed to the central authorities that more troops must be sent into the northeast as soon as possible.
However, in his report, because he did not go through a serious and meticulous investigation, he inevitably had a lot of exaggerated things, the most famous of which was that the northeast was full of advanced weapons discarded by the Japanese army, which once led to many troops, on the way to the northeast, giving their weapons to the local armed forces, which led to the emergence of a large number of "bare-handed soldiers" in our army in the northeast, which was once very passive, which was also the fundamental reason why the Third Marshal always lost the battle after he first arrived in the northeast. Later, Zeng Kelin was constantly demoted: from the commander of the Shenyang garrison to the deputy commander of the Liaodong Military Region; from the commander of the third column of the Democratic Coalition Army to the deputy commander of the 7th column. From the commander of the Army's combat vehicle division to the brigade commander of the Air Force's mixed brigade.
When he was awarded the rank in 1955, his position was not enough to be awarded the rank of major general, but he was awarded the rank of major general based on seniority, which obviously had a caring component.