Section I

Liberated Area of Northeast

東北解放區

When Communist forces began securing territory in late 1945, no pre-existing CPC postal structure covered the Northeast as a whole. Postal services were organized at the base-area level: South-Manchuria, West-Manchuria, North-Manchuria, East-Manchuria, and the Hebei-Chahar-Rehe-Liaoning zone each maintained separate postal arrangements adapted to local military conditions. These sub-regional authorities issued their own stamps, reflecting the decentralized character of early Communist administration in the Northeast.

As territorial control expanded and the military position consolidated, the Northeast Bureau moved toward administrative unification. The General Administration of Posts and Telecommunications of Northeast (東北郵電管理總局) was established as the unified regional postal authority for the Liberated Area as a whole. From that point the sub-regional authorities ceased issuing stamps of their own, and the GAPTN became the sole source of new issues across Communist-controlled Northeast China.

This section follows that administrative progression in two parts. Part (一) covers the GAPTN general issues, comprising DB1–DB37 and associated postal stationery. Part (二) covers the earlier sub-regional issues of the five base areas, which predate the GAPTN consolidation and constitute a philatelically separate body of material.