144 Facts About Peng Dehuai

Peng Dehuai was a Chinese general and politician who was the Minister of National Defense from 1954 to 1959.

In 1926, Peng Dehuai's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng Dehuai was first introduced to communism.

Peng Dehuai participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left-leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan.

Peng Dehuai was one of the most senior generals who defended the Jiangxi Soviet from Chiang's attempts to capture it, and his successes were rivaled only by Lin Biao.

In 1940, Peng Dehuai conducted the Hundred Regiments Offensive, a massive Communist effort to disrupt Japanese logistical networks across northern China.

The Hundred Regiments Offensive was modestly successful, but political disputes within the Communist Party led to Peng Dehuai being recalled to Yan'an, and he spent the rest of the war without an active command.

Peng Dehuai was the most senior commander responsible for defending the Communist leadership in Shaanxi from Kuomintang forces, saving Mao from being captured at least once.

Peng Dehuai eventually defeated the Kuomintang in Northwest China, captured huge amounts of military supplies, and actively incorporated the huge area, including Xinjiang, into the People's Republic of China.

Peng Dehuai resisted Mao's attempts to develop a personality cult throughout the 1950s; and, when Mao's economic policies associated with the Great Leap Forward caused a nationwide famine, Peng Dehuai became critical of Mao's leadership.

Peng Dehuai lived in virtual obscurity until 1965, when the reformers Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping supported Peng Dehuai's limited return to government, developing military industries in Southwest China.

In 1966, following the advent of the Cultural Revolution, Peng Dehuai was arrested by Red Guards.

In 1970, Peng Dehuai was formally tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1974.

Deng led an effort to formally rehabilitate people who he believed to have been unjustly persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and Peng Dehuai was one of the first leaders to be posthumously rehabilitated, in 1978.

In modern China, Peng Dehuai is considered one of the most successful and highly respected generals in the history of the CCP.

Peng Dehuai was born on October 24,1898, in the village of Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan.

Peng Dehuai's family lived in a thatched-straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land on which the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton, and various vegetables.

Peng Dehuai's grand-uncle had joined and fought for the Taiping rebellion and used to tell Peng Dehuai about the old Taiping ideals: everyone should have enough food to eat, women should not bind their feet, and land should be redistributed equally.

From 1905 to 1907, Peng Dehuai was enrolled in a traditional Confucian primary school.

In 1908, Peng Dehuai attended a modern primary school but at the age of ten was forced to withdraw from this school because of his family's deteriorating financial situation.

Peng Dehuai's mother died in 1905, and Peng Dehuai's six-month-old brother died of hunger.

Peng Dehuai's father was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food and to pawn most of his family's land.

When Peng Dehuai was withdrawn from school in 1908, he and his brothers were sent to beg for food in their village.

From 1908 to 1910, Peng Dehuai took work on looking after a pair of water buffaloes.

When Peng Dehuai's grand-uncle died in 1911, Peng Dehuai left home and worked at a coalmine in Xiangtan, where he pushed carts of coal for a wage of nine yuan a month.

Peng Dehuai returned home in 1912 and took a number of odd jobs.

In 1913, Hunan suffered another drought and famine, and Peng Dehuai participated in a public demonstration that escalated into the seizure of a grain merchant's storehouse and the redistribution of grain among the peasants.

Peng Dehuai was able to join in March 1916 at the age of 17 as a private second class soldier.

Peng Dehuai received a monthly wage, a portion of which he would continuously send back to support his family.

One of Peng Dehuai's commanding officers was an idealistic Nationalist who had participated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution and influenced Peng Dehuai to sympathize with the Kuomintang's goals of social reform and national reunification.

Peng Dehuai received training in formal tactics from an officer in his brigade and education in written classical Chinese.

In July 1918, Peng Dehuai was captured on a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, but he was released after two weeks.

Peng Dehuai participated in a failed mutiny over pay but was ultimately pardoned along with other rebels, because there was a shortage of soldiers at the time.

Peng Dehuai was reprimanded for his actions but not demoted or reassigned.

Peng Dehuai was promoted to acting battalion commander in April 1924.

Nonetheless, Peng Dehuai reorganized his battalion along pro-Kuomintang political lines in 1925.

Tang's forces were incorporated into the NRA, and Peng Dehuai was promoted to the rank of major.

Peng Dehuai himself did not become a formal member of the Kuomintang.

Between July 1926 and March 1927, Peng Dehuai campaigned in Hunan, participating in the capture of Changsha and Wuhan.

Under General He Jian, Peng Dehuai participated in the battle of Fengtai, in which Kuomintang forces decisively defeated the warlord Wu Peifu.

Tang Shengzhi aligned himself with the Wuhan government, and Peng Dehuai was promoted to lieutenant-colonel.

In 1927, Peng Dehuai was approached several times by Chinese Communist Party members, including some of his old friends.

Peng Dehuai was disappointed by the left-right split within the Kuomintang and the in-fighting among Chiang Kai-shek's own forces.

Peng Dehuai met with Duan again later that month and began studying basic communist theory.

Albeit secretly, Peng Dehuai became a member of the CCP no later than April 1928.

Peng Dehuai's orders were to eliminate local groups of communist guerrillas who had fled to the area after the Shanghai massacre of 1927.

Peng Dehuai kept his unit passive and began organizing local party branches with other secret members of the CCP within his own troops.

Peng Dehuai remained behind to guard Jinggangshan with a force of 800 soldiers but withdrew after an attack by a Hunanese Kuomintang force of 25,000 soldiers.

Peng Dehuai returned to the area with a force of 1,000 men later that year after the Kuomintang withdrew.

Peng Dehuai scored a series of victories defending against the Kuomintang-aligned National Revolutionary Army during the first three encirclement campaigns from December 1930 to May 1931.

The outcome bolstered the positions of Zhu and Peng Dehuai, who conducted conventional mobile operations in contrast with Mao's doctrine of guerilla warfare.

In February 1932, Peng Dehuai attacked but failed to dislodge elite NRA troops at Kanchow.

Peng Dehuai supported Mao's rise to power during the January 1935 Zunyi Conference.

Peng Dehuai continued to consolidate the communists' base area after arriving in Shaanxi by campaigning in neighboring Shanxi and Gansu.

Peng Dehuai's promotion was supported by Lin Biao, who had been actively supporting Peng Dehuai for promotions to senior leadership as early as May 1934.

In early 1935, Lin responded to widespread discontent within the Red Army over Mao's evasive tactics, which it perceived as unnecessarily exhausting, by publicly proposing for Peng Dehuai to take overall command of the Red Army, but Mao, who had recently been promoted to the position, attacked Peng Dehuai and Lin for challenging him and successfully retained his position.

Peng Dehuai wrote more about Peng than any other individual, except for Mao.

At the meeting, Peng Dehuai advocated a greater material commitment to the defense of Shanxi, but Mao disagreed and wanted the Red Army to reduce its commitment to fighting the Japanese.

In 1938, after Mao's rival, Zhang Guotao, defected to the Kuomintang, Peng Dehuai moved closer to Mao's position.

In late 1938, Peng Dehuai set up a base in Taihangshan, on the borders of Shanxi and Hebei, and directed guerrilla operations in both provinces.

From Taihangshan, Peng Dehuai commanded two thirds of the Eighth Route Army, approximately 100,000 soldiers.

In July 1940, Peng Dehuai was given overall command of the largest communist operation of the anti-Japanese war, the Hundred Regiments Offensive, when 200,000 regular troops from the Eighth Route Army participated in the operation and were supported by 200,000 irregular communist guerrillas.

Peng Dehuai's operation was successful in disrupting Japanese communication lines and logistics networks, which were not fully restored until 1942, but the communists suffered heavy losses, In communist sources, the Japanese casualties have two figures, one of which is 20,645 and the other 12,645.

Mao ordered Peng Dehuai to be criticized for 40 days for the "failings" of the Hundred Regiments Campaign.

Peng Dehuai was not allowed to reply and was forced to make a self-criticism.

In June 1944, Peng Dehuai was part of a team that held conferences with American military personnel who visited Yan'an as part of the Dixie Mission, briefing the Americans about the military situation in Japanese-occupied China.

Peng Dehuai himself was placed in command of 175,000 soldiers, organized as the "Northwest Field Army," most of which had been under the command of He Long during the war against Japan.

Peng Dehuai's forces were the most poorly armed of the newly re-organized army but were responsible for the area around the communist capital, Yan'an.

Mao wanted Peng Dehuai to provoke a decisive confrontation with Hu immediately, but Peng Dehuai dissuaded him.

Peng Dehuai eventually pushed Kuomintang forces out of northern Shaanxi in April 1948.

Between 1947 and September 22,1949, Peng Dehuai's forces occupied Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai.

Peng Dehuai's forces continued their gradual occupation of Xinjiang, which they completed in September 1951.

Mao then sought the support of Peng Dehuai, who had not yet taken a strong position, to lead the PVA.

On October 5, Peng Dehuai was named the Commander and the Commissar of the People's Volunteer Army and held both titles until the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953.

Peng Dehuai stripped Kim Il-sung of his military command, condemning Kim's leadership as "extremely childish" and incompetent, effectively reducing Kim to a powerless figure in the war.

China's insufficient artillery, armor, and air support meant that Peng Dehuai was forced to rely heavily on human wave tactics until the summer of 1951.

Peng Dehuai justified the PVA's high casualty rate by his almost religious belief in communism and the party and his belief that the ends of the conflict justified the means.

Some accounts even claimed that Peng Dehuai invented the human wave tactic under the name "short attack" to exploit his manpower advantage.

Peng Dehuai visited Beijing several times over the next several months to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities.

Peng Dehuai later called a series of meetings, and it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups to be dispatched to Korea in shifts, to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots, to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines, to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union, to provide the army with more food and clothing, and to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.

Peng Dehuai became a zealous supporter of the Three-anti Campaign because of his belief that corruption and waste were the main causes of the PVA's hardship.

Peng Dehuai was recalled to China in April 1952 for a head tumor, and Chen Geng and Deng Hua later assumed Peng Dehuai's responsibilities in the PVA.

On July 27,1953, Peng Dehuai personally signed the armistice agreement in Panmunjom.

Peng Dehuai believed that the CCP's main role was to improve the welfare of the common people; this was contrary to Mao's political goals and contributed to their conflict in the late 1950s.

Peng Dehuai had been an alternate member of the Central Committee since 1934, a full member since 1938, and a member of the Politburo since 1945, but it was not until he became the leader of the PLA and moved permanently to Beijing in November 1953 that he could attend regular political meetings and became active in domestic politics.

Peng Dehuai had been loyal to Mao's leadership since the 1935 Zunyi Conference and continued to support Mao for several years after he had moved to Beijing.

In 1955 to 1956, Peng Dehuai was involved in a large number of efforts to moderate Mao's popular image by developing it into a personal campaign.

Peng Dehuai sent this letter to Huang Kecheng, his chief of staff, to be widely distributed.

In preparation for the Eighth National Congress, held in September 1956, Peng Dehuai attended a Politburo committee to redraft the new Party Constitution.

At the meeting, Peng Dehuai suggested for a section in the Constitution's preamble referring to Mao Zedong Thought to be removed.

At the Congress, Peng Dehuai was reappointed to the Politburo and as a full member of the Central Committee.

Peng Dehuai resented Mao's personal lifestyle, which Peng Dehuai considered decadent and luxurious.

When Peng Dehuai's wife suggested for the couple to spend more free time visiting Mao's quarters, Peng Dehuai was reluctant and stated that Mao's surroundings were "too luxuriously furnished" for him to tolerate.

Peng Dehuai staged his first offensive after becoming Defense Minister in January 1955 by attacking and occupying a chain of islands, part of Zhejiang, which were still held by the Kuomintang from which it occasionally staged guerrilla raids as far as Shanghai.

Peng Dehuai participated in a number of foreign trips throughout the communist world after he had become Defense Minister, the first time that he had traveled outside of China and North Korea.

In September 1955, Peng Dehuai traveled to Poland and the Soviet Union to attend the signing of the Warsaw Pact as an observer.

From November 2 to December 3,1957, Peng Dehuai accompanied Mao on his second visit to the Soviet Union.

From April 24 to June 13,1959, Peng Dehuai went on a "military goodwill tour" across the communist world and visited Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia.

Peng Dehuai introduced military insignia for the first time and issued military uniforms modeled on those worn by Soviet soldiers.

On January 1,1956, Peng Dehuai replaced conscription with voluntary service and standardized career soldiers' salaries on eighteen grades from private second class to marshal.

In May 1956, Peng Dehuai introduced a clear prioritization of rank favoring commanders over political commissars.

Peng Dehuai was still in command of the PLA when Mao ordered the shelling of Kinmen and Matsu, islands off the coast of Fujian that were still held by the Kuomintang, in the late summer and autumn of 1958.

Peng Dehuai developed a strategy with his chief of staff, Su Yu, to bombard the islands so intensely that the morale of their defenders would collapse, which would eventually lead to the islands' surrender.

Peng Dehuai's position was not directly affected, but his personal prestige suffered, and the practical effects of his efforts to modernize China's armed forces were called into question within the PLA.

The conflict between Su and Peng Dehuai lingered throughout Peng Dehuai's life, and Su was not rehabilitated until after his death.

Peng Dehuai did not oppose Mao's collectivization drive in the first phase of the Great Leap, from late 1957 to early 1958, but he increasingly opposed it from spring to winter 1958, as the problems which Mao's policies had caused became more evident.

In February 1958, Peng Dehuai gave a speech for the fortieth anniversary of the Soviet Red Army, in which he suggested increased military cooperation between China and the Soviet Union.

Peng Dehuai made regular inspection tours of the Chinese provinces after becoming Defense Minister in 1953.

Peng Dehuai had returned to China just previous to the conference after spending seven weeks abroad and was not planning on attending the conference, but Mao personally phoned Peng Dehuai and invited him to attend.

Peng Dehuai obeyed Mao and travelled to Mount Lu to participate in the conference.

Peng Dehuai participated in group meetings in the early portion of the conference, gaining consensus among his peers for criticizing the widespread practice of inaccurately reporting agricultural statistics, and emphasizing that "everybody had a share of responsibility, including Comrade Mao Zedong".

Peng Dehuai bluntly criticized the hesitation of senior Party members to disagree with the Party leadership, implying that many Party leaders were cowardly for following orders that they knew were not in the best interests of the Chinese people.

Peng Dehuai did not intend his letter to be widely read and attempted to prevent its circulation, but was not successful.

Peng Dehuai criticized the poor allocation of labour across China, especially the inefficient, country-wide practice of forcing farmers to work in backyard furnaces.

Peng Dehuai blamed the problems of the Great Leap on what he called "problems in our way of thinking and style of work", especially the tendency for Party administrators to submit exaggerated production reports, and for Party bureaucrats to accept these figures uncritically.

Peng Dehuai blamed the mistakes of the Party on a culture of "petty bourgeois fanaticism", a tendency to believe in achieving change through blindly encouraging mass movements, and claimed that the acceptance of this culture had led to the Party leadership forgetting "the mass-line and the style of seeking truth from facts", which Peng Dehuai believed had led to the Communist victories over the Japanese and Kuomintang.

Peng Dehuai criticized Mao's policy of "putting politics in command", substituting economic principles and productive work for political objectives.

Peng Dehuai later reflected that he was confused that Mao could have interpreted his private letter as a political attack, and wondered why, after thirty years of working together, Mao could not have discussed the matter privately with him, if Peng Dehuai had indeed made the mistakes Mao claimed he did.

Peng Dehuai was relocated to a suburb of Beijing and forfeited his marshal's uniform and military decorations.

Lin reversed Peng Dehuai's reforms, abolished all signs and privileges of rank, purged officers considered sympathetic to the Soviets, directed soldiers to part-time work as industrial and agricultural laborers, and indoctrinated the armed forces in Mao Zedong Thought.

Peng Dehuai's wife remained in Beijing, and her work as the party secretary of Beijing Normal University allowed her to visit only infrequently.

Peng Dehuai's guards prevented curious local farmers from visiting Peng Dehuai until he threatened to complain to Mao.

Peng Dehuai spent most of his free time in renovating his home, gardening, and studying Marxist theory, agriculture, and economics.

Peng Dehuai was not completely purged since even though he could no longer participate in government meetings or decision-making bodies, he still received and read all documents distributed to the members of the Politburo and State Council of which he was technically still a member.

In November to December 1961, Peng Dehuai received permission to leave his residence for the first time since 1959 to conduct an inspection tour of Hunan.

Peng Dehuai found the conditions there even worse than in 1959 and, in a January 1962 conference of 7,000 party leaders to determine party economic policies, repeated most of the criticisms that he had made at Lushan.

On June 16,1962, Peng Dehuai submitted a document, his "Letter of 80,000 Words," to Mao and the Politburo, which gave a full account of his life, admitted to several "mistakes," defended himself against most of the accusations made against him at the Lushan Conference, requested to be readmitted to decision-making government bodies, and sharply criticized the economic policies of the Great Leap Forward.

Peng Dehuai was not allowed to attend the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth CCP Central Committee, held in September 1962, and the efforts to reverse the verdict on Peng Dehuai made at the Lushan Conference failed.

From 1962 to 1965, Peng Dehuai continued to live in relative obscurity but was no longer under house arrest.

Peng Dehuai accepted the position but was sympathetic to Peng, and he stalled for over a year before he submitted his report.

In September 1965, Mao agreed to rehabilitate Peng Dehuai by promoting him to a position managing the industrial development of Southwestern China, a project known as the Third Front.

Peng Dehuai worked energetically until August 1966, when the beginning of the Cultural Revolution had him recalled to Chengdu, and the first Red Guards began patrolling the streets and violently attacking their perceived enemies.

Peng Dehuai was one of the first public figures singled out for persecution in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution Group.

Premier Zhou Enlai made an effort to save Peng Dehuai by placing him under PLA surveillance.

In January 1967, Peng Dehuai was taken to his first "struggle session" in which he was paraded in chains before several thousand jeering Red Guards, wearing a large paper dunce cap and with a wooden board hung from his neck on which his "crimes" were written.

In late July 1967, following the failed Wuhan Uprising, party leaders decided that Peng Dehuai should be used as an example by publicly humiliating him by name at a national level.

Peng Dehuai was briefly hospitalized in 1973 before he was returned to prison, the first time that he had been outside of prison since 1967.

Peng Dehuai Meikui was allowed to view her uncle's body for twenty minutes but was then removed.

Peng Dehuai did not find out about Peng's death until she was allowed to return to Beijing in 1978, when the news was first publicly disclosed.

Peng Dehuai was courageous in battle, open and straightforward, incorruptible and impeccable, and strict towards himself.

Peng Dehuai cared about the masses, and was never concerned about his own advantage.

Peng Dehuai was never afraid of difficulties, neither of carrying heavy loads.

In 1986, an "autobiography", Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal, was compiled from various documents that Peng Dehuai had written about his life.

Much of the material for Memoirs was drawn from the "confessions" that Peng Dehuai had written during the Cultural Revolution, and the book focused on Peng Dehuai's early life, before the Sino-Japanese War.

In modern China, Peng Dehuai is considered one of the greatest military leaders of the twentieth century.