Nie Rongzhen

Nie Rongzhen

Nie Rongzhen (Chinese: 聂荣臻), a prominent military leader and statesman, was one of the founders and the ten Marshals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China. He was born in Jiangjin in the southwest Sichuan Province on December 29, 1899. He went to France on a work-study program in 1919 and joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1923.

In July 1927, he assumed the position of the Front-Line Secretary of CPC and became one of the leaders of the Nanchang Uprising on August 1, which was then recognized as the founding date of PLA.

After the outbreak of Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945) in 1937, Nie Rongzhen took part in the direction of the Battle of Pingxingguan Pass, contributing to the first major victory for the Chinese side. In November that year, he established the first base in the border area of Shanxi, Chahar and Hebei provinces occupied by the Japanese army. During the Hundred Regiments Offensive in 1940, his troops carried out sabotage operations along the major railways across the area.

During the War of Liberation (1945-1949), Nie Rongzhen assumed a series of important positions in the PLA, such as the Deputy Chief of the Staff of the Central Military Commission, the Commander of Peking (now Beijing) and Tianjin Garrison Command, and the Mayor of Peking City.

In 1955, Nie Rongzhen was named a Marshal of the PLA. In November 1956, he took the post of the Vice Premier of the State Council and in 1959 he held a concurrent post as the Director of the Commission of Defense Science and Technology of the Ministry of Defense. Chinese scientists developed several kinds of missiles and atom bombs within the first five years of his leadership. In 1967, China developed the first hydrogen bomb.

Between 1983 and 1988, Nie Rongzhen was Vice Chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission.

In May 1992, he died of cardiac failure at the age of 93 in Beijing. He had written a book titled The Memories of Nie Rongzhen.