P'eng Te-huai

Peng was exiled from his family home in Hunan province at the age of nine. Before joining the army at sixteen, he had worked in coal mines at the age of thirteen and at dams of the Lake Dongting at the age of fifteen. By the age of twenty-eight he was a brigade-commander in the Kuomintang Army and had begun a flirtation with radical politics. Peng was forced to flee Chiang Kai-shek’s purge in 1927 and joined the Communist Party of China, partaking in the Long March. His contributions to the CCP were highly praised and earned him the nickname "Great General Peng" (彭大将军). As a literary work by Mao Zedong in remembrance of Peng's contributions in the Long March put it, "

[In] High mountains, dangerous roads, deep pits,

Cavalry rides lengthwise and crosswise [freely] in your command,

Who dares to [put the] spear crosswise and draw the horse to a stop?

Only our Great General Peng!"

山高路险坑深，

骑兵任你纵横，

谁敢横枪立马，

唯我彭大将军。

During WWII Peng served as deputy commander-in-chief of the Communist forces and coordinated the Hundred Regiments Campaign. Peng went on to serve with distinction behind Japanese lines in North China, and during the late stages of the Chinese Civil War he led the 1st Field Army in its conquest of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai provinces.

He was the supreme commander of Chinese forces during the Korean War, the Minister of defense of the People's Republic of China, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China and a marshal of the People's Liberation Army. He was disgraced in 1959 because he criticized Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward. As a consequence, he was removed from all posts and placed under constant supervision and house arrest in Chengdu, Sichuan; Lin Biao took over the Minister of Defense.

At the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, he was escorted to Beijing by the Red Guards under Jiang Qing. His humiliations and disgrace at the hands of the Red Guards continued until his decease due to liver disorder in 1974.

He was rehabilitated in 1978.

Further Reading

• Jurgen Domes, P'eng Te-huai: The Man & the Image, Stanford University Press, 1985, hardcover 164 pages, ISBN 0804713030