Chen Yi

Early Life and Joining the Nanchang Insurgents

Chen Yi was born on 26 August 1901 in Lezhi, Sichuan Province. In 1919 he went to France on the work-study programme, where he encountered revolutionary ideas; after returning to China he joined the CPC in 1923. In early August 1927 he travelled from Wuhan to Jiangxi and caught up at Yihuang with the Nanchang insurgents, who had already left Nanchang and were marching south towards Guangdong, becoming political instructor of the 73rd Regiment of the 25th Division; after the insurgents were defeated around Chaozhou and Shantou he fought on with the remnant under Zhu De, joining Mao Zedong's forces at Jinggangshan in April 1928. He was one of the earliest commanders to forge the coalition that became the Red Army.

Southern Guerrilla Warfare

When the main Red Army began the Long March in 1934, Chen Yi was left behind in southern Jiangxi due to wounds sustained in battle. For three years he commanded a guerrilla remnant in the mountains of Jiangxi and Fujian — a desperate episode known as the "three-year guerrilla war" — operating without external contact or resupply. This experience of independent command under extreme conditions shaped his subsequent military thinking and gave him a reputation for resilience that distinguished him from commanders who had completed the Long March.

New Fourth Army and the Wannan Incident

After the formation of the New Fourth Army (新四军) in 1937 to fight Japan in central China, Chen Yi served under commander Ye Ting and later effectively led the army after the catastrophic Wannan Incident (皖南事变) of January 1941, in which Nationalist forces ambushed and destroyed the New Fourth Army headquarters, killing or capturing over 7,000 soldiers. Chen Yi helped reconstitute the army in northern Jiangsu and became its effective commander, coordinating guerrilla operations across Jiangsu, Anhui, and Shandong.

Huaihai Campaign

Chen Yi commanded the East China Field Army — later redesignated the Third Field Army — through the decisive Huaihai Campaign (November 1948 – January 1949), one of the three great campaigns that shattered Nationalist power. Alongside Su Yu, who handled much of the tactical planning, he directed the encirclement and destruction of over 550,000 Nationalist troops across the Xuzhou region. The scale of the victory made him one of the most prominent military commanders of the Civil War's final phase.

Crossing the Yangtze and Liberation of Shanghai

Chen Yi commanded the Third Field Army's crossing of the Yangtze River in April 1949 — the central thrust of the three-army operation. His forces secured the Nanjing sector and entered the Nationalist capital on 23 April. The subsequent assault on Shanghai (12 May – 27 May 1949) was the most complex operation of the campaign: fighting in China's largest city without destroying its commercial and industrial infrastructure, which the CPC intended to inherit intact. Chen Yi became the first Mayor of Shanghai after liberation, a position he held until 1958.

Foreign Minister and Cultural Revolution

In 1958 Chen Yi was appointed Foreign Minister, a post he held until 1972, while also serving as a Vice Premier of the State Council from 1954. He oversaw China's diplomacy during the Sino-Soviet split, the border conflicts with India (1962) and the Soviet Union (1969), and China's support for North Vietnam. Early in the Cultural Revolution in 1966, he publicly refused Red Guards' demands that he bow his head in self-criticism. On 11 and 16 February 1967, he joined Tan Zhenlin, Ye Jianying, Li Fuchun, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian, and Nie Rongzhen in openly protesting, at Politburo meetings held at Huairen Hall, the purging of veteran cadres and the destabilisation of the party and military under the Cultural Revolution — an episode known as the 'February Countercurrent' (or the 'Huairen Hall Clash'). Mao Zedong sharply criticised the participants on 19 February, and the Politburo held seven further 'criticism sessions' at which Chen Yi and the others were forced to make self-criticisms; only after Lin Biao's death in 1971 did Mao reverse course, remarking that the episode had 'some shortcomings, but it was fine that they argued' — a partial vindication. Chen Yi himself was placed under investigation in 1967 and never recovered his former standing. He died in Beijing on 6 January 1972, aged 70; Mao Zedong, despite poor health, attended his funeral — a gesture widely seen as a further, posthumous rehabilitation.