Liu Bocheng
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Kaixian, Sichuan, Qing Empire | ||
---|---|---|
Died | 7 October 1986 (aged 93) Beijing, China | |
Nickname(s) | Chinese Mars, One-Eyed Dragon, the Kutuzov of China | |
Military service | ||
Allegiance | People's Republic of China | |
Branch/service | People's Liberation Army | |
Years of service | 1927 – 1986 | |
Rank | Marshal of People's Republic of China | |
Commands | division commander, Eighth Route Army, Commander-in-Chief, Central China Field Army | |
Battles/wars | ||
Awards | Hanyu Pinyin Míngzhāo | |
Wade–Giles | Ming2-chao1 |
Liu Bocheng (
Liu is known as the 'half' of the "Three and A Half" Strategists of China in modern history. (The other three are
Early life
Liu was born to a peasant family in
In 1911, Liu joined the
In one battle during this period he captured 10,000 enemy soldiers, for which he was promoted to brigade commander.[1]
In 1916, he lost his right eye in a battle for Fengdu county, Sichuan. After he lost the eye he gained the nickname "One-Eyed Dragon".
In 1923, during a war against the warlord
While fighting the army of
In 1927, Liu was appointed army corps commander of the 15th Temporarily Organized
, effectively declaring war on the KMT.During this uprising, Liu was appointed the first chief of staff of the newly born Chinese Red Army. However, after a series of defeats Liu's forces were destroyed, and its leaders went underground. In 1927 Liu was selected to travel to
Commander of the CPC Army
In the summer of 1930, Liu was sent back to China and was appointed as commissioner of the Central Military Committee of the CPC as well as Military Secretary of the
In 1931, the CPC suffered great losses in several major cities and was forced to retreat to the countryside. Liu was sent to the Central Soviet Territory, the CPC's
At the time, members of the
Liu's conflict with Mao may partly be due to Liu's support for conventional tactics, which contradicted Mao's advocacy of guerrilla warfare. According to a later account by Zhang Guotao, Liu described Mao as being a "pedant", and resented Mao's tendency to micromanage his military officers, rather than delegating authority to Red Army's general staff.[2] Peng once led his troops during a siege of Guangchang under the orders of Bo and Li De, which resulted in the troops suffering heavy casualties. Peng blamed this on his army's inferior weaponry and resources. Peng was known for being outspoken and bad-tempered. After the battle Peng became furious, leading him into direct conflict with Liu.
Liu grew to oppose the leadership of Bo and Braun later, after the Red Army began to suffer repeated defeats. In the Red Army's endeavour against the KMT's
During the Long March, near the end of 1934, Liu was reappointed as Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army and commander of Central Column, which consisted of the majority of the CPC senior leaders, such as Bo, Braun, Zhou and Mao. Liu led the army across the Wu River and took control of Zunyi, a county of Guizhou province. It was in this small city that the famous Zunyi Conference was held in January 1935. During this conference, Liu and most of the attendees showed their support for Mao.
As a result of this conference, Bo, who was then Braun's command in military, was replaced by a new three-man team consisting of Mao, Zhou and
When Mao's 1st Red Army later united with Zhang Guotao's 4th Red Army, Liu stayed Chief of Staff. During a dispute between Mao and Zhang over major issues, which led to their later split, Liu maintained his support for Mao. By the time they reached Yan'an, it was obvious that Mao was the winner.
War with Japan
In 1936, after the
According to the orthodox record of the CCP, their cooperation and friendship lasted more than five decades. Their respective military and political talents complemented the other's perfectly, and there was a very high level of trust between them. They were said to have formed a perfect pair.
However, their true relationship might not have been as close as it seemed. Firstly, Mao distrusted most of his generals, and sent his associates out as commissars to supervise these generals. Deng, who was Mao's close associate from the 1930s when he worked in Jiangxi, was sent out for Liu, and Luo Ronghuan for Lin Biao. Secondly, in contrast to Liu's role as a professional soldier, Deng was a political activist and knew little about the military. Their personalities and personal lives were vastly different, which might have posed a barrier to their becoming true friends.
Liu, Deng and Deputy Commander
In 1943, Liu was called back to Yan'an for Zheng Feng. He pledged his allegiance to Mao and supported Mao's power struggle with Wang Ming. On the contrary, Peng stood by Wang and as a result fell out of favour with Mao. (Despite this, Liu was still labelled a dogmatist for pursuing his studies in Russia, and he had to make a public apology against his will in 1959.) In 1945, Liu attended the 7th National Congress of the CPC in Yan'an, and prepared the counterattack against the Japanese and the forthcoming civil war with KMT armies.
Chinese Civil War
At the end of the war against the Japanese, the war-scourged Chinese people pleaded for peace. Chiang then invited Mao to Chongqing for peace talks, during which, Yan Xishan sent his armies to attack CPC territories in Shanxi under Chiang's authorisation. Liu and Deng led the Shangdang Campaign and defeated 13 divisions of Yan's troops totaled more than 35,000, and then headed east and annihilated another of Yan's army corps in the Handan Campaign. These two campaigns were the first experiences of the CPC army's shift from bushfight to campaign in movement, and proved to be valuable practice for the army groups campaign of CPC armies. They assisted in the CPC's quick occupation of Manchuria, and won advantageous status for Mao and his peace talk delegation in Chongqing. Under immense pressure, Chiang was forced to sign a peace agreement with Mao in October 1945.
The peace, however, was fragile, and civil war broke out in 1946. Liu and Deng led several campaigns in movement, undermining the strategic attack of KMT armies. In 1947, when the territories controlled by the CPC could no longer sustain so many troops, Mao decided to send part of his army to the territories controlled by KMT, in order to relieve the heavy burden on his own territories, and to position enemies at the gates of the KMT. He ordered Liu and Deng to lead their armies from their northern China base in Henan, Shanxi and Hebei, to Anhui in southern China. This involved sending 100,000 soldiers across the Yellow River, and marching over 1,000 kilometers into central plain. Liu and Deng both saw it as a gamble rather than a strategic move, and even Mao himself was not certain if such gamble would pay off by openly discussing the three possible outcomes:
- The Dabie Shan.
- The communist force would be driven out by the Dabie Shan.
- The Dabie Mountain.
Although many expressed their concerns, Mao would not change his mind. During the expedition, they faced elite KMT armies. Liu launched the Southwestern
Liu's success did not end there, he carried out to expand his initial victories over the nationalists by carrying out several campaigns with armies led by
In April 1949, after illusive peace talks between the CPC and the KMT were broken, Liu led his armies across the Yangtze River and conquered huge areas of Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian, taking over Nanjing, the capital of the KMT. Liu was appointed mayor of Nanjing for a short while. With assistance from He Long, Liu and Deng launched new campaigns to conquer vast areas in Southwestern China, by using long distance bypass and siege strategies. Among the areas conquered were his and Deng's own hometowns, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Xikang.
After the Establishment of the PRC
On October 1, 1949, Mao announced the establishment of the
Towards the end of 1950, Liu was transferred to Nanjing as president and commissar of the Military Academy of the PLA, which would be considered a demotion for Liu. There were no clear or generally accepted reasons on record for his falling out of favour. One popular opinion holds that, during the long period of time that Liu worked with or under Mao, he never really earned Mao's trust. Liu himself knew that too. From the Chinese history, he learnt that most generals that helped establish a new dynasty ended up getting killed by the suspicious Emperor. In order to prevent that from happening on himself, he tried to stay as far away from politics as possible. Because of his early year military training in Soviet Union, he used that as an excuse to quit his job in the government and become the president and commissar of the Military Academy of the PLA. Mao approved his request. The other story says that, while Liu was still chairman, someone unknown to the public submitted a biography of Liu in support of his promotion. In this biography he described Liu as an offspring of
Despite the demotion, Liu was dedicated to his new job, attempting to bring what he learned during his years in the
In 1956, after
In 1959, Liu left Nanjing for Beijing and lived in half-reclusion. Although he was since elected as member of the Politburo in the 8th to 11th National Congress of the CPC, Vice-chairman of the 2nd to 5th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and all the while holding the title of vice-chairman of the Military Committee, he did not participate very much in politics, citing health problems as a reason for his absence. This saved him from the following rounds of purges carried out by Mao. Peng, however, was not as fortunate. He was purged in the Lushan Conference in 1959 and later tortured to death[citation needed] during the Cultural Revolution.
By the time of the Cultural Revolution, Liu had become completely blind. Nonetheless, he survived the purges and witnessed his long-time friend Deng returning to power again. He supported Deng in the power struggle against Mao's widow, Jiang Qing, and her Gang of Four, and also advocated Deng's policy of reforming and opening up China to the outside world, a policy that Liu himself had practiced in the academy decades ago.
In 1982, Liu retired due to worsening health problems. This gave Deng a boost in his calling for the retirement of aging leaders in order to clear the way for younger leaders of the CPC. On October 7, 1986, Liu died in Beijing, at the age of 94. In the lament given to him, Liu was rehabilitated and cleared of all charges against him during the movements against dogmatism.
Anecdotes
During the Fengdu campaign in 1916, Liu was hit by a bullet in the head, which passed through his right temple and went out from his right eye. A German surgeon performed surgery to remove the eyeball and debride necrotic tissues. To keep his brain nerves from being damaged by the
Deng's famous "Cats Theory" ("Whether it is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch the rat, it is a good cat"), in fact, originated from Liu.[4] During his long military career, Liu often stated that "Whether it is a black cat or a yellow cat, as long as it can catch the rat, it is a good cat" to demonstrate that the purpose of war is to win, no matter what strategies you take.
Liu and Deng's relationship grew strong only after the communist takeover because both were discontent with Mao Zedong's disastrous policies, such as Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution: As Liu was persecuted in the late 1950s, Deng showed his support to Liu, as the latter was making rounds of analyses and apologies for the so-called "dogmatism" and "empiricism". Similarly, Liu showed his support to Deng for Deng's economic policy in the early 1960s to reform the Chinese economy.
Deng's entire family attended Liu's funeral, which only happened in the case of very close family ties in traditional Chinese culture. Liu wanted a small funeral in the hospital he died in. However, because too many military and political leaders requested to attend the funeral, the funeral was moved to a bigger hall.
False anecdotes
Liu and Deng's relationship was greatly exaggerated by the Chinese general populace as a way to protest
In reality, there is no official record that Liu had made such an outrageous request, nor any face-to-face conversations with Hua, nor any formal request to the Chinese regime to have his funeral held by Deng and his eulogy done by Deng.[citation needed] However, it was definitely his personal wish which is revealed to his family. This personal wish of Liu became a reality after his death as his family informed the Chinese regime about his wish, and by that time, Deng was already the paramount leader of China and nobody could stop him from honoring Liu's personal wish.[5]
Legacy
Unlike other PLA marshals and generals, such as Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao, Liu never sought to win Chairman Mao's political trust and support, but on the other hand this prevented him from suffering from the backlash of a political fallout with Mao as did Peng and Lin did in 1959 and 1971, respectively. Liu earned his reputation and title through his own outstanding military skills and personality. He oversaw the development of the CPC armies' expertise in regular battle, frontal attack, army groups campaigns, and sieges. Liu was also the first to introduce modern military strategies and the tactics of foreign countries to the CPC army, and incorporated science and artistry into military training. All of these endeavours shifted public perception of the CPC army from being a guerrilla force consisting of peasants and proletarians with little regular training to becoming a sophisticated and highly skilled modern military force.
See also
- List of generals of the People's Republic of China
- Outline of the military history of the People's Republic of China
References
Citations
- ^ a b Barron
- ^ a b c d Lew 12
- ^ The Yi Ethnic Minority Ministry of Foreign Affairs of PRC
- ^ Restore Agricultural Production, July 7, 1962 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume I (1938–1965)
- ^ In Memory of Liu Bocheng, October 21, 1986 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III (1982–1992), first published in People's Daily
Sources
- Barron, James. "Liu Bocheng, Military Leader in Two Chinese Revolutions". New York Times. October 10, 1986. Retrieved August 31, 2014.
- Lew, Christopher R. The Third Chinese Revolutionary War, 1945–1949: An Analysis of Communist Strategy and Leadership. US and Canada: Routelage. 2009. ISBN 0-415-77730-5. p. 12.
- Long March Leaders