Wei Lihuang

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisWei.

Wei Lihuang
Native name	Vệ lập hoàng
Nickname(s)	"Hundred Victories Wei"
Born	16 February 1897 Hefei,Anhui,Qing Empire
Died	17 January 1960(1960-01-17)(aged 62) Beijing,People’s Republic of China
Allegiance	Republic of China People's Republic of China
Service/branch	Republic of China Army
Years of service	1924–1948
Rank	General
Unit	14th corps
Commands held	Y-Force
Battles/wars	Northern Expedition Encirclement Campaigns Central Plains War Fu gian Incident Second Sino-Japanese War Battle of Taiyuan Battle of Xinkou Battle of South Shanxi Battle of Northern Burma and Western Yunnan Chinese Civil War Liaoshen Campaign
Awards	Order of Blue Sky and White Sun
Other work	politician

Wei Lihuang(traditional Chinese:Vệ lập hoàng;simplified Chinese:Vệ lập hoàng;pinyin:Wèi Lìhuáng) (16 February 1897 – 17 January 1960) was a Chinese general who served theNationalist governmentthroughout theChinese Civil WarandSecond Sino-Japanese Waras one of China's most successful military commanders.

First joining theKuomintang(KMT) during the early 1920s, Wei would rise to become general after theNorthern Expedition,a two-year campaign to unify China.

Chinese Civil War

After thefourthandfifth encirclement campaignsforced the main Communist forces to withdraw from theEyuwan Sovietarea, the Nationalists began a series of extermination campaigns against the remaining Communist guerrillas.The Communists had strong peasant support in this region and were able to hold out against repeated attempts to wipe them out.In 1934, Chiang Kai-shek gave Wei Lihuang several hundred thousand troops to accomplish this task. Wei made use of concentration camps to deprive the Communists of peasant support.Despite occasional victories, the Communists were in the main defeated by this strategy. Most of the remaining guerrillas abandoned open warfare and began to operate undercover amongst the peasants. Until theSecond United Frontbegan in 1937, the Communists in Eyuwan remained underground.His success would earn him the nickname "Hundred Victories Wei".

War with Japan

General Wei Lihuang and Lieutenant GeneralSun Lirenat the Burmese-Chinese border, 1945

A general during theSecond Sino-Japanese War,Wei commanded the First War Area. With the entry of Great Britain and later the United States in the war against Japan, he was transferred to southern China as commander of the Nationalist Chinese XI Group Army. He later replaced GeneralChen Chengas commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Forces, known asY Force.Y-Force consisted of over 100,000 Nationalist soldiers, and participated in major ground operations in support of American GeneralJoseph W. Stilwell's offensive in northernBurma.Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wei was able to work effectively with American commanders.

General Wei Lihuang (right) and GeneralLong Yun(left) inspecting troops of theChinese Expeditionary Force,March 1944

Beginning his offensive into southernYunnanon 11 May 1944, Wei's troops capturedTengchungon 15 September after two months of heavy fighting. Proceeding southward despite heavy resistance, his forces eventually linked up with Chinese divisions inWanting,Burmaon January 27, 1945. The success of this offensive allowed the Allies to reopen the formerBurma Roadsupply network to China through Ledo, Burma, now named theLedo Road.In concert with existing airlift operations overThe Hump,the Ledo Road enabled overland transport of military supplies from Assam to Nationalist bases in China.

Postwar career

President of ChinaChiang Kai-Shek(left) with Wei Lihuang

Recalled to northern China to again replace GeneralChen Chengfollowing the war, Wei was placed in command of KMT forces innortheast Chinain October 1947. After being cut off from land communication with the KMT with the communist capture ofChinchow,Liaoning,he was supposedly planning for an offensive to recapture the Nationalist provincial capital before he was ordered to withdraw byChiang Kai-shek.Shortly before the communist capture ofMukden(Shenyang), Wei would return to southernChinafollowing his replacement by his field commanderDu Yumingin October 1948.

In spite of Wei's earlier success, his tenure in the northeast was remarkably unsuccessful. He defied orders for more than a year to withdraw, and lost 300,000 troops. Taylor (2009) writes that "Of those, 246,000 were captured, and many if not most were quickly incorporated into thePLA"(p. 389).

Chiang ordered Wei's house arrest. Wei made his way toHong Kongin 1949, and moved to Beijing in 1955, where he would "participate in various organizations of thePeople's Republic"(Taylor, 2009, p. 389). He would live in the PRC until his death in 1960.

Bibliography

• Dupuy, Trevor N.Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography,New York, 1992
• http:// generals.dk/general/Qiu_Qing-quan/_/China.html
• Ministry of National Defense R.O.C[1]
• US Naval War CollegeArchived2006-10-25 at theWayback Machine
• Taylor, Jay.The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Struggle for Modern China,New York, 2009
• http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/bjorge_huai.pdf
• Rowe, William T (2007).Crimson Rain: Seven Centuries of Violence in a Chinese County.Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Benton, Gregor (1992).Mountain Fires: The Red Army's Three-year War in South China, 1934-1938.Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Archived2009-03-26 at theWayback Machine