A field commander who read the course of war
He left for the north after telling his wife, “A general may well die on the battlefield.”
Deng Hua was a People’s Liberation Army general who commanded large formations through the Communist revolution and the Chinese Civil War. In 1950 he organized and trained the Northeast Border Defense Army, preparing the force that would cross the Yalu, then supported the Korean War as Peng Dehuai’s first deputy commander. From 1952 he led the Chinese People’s Volunteers through major operations and the armistice phase. Implicated in Peng Dehuai’s downfall, he was dismissed, persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, and rehabilitated in 1980.
Career Timeline
- 1927Joined the Chinese Communist Party
- 1928–1937Red Army commander; took part in the Long March
- 1937–1945Commander in the Eighth Route Army and Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region
- 1947–1949Commander of the Northeast Field Army 7th Column and 15th Corps
- 1950Commander of the 13th Corps and coordinator of the Northeast Border Defense Army
- 1950–1952First deputy commander and first deputy political commissar of the Chinese People’s Volunteers
- 1952–1954Acting commander and political commissar, then commander, of the Chinese People’s Volunteers
- 1955–1959PLA general; commander of the Shenyang Military Region