Sichuan’s “king of the southwest”, among the most zealous drivers of the Great Leap and responsible for the Sichuan famine
From a Hakka peasant family in Jiangxi, he joined the Youth League in 1927, took part in the Nanchang Uprising and joined the Communist Party in 1930. He was a brigade commissar of the 120th Division against Japan and commissar of the Jin-Sui military region in the civil war. After occupying Sichuan with He Long and Liu Bocheng in 1949, he became governor and first secretary of Sichuan in 1952. At Lushan in 1959 he led the attack on Peng Dehuai, and in the Leap he inflated output and carried out central procurement and grain transfers to the letter, leaving over eight million dead in Sichuan by official statistics. First secretary of the Southwest Bureau from 1961, he was accused in the Cultural Revolution of building an “independent kingdom” and imprisoned. He was rehabilitated in 1973.
Also known as: Li Ching-ch'üan
Activities and affiliations
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1930–1949
Chinese Communist revolutionary forces (before 1949)Political commissar, 358th Brigade, 120th Division
Military command -
1930–1989
Political and party leadership
- First Secretary of Sichuan; First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau1952–1966
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1952–
People’s Republic of China state institutionsGovernor of Sichuan
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1927Joined the Youth League; Nanchang Uprising
- 1930Joined the Communist Party
- 1934Long March
- 1937Deputy commander and political commissar, 358th Brigade
- 1949Occupied Sichuan with He Long and Liu Bocheng
- 1952Governor and first secretary of Sichuan
- 1959Led the attack on Peng Dehuai at Lushan
- 1961First secretary of the Southwest Bureau; first political commissar of the Chengdu military region
- 1966Purged and imprisoned for an “independent kingdom”
- 1973Rehabilitated