Wei Lihuang

Republic of China state institutions Nationalism 1897–1960 ○ Natural causes

Nationalist general who led Y Force in Burma and lost the northeast in the Liaoshen campaign

Joining the Kuomintang in the early 1920s, he became a general after the Northern Expedition. In 1934 his suppression of the Communist guerrillas left in the Eyuwan Soviet, using concentration camps to cut them off from the peasants, earned him the name “Hundred Victories Wei”. He commanded the First War Area against Japan and, replacing Chen Cheng, led the Chinese Expeditionary Force (Y Force) of over 100,000 men from Yunnan into Burma in 1944 in support of Stilwell. Again replacing Chen Cheng, he took command in the northeast in October 1947, clashed with Chiang by insisting on holding Shenyang, and handed over to Du Yuming in October 1948. He went to Hong Kong in 1949, moved to Beijing in 1955 and died there in 1960.

Also known as: Wei Li-huang