Nie Rongzhen

Template:Short description Template:Family name hatnote Template:More footnotes needed Template:Infobox officeholder Nie Rongzhen (Template:Lang-zh; December 29, 1899 – May 14, 1992)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was a Marshal of the People's Republic of China. He died as the last People's Liberation Army (PLA) marshal.

Biography

File:1940 Nie Ronzhen in NRA uniform.jpg

Nie Rongzhen in 1940

Nie was born in Jiangjin County in Sichuan (now part of Chongqing municipality), the cosmopolitan and well-educated son of a wealthy family. In his 20s, Nie applied to the Université du Travail (University of Labour) in Charleroi, Belgium, with a scholarship from the Socialist Party, and was thus able to study science in Charleroi.

Political leanings

Zhou Enlai spent a night in Charleroi and met with Nie. Nie agreed to join the group of Chinese students in France on a work-study program, in which he studied engineering and became a protégé of Zhou Enlai. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1923.

A graduate of the Soviet Red Army Military College and Whampoa Academy, Nie spent his early career first as a political officer in Whampoa's Political Department, where Zhou served as the deputy director, and in the Chinese Red Army.

World War II

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he was first assigned as the deputy division commander of the 115th division of the Eighth Route Army, with the commander being Lin Biao, and in the late 1930s he was given a field command close to Yan Xishan's Shanxi stronghold. This assignment was one of the 8th Route Army's first moves was to build guerrilla bases. A unit of 2,000 troops from the 115th Division under General Nieh Jung-chen moved to Wutai Mountain to establish what was to be called the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region.

Civil War

In the Chinese Civil War he commanded the Northern China Military Region, and with his deputy Xu Xiangqian, his force defeated Fu Zuoyi's forces in Tianjin near Beijing in the Pingjin campaign alongside Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan. During the Korean War, Nie took part in high level command decision making, military operations planning, and shared responsibility for war mobilization. Nie was promoted to marshal in 1955 and later ran the Chinese nuclear weapons program.

He established the Bayi School in 1947.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Chinese nuclear programme

By spring 1969, "The whole Chinese nuclear weapons program [was] under the authority of Nieh Jung-chen [Rongzhen], the head of the Seventh Ministry for Machine Building."<ref>An Australian journalist spoke to several staff at a Chinese gaseous diffusion plant near Lanzhou and reported his findings shortly before being imprisoned by China for more than three years. See: Template:Cite news. See also: Template:Cite news</ref>

Cultural Revolution

He played a complex role during the Cultural Revolution. He was variously accused of factionalism by opponents and engaged in political maneuvering to preserve his role as director of China's military technological commission. He later served as vice chairman of the Central Military Committee, which controlled the nation's armed forces, and also became the vice chairman of the National People's Congress. He retired in 1987 and died in Beijing.

Personal life

Nie had a daughter with Zhang Ruihua (张瑞华) in 1930, named Nie Li. Li and Zhang Ruihua were imprisoned by the Kuomintang in 1934 and reunited with Nie in 1945. Nie Li was the first woman to be a lieutenant general in the PLA.<ref name="myth">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• List of officers of the People's Liberation Army
• Historical Museum of French-Chinese Friendship

References

Sources

• People's Daily article
• Long March leaders
• US Naval War College