Peng Dehuai (simplified Chinese: 彭德怀; traditional Chinese: 彭德懷) (October 24, 1898 – November 29, 1974) was a prominent Chinese Communist military leader and China's Defense Minister from 1954 to 1959. Peng was born into a poor peasant family. He received several years of primary education before his family's poverty forced him to suspend his education at the age of ten, and work for several years as a manual laborer. When he was sixteen, Peng became a professional soldier. Over the next ten years Peng served in the armies of several Hunan based warlord armies, raising himself from the rank of private second class to major. In 1926 Peng's forces joined the Kuomintang, and Peng was first introduced to communism. Peng participated in the Northern Expedition, and supported Wang Jingwei's attempt to form a left leaning Kuomintang government based in Wuhan. After Wang was defeated, Peng briefly rejoined Chiang Kai-shek's forces before joining the Chinese Communist Party, joining forces with Mao Zedong and Zhu De.

Peng was one of the most important commanders during the Long March, the Second Sino - Japanese War, and the Chinese Civil War. During the Korean War, Peng acted as the commander - in - chief of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army. After the Korean War, Peng served as China's Defense Minister from 1954 - 1959. Following the Great Leap Forward, Peng criticized Mao's economic policies, and Mao's political counterattack led to Peng being stripped of all positions, purged from the Communist Party, and placed under house arrest. Peng was briefly rehabilitated in the mid 1960s before the advent of the Cultural Revolution, when he was arrested by Red Guards and tortured numerous times. He died of cancer in 1974. After Deng Xiaoping came to power in the late 1970s, Peng was posthumously rehabilitated.

Peng was born in 1898 in the village of Shixiang, Xiangtan County, Hunan. Peng's family lived in a thatched straw hut and owned approximately 1.5 acres of irrigated land, on which the family grew bamboo, sweet potatoes, tea, cotton, and various vegetables. His father also operated a bean curd shop. The income from the land and shop supported an extended family of eight people, including Peng, his three brothers, his parents, his grandmother, and a grand - uncle. Peng's grand - uncle had joined and fought for the Taiping rebellion, and used to tell Peng about the old Taiping ideals: that everyone should have enough food to eat, that women should not bind their feet, and that land should be redistributed equally. Peng later described his own class background as "lower - middle peasant".

From 1905 - 1907, Peng was enrolled in a traditional Confucian primary school. In 1908 Peng attended a modern primary school; but, at the age of ten, was forced to withdraw from this school due to his family's deteriorating financial situation. In 1905 - 1906, there was a severe drought in Hunan. Peng's mother died in 1905, and Peng's six year old brother died of hunger. Peng's father was forced to sell most of his family possessions for food, and to pawn most of his family's land. When Peng was withdrawn from school in 1908, he and his brothers were sent to beg for food in their village. From 1908 - 1910, Peng took a job looking after a pair of water buffaloes.

When Peng's grand - uncle died in 1911, Peng left home and worked at a coalmine in Xiangtan, where he pushed carts of coal for thirteen hours a day for a wage of nine yuan a month. In 1912, shortly after the founding of the Republic of China, the mine went bankrupt and the owners fled, cheating Peng out of half his annual wages. Peng returned home in 1912 and took a number of odd jobs. In 1913 Hunan suffered another drought, and Peng participated in a public demonstration that escalated into the seizure of a grain merchant's storehouse, and the redistribution of grain among the peasants. Village police issued a warrant for Peng's arrest, and he fled to northern Hunan, where he worked for two years as a construction laborer for the construction of a dam near Dongting Lake. When the dam was completed, in 1916, Peng assumed that he was no longer in danger of being arrested and returned home, joining the army of a local Kuomintang aligned warlord, Tang Xiangming.

Peng enlisted as a private second class, with a monthly wage of 5.5 yuan, 2 yuan of which he sent back to support his family. Within seven months he was promoted to private first class, with a monthly wage of 6 yuan, 3 yuan of which he sent to his family. One of Peng's commanding officers was an idealistic Nationalist who had participated in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and influenced Peng to sympathize with the Kuomintang goals of social reform and national reunification. When another civil war broke out in 1917, Peng's regiment split from the rest of its army and joined the forces of Tang Shengzhi, who was aligned with Tan Yankai and Sun Yat-sen, against those aligned with the northern warlord Wu Peifu. During this period Peng received training in formal tactics from an officer in his brigade. In July 1918 Peng was captured while on a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, but was released after two weeks. In April 1919 Peng was promoted to master sergeant and acting platoon commander. Tang Shengzhi's forces drove enemy troops out of Hunan in July 1920, capturing the provincial capital of Changsha.

Peng participated in a failed mutiny over pay, but was pardoned. In August 1921 Peng was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant, and became acting company commander several weeks later. While stationed in a village in Nanxian, Peng noticed that the poor were being mistreated by a local landlord, and encouraged them to establish an "association to help the poor". When the local villagers hesitated, Peng ordered his soldiers to arrest the landlord and execute him. Peng was reprimanded for his actions, but not demoted or reassigned. After the incident, Peng began to think seriously about leaving the service of his provincial, warlord army. In February 1922, after applying for extended unpaid leave, Peng and several other officers traveled to Guangdong to seek employment in the army of the Kuomintang.

Peng's impression of the Kuomintang was not favorable, and he left Guangzhou with the intention of settling back in Hunan as a farmer. Peng returned to his home village by sea, and farmed some land with his father for three months on land which his father had bought with money that Peng had sent home, but did not find this occupation satisfying. When one of Peng's old comrades suggested that Peng apply to the local Hunan Military Academy to seek employment as a formally trained professional officer, Peng accepted. Peng successfully gained admission in August 1922, using the personal name "Dehuai" for the first time. In August 1923, after nine months of training, Peng graduated from the academy and rejoined his old regiment with the rank of captain. He was promoted to acting battalion commander in April 1924.

In 1924 Tang Shengzhi aligned himself with northern warlords against the warlord controlling Guangdong, who was aligned with the Kuomintang. Peng conducted skirmishes along the Hunan - Guangdong border for nine months, but reorganized his battalion along pro - Kuomintang political lines in 1925. In late 1925 Chiang Kai-shek established the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and led to Kuomintang to take control of Guangdong. Tang then aligned himself with Chiang and joined him in the Northern Expedition, an effort to unify China by defeating the northern warlords. The Hunanese army was reorganized, and Peng was promoted to the rank of major. When Wu Peifu invaded Hunan and occupied Changsha, Chiang sent the NRA to Hunan, beginning the Northern Expedition. Peng's forces then joined the Kuomintang, though Peng never joined the party as a formal member. It wasn't until after Peng joined the Kuomintang, in 1925, that he first heard of the Communist Party.

Between July 1926 and March 1927 Peng campaigned in Hunan, participating in the capture of Changsha and Wuhan; and, under general Ho Chien, the Battle of Fengtai, in which Wu Peifu was decisively defeated. In 1927, Wang Jingwei attempted to establish a rival, left - leaning Kuomintang government in Wuhan. Tang Shengzhi, who Peng served under, aligned himself with Wang, and Peng was promoted to lieutenant colonel and regimental commander. After Tang's forces were decisively defeated by Chiang, Peng commanded the rear guard, protecting the retreat of Tang's forces back into Hunan.

In 1927 Peng was approached several times by Communist Party members, some of which were old friends, who attempted to recruit him into the Communist Party. In August 1927 Peng was approached by an old military comrade, Huang Gonglue: Peng was sympathetic, but could not decide to join the Party. On October 12, Peng was approached by Duan Dechang, a Communist Party representative: Peng again expressed sympathy and interest, but at that time considered himself a member of the "Kuomintang left wing", and could not yet bring himself to break with the party. Peng considered joining the Communist Party for some time, met Duan again later that October, and began to study basic communist theory. Peng secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party in mid February 1928.

In February 1928 Peng joined general Ho Chiang when Ho defected back to Chiang's forces, and gained a promotion to full colonel after rejoining Chiang. After rejoining Chiang's Nanjing government, Peng was stationed in the mountainous Pingjiang County, northwest of Changsha. His orders were to eliminate local groups of communist guerrillas who had fled to the area following the Shanghai massacre of 1927. Because Peng had secretly joined the Chinese Communist Party he instead kept his unit passive and began to organize local Communist Party branches. Peng made contact with local communist guerillas, nominally attached to the forces of Mao Zedong and Zhu De, and decided to issue a pronouncement in favor of the Communists on July 18 1928.

In July 22 1928 Peng's forces, approximately 2000 men, occupied Pingjiang County, arresting and executing the county magistrate and over 100 landlords and local militia commanders. On July 23 Peng declared the establishment of the "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government", formally aligning himself with Mao and Zhu. On July 29 Peng's former superior, general Ho Chien, attacked Peng's forces, inflicting heavy casualties. By September, Peng's forces were driven into the mountains, and by October only several hundred men remained. Peng then abandoned his bases and left to join Mao and Zhu at their base in Jinggangshan. Peng's forces successfully joined Mao and Zhu in November 1928. Some of Peng's subordinates in the rebellion survived and became important military figures themselves, including Huang Kecheng and Peng Shaohui.

After joining forces with communist guerrillas, one of Peng's first actions was to save Mao, whose forces were being encircled by Kuomintang units: Peng broke the encirclement and drove the enemy off. Peng then met with Zhu and Mao, and they reorganized their forces and decided to form a base area around the southern Jiangxi city of Ruijin, an agricultural city that was only defended by weak warlord units. Zhu and Mao occupied the area, informally beginning the Jiangxi Soviet in January 1928.

Peng remained behind to guard Jinggangshan with a force of 800 soldiers, but withdrew from the area when it was attacked by a Hunanese Kuomintang force of 25,000 soldiers, joining Zhu and Mao in Ruijin in March. Although he had saved his force from destruction, he was criticized by Mao for withdrawing. Peng returned to Jinggangshan with a force of 1,000 men later that year, occupying the area after the Kuomintang withdrew. In mid 1928 Peng's forces merged with the forces of two local bandit groups, but conflicts arose over supplies and the command structure, and the two groups rebelled against Peng in July 1929. One of the bandit leaders was captured and executed by Peng, and the other committed suicide. The remaining forces were incorporated into Peng's unit, bringing its strength up to 2,000 men. Peng then organized a series of increasingly ambitious raids into southern Hunan throughout 1929 and 1930, capturing an increasing amount of supplies and attracting more recruits.

On July 13, 1930, the de facto leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Li Lisan, issued a general order for communist units around China to "conquer one provincial capital" as a signal for a "nationwide revolutionary storm". Peng took these general orders seriously, and launched an attack on Hunan's capital, Changsha, on July 25, with 17,000 soldiers under his command, and with the support of another 10,000 guerillas. Changsha was then defended by general Ho Chien, Peng's former superior. Peng's forces broke through the Kuomintang lines on July 28, and occupied Changsha proper on July 30, which Ho hastily evacuated. On August 1 Peng declared the establishment of a "Hunan Provincial Soviet Government", with Li Lisan (who was living in the French concession area in Shanghai named chairman, and Peng himself as vice - chairman. On August 5, Ho counterattacked with a force of 35,000 men. Peng suffered 7,500 casualties, and was forced to withdraw back to Jinggangshan. On September 1, Peng again attempted to capture Changsha, but this attack was halted on the outskirts of the city with heavy casualties. Mao and Zhu kept their own forces from assisting Peng during his attempts to take Changsha, and Peng withdrew his forces into the Jiangxi Soviet in late 1930.

Peng was one of the most important generals active in defending the Jiangxi Soviet, taking a leading role in defeating Chiang Kai-shek's first three Encirclement Campaigns, from December 1930 - May 1931. His successes were outmatched only by Lin Biao. On November 7, Peng was named to the Central Military Commission and to the Central Executive Committee of the Jiangxi Soviet, the first time that he had been named to a position of political leadership within the communist movement. After the consolidation of the Jiangxi Soviet, a number of USSR trained Communist Party leaders arrived and took power in the Soviet: Peng, like most communist military leaders, supported their leadership until the Jiangxi Soviet was eventually overrun. In August 1933, Peng was named Vice - Chairman of the Central Military Commission; and, in January 1934 Peng was appointed as an alternate member to the Sixth CCP Central Committee. Peng continued the defense of the Jiangxi Soviet throughout the early 1930s. In August 1933, after the indecisive Fourth Encirclement Campaign, Peng broke through Kuomintang defenses and conquered a large area of western Fujian, capturing great quantities of arms and ammunition.

In October 1933 Chiang Kai-shek took command of nearly 800,000 soldiers, leading the Fifth Encirclement Campaign against the Red Army's force of 150,000 men. By September 1934 the Fifth Encirclement Campaign was largely successful, and Peng's own units suffered heavy casualties defending the Soviet, shrinking from 35,000 to around 20,000 men. On October 20 1934 the communists broke out of Chiang's encirclement and began the Long March. Of the 18,000 men under Peng's command when the March began, only about 3,000 remained when Peng's forces reached their eventual destination in Shaanxi on October 20 1935.

Peng was a strong supporter of Mao's rise to power during the January 1935 Zunyi Conference. Peng continued to consolidate the communists' base area after arriving in Shaanxi, campaigning in neighboring Shanxi and Gansu. In April 1937, Peng was named vice commander - in - chief of all Chinese communist forces, outranked only be Zhu De, who was named commander - in - chief. Peng's promotion was supported by Lin Biao, who had been actively supporting Peng for promotions to senior leadership as early as May 1934.

In 1936 the American journalist, Edgar Snow, stayed for several days at Peng's compound in Yuwang while Peng was campaigning in Ningxia, and had long conversations with him. Snow wrote two whole chapters about Peng in his book, Red Star Over China. He was more about Peng than any other individual, except for Mao Zedong.

After the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident, China and Japan formally went to war. When the Kuomintang and Communist Party declared a united front to fight the Japanese, Peng was confirmed as a general in the unified command structure of the NRA. At the August 20 1937 Lochuan Conference, Mao believed that the united front should be used as a feint, giving token resistance to the Japanese while saving the strength of the Red Army for the eventual confrontation with the Kuomintang, but Peng, along with most other senior military and political leaders at the time, disagreed, and believed that the Red Army should genuinely focus on fighting the Japanese. Mao was not able to force his position, and the communists cooperated with the Kuomintang and fought the Japanese.

When the Japanese invaded Shanxi, the Red Army (renamed the Eighth Route Army) assisted the Kuomintang warlord, Yan Xishan, in resisting the Japanese, traveling to the provincial capital of Taiyuan with Zhou Enlai to coordinate tactics. After the Japanese advanced towards Taiyuan on September 13 1937, Peng directed overall operations from a base in Wutaishan, but was called from duty to attend a Politburo meeting on December 13. At the meeting, Peng advocated a greater material commitment to the defense of Shanxi, and disagreed with Mao, who wanted the Red Army to reduce its commitment to fighting the Japanese. In 1938, after Mao's rival, Zhang Guotao, defected to the Kuomintang, Peng moved closer to Mao's position. In late 1938, Peng set up a base in Taihangshan, on the borders of Shanxi and Hubei, and directed guerrilla operations in both provinces. From Taihangshan, Peng commanded 2/3 of the Eight Route Army, approximately 100,000 soldiers.

In July 1940 Peng was given overall command of the largest communist operation of the anti - Japanese war, the Hundred Regiments Offensive. 200,000 regular troops from the Eight Route Army participated in this operation, supported by 200,000 irregular guerrilla communist guerrillas. From August 20 - October 5 1940, communist forces destroyed large numbers of bridges, tunnels and railroad tracks in Japanese occupied China, and inflicted relatively heavy Japanese casualties. From October 6 - December 5, the Japanese counterattacked, and the communists mostly repelled the counterattack successfully. Peng's operation was successful in disrupting Japanese communication lines and logistics networks, which were not restored until 1942, but the communists suffered heavy losses, suffering 22,000 casualties to 4,000 - 6,000 Japanese casualties. In early 1941, the Japanese began a large scale effort to drive Peng from his base in Taihangshan, and Peng relocated closer to the communist base in Yan'an in late 1941. After being recalled to Yan'an, Peng was subjected to a political indoctrination campaign in which he was criticized as an "empiricist" for his good relations with the Comintern, and only survived professionally through an unconditional conversion to Mao's leadership. From 1942 - 1945, Peng's role in the war was mostly political, and he supported Mao very closely. In June 1944 Peng was part of a team that conferred with American military personnel that visited Yan'an as part of the Dixie Mission, briefing the Americans about the military situation in Japanese occupied China.

The Japanese surrendered on September 3 1945, ending China's war with Japan and beginning the final stage of the Chinese Civil War. In October Peng took command of troops in northern China, occupied Inner Mongolia, and accepted the surrender of Japanese soldiers there. The March 1946 communist forces (1.1 million soldiers) were renamed the "People's Liberation Army". Peng himself was placed in command of 175,000 soldiers, organized as the "Northwest Field Army", most of which had been under the command of He Long during the war against Japan. He then became Peng's second - in - command. Peng's notable subordinates in the Northwest Field Army included Zhang Zongxun and Wang Zhen.

Peng's forces were the most poorly armed of the newly reorganized army, but was responsible for the area around the communist capital, Yan'an. In March 1947, the Kuomintang general, Hu Zongnan, invaded this area with 260,000 soldiers. Hu's forces were among the best trained and most well supplied Nationalist units, but one of Zhou Enlai's spies was able to provide Peng with information about Hu's strategic plans, his forces' troop distribution, strength, and position, and details about the air cover available to Hu. Peng was forced to abandon Yan'an, but resisted Hu's forces long enough for Mao and other senior Party leaders to evacuate safely. On May 4 Peng's forces attacked an isolated supply depot in northeastern Shaanxi, arrested its commander, and captured food reserves, 40,000 army uniforms, and a collection of arms that included over a million pieces of artillery. Peng's forces were pushed back to the border of Inner Mongolia, but finally managed to decisively defeat Hu's forces in August, in the Battle of Shachiatien, and eventually pushed Kuomintang forces out of Shaanxi in February 1928. During the Battle of Shachiatien, Peng saved Mao and the other members of the Central Committee from being taken prisoner, for which Mao dedicated a poem to Peng:

"The mountains are high, the road is long and full of potholes,

Many soldiers are moving to and fro,

Who is the courageous one, striking from his horse in all directions?

None other than our great General Peng!"

山高路远坑深

大军纵横驰奔

谁敢横刀立马

唯我彭大将军

Between 1947 and September 22 1949, Peng's forces occupied Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai. His forces repeatedly defeated, but were not able to destroy, the forces of Hu Zongnan and Ma Bufang, which retreated into Sichuan and were airlifted to Taiwan when the Kuomintang lost the Civil War in December 1949. In October Peng's forces, led directly by Wang Zhen, invaded Xinjiang. Most of Xinjiang's defenders surrendered peacefully, and were incorporated as a new unit in Peng's army, but some ethnic guerrilla bands resisted Chinese control for several years. After the People's Republic of China was declared in October 1 1949, Peng was appointed Chairman of the Northwest China Military and Administrative Commission, and Commander - in - Chief and Political Commissar of Xinjiang, with Wang Zhen as his deputy. This appointment gave Peng responsibility of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang, an area of over five million square kilometers but under thirty million people. Peng's forces continued their gradual occupation of Xinjiang, which they completed in September 1951.

North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25 1950. After receiving its endorsement from the United Nations, the United States landed its first troops in Korea on September 15. On October 1, the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, Allied forces crossed the thirty - eighth parallel, through the North Korean border. There was some disagreement between China's leadership about how to react to the American push to the Chinese border: Mao and Zhou wanted direct military intervention, while most Chinese leaders believed that China should not enter the war unless China was directly attacked. Lin Biao was Mao's first choice to lead the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA) into Korea, but Lin refused, citing his bad health.

Mao then sought the support of Peng, who had not yet taken a strong position, to lead the PVA. Peng flew to Beijing from Xi'an (where he was still administering northwest China and directing the incorporation of Xinjiang into the PRC), and arrived on October 4. Peng listened to both sides of the debate, and on October 5 decided to support Mao. Peng's support for Mao's position changed the atmosphere of the meeting, and most leaders changed their positions to support a direct Chinese intervention in the Korean War. On October 5 Peng was made the field commander of the People's Volunteer Army during the Korean War and served in that position until the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953. Mao directed China's general strategy, and Zhou was appointed general commander, coordinating Peng's forces with the Soviet and North Korean governments, and the rest of the Chinese government. Over the next week, Peng established a headquarters in Shenyang, and prepared his invasion strategy with his officers.

After Zhou and Lin negotiated Stalin's approval, Peng attended a conference in Beijing with Mao, Zhou, and Gao Gang on October 18, and they ordered China's first soldiers to cross into Korea on the night of October 19. On October 25 the remaining 400,000 Chinese soldiers advanced into Korea, and on October 26 the PVA had its first confrontation with Allied troops, at Unsan, and pushed the South Korean forces south of the Yalu River. From November 24 - December 24, Peng directed the PVA to confront American troops, and he successfully recovered the area north of the thirty - eighth parallel. Peng then began an ambitious campaign to take the area south of the 38th parallel. The PVA crossed into South Korean territory on December 31 and captured Seoul, but were forced to evacuate it with heavy losses on March 14 1951. Peng launched a final campaign from April 22 - May 21 to retake Seoul, but it failed, and the Korean War came to a standstill around the thirty - eighth parallel. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards claimed that Peng's successful campaigns, from October - December 1950, were fought under Mao's direction, but that his unsuccessful campaigns, from January - May 1951, were organized by Peng against Mao's instructions. Modern scholars reject this interpretation, and credit Peng with both the successes and failures of the war.

PVA casualties during the first year of the Korean War were heavy. Soviet material support was slight; and, because the only available means to transport supplies into Korea for the first year of the war was a force of 700,000 laborers, all available supplies were light and limited. The Allies had complete air superiority. Between November 27 and December 12 1950, 45,000 soldiers froze to death due to inadequate winter clothing. China's insufficient artillery, armor, and air support meant that Peng was forced to rely heavily on "human sea" tactics until the summer of 1951: bayonet charges of between ten to twenty waves, whose participants often drank large quantities of gaoliang in order to improve their courage. American estimates of Chinese casualties throughout the war were 400,000+ dead, 486,000 wounded, and 21,000 POWs.

In November 19 1951 Zhou called a conference in Shenyang to discuss improvements to China's logistical network, but these did little to directly resolve China's supply problems. Peng visited Beijing several times over the next several months to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. By the winter of 1951 Peng became convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On 24 February 1952, the Central Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots; to provide more anti - aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.

Truce talks began on July 10 1951, but proceeded slowly. Peng's last offensive lasted from May - July 1953, and penetrated the South Korean lines following a bombardment of over 250,000 round of artillery before being halted by American infantry and air support. On July 27 1953 Peng personally signed the Armistice agreement in Panmunjom, ending the Korean War. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on July 31, Kim Il Sung awarded Peng his second North Korean "National Flag" Order of Merit, First Class (the first had been awarded to Peng in 1951), and awarded Peng the title of "Hero of the Korean Democratic People's Republic". Peng returned to Beijing on August 11, and received a hero's welcome in Tiananmen Square. Chinese forces remained in North Korea until 1957.

Peng's experiences in the Korean War strongly effected his outlook over the next decade. The heavy losses sustained during the first year of the war convinced him that the Chinese army needed to change by introducing modern equipment and standards of professionalism, and by developing new tactics more suited to modern conventional warfare. He came to believed strongly that military training should never be reduced in favor of political indoctrination, and that military commanders should enjoy seniority over commissars. Because the only communist country fully prepared for modern technical warfare was the Soviet Union, Peng grew to see the Soviet Red Army as a model for the development of China's PLA. These perspectives, and Peng's long held conviction that the primary role of the Communist Party was to improve the welfare of the common people, were contrary to Mao's political goals, contributing to their eventual conflict in the late 1950s.

In the spring of 1954 Peng was confirmed as the vice - chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission (Mao was its chairman), becoming effectively the most senior military leader in China. On September 24 1954, the First National People's Congress confirmed Peng's position, and appointed him Defense Minister and one of the ten vice - ministers of the State Council. Lin Biao was senior to Peng on the State Council. Soon after accepting these appointments, on October 1 1954, Peng produced an ambitious plan for the modernization of the PLA on the model of the Soviet military.

Peng staged his first offensive after becoming Defense Minister in January 1955, when he attacked and occupied a chain of islands, part of Zhejiang, which were still held by the Kuomintang, from which the Nationalists occasionally staged guerrilla raids as far as Shanghai. This operation led the United States to form a defense agreement with Taiwan, effectively preventing the communists from completely defeating the Kuomintang.

Peng participated in a number of foreign trips throughout the communist world after becoming Defense Minister, the first time that he had traveled outside of China and North Korea. In May 1955 Peng visited East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union, meeting with Wilhelm Pieck, Józef Cyrankiewicz, Nikita Krushchev, and the Soviet marshals Konstantin Rokossovsky and Georgy Zhukov. In September 1955 Peng traveled to Poland and the Soviet Union to attend the signing of the Warsaw Pact as an observer. In November 2 - December 3 1957 Peng accompanied Mao on his second visit to the Soviet Union. From April 24 - June 13 1959 Peng went on a "military goodwill tour" across the communist world, visiting Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Soviet Union, and Mongolia.

After Peng returned from his first tour abroad, in September 1955, he began to seriously implement his "Four Great Systems": the implementation of standardized military ranks, salaries, awards, and rules of conscription. On September 23 1955 the State Council named Peng one of the ten marshals of the PLA, China's highest military rank. PLA leaders were promoted into Peng's newly founded system of military ranks, and were awarded newly created orders of merit. Peng himself was awarded the First Class Medal of the Order of August 1 (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil war from 1927 - 1937), the First Class Medal of the Order of Independence and Freedom (for his achievements in the Sino - Japanese War), and the First Class Medal of the Order of Liberation (for his achievements in the Chinese Civil war from 1945 - 1949). Peng introduced military insignia for the first time, and issued military uniforms modeled on those worn by Soviet soldiers. From January 1 1956 Peng replaced conscription with voluntary service, and standardized career soldiers' salaries on eighteen grades, from private second class to marshal. In May 1956 Peng introduced a clear prioritization of rank favoring commanders over political commissars. By September 1956 Peng's doctrines of professionalism, strict training, discipline, and the mastery of modern equipment were entrenched within the structure of the PLA. Mao Zedong opposed all of these initiatives.

Peng's last military operation was the shelling of Jinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu, islands off the coast of Fujian that were still held by the Kuomintang, in the late summer and autumn of 1958. Peng developed a strategy with his Chief of Staff, Su Yu, to bombard the islands so intensely that the morale of their defenders would collapse, eventually leading to the islands' surrender. After the islands' surrender, the PLA would then use the islands to launch attacks against Taiwan. The saturated shelling of the islands included over half the artillery in China, and began on August 28. The attack included a coordinated effort to cut off the islands' air and sea supply lines.

The campaign ran into unexpected difficulties, and did not achieve its objectives. The Soviet Union did not give explicit support to the operation, and the United States provided air and sea cover to Kuomintang supply ships up to within three miles of the Chinese coast. Kuomintang fighter jets shot down thirty - seven PRC fighters (while only losing three themselves), and Nationalist artillery and naval bombardments destroyed fourteen PRC ships. Peng announced a series of intermittent ceasefires before eventually halting the campaign in late October. Su Yu was blamed for the disaster and replaced with another ally of Peng's, General Huang Kecheng. Peng's position was not directly effected, but his personal prestige suffered, and the practical effects of his efforts to modernize China's armed forces were called into question within the PLA.

After touring his native Hunan Province in 1959 and realising the extent of the problems that the Great Leap Forward had created, he tried to tell Chairman Mao at the Lushan Conference that it was a dramatic mistake. Neither Mao nor Peng wanted a split but once Mao initiated the break with Peng, the whole Politburo and the Central Committee were bound to support Mao. They all quarreled with Peng, with Lin Biao leading the attacks.

He was disgraced in 1959, in part because of his criticisms of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward that went beyond what Mao considered legitimate. Mao accepted that there had been mistakes, including the 'backyard furnaces', but still saw the process as generally positive. Mao had even suggested that Peng write a criticism - whether this was a trap or whether Peng went too far is moot. Definitely, Mao started treating him as an enemy. As a consequence, he was removed from all posts and placed under constant supervision and house arrest in Chengdu, Sichuan; Lin Biao took over the post of Minister of Defense. Peng was eventually exiled, and shunned for the next 16 years of house arrest.

There were other major issues in the 1959 dispute. Peng had made the army more professional and less political, changes reversed when Lin Biao replaced him. He had also shown signs of not liking the break with Moscow. He may also have been blamed for the unsuccessful confrontation over Taiwan the previous year (which had been ordered by Mao Zedong in order to garnish financial and technological aide from the USSR by forcing the US to make a threat to defend Taiwan even with nuclear arms):

"On Sept. 17 [1959] Peking announced that Marshal Lin Piao [Lin Biao] had succeeded Marshal Peng Teh - huai as defence minister…

Marshal Lin Biao was commander - in - chief of the People’s Liberation Army which conquered the whole of mainland China in 1948 - 49, but owing to a breakdown of health he was inactive for many years. His return to health and to official activity was indicated when, in 1958, he was appointed a member of the Politburo. Marshal Peng, whose fame was not enhanced by the failure of the Quemoy operation in 1958, remained a deputy prime minister." (Britannica Book of the year 1960).

In the early 1960s, he was put in charge of establishing the "Third Front", a planned strategic base in China's south - west that would have been a fall back position if China were invaded. But he was arrested in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution and put in the hands of violent Red Guard  torturers, beaten 130 times until his internal organs were crushed and his back splintered. During interrogations he shouted denials to the Red Guards who beat him, and it is reputed that he pounded the table so hard the cell walls shook. Red Guards took him several times to "Peng Dehuai struggle rallies", where he was publicly beaten. He died of cancer on November 29, 1974, still loyal to his own version of communist ideals, which diverged radically from those of Mao.

The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held in 1978, reexamined Marshal Peng's case and reversed the judgment that had been imposed on him. It exonerated him of all charges and reaffirmed his contributions to the Chinese Revolution.