Wang Xinting (; 23 December 1908 – 11 December 1984) was a general in the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

of the People's Republic of China from

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

Biography

Early life

Wang was born into a humble peasant family in

Xiaogan Xiaogan () is a prefecture-level city in east-central Hubei province, People's Republic of China, some northwest of the provincial capital of Wuhan. According to the 2020 census, its population totaled 4,270,371, of whom 988,479 lived in the built ...

Hubei Province Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

. In the spring of 1926, he joined the workers' and peasants' movement. He joined the

Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army The Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army or Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, commonly known as the Chinese Red Army or simply the Red Army, are the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party. It was formed when Communist ...

in 1930 and was appointed as a team leader. Following in September, he joined the

Communist Party of China The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil ...

. In 1931, he was appointed Party Committee secretary of the 10th Division in the Red Fourth Army. Later in the year, he was appointed as the deputy secretary general of the army's political department. In October 1932, following the

Encirclement Campaigns Encirclement campaigns (), officially called in Chinese Communist historiography as the Agrarian Revolutionary War were the campaigns launched by forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government against forces of the Chinese Communist Party during the ...

Wang Xinting and Red Fourth Army evacuated Hubei and Henan in favor of Northern Sichuan. In July, he was appointed as the political director of the Red Ninth Army. Wang Xinting participated in the "anti-three-way siege" operations and "anti-six-way siege" operations. Wang Xinting joined the

Long March The Long March (, lit. ''Long Expedition'') was a military retreat undertaken by the Chinese Red Army, Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the National Revolut ...

in May 1935 and was later promoted to Chief Minister of the General Political Department of the Red Fourth Army. With the army's arrival in northern

Shaanbei Shaanbei () or Northern Shaanxi is the portion of China's Shaanxi province north of the Huanglong Mountain and the Meridian Ridge (the so-called "Guanzhong north mountains"), and is both a geographic as well as a cultural area. It makes up the so ...

in 1936, Wang was concurrently appointed as the Political Director of the Red Thirty-First Army.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War

Following the outbreak of war, Wang was appointed as the Political Director in the 129th Division of the

Eighth Route Army The Eighth Route Army (), officially known as the 18th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, was a group army under the command of the Chinese Communist Party, nominally within the structure of the Chinese ...

, assisting in the expansion of the army in the

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

–

Changzhi Changzhi () is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of Shanxi Province, China, bordering the provinces of Hebei and Henan to the northeast and east, respectively. Historically, the city was one of the 36 administrative areas (see Administrat ...

region. In January 1938, he was appointed as the political commissar of the 386th Brigade and worked alongside Chen Geng. On 22 February 1938, the brigade ambushed and killed more than 130 Japanese troops. The 386th Brigade was notoriously known for their guerilla warfare, and with other surrounding brigades inflicted over 4000 casualties to the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. The Japanese hunt for the brigade extended to pasting slogans on such as "focus your attack on the 386th Brigade" on their tanks.

References

{{Authority control Chinese Communist Party politicians from Hubei 1908 births 1984 deaths Chinese revolutionaries People of the Chinese Civil War People's Republic of China politicians from Hubei Politicians from Xiaogan People's Liberation Army generals from Hubei