Zuo Quan (; 15 March 1905 – 2 June 1942), also named Zuo Shuren (), born in

Liling Liling () is a county-level city and the List of County-level divisions of Hunan by population, 12th most populous county-level division in Hunan, Hunan Province, China; it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhuzhou. Loca ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangx ...

, was a general in the

Chinese 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 Communis ...

during the Chinese revolution and the war against Japan, and a senior staff officer 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 Chines ...

. He died in combat in 1942. Zuo graduated in the first class of

Whampoa Military Academy The Republic of China Military Academy () is the service academy for the army of the Republic of China, located in Fengshan District, Kaohsiung. Previously known as the the military academy produced commanders who fought in many of China ...

, joined the

Chinese Communist Party 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 Ci ...

(CCP) in 1925, and helped to found a secret organization amongst Whampoa's pro-communist students, the Huoxingshe, and later another called Young Soldiers United (Qingnian Junren Lianhehui). Zuo was appointed a company commander in the Nationalist Army after graduation. After the CCP's split with the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Ta ...

, Zuo travelled to Moscow where he studied at Sun Yatsen University and then the Soviet Military Academy, graduating in 1930. Zuo travelled back to China, arriving in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

with

Liu Bocheng Liu Bocheng (; December 4, 1892 – October 7, 1986) was a Chinese military commander and Marshal of the People's Liberation Army. Liu is known as the 'half' of the "Three and A Half" Strategists of China in modern history. (The other th ...

, and was sent to the Soviet area in Jiangxi. Zuo became an instructor and then commandant of the First Branch, Red Army Military Academy, and later assumed command of the New 12th Army. After 1933 Zuo was appointed the First Army Group Chief of Staff, and participated in the

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

. When the Anti Japanese War began in 1937, Zuo became the Deputy Chief of Staff, Eighth Route Army, and was a key organizer in 1938-39 of the highly successful rear area behind Japanese lines upon which the Eighth Route Army's reputation was built. From August to December 1940, Zuo participated in the leadership of the Hundred Regiments Campaign. In 1941, when the Social Affairs Department (Shehuibu) sent an intelligence detachment to the Eighth Route Army to support it, that group was at first sponsored by Zuo Quan who subordinated it to his own staff within a year and subsequently controlled its tasking, personnel, and operations. While under Zuo the detachment successfully established intelligence stations behind enemy lines throughout the Taihang-Shandong area, and set up an agent network in

Peiping "Beijing" is from pinyin ''Běijīng,'' which is romanized from , the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various ...

. In May–June 1942 Zuo engaged in battles to cover the retreat of the Eighth Route Army, and was fatally wounded by a Japanese artillery shell on 2 June 1942 while leading a breakout. After his death the CCP renamed Liao County in

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-leve ...

Province Zuoquan County, in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuo, Quan Military personnel of the Republic of China killed in the Second Sino-Japanese War Chinese Communist Party politicians from Hunan 1905 births 1942 deaths National Revolutionary Army generals from Hunan Frunze Military Academy alumni Politicians from Zhuzhou Republic of China politicians from Hunan Chinese expatriates in the Soviet Union Moscow Sun Yat-sen University alumni