Ch’en was born in 1909 in Ching-men hsien, Hupeh, a rural area about 100 miles west of Wuhan. The information on Ch’en’s life through the 1920’s is drawn largely from an autobiographical account given to a correspondent of the Chung-kuo ch’ing-nien pao (China youth newspaper) in 1961.
The son of an office worker, Ch’en received his early schooling in Peking until his education was cut short by the financial difficulties of his family after he graduated from primary school. Upon leaving Peking and returning to his native Ching-men, he was adopted into the family of a landlord. He soon tired of his adopted parents and went to work in the nearby town of Sha-yang as an apprentice in a general store.
According to Ch’en’s autobiography, he did not last long at the Sha-yang store and on New Year’s Day of 1927 found himself dismissed for inciting his fellow workers against the management. In early 1927 Wuhan was the capital of the left-wing KMT government from which agents of both the KMT and the CCP were being sent to organize industrial workers in the cities and the peasants in the rural areas. Ch’en, influenced by such activity, left Sha-yang for northern Hupeh to help organize the peasantry. Soon, however, the peasants had become sufficiently aroused to provoke actions on the part of KMT-controlled military forces, and in April 1927 General Hsia Tou-yin (later the Wuchang garrison commander and an important KMT official) sent his troops to put down the dissident elements. Ch’en was forced to seek safety in Wuchang, which offered revolutionaries more obscurity, and it was there that he joined the Communist Youth League.
After a brief period of training at the “Hupeh Student Military Training Class” (a Youth League school sponsored by the Hupeh CCP Committee), Ch’en joined a unit of the Wuchang garrison force, which was commanded by Lu Te-ming, a Communist. Lu’s men, alerted to the Communists’ plans to stage an uprising at Nan- chang at the beginning of August 1927, embarked on a Yangtze River steamer for Nan- chang in late July. Fearing apprehension by Nationalist guards, who were checking passengers at Chiu-chiang (Kiukiang) before the steamer reached its destination, the Communists disembarked at Huang-shih (midway between Wuhan and Chiu-chiang) and began their march overland to Nanchang. However, before reaching Nanchang, Communist troops led by Yeh T’ing and Ho Lung had already staged their uprising (August 1) and had been driven from the city five days later. Therefore, Lu Te-ming, Ch’en, and the others turned westward and moved into the mountainous regions of northwest Kiangsi. At this juncture their forces were reorganized into the First Regiment of the First Division of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolution Army, Ch’en was assigned to a guards company for the division headquarters. Soon afterwards these troops moved into Hunan where, after joining forces with units led by Mao Tse-tung, they launched an abortive attack on P’ing-chiang in northeast Hunan, thus initiating a part of the Autumn Harvest Uprisings (September 1927). After the insurrection at P’ing-chiang failed, Ch’en participated in the retreat led by Mao, who led the badly battered Red troops south into Kiangsi. After these units, composed of fewer than 1,000 men, reached the Chingkang Mountains on the Hunan-Kiangsi border in the latter part of 1927, Ch’en became a member of the CCP.
In 1937 Ch’en studied at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political Academy in Yenan. Immediately following the outbreak of the Sino- Japanese War in July 1937 he became a member of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. Ch’en served as chief-of-staif of the 343rd Brigade, which, under Division Commander Lin Piao, won the famous battle at P’ing-hsing Pass in northeast Shansi (September 1937), defeating a major portion of one of the strong Japanese invading forces (see under Lin Piao). Ch’en also took part in a battle in Wu-ch’eng in western Shansi in early 1938. He was then promoted to chief-of-staff of the 115th Division, and in this capacity he was with elements of the division that moved eastward into Shantung in the early part of 1939. Ch’en was serving at this time under Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien, the deputy commander of another key Communist division, the 129th, which was cooperating with the 115th Division. Little is known about Ch’en’s activities during the middle years of the war, but it appears that he remained in the Shantung area. In any case, from 1944 to 1946 he was in command of the Communists’ Pin-hai Military District, located in the coastal area southwest of Tsingtao, the Pin-hai region was one of the five sections into which the Shantung Military Region was then divided. In 1945 Ch’en assumed the concurrent post of commander of the Second Advance Column of Communist forces in Shan-tung. At the end of the war Ch’en I’s New Fourth Army came to be the principal Communist force in Shantung. In 1946 Ch’en I made his headquarters at Lin-i in southern Shantung, and by that time Ch’en Shih-ch’ii was serving as chief-of-staff of both the New Fourth Army and the Shantung Military District.
By the fall of 1952 Ch’en was in Peking where he became commander of the Engineer Corps of the PLA, the post that has probably occupied most of his time since that date, although it receives little attention in the Chinese press. In 1954 he was elected a deputy to the First NPC. He was also elected to the Second NPC (1959-1964) and again to the Third NPC, which opened its first session in December 1964. He was a deputy from Honan to the First NPC, but at the Second and Third Congresses he represented the Foochow Military Region. Although a man’s representation in the NPC is an uncertain guide to his actual place of work, it is often suggestive. Thus the shift in Ch’en’s NPC constituency suggests that as commander of the Engineer Corps he has been involved in the erection of the military fortifications in Fukien opposite Nationalist-held Quemoy Island. In this connection it may be noteworthy that Ch’en was first elected to the NPC from the Foochow Military Region in mid-195 8 a date coinciding with the outbreak of the “off-shore island crisis,” which has continued into the 1960’s.
In January 1946, through the mediation efforts of U.S. Special Envoy George C. Marshall, the Communists and Nationalists signed a cease-fire agreement. Under the terms of the agreement an Executive Headquarters was established in Peking where representatives from the Communists, Nationalists, and the United States attempted to supervise the truce. Ch’en was assigned to this headquarters where, holding the simulated rank of major general, he served directly under Lo Jui-ch’ing, the chief-of-staff of the Communist delegation. He is also known to have spent some time in the spring of 1946 in Chungking, which, during the truce period, was a rather important center for Communist political operations. However, when the truce arrangements collapsed in the latter part of 1946 and early 1947, Ch’en returned to the Shantung area, where in 1947 Ch’en I’s New Fourth Army had been redesignated the East China PLA. Under this force Ch’en Shih-ch’ii served until 1949 as chief-of-staff.
In 1947 and 1948 Ch’en spent most of his time in the field commanding an army corps subordinate to the East China PLA. During this period he was closely associated with T’ang Liang, his political commissar. In fact, their well-known unit is commonly referred to in Communist histories as the “Ch’en-T’ang Army Corps.” After waging a number of successful campaigns in Shantung, the corps moved into Honan, where, in a drive coordinated with forces led by Liu Po-ch’eng, it converged on Loyang and Kaifeng in mid-1948. Ch’en also played an important role in the battles these armies fought during the critical Huai-hai Campaign from early November 1948 to mid-January 1949 (see under Liu Po-ch’eng). Heading the 11th Army Corps of the Third Field Army (the new designation for the East China PLA), Ch’en is credited by the Communists with having commanded troops that won important victories in north Anhwei, not far from Hsu-chou (Suchow), the main target of the Huai-hai Campaign. These victories during the Huai-hai operations dealt a decisive blow to the power of the Nationalists.
Nanking fell to the Communist forces in late April 1949, a victory of great psychological value because the city had been the capital of the Nationalist Government. Ch’en was immediately named to command the Nanking Garrison, and by November he was serving as a member of the Nanking Military Control Commission under Chairman Su Yii. For at least a time in 1949 Ch’en was also the vice-president of the East China Military and Political University located in Nanking. Because President Ch’en I was fully occupied in Shanghai, it is likely that Ch’en Shih-ch’u was the principal Party figure connected with this school.
Ch’en went to Peking in September 1949 to attend the First CPPCC, the organization that brought the new PRC government into existence. He attended the meetings as a representative of the Third Field Army and also served on an ad hoc committee (chaired by Kuo Mo-jo) to draft the public declaration on the work of the CPPCC. In 1949-50, not long after these meetings were held and as the Communists began to consolidate their victories, regional governments were formed to administer the newly conquered areas. Ch’en became a member of the one formed for east China, the East China Military and Administrative Committee (ECMAC). He held this post until the ECMAC was reorganized in late 1952, although by that time he was already working in the national capital.
At the close of the first session of the First NPC (September 1954), Ch’en was named to membership on the National Defense Council (NDC), an organization with limited power and authority, but one with considerable prestige. He was subsequently reappointed to membership in April 1959 and January 1965. One year after his appointment to the NDC, the PRC awarded military orders to PLA veterans and also gave ranks to its officer corps. Ch’en received the Orders of Independence and Freedom and of Liberation, granted for service from 1937 to 1945 and from 1945 to 1950, respectively. At the same time he was made a colonel-general, equivalent to a three-star general in the U.S. Army.
