Background
Little is known about his background. To judge from his birth year this would have been in the mid-1920’s.
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Han Hsien-ch’u
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Han Hsien-ch’u is a career military man. He graduated from the Changsha Middle School in the capital of his native Hunan.
Career
He was first known to be fighting with the Communists when he was an officer in a regiment commanded by Wang Shu-sheng, belonging to the Fourth Front Army (see under Chang Kuo-t’ao). In 1933, when Han was a regimental commander and later a deputy divisional commander, this army was fighting in northeast Szechwan. There it established its headquarters in the T'ung-Nan-Pa Soviet, named for the three principal hsien which the Communists controlled in that area. The Fourth Front Army moved to the extreme western part of Szechwan in 1935 to meet the army of Mao Tse-tung, which was coming from Kiangsi on the Long March. Mao and Chang Kuo-t’ao, with their respective armies, met in the small town of Mao-kung in June. However, disagreements arose between the two men over the eventual destination of the Red armies, and in August they separated, Chang turning west into Sikang, while Mao and his army went north to Shensi. Han remained with Chang Kuo-t’ao, becoming a divisional commander in Chang’s army by 1936. The Fourth Front Army finally reached north Shensi and joined forces with Mao late in 1936. Once there, Han entered the second class at K’ang-ta, the military academy established by the Communists upon their arrival in north Shensi after completing the Long March.
After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in mid-1937, Han was identified as a commander of Liu Po-ch’cng’s 129th Division of the Communist Eighth Route Army. Liu’s division, one of three major divisions of the Eighth Route Army, was made up largely of units that had earlier been part of the Fourth Front Army; therefore, Han’s identification with the 129th Division suggests that he had remained with his former military associates. In the first year of the war he was stationed at the military base in the T’ai-hang Mountains of southeast Shansi where the division made its headquarters from about September 1937. By 1939 the 129th Division had expanded its operations into the bordering areas of Honan and Shantung, and another former Fourth Front Army man (Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien) was sent into Shantung to coordinate Communist guerrilla operations there. Han was also sent to Shantung in 1939 where he served as a brigade commander in the Po-hai area. Po-hai, one of four areas in the Communist war zone in Shantung, was located north of the Yellow River.
Sometime after the end of the Sino-Japanese War (1945) Han was transferred from the army of Liu Po-ch’eng to the army of Lin Piao. The latter entered Manchuria at the end of hostilities and joined forces with the local resistance there (see under Chou Pao-chung). In January 1946 all the Communist forces in Manchuria were reorganized into the Northeast Democratic Allied Army under Lin Piao. By 1947 Han was identified as a divisional and later a column commander of the Third and Fourth Columns of Lin’s army. In September 1948 he participated in the battles to capture Linkiang (Lin-chiang), Kirin, situated on the Korean border at a bend in the Yalu River. Later, Han accompanied elements of Lin’s army that occupied Chin-chou, Liaoning, in October 1948, finally arriving on the outskirts of Peking at the end of the year. By January 1949, when the Red Army commanders had completed the negotiations for the surrender of Peking, Lin’s army was known as the Fourth Field Army. Han remained with the Fourth Field Army, serving as deputy commander of the 12th Corps (commanded by Hsiao Ching-kuang) on the march through central and south China, culminating with the takeover of Hainan Island in April 1950. During this period, and for a short time after the Communists captured Hainan, Han held military posts in the territories over which the army was expanding. From August 1949 to June 1950 he was a deputy commander of the Hunan Military District, and in June 1950 he became a member of the Military and Administrative Committee for Hainan. In September 1949 Han represented the Fourth Field Army at the inaugural meeting of the CPPCC at which time the PRC was established. In the latter half of 1949 the expanding Fourth Field Army occupied Kwangtung, and in March 1950, soon after the Kwangtung Provincial People’s Government Council was established, Han was named to membership. However, his membership in this government became nominal owing to a 1950 transfer.
Politics
The Korean War began in June 1950, with the Chinese Communist forces entering the conflict in October. The main Chinese force was composed of Lin Piao’s Fourth Field Army troops, which had been brought back from south China. Han was transferred to the Korean front in late 1950, and by October of the next year he was a representative of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV) to the Panmunjom truce negotiations (which began in July 1951). He remained in Korea during much and perhaps all of 1952. In February 1952 he was in charge of a 20-member CPV delegation that attended the fourth anniversary of Korean Army Day; in August he headed a delegation to a Pyongyang rally marking the 25th anniversary of the PLA. In 1952, the year before the end of the Korean War, he was made deputy chief-of-staff of the CPV.
With the establishment of the constitutional government in 1954, Han became a member of the newly created National Defense Council, a military advisory body with little power but with considerable prestige. When personal military ranks were created in the PLA in 1955 Han was made a colonel-general, the equivalent of a three-star general in the U.S. Army. Military orders for service in the period from 1927 to 1949 were also awarded for the first time in 1955. Han was a recipient of one or more of these orders, but the exact ones are not known. It was also in the fall of 1955 that Han was reported attending the “PLA Academy,” possibly the PLA Political Academy in Peking, Communist China’s national war college.
Membership
In May 1958 Han was made an alternate member of the Central Committee at the Second Session of the Eighth Congress. His exact military duties were for a time obscured, probably for reasons of military security. Since about 1955 he has been in charge of troops stationed along the Fukien coast opposite the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. This has been a particularly important command, especially during the period of heightened tension over the islands in 1958.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party