He was born in the Manchurian province of Liaoning into a poor peasant family. His birthplace was either Hai-ch’eng, a city about midway on the rail line running from Mukden (Shen-yang) to Dairen, or Liao-yang hsien, slightly north of Hai-ch'eng on the same rail line.
After receiving a primary school education, in his late teens or early twenties, joined warlord Chang Tso-lin's forces in Manchuria, working his way up through the ranks to become a platoon leader. He then attended the Northeast Military Academy in the early 1920’s, apparently returning afterwards to active duty with Chang’s army and remaining with it after Chang’s death when his son Chang Hsueh-liang took over its command in 1928.
In 1931, when the Japanese invaded Manchuria, much of Chang Hsueh-liang's army retreated into north China in accordance with a policy of non-resistance adopted by Chiang Kai-shek, with whom Chang was then cooperating. Lii was apparently with this force, because in 1932 he was a regimental commander in Wan Fu-lin's 53rd Army, which had been part of Chang’s army before it was reorganized and put under Chiang Kai-shek’s command. Lii was still serving in this capacity after the Si no-Japanese War began, when Japanese troops pushed down the Peking-Hankow railroad line forcing the evacuation of Paoting Hopeh, in September 1937. As the 53rd Army retreated, Lii's regiment (variously identified as the 683rd and the 691st) was separated from the main force. By early October it had reached Chao-hsien, Hopeh, about 200 miles south of Peking, where it was surrounded by Japanese troops. Lii told Carlson that in the action his regiment was reduced to battalion size. Afterwards he decided to remain with his surviving troops in Hopeh to wage guerrilla warfare.
Other groups were also forming guerrilla bands in Hopeh. Among them were Communist guerrillas that had infiltrated the central Hopeh plains under the command of Nieh Jung-chen’s 115th Division, which was headquartered in northeast Shansi near the Hopeh border. These men, who operated north of Lii in the areas around Kao-yang Li-hsien and Jen-ch’iu, made contact with Lii's units and were quickly able to place them under their control. In January 1938 the various anti-Japanese elements that were generally dominated by the Communists met in Fou-p’ing (in west Hopeh near the Shansi border), where they inaugurated the Shansi-Chahar-Hopeh (Chin-Ch’a-Chi) Border Region Government. The political head of the government was Sung Shao-wen Lii was a member of the nine-member committee, not all of whom were Communists, which ran the government.
By at least June 1938, and possibly as early as the fall of 1937, Lii was head of the Chin-Ch'a- Chi Region's Central Hopeh Military District (with Ch'eng Tzu-hua as his political commissar) and concurrently commander of the Eighth Route Army’s Third Column. His headquarters was near Jen-ch'iu. It appears that by mid-1938 Lii had formally joined the CCP. Few Communist commanders faced more serious difficulties than Lii during the early years of the war. Many of his problems are graphically described in George E. Taylor's account of anti-Japanese resistance in north China, and Lii himself explained his difficulties to U.S. Naval Observer Evans Carlson. One of the chief problems was the flat terrain of central Hopeh, which offered no natural protection, thus forcing his men to depend on rivers, foliage, and darkness. Furthermore, the area's nearness to Peking and Tientsin, where the Japanese had large garrisons, as well as the importance of the communications route that traversed it subjected it to frequent Japanese attacks. In September 1939, for instance, An-kuo hsien was occupied by the Japanese, forcing Lli’s troops to withdraw until the Japanese left in late 1940. Relations with the KMT posed another serious problem. In mid-1938 General Lu Chung- lin was sent to central Hopeh by the Nationalists to organize armed units. Initially, Lu and Lii cooperated, but soon political rivalry drove them to open hostility, which continued throughout 1939 until Lii Cheng-ts'ao won the upper hand.
In the late 1940's Lii also assumed the deputy directorship of the Railway Department of the Chinese Communist People's Revolutionary Military Council (PRMC), the top military policy making body of that period. T’eng Tai-yuan headed the department, which was abolished in late 1949. In May 1949, after north China was in Communist hands, the PRMC created the PLA Railway Corps, which was composed of a portion of Lin Piao's Fourth Field Army's Railway Column. Teng became its commander and Lii again served as his deputy. Lii apparently left Manchuria when he took this post, for by the early summer of 1949 he was active in Peking trying to reorganize the nation’s battered transportation network. In July he spoke at the All-China Railway Workers' Provisional Conference and at the close of the meetings was elected to the Preparatory Committee for the All-China Railway Workers’ Trade Union. (When the union was formally inaugurated in February 1950, he was named to its Standing Committee.)
In September 1949 Lii was a representative of the PLA Headquarters to the First CPPCC, which inaugurated the PRC (October 1). He was named as a CCP representative to the Second (1954-1959), Third (1959-1964) and Fourth (1964) CPPCC's, serving on the Standing Committee of the Second and Third CPPCCs, and on the National Committee of the Fourth. Immediately after the central government was established in October 1949, Lii was appointed as the senior vice-minister, once more under Teng Tai-yuan, in the Ministry of Railways, and in early 1950 he became director of the ministry’s Engineering Bureau. Since the earliest days of the PRC Lii has devoted his time almost entirely to the field of communications and railroads. For example, in January 1950 he gave a report on railway building at the National Railway Construction Conference. In March 1951 he signed the Sino-Soviet Agreement on Through Railway Traffic, and in September of that year he spoke at a conference for railway “labor models.”
In September 1954 the constitutional government was inaugurated by the First NPC (1954-1959). Lii served as a delegate from the southern Manchurian city of Penki (Pen-ch'e), which was then a special municipality with its own delegates to the Congress. He was re-elected to the Second NPC (1959-1964), this time as a deputy from his native Liaoning province (which had absorbed the Penki constituency). Lii also represented Liaoning in the Third NPC, which opened in December 1964.
In the late 1950’s Railway Minister T’eng Tai-yuan’s political activity declined, and by August 1960 Lii began to serve as the acting minister. He was designated as such (except for one identification of Teng as minister in September 1962) until January 1965 when, after having been a vice-minister for 15 years, he was promoted to the post of minister at the first session of the Third NPC. Because of his importance in the ministry, Lii has appeared fairly regularly at functions in Peking concerned with railways and has also attended several international conferences dealing with the field. In December 1954 he was the chief Chinese negotiator for talks with the North Vietnamese in Peking, which resulted in a protocol to assist Vietnam in the restoration of its railways. In June-July of the following year Lii led a delegation to a meeting of the Communist bloc’s “International Railway Passenger and Freight Traffic Agreement” held in East Berlin and in January 1956 he presided over ceremonies in Peking marking the opening of the throughrailway between Outer Mongolia and China. In addition, Lu led the Chinese delegations to the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Conferences of Railway Ministers of Socialist Countries (Budapest, July 1961, Warsaw, May 1963, Moscow, June 1964, Hanoi, March 1965).
Although LU had not been mentioned in a specific military assignment for many years, in March 1964 he was identified as a PLA colonel general, a rank equivalent to a three-star general dn the U.S. Army. This may indicate that he holds some little publicized post (probably in logistics because of his experience in transportation and communications), which is subordinate to the Party's powerful Military Affairs Committee.
As the war continued and the Communist gains in north China became better consolidated, the CCP formed a Joint Defense Headquarters at Yenan, unifying the command for the Shansi- Suiyuan and Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Regions. Sometime in the year 1942-43 Ho Lung was transferred from the Shansi-Suiyuan Border Region to Yenan to take charge of the new Headquarters. Lii replaced Ho as commander of the Shansi-Suiyuan Border Region in October 1943. Ch'en Man-yuan, who had been working in west Hopeh, was his chief-of-staff. Lii remained in the Border Region for about a year and a half.
At the Seventh National CCP Congress, which met in Yenan in April-June 1945, Lii was elected an alternate member of the Central Committee. After the Japanese surrender, he accompanied Lin Piao and the large Communist force, which was sent from north China into the Jehol- Liaoning area of southern Manchuria. Lii became one of three deputy commanders of the Northeast Democratic Allied Army, which was established in January 1946 under Lin Piao’s. command. As the Communists expanded their control over Manchuria Lii became increasingly involved with communications and railways, which were vitally important for military control and economic development. In the summer of 1946 the Northeast Administrative Committee was created by the Communists to govern those parts of Manchuria which they controlled. Lii became a member under Chairman Lin Feng and was also named director of the Committee's Communications Department. Concurrently, Lii was commander of the Liaotung Military District.
Although LU has been chiefly occupied with railways and communications problems since 1949, he has received recognition for his former military service. He has been a member of the National Defense Council since its creation in September 1954. This is largely an honorary post because the Council seldom meets and has little power. In September 1955, when national military honors were bestowed on military veterans, Lii received the Orders of Independence and Freedom and of Liberation for service between 1937 and 1950. A year later, at the Eighth Party Congress (September 1956), he was promoted to full membership on the CCP Central Committee.
Little is known about Lii's personal life. When Hanson saw him in 1938 he commented that he was “a small man” who “breathed dignity and quiet confidence.”G Carlson said he was “a quiet, self-effacing man” and “had the erect bearing and self-assurance of the trained officer, and yet there was a thoughtfulness about him, a respect for the dignity of the human being, which inspired confidence.
