Yeh Chien-ying

Background

Yeh, a Hakka, was born in a village in Mei-hsien in eastern Kwangtung, some 70 miles north of Swatow. This bsien was the scene of considerable guerrilla warfare from the twenties through the forties.

Education

Reared in a merchant’s family, Yeh studied in a Cantonese primary school and graduated in 1919 from the 12th class of the well-known Yunnan Military Academy, an institute attended by Chu Te several years earlier. From Yunnan Yeh went to Fukien where he joined the army of Chэen Chiung-ming, a prominent military leader and one of Sun Yat-sen's opponents. However, not long afterwards, Yeh left Ch'en and went to Canton to work with Sun and the KMT. In an interview with American author Edgar Snow in 1936, Yeh claimed that after the Sun-Joffe agreement (January 1923) he joined the CCP, but this conflicts with an official biography of Yeh issued in 1955, which dates his Party membership from 1927. In any event, with the opening of Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 under the presidency of Chiang Kai-shek, Yeh became an instructor there. The importance the CCP attaches to Yeh's work at Whampoa is evident from an authoritative Communist-published history (1958), which states: Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying and other Communists held leading posts in the academy.”

Career

He worked under Galen (Bliicher), a Soviet general who trained Chinese at Whampoa, and according to other reports he also served for a time as an assistant to KMT General Ho Ying- ch’in the dean of Whampoa. In the 1925-26 period he served first as chief-of-staff of the 21st Division of Ho's First National Revolutionary Army and then as division commander. During this same period he also took part, as commander of a Whampoa cadets’ training regiment, in campaigns against Ch’en Chiung-ming.

During the year 1926 Yeh joined the Nationalist Fourth Army, which was commanded first by Li Chi-shen and then by Chang Fa-k'uei. It was Chang who led this major Nationalist force in the Northern Expedition. Yeh served as chief-of-staff of the Army's 12th Division, and as the Northern Expedition got underway in mid-1926 he took charge of the Cadets Special Training Regiment from Whampoa, which was incorporated within it. When the army captured Wuchang in October 1926 the important industrial Wuhan area fell to the Nationalists and the seat of their government was soon moved there from Canton. At Wuhan the Nationalists also established a branch of their Whampoa Military Academy (see under Yun Tai-ying). The Fourth Army was redesignated the Second Front Army by the time it had taken over Wuhan, and an important unit of this Nationalist force, the 24th Division, was under the command of Communist Yeh T’ing, who had the trust of his superior, Chang Fa-kauei. Yeh Chien-ying was chief-of-staff of the 24th Division and may also have been chief-of-staff of the entire Fourth (and later the Second) Front Army, as some reports assert.

In the summer of 1927, as relations between the Communists and the KMT were deteriorating, Chang TFa-k’uei moved his military headquarters to Kiukiang (Chiu-chiang) in Kiangsi not far north of the provincial capital at Nanchang, where Chu Te’s Special Training Regiment acted as a garrison force. Thus, the 24th Division was moved to the outskirts of Nanchang about the end of July. Previously, on July 18, Yeh Chien-ying had attended a secret meeting of Communist leaders and sympathizers, held at a small village near the capital. According to Chu Te, who was also there, this was the initial planning meeting for the Nanchang Uprising on August 1. At the secret July meeting Yeh Chien-ying was among those chosen for membership on the Front-line Committee that was to make final plans for the uprising, and he seems to have been with the troops of his 24th Division when they participated in the coup.

Information about the next phase of Yeh's career is drawn largely from the account Ch’eng Tzu-hua gave journalist Nym Wales in 1937. Ch’eng and another Communist, Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien, belonged to the Wuhan Whampoa Special Cadet’s Training Regiment, which went over to the Communists after the Nanchang Uprising. The regiment was not able to join the Communist insurgents at Nanchang, it was moved to Kiukiang on August 4, and Chang Fa-k’uei, who now became suspicious of the Communist sympathizers in his Second Front Army, disarmed it. However, the unit managed to hold together and fight other battles for the Communists. Although documentation is lacking, it is possible that the regiment managed to survive under the leadership of Yeh Chien-ying, who did not accompany the major Communist forces, which escaped from Nanchang and made their way south to Swatow (see under Yeh T'ing). After the Communist defeat at Swatow in late September (the month in which the official biography of Yeh Chien-ying states that he joined the CCP), Yeh Ting accompanied Chou En-lai to Hong Kong. According to the Agnes Smedley biography of Chu Te, Chou and Yeh T’ing were accompanied from Swatow to Hong Kong by Yeh Chien-ying, but this must be viewed with caution as Chu Te's report was based on hearsay. It would appear more likely that Yeh Chien-ying remained with the Training Regiment that spearheaded the Communist insurrection at Canton in December, where it finally joined forces with the other Red military units that had escaped from Nanchang. In any event, Yeh participated in the Canton insurrection as head of the Training Regiment and he was also one of the planners for this uprising, as he had been at Nanchang. In the brief interval that the Communists held the city he was deputy commander of the Red military force created by the short-lived Communist government for Canton. Then, when the Communists were driven out by Chang Fa-k’uei and other Nationalist military leaders, Yeh fled to Hong Kong where he arrived about mid-December.

By mid-1939 Yeh was working with Chou En-lai in the Communist liaison mission at Chungking, the wartime capital. Jurisdictional disputes and armed clashes between Communist and Nationalist forces had by this time grown to rather serious proportions. Accordingly, as Chiang Kai-shek has written, he usent for” Chou and Yeh to “caution” them and warn them that they “must obey” Nationalist government orders. But the disputes continued and then in July 1940 the Chungking authorities worked out an arrangement with Chou and Yeh to avoid further clashes. These events, according to Chiang Kai-shek, were a prelude to the far more serious New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941 (see under Yeh Ting). By this time Yeh had, it seems, returned to Yenan where he resumed his post as chief-of-staff of the Eighth Route Army, a position he had nominally held during the early war years. Because he was engaged in staff work, rather little was reported about his activities for the balance of the war. However, during this period he wrote a useful summary of the Communist military operations and in June 1944 he presented an even more useful military summary in a briefing given to foreign and Chinese correspondents in Yenan. Commenting on Yeh's wartime liaison duties, Edgar Snow has noted that he became acquainted with many foreign journalists and diplomats, and because Chou En-lai was basically a political general, he relied heavily on Yeh’s military knowledge and ability to analyze military situations. He was highly regarded for his sound strategic concepts by both Mao and Chou.

For a brief time in 1949 Yeh also headed the newly established North China Military and Political Academy (Hua-pei chiin-cheng ta-hsueh), but then in early September he turned over his key posts in Peking to Nieh Jung-chen and went south to join the PLA forces, which had by now reached Kwangtung and would soon enter its capital, Canton. In the military sphere he became commander and political commissar of both the Kwangtung Military District and the high-level South China Military Region (responsible for both Kwangtung and Kwangsi), posts he held until 1952. In the civil administration he became mayor of Canton, chairman of the city’s Military Control Commission, and the Kwangtung governor. Completing his domination of virtually all the key jobs in Kwangtung and south China, Yeh also assumed the ranking secretarial posts in the Party's South China Subbureau and the Canton Committee, and he even became chairman of the Canton branch of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association. The choice of Yeh as the top Communist official in Kwangtung clearly resulted from the facts that he was one of the very few top-level CCP members native to the area (although he had not worked in Kwangtung for over 20 years) and that he could speak both Cantonese and the Hakka dialect. Moreover, from the point of view of the “local” (Kwangtung) cadres, he was a good selection, he was highly regarded by these “local” cadres, who formed the backbone of the leadership in Kwangtung in the early days of PRC rule there.

Soon after the government was reorganized, the central organs within the PLA were also reorganized and their personnel reshuffled. Yeh now became (November 1954) director of the Armed Forces Supervision Department, the approximate equivalent of an inspector-general in Western military establishments. The department is seldom mentioned in the Chinese press, and therefore it is not certain that Yeh still presides over it. Less than a year later (September 1955), Yeh’s impressive career as a military leader was given full recognition when he was made a PLA marshal and awarded the Orders of August First, Independence and Freedom, and Liberation, decorations covering the period from 1927 to 1950. Although a large number of men received the three orders, only nine others were made marshals, the top rank in the PLA. Then, when the CCP held its Eighth National Congress in September 1956, he was re-elected a member of the Central Committee.

Since transferring to Peking in 1954, Yeh has frequently spoken on national military policies policies that were changing in the mid-fifties as the Communists were readjusting their tactical and strategic concepts, theretofore mainly oriented toward guerrilla warfare. Though it is difficult to discern the attitudes of Chinese military leaders from their public utterances (which tend to shift with the Party line), Yeh appears to be a rather strong advocate of the need to utilize modern weaponry, including, if necessary, the purchase of sophisticated weapons from abroad. He has, however, also criticized those who indiscriminately attempt to incorporate foreign experience into Chinese military doctrine. He was perhaps most explicit in urging the utilization of science to advance Chinese military strength in an address made at the inauguration of the Academy of Military Sciences in Peking. Yeh has served as academy president and political commissar since its establishment in March 1958.

Politics

Information about the next phase of Yeh's career is drawn largely from the account Ch’eng Tzu-hua gave journalist Nym Wales in 1937. Ch’eng and another Communist, Hsu Hsiang-ch’ien, belonged to the Wuhan Whampoa Special Cadet’s Training Regiment, which went over to the Communists after the Nanchang Uprising. The regiment was not able to join the Communist insurgents at Nanchang, it was moved to Kiukiang on August 4, and Chang Fa-k’uei, who now became suspicious of the Communist sympathizers in his Second Front Army, disarmed it. However, the unit managed to hold together and fight other battles for the Communists. Although documentation is lacking, it is possible that the regiment managed to survive under the leadership of Yeh Chien-ying, who did not accompany the major Communist forces, which escaped from Nanchang and made their way south to Swatow (see under Yeh T'ing). After the Communist defeat at Swatow in late September (the month in which the official biography of Yeh Chien-ying states that he joined the CCP), Yeh Ting accompanied Chou En-lai to Hong Kong. According to the Agnes Smedley biography of Chu Te, Chou and Yeh T’ing were accompanied from Swatow to Hong Kong by Yeh Chien-ying, but this must be viewed with caution as Chu Te's report was based on hearsay. It would appear more likely that Yeh Chien-ying remained with the Training Regiment that spearheaded the Communist insurrection at Canton in December, where it finally joined forces with the other Red military units that had escaped from Nanchang. In any event, Yeh participated in the Canton insurrection as head of the Training Regiment and he was also one of the planners for this uprising, as he had been at Nanchang. In the brief interval that the Communists held the city he was deputy commander of the Red military force created by the short-lived Communist government for Canton. Then, when the Communists were driven out by Chang Fa-k’uei and other Nationalist military leaders, Yeh fled to Hong Kong where he arrived about mid-December.

By mid-1939 Yeh was working with Chou En-lai in the Communist liaison mission at Chungking, the wartime capital. Jurisdictional disputes and armed clashes between Communist and Nationalist forces had by this time grown to rather serious proportions. Accordingly, as Chiang Kai-shek has written, he usent for Chou and Yeh to “caution” them and warn them that they “must obey” Nationalist government orders. But the disputes continued and then in July 1940 the Chungking authorities worked out an arrangement with Chou and Yeh to avoid further clashes. These events, according to Chiang Kai-shek, were a prelude to the far more serious New Fourth Army Incident of January 1941 (see under Yeh Ting). By this time Yeh had, it seems, returned to Yenan where he resumed his post as chief-of-staff of the Eighth Route Army, a position he had nominally held during the early war years. Because he was engaged in staff work, rather little was reported about his activities for the balance of the war. However, during this period he wrote a useful summary of the Communist military operations and in June 1944 he presented an even more useful military summary in a briefing given to foreign and Chinese correspondents in Yenan. Commenting on Yeh's wartime liaison duties, Edgar Snow has noted that he became acquainted with many foreign journalists and diplomats, and because Chou En-lai was basically a political general, he relied heavily on Yeh’s military knowledge and ability to analyze military situations. He was highly regarded for his sound strategic concepts by both Mao and Chou.

Apart from his Kwangtung-south China posts, Yeh was also made a vice-chairman of the Communists' Central-South Military and Administrative Committee (CSMAC), established in Wuhan in February 1950 to rule over Honan, Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Kwangtung, and Kwangsi. Here he served under Lin Piao, and when the CSMAC was reorganized in January 1953 into the Central-South Administrative Committee he was again made a vice-chairman, remaining so until regional administrations were abolished in 1954. In the meantime, just as Yeh was leaving Peking for the south, the new central government was being organized at the initial session of the CPPCC in September 1949. (Yeh was a PLA delegate to the CPPCC, but he did not attend the first CPPCC session.) In October 1949 he was named to membership on two of the national government’s most important organs, the Central People’s Government Council (CPGC) and the People's Revolutionary Military Council, both of which were headed by Mao Tse-tung; he also became a member of the government’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. Yeh held all three of these positions until the government was reorganized in the fall of 1954,

To a large degree Yeh’s posts in Peking were largely nominal, because he remained in south China for most of the early years of the PRC. For example, the CPGC held 34 meetings between 1949 and 1954, but Yeh is known to have attended only four of them. His most important report to the central authorities seems to have been one made at the third session of the CPPCC in October 1951, when he reviewed the achievements in land reform and the suppression of “counterrevolutionaries” in south China. In the years from 1949 to about mid-1952, Yeh was almost invariably the keynote speaker at the innumerable meetings of the CCP and governmental organs that ruled Kwangtung and south China. He also assumed new assignments. In 1950 he became president of Nan-fang (South China) University in Canton and chairman of the Kwangtung Governments Finance and Economic Committee, and in 1951 he assumed the presidency of the Canton branch of the PLA’s Central-South Military and Political Academy (Chung-nan chiin-cheng ta-hsueh). Also, in the latter part of 1951 he became secretary of the newly established Kwangtung CCP Committee. However, with the exception of the last-named post, these new positions were probably peripheral to his many other responsibilities.

Connections

In 1936 Yeh married Wei Kung-chih, one of the few women who survived the Long March. A CCP member since 1927, she studied in France and then received special training in Moscow in dramatics. After her return home she helped organize dramatic groups and the Gorky Drama School in Kiangsi. After the Long March she continued in this line of work as head of the “Anti-Japanese Dramatics Society” in Yenan, but nothing is known of her career after that. As of 1947 the Yeh’s had two sons and two daughters. Yeh is also said to have been married to Tseng Hsien-chih, who was trained in Japan and who has been active in the National Women's Federation since 1949. There have been many reports from the non-Communist press in Hong Kong that Yeh has close family connections with persons living in Hong Kong and Macao, but none of these has been verified.

China:

Wei Kung-chih