At the end of the Liberation War, the strength of our army surged sharply, and the total number of troops exceeded 4 million after the three major battles in 1949, and at this time, the regularization of the army needed to be promoted in order to manage so many combat troops. In order to meet the needs of the next operation, the Central Military Commission organized a large-scale military reform, and set up a formal tactical unit of the field corps throughout the army, with the noshi under the jurisdiction of the corps and the corps commanding the various armies. The commanders of each corps were all senior generals of our army who had experienced hundreds of battles, and together with the 3 former Kuomintang corps that revolted not long ago, there were 19 corps in the whole army in 1949. Which of the 19 corps commanders was the youngest?
The youngest corps commander and a very young founding general when he was awarded the rank in 1955. This person was General Chen Xilian, who was then the commander of the 3rd Corps of the Second Field Army. In 1955, Chen Xilian was only 40 years old when he was named general, only one year older than General Xiao Hua of Siye. Chen Xilian, who joined the Red Army in 1929, was developed into a party member the following year because of his excellent combat and ideological progress, and gradually grew into a divisional political commissar in the Red Fourth Front, and participated in the Long March.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Xilian successively served as regimental commander, brigade commander, and commander of a military sub-district in the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and his military command ability improved significantly. In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, the situation of the Chinese army was unfavorable and it was difficult to resist the Japanese offensive. The Eighth Route Army creatively attacked Yangmingbao Airfield at night, which dealt a major blow to the enemy, destroying 24 Japanese fighters, and the military and people of the whole country looked at the Eighth Route Army with astonishment. This battle is a famous example of the battle commanded by General Chen Xilian when he was the commander of the regiment, and in 1940 he led his troops to participate in the Battle of the Hundred Regiments, which greatly killed and shocked the Japanese army. Chen Xilian was one of the generals of the Eighth Route Army with the best record in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, he became the commander of the 3rd Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army (the predecessor of Erye).
During the Liberation War, Chen Xilian commanded the troops to participate in many important battles, such as the Dabie Mountain Operation, the second phase of the Huaihai Campaign, the Battle of Crossing the River, and the liberation of the southwest. He was promoted from commander of the column to commander of the 3rd Corps of the Second Field Army (with jurisdiction over the 10th, 11th, and 12th Armies) commanding 3 corps. The capture of Su County and the encirclement and annihilation of Huang Wei's corps all had the command of Chen Xilian. When he became commander of the corps in 1949, Chen Xilian had just turned 34 years old, younger than the commander of any of the fraternal corps of the field armies.
In 1955, Chen Xilian was awarded the rank of general in the army. A senior general like Chen Xilian, who was rich and powerful and had outstanding military qualities, was used more than ever after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Chen Xilian served as the commander of the artillery of the People's Liberation Army, and at the same time, he was also the youngest commander of our army at that time, and made great contributions to the construction of artillery in our country in the era when artillery was supreme in war. After that, General Chen successively served as commander of the Beijing Military Region and vice premier of the State Council, became a cadre at the vice state level, and continued to devote himself to the construction of new China. In the 1970s, General Chen Xilian was once entrusted by the chairman to preside over the work of the Central Military Commission for a period of time.
In 1999, General Chen Lao died in Beijing due to illness at the age of 85. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Chen Zaifang, the son of General Chen Xilian, is also a general, who became a lieutenant general of the People's Liberation Army in 2011 and played an important role in the equipment construction and improvement of our army.
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