Huaihai Campaign
A comrade of Lin Biao from their guerrilla days, Chen was a commander of the New Fourth Army during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), spearheaded the Shandong counter-offensive during the Chinese Civil War, and later commanded the Communist armies that defeated the KMT forces during the Huaihai Campaign and conquered the lower Yangtze region in 1948–49. He was made a Marshal of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1955.