Ye Ting
In the early 1930s Li joined General Xue Yue's staff, leading a crack Nationalist unit to drive the Communist forces out of the Jiangxi Soviet. Li then pursued the retreating Communist forces, chasing them over 1,000 miles, on foot, over the Long March. After the Communists had based themselves in northern China, Li devised battle plans which helped to defeat the famous Red Army commanders like He Long and Ye Ting, occupying of the territories the communists had previous controlled. By the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Li had been promoted to colonel.