Tang Shengzhi
During the Battle of Nanking in December 1937, he and his troops were surrounded by nearly a quarter million Japanese troops. Sun's superior, Tang Shengzhi, fled the city without giving his commanders any clear instructions on a possible breakout. Sun was forced to abandon his post during the ensuing chaos and escape from Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek reluctantly suspended him for two month and Sun did not receive another command until 1939. In 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army under Hata Shunroku launched Operation Ichigo, the largest military offensive against the nationalist government since the Battle of Wuhan, most of China's best troops were in Yunnan and Burma, and over half million Japanese soldiers attacked major railroad links and large cities, and the vanguard of the Japanese Eleventh Army were only 150 miles from Chungking itself. Chiang Kai-shek dispatched nine hundred men of Sun's 29th corps to the south of Chungking and they drove away the two regiments of the Japanese 3rd Infantry Division despite complete numerical and technological inferiority. Sun was promoted to General and commander of the 16th army. Chiang personally bestowed the Order of Blue Sky and White Sun upon him.