Du Yuming
General Li was a member of the first graduate class of the Whampoa Military Academy. His classmate was General Du Yuming. During the Northern Expedition, he was promoted from platoon leader to regimental colonel in the first corps of the National Revolutionary Army. When the NRA reorganized itself in 1928, he was named as deputy commander of the second Division, and in 1931 he was placed in charge of the garrison brigade of the NRA general headquarters and participated in the anti-communist Encirclement Campaigns.