蔣緯國
Wei was born in Donglan, Guangxi, to a poor Zhuang minority family. He joined the Chinese Red Army at the age of 16 (1929) and the CPC in 1931. He rose to the rank of battalion commander in the Seventh Army under Deng Xiaoping and was a regimental commander on the Long March. After the Long March he served in the 344th Brigade, and then marched south under Huang Kecheng's 5th Column in January 1940. By 1944, he commanded the 4th Division of the New Fourth Army, and later three columns (the 2nd, 10th and 12th) of the North Jiangsu Army in the Huai-Hai Campaign. In 1948, Wei held off the Nationalist 2nd Army Corps of Qiu Qingquan and 100 tanks of the 5th Corps under the command of Jiang Weiguo (Chiang Wei-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son) in a decisive delaying action in the Huai-Hai Campaign. In 1949, Wei was deputy political commissar of General Ye Fei's Tenth Army Group of the Third Field Army.