Su Yu Su Yu ( ) ( August 10 , 1907 – February 5 , 1984 ) was a Chinese Communist military leader . He was considered by Chinese Communist Leader Mao Zedong to be among the best commanders of the PLA only next to Lin Biao and Liu Bocheng . Su Yu fought in the Second Sino - Japanese War and in the Chinese Civil War . He commanded the East China Field Army ( renamed 3rd Field Army in 1949 ) during the Chinese Civil War . Early life . Su Yu was born in Huitong County in Hunan on August 10 , 1907 to an ethnic Dong ( 侗族 ) family , but he considered himself a Han ( 汉族 ) ; he was the 3rd child among six siblings . Su ' s father was Su Zhouheng ( 粟周亨 ) , his mother was Liang Manmei ( 梁满妹 ) , and the family depended on the 30 mu of inherited farmland for survival . By the age of 18 , Su Yu entered the Hunan Provincial 2nd Normal School at Changde for his post - secondary education . Encirclement Campaigns and the Long March . In 1926 , he joined the Communist Youth League of China , and in 1927 joined the Communist Party of China . He took part of the Northern Expedition and later the Nanchang Uprising . He emerged as one of the ablest guerrilla commanders in the Jiangxi Soviet during the 1930s . He did not join The Long March because he was tasked to fight against the nationalist troops for a delaying action , and stayed in the South of Zhejiang until 1937 . Second Sino - Japanese War . In the Second Sino - Japanese War , he won the Cheqiao Campaign against the Japanese Army . After this , he had some other campaigns in Central Jiangsu . He was also responsible for expanding communist power bases in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces by attacking nationalist - controlled cities ; the nationalist forces under General Gu Zhutong retaliated by wiping out a large segment of communist troops in the New Fourth Army Incident , which marked the end of the united front . Chinese Civil War . The successes of the battle persuaded Mao Zedong to change his military strategy of the Chinese Civil War , from traditional guerrilla style warfare to a more mobile and conventional approach . In July 1946 , he led 30 , 000 communist troops which triumphed over 120 , 000 American - armed nationalist troops in seven different engagements , captured and killed 53 , 000 Kuomingtang soldiers and stunned the country . The Central Jiangsu Campaign was the first of many of the brilliant campaigns that defined his legacy . He was also the commander of the PLA in the famous and much propagandized Menglianggu Campaign . In this campaign , the elite Nationalist Seventy - Fourth division was completely destroyed after Su Yu succeeded in encircling the unit . He was the major commander during the Huaihai Campaign ( 淮海战役 , November 1948 to January 1949 ) . It was at his suggestion on January 22 , 1948 that the two armies of Liu and Su followed a sudden - concentrate , sudden - disperse strategy that led to this decisive victory in late 1948 , with the destruction of five Nationalist armies and the killing or capture of 550 , 000 Nationalist soldiers . Su ' s army alone destroyed 4 nationalist armies , and was the decisive force in destroying the fifth . After the Establishment of the PRC . When the Korean War broke out in 1950 , it was rumored that Su Yu was the commander that Mao wanted to lead the Chinese Volunteer Army into Korea , because of his experience of commanding a large number of troops . However , because of his illness ( caused by shell fragments in the 1930s ) , neither Su nor Lin Biao ( also rumored to be sick ) was able to command the CVA . In the end , Peng Dehuai was selected , after Lin refused to lead the army . He was made a Senior General ( General of the Army ) in 1955 . He served in numerous positions , including the Chief of the General Staff of the PLA in the 1950s . When he was old , he wrote a book called 《 The Memoirs of Su Yu 》 ( 《 粟裕回忆录 》 ) . He died in Beijing on February 5 , 1984 at the age of 77 . Family . Su Yu married Chu Qing ( 楚青 ) on February 1941 . They had three children , all of whom were sent to join the PLA by Su Yu . The eldest son Su Rongsheng ( 粟戎生 ) was born in 1942 , followed by the second son Su Hansheng ( 粟寒生 ) , and the youngest , a daughter Su Huining ( 粟惠宁 ) , who married Chen Xiaolu ( 陈小鲁 ) in August 1975 . Chen Xiaolu ( 陈小鲁 ) was the youngest son of Chen Yi who was Su Yu ' s direct superior during war time . According to Su Rongsheng , Su Yu was an extremely strict father . When Su Rongsheng was only three years old , Su Yu forced him to learn how to swim by giving him only a piece of bamboo as a float , and pushed him into the water in front of his mother , and prohibited anyone from attempting to save Su Rongsheng . Su Yu ' s wife , Chu Qing was outraged and asked Su Yu angrily whether he was not worried about Su Rongsheng being drowned . But Su Yu answered that Su Rongsheng would have never learned how to swim any other way and besides , he was not being drowned . At age of 20 , Su Rongsheng joined the PLA and remained in service for 45 years , rising from an ordinary soldier to a lieutenant general when he retired as the deputy commander - in - chief of Beijing Military District at age 65 .