Early Life and Career
Born to a Hakka peasant family in Guangdong, Xue joined the army in 1914, at the age of 18. When Chiang Kai-shek formed the Whampoa Military Academy years later, Xue was one of the members of the first graduating class. He was one of the most effective nationalist commanders of the Northern Expedition, and was promoted to command the 4th army after the April 12 Incident. During the first stage of the Chinese Civil War, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek ordered General Xue to lead the Cantonese First Army to attack the Chinese communists during the Fifth Encirclement Campaign against Jiangxi Soviet, forcing them to start the Long March and his forces chased the retreating communists all the way to Sichuan and Guizhou, until the communist forces retreated across the great swamplands and finally escaped to Shaanxi Province. He then turned his forces around and marched unstopped to Central China and defeated the famed Red Army commanders like He Long and Ye Ting of the communist area which they controlled and forced out of these strong holds. For these accomplishments, Chiang Kai-shek hailed him as "a true example of a Chinese officer".
Read more about this topic: Xue Yue
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)