1.
Ranks of the People's Liberation Army Ground Force
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The Peoples Liberation Army has not always used ranks or insignia. In common with the practice of the Red Army at the time of its founding in 1927, as a result of the Cultural Revolution, ranks were abolished in May 1965. After the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, reforms in the PLA began to be made to professionalize the armed forces once more. The 1984 Military Service Law provided for the resumption of rank, but disagreements on what ranks were to be used, the following ranks and their respective insignia shown are those used by the Peoples Liberation Army Ground Force. The NCO insignia of that period showed Japanese influence with the use of stars on the collars with the specialty badge on the side, while general duties officers wore the shoulder board pattern shown below, technical service officers sported white and red shoulder boards with their rank insignia. The current system of ranks and insignia is a revision of the ranks and insignia established in 1955. The 1955-1965 marshal officer ranks of Yuánshuài and Dà Yuánshuài were not revived and this highest rank in the new system was never held and was abolished in 1994. The field officer and company officer ranks were the same in title, despite being the rank below Shaowei in both systems, the insignia have no similarities. Officer rank names are not translated literally, but rather to a corresponding rank system. This can lead to different translations being used depending on the chosen for the correspondences. For example, the translation used for the rank of Shàngjiàng depends on whether one is comparing it to Soviet or Russian ranks or to British or American ranks. The current system of enlisted ranks and insignia dates from 2009, comparative military ranks PLA Uniforms and Insignia Military ranks of the Peoples Liberation Army, on pre-2007 uniforms
2.
Hunan
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Hunan Province is the 7th most populous Province of China and the 10th most extensive by area. The name Hunan means south of Lake Dongting, a lake in the northeast of the province, vehicle license plates from Hunan are marked Xiang, after the Xiang River, which runs from south to north through Hunan and forms part of the largest drainage system for the province. Hunans primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and it entered the written history of China around 350 BC, when under the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, it became part of the State of Chu. After Qin conquered the Chu heartland in 278 BC, the region came under the control of Qin, the agricultural colonization of the lowlands was carried out in part by the Han state, which managed river dikes to protect farmland from floods. To this day many of the villages in Hunan are named after the Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties Periods, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, Hunan was home to its own independent regime, Ma Chu. Hunan and Hubei became a part of the province of Huguang until the Qing dynasty, Hunan province was created in 1664 from Huguang, renamed to its current name in 1723. Hunan became an important communications center due to its position on the Yangzi River and it was an important centre of scholarly activity and Confucian thought, particularly in the Yuelu Academy in Changsha. It was also on the Imperial Highway constructed between northern and southern China, the land produced grain so abundantly that it fed many parts of China with its surpluses. The population continued to climb until, by the century, Hunan became overcrowded. Some of the uprisings, such as the ten-year Miao Rebellion of 1795–1806, were caused by ethnic tensions, the Taiping Rebellion began in the south in Guangxi Province in 1850. The rebellion spread into Hunan and then further eastward along the Yangzi River valley, ultimately, it was a Hunanese army under Zeng Guofan who marched into Nanjing to put down the uprising in 1864. Hunan was relatively quiet until 1910 when there were uprisings against the crumbling Qing dynasty and it was led by Hunanese native Mao Zedong, and established a short-lived Hunan Soviet in 1927. The Communists maintained an army in the mountains along the Hunan-Jiangxi border until 1934. Under pressure from the Nationalist Kuomintang forces, they began the Long March to bases in Shaanxi Province, after the departure of the Communists, the KMT army fought against the Japanese in the second Sino-Japanese war. They defended the Changsha until it fell in 1944, japan launched Operation Ichigo, a plan to control the railroad from Wuchang to Guangzhou. Hunan was relatively unscathed by the war that followed the defeat of the Japanese in 1945. In 1949, the Communists returned once more as the Nationalists retreated southward, as Mao Zedongs home province, Hunan supported the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976
3.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
4.
Communist Party of China
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The Communist Party of China is the founding and ruling political party of the Peoples Republic of China. It was founded in 1921, chiefly by Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, the CPC is currently the worlds second largest political party with a membership of 88.76 million as of 2016. It also controls the worlds largest armed force, the Peoples Liberation Army, the highest body of the CPC is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. The partys leader holds the offices of General Secretary, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, through these posts the party leader is the countrys paramount leader. The current party leader is Xi Jinping, elected at the 18th National Congress, the CPC is still committed to communist thought and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties each year. The official explanation for Chinas economic reforms is that the country is in the stage of socialism. The planned economy established under Mao Zedong was replaced by the socialist market economy, the CPC has its origins in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, during which radical ideologies like Marxism and anarchism gained traction among Chinese intellectuals. Other influences stemming from the Bolshevik revolution and Marxist theory inspired the Communist Party of China, Li Dazhao was the first leading Chinese intellectual who publicly supported Leninism and world revolution. In contrast to Chen Duxiu, Li did not renounce participation in the affairs of the Republic of China, both of them regarded the October Revolution in Russia as groundbreaking, believing it to herald a new era for oppressed countries everywhere. The CPC was modeled on Vladimir Lenins theory of a vanguard party, Study circles were, according to Cai Hesen, the rudiments. Several study circles were established during the New Culture Movement, the founding National Congress of the CPC was held on 23–31 July 1921. With only 50 members in the beginning of 1921, the CPC organization, while it was originally planned to be held in Shanghai French Concession, police officers interrupted the meeting on 3 July. Because of that, the congress was moved to a tourist boat on South Lake in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, only 12 delegates attended the congress, with neither Li nor Chen being able to attend. Chen sent a representative to attend the congress. The resolutions of the called for the establishment of a communist party. The communists dominated the left wing of the KMT, a party organized on Leninist lines, when KMT leader Sun Yat-sen died in March 1925, he was succeeded by a rightist, Chiang Kai-shek, who initiated moves to marginalize the position of the communists. Fresh from the success of the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords, Chiang Kai-shek turned on the communists, ignoring the orders of the Wuhan-based KMT government, he marched on Shanghai, a city controlled by communist militias. Although the communists welcomed Chiangs arrival, he turned on them, Chiangs army then marched on Wuhan, but was prevented from taking the city by CPC General Ye Ting and his troops
5.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
6.
People's Liberation Army
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The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army is the armed forces of the Communist Party of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The PLA consists of five service branches, the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force. The PLA is the worlds largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,183,000 personnel. In September 2015, Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the PLAs insignia consists of a roundel with a red star bearing the Chinese characters for Eight One, referring to the Nanchang Uprising which began on August 1,1927. The PLA is under the command of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and its commander in chief is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The Ministry of National Defense, which operates under the State Council and this conception of the role of the PLA requires the promotion of specialised officers who can understand modern weaponry and handle combined arms operations. Units around the country are assigned to one of five Theater commands by geographical location, Military service is compulsory by law, however, compulsory military service in China has never been enforced due to large numbers of military and paramilitary personnel. In times of emergency, the Peoples Armed Police and the Peoples Liberation Army militia act as a reserve. They were then known as the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army, between 1934 and 1935, the Red Army survived several campaigns led against it by Chiang Kai-Shek and engaged in the Long March. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the Communist Party merged the Eighth Route Army and New Fourth Army and they eventually won the Chinese Civil War, establishing the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. The PLA then saw a reorganisation with the establishment of the Air Force leadership structure in November 1949 followed by the Navy leadership the following April. In 1950, the structures of the artillery, armoured troops, air defence troops, public security forces. The chemical warfare defence forces, the forces, the communications forces. During the 1950s, the PLA with Soviet assistance began to transform itself from a peasant army into a modern one, part of this process was the reorganisation that created thirteen military regions in 1955. The PLA also contained many former National Revolutionary Army units and generals who had defected to the PLA, Ma Hongbin and his son Ma Dunjing were the only two Muslim generals who led a Muslim unit, the 81st corps, to ever serve in the PLA. Han Youwen, a Salar Muslim general, also defected to the PLA, in November 1950, some units of the PLA under the name of the Peoples Volunteer Army intervened in the Korean War as United Nations forces under General Douglas MacArthur approached the Yalu River. Under the weight of offensive, Chinese forces drove MacArthurs forces out of North Korea and captured Seoul. The war also served as a catalyst for the modernisation of the PLAAF
People's Republic of China
People's Liberation Army
