Ye Jianying 葉劍英

As one the Ten Marshals of China, Ye Jianying was born on April 28 in 1897 in Guangdong province. In 1919, Ye graduated from the Yunnan Military Academy and later joined the Kuomintang and followed Sun Yat-sen. He then joined the Communist Party in 1927 and participated in the Nanchang Uprising.

Mao Zedong once used two important officials in China to describe Ye, one is Zhuge Liang, a famous strategist and ancient scholar from the Tree Kingdoms (220-280), the other Lv Duan, an outstanding prime minister from the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

新中國開國十大元帥之一，葉劍英1897年出生在廣東。1927年加入中國共產黨并參加了南昌起義。毛澤東曾把葉劍英比喻成諸葛亮和呂端。

Young Ye Jianying (left), Ye in 1949. [Photo/IC; File photo]

左：年輕的葉劍英；右：1949年的葉劍英