Zhang Shigong

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During the Chinese Civil War, he was promoted to director of the Political Department of the New Fourth Brigade in 1948 for his actions at the operation for safeguarding Yan'an led by Peng Dehuai in Shaanxi. He also engaged in several important battles including the Battle of Qinghuabian (青化砭战役), the Battle of Yangmahe (杨马河战役), the Battle of Changjiagaoshan (常家高山战役), the Battle of Wayaobu (瓦窑堡战役), and the Battle of Wazijie (瓦子街战役). In the battle of Wazijie, his troops captured the Kuomintang chief commander Liu Zhengshi (刘正世) alive and forced the division commander Liu Kan (刘戡) to commit suicide. In August 1948, he was badly wounded in the Battle of Liberating Lanzhou. When he was fully recovered, he was given the position of deputy director of the Political Department of the New Fourth Brigade and marched to Xinjiang with the brigade.^{[citation needed]}

After the establishment of the Communist State in 1949, he was appointed party secretary of Dihua (now Ürümqi). It would be his first job as "first-in-charge" of a city. In 1952, he became political commissar of the Sixth Army. In October 1956, he was appointed first secretary of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, the top political position in the prefecture. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out, he was brought to be persecuted and suffered political persecution. In August 1970, he was reinstated as party secretary of Xinjiang, a position he held until July 1972. In 1978, he took office as vice chairman of the Xinjiang Regional Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, two years later, he was promoted to become chairman, serving in the post until his resignation in 1981.^[2]

On 23 September 1992, he died in Ürümqi, aged 85.^{[citation needed]}