Nie was the cosmopolitan and well-educated son of a wealthy Sichuanese family. In 1920 Nie joined the group of Chinese students in France, where he studied engineering and became a protégé of Zhou Enlai. A graduate of the Soviet Red Army Military College and Whampoa Academy, Nie spent his early career as a political officer in the Red Army, but in the late 1930s he was given field command close to Yen Hsi-shan's Shanxi stronghold. In the Chinese Civil War he commanded the North China Army Group that defeated Fu Tso-yi's forces near Beijing. Nie was made a Marshal of the PLA in 1955 and ran the Chinese Nuclear Weapons program.
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