He took part in the Korean War in the early 1950s. After the war he was sent to Shanghai to work in a factory. There he met Zhang Chunqiao and became involved in a Red Guards group. He organized the Shanghai Commune in January 1967. In 1969 he was elected to the Central Committee. In 1973 he joined the Permanent Committee and became deputy-president of the Party.
He was arrested in October 1976 and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He died of liver cancer in a Beijing hospital in 1992.