Liu Chih (1892-), prominent Nationalist military commander. He served as governor of Honan from 1930 to 1935, reorganized troops .in Kiangsu, Anhwei, and Honan after the Sian Incident, commanded the Chungking garrison district from 1939 to 1945, and served as field commander for the Hwai-Hai battle in late 1948. In 1952 he joined the National Government in Taiwan. Born into a peasant family in Kian hsien, Kiangsi, Liu Chih received his early education at private schools in his native village. In the winter of 1905 he went to Japan to study, but he was forced to return to China after participating in a student strike. In 1907-10 he attended the Hunan Army Primary School, and in 1911 he entered the Wuchang Army Primary School. When the revolution began, the school suspended operations and the students were assigned to guard duty in Wuchang.

With the resumption of classes by the various military academies in July 1912, Liu Chih, who had been home to Kian and then had gone to Nanchang, entered the First Army Preparatory School at Chenghochen, near Peking. He and some of his schoolmates organized a secret society in support of the Kuomintang, and in the summer of 1913 they took leaves of absence from school so that they could participate in the so-called second revolution. However, the Peiyang forces of Yuan Shih-k'ai occupied Kiangsi and defeated the revolutionaries before the students reached the province. Liu returned to school, and he was graduated in June 1914. After spending about five months at Hsinminfu with the 39th Brigade of the 20th Division, he entered the Paoting Military Academy as a member of the second class, infantry division. In May 1916 Liu Chih, having completed his studies, went south to join the headquarters of Ts'en Ch'un-hsuan (q.v.) as a staff oflricer. Soon afterwards he became a company commander in the 13th Mixed Brigade, commanded by Chu Teh (q.v.), of the 7th Division of the Yunnan Army in Szechwan. In February 1918 he participated in the campaign against Lung Chi-kuang (q.v.) in southern Kwangtung. By January 1920 he had become a battalion commanderin the 1st Regiment of the Fourth Army for Reinforcement of Kiangsi. His unit moved in May to Fukien, where Ch'en Chiungming (q.v.) was building a base area, and became known as the Kiangsi Army. When Ch'en returned to Kwangtung in August to dislodge the Kwangsi warlords entrenched at Canton, Liu's unit was attached to the Second Army of Hsü Ch'ung-chih 'q.v.). The campaign ended with the occupation of Canton on 26 October.

In May 1921, after Sun Yat-sen assumed office as president extraordinary in the new military government at Canton, Ch'en Chiungming, who had become governor of Kwangtung, appointed Liu Chih a staff officer, with the rank of major, in the Kwangtung Army headquarters. Liu was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in June and w^as transferred to the Second Army as a staff officer. He led the vanguard troops of the Second Army into Kiangsi early in 1922. After Ch'en Chiungming's forces staged a coup at Canton on 16 June 1922, Liu's men moved back toward Canton, but they were defeated by the Kwangsi forces of Shen Hung-ying. Liu then went to Shanghai. When Hsü Ch'ung-chih became commander in chief of the East Route Anti-Rebel Army, Liu joined his headquarters as a staff officer. He later received command of the guard force.

Liu Chih continued to serve under Hsü Ch'ung-chih until the Whampoa Military Academy was established in 1924. He became an instructor, and then a section chief in the academy's headquarters. In the first eastern expedition against Ch'en Chiung-ming, in January 1925, he commanded the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Training Regiment. After the National Revolutionary Army was organized in the summer of 1925, he served successively as commander of the 1st Regiment, the 20th Division, and the 2nd Division of the First Army, then commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. During the Northern Expedition, Liu served under Ho Ying-ch'in (q.v.) and rose to become field commander of the First Route Army and a member of the Military Affairs Commission. In the military reorganization of January 1928 he became commander of the First Army Group of the First Group Army, which was commanded by Chiang Kai-shek, with Ho Ying-ch'in as chief of staff.

In August 1928, after the successful completion of the Northern Expedition, Liu Chih was appointed commander of the reorganized 1st Division and defense commander of Hsuchow- Haichow. At the Third National Congress of the Kuomintang, held in March 1929, he was elected to the party's Central Executive Committee. When the punitive expedition against the Kwangsi forces in the Wuhan area {see Li Tsung-jen) began, Liu assumed command of the Second Route Army and of the First Army of the punitive force. After the Kwangsi armies gave way in April, he became garrison commander of Wuhan and director of the second area for troop disbandment. In September, Chang Fa-k'uei (q.v.) announced his opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. Liu Chih marched to Ichang, Hupeh, to suppress Chang, but Chang moved into Hunan. Soon afterwards, Kuominchün {see Feng Yü-hsiang) generals in Honan, Shensi, and Kansu began to move against Chiang Kai-shek, and Liu Chih led the Second Route Army into battle on the Honan plain. In that operation, he served as field commander and as director of the Wuhan field headquarters. The campaign ended in November when the Kuominchün withdrew from Honan. Liu then joined other National Government troops in suppressing the rebellion of T'ang Sheng-chih (q.v.).

In March 1930 Liu Chih was transferred to the post of garrison commander of the Hsuchow- Pengpu sector. When the northern coalition of Feng Yti-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan (qq. v.) moved against Chiang Kai-shek in May, Liu became commander of the Second Army Group of Nanking's punitive force. He directed operations on the Lunghai and Tientsin-Pukow rail lines, effected the capture of Tsinan, and participated in the final battles on the Peiping- Hankow rail line. On 6 October 1930, Liu was named governor of Honan.

Liu Chih also became director of Chiang Kai-shek's Kaifeng headquarters in January 1931. He cooperated with Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) in quashing the rebellion of Shih Yü-san that summer. When the Kaifeng headquarters was abolished late in 1931, Liu became special pacification commissioner of Honan. The importance of Honan in the National Government's defense arrangements was such that Liu was also named to the State Council. Early in 1932 he helped expel the Communists from the Honan-Hupeh-Anhwei border area. He also campaigned against the Communists in eastern Kiangsi in the spring of 1933.

Late in 1935 Shang Chen (q.v.) succeeded Liu Chih as governor of Honan. Liu became pacification commissioner of both Honan and Anhwei, thus retaining th'e responsibility for the National Government's military authority in the Central Plains region. After the Sian Incident of December 1936 {see Chiang Kai-shek), he was appointed chairman of a commission established to reorganize troops in Kiangsu, Anhwei, and Honan.

When the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, Liu became commander in chief of the Second Army Group. In September, when hopes for a negotiated settlement had faded, he was named deputy commanding officer, under Chiang Kai-shek, of the First W'ar Area. As commander in chief of the Chinese Nationalist forces on the north China front, he was responsible for checking the Japanese advance southward along the Peiping-Hankow rail line. Although the Nationalists concentrated more than 100,000 troops in the Shihchiachuang sector, they failed to halt the enemy advance. In October, Liu also assumed the post of director of training for the First War Area. The Japanese drive continued until the end of May 1938, when the Nationalists diverted them from Chengchow by breaching the Yellow River dikes. Liu Chih became director of the Hunan- Hupeh-Szechwan-Kweichow border area and commander of the Fifth Reserve Army, with garrison station at Ichang, in the summer of 1938. When the Nationalist forces withdrew from Wuhan, he bore over-all responsibility for defensive action and the maintenance of order, reception and reorganization of troops, shipment of supplies, relief for refugees, and the defensive blocking of the river routes. In the spring of 1939 Liu Chih became commander in chief of the garrison district and air defense commander at the National Government's wartime capital of Chungking. He held those difficult posts until February 1945, when he was appointed commander of the Fifth War Area. At war's end, he accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in Honan. On 1 January 1946 Liu Chih was appointed director of the pacification headquarters at Chengchow, with jurisdiction over Honan and Shensi. His primary task was to deal with the Chinese Communist forces that had disrupted rail communications in central China. His troops were defeated by the forces of Liu Po-ch'eng (q.v.) along the Lunghai rail line, and in September Liu Chih was replaced by Ku Chu-t'ung (q.v.). Liu, who had received the rank of general, then became a member of the Strategy Advisory Commission at Nanking. In June 1948 he was given charge of the socalled bandit-suppression headquarters for east China at Hsuchow. In November, the massive Hwai-Hai battle, centered on Hsuchow, began. Liu Chih was field commander of the halfmillion Nationalist troops involved in that battle, and his Communist opponents were Ch'en Yi, Ch'en Keng fqq.v.), and Liu Poch'eng. By late November, Liu Chih had been forced to move his headquarters to Pengpu, and by early January the battle had ended in disaster for the Nationalists. Liu was relieved of command on 15 January 1949.

Liu Chih went to Hong Kong and later visited Indonesia. In November 1952 he joined the National Government in Taiwan. In 1955-56 he held the post of national security adviser in the headquarters of Chiang Kai-shek. In 1961 his autobiography was published in mimeographed form in Taipei, and in 1962 an article, "Tzu yu t'an" [memoirs of an old soldier] was published, also in Taipei. g