The battle between Wei Guoqing and Chen Manyuan has been a controversial topic for a long time. However, I think this claim is pure rumor. First of all, Wei Guoqing and Chen Manyuan are both from Guangxi, from Donglan and Mengshan respectively, both of them participated in the Baise Uprising and are old comrades-in-arms of the Red Seventh Army. Chen Manyuan was two years older than Wei Guoqing, born in 1911, while Wei Guoqing was born in 1913. In the Red Seventh Army, Chen Manyuan served as a battalion-level cadre, while Wei Guoqing did not become a company-level cadre until he joined the ** Soviet District. With the progress of the Long March and the establishment of the Eighth Route Army, Chen Manyuan became the chief of staff of the 344 Brigade, while Wei Guoqing has been leading the school. Throughout the Sino-Japanese War, Chen Manyuan frequently engaged in staff work, while Wei Guoqing went to the New Fourth Army as a brigade commander and deputy division commander. Wei Guoqing, as a political general, is more comprehensive, he is a general with both military and political skills. Since then, Wei Guoqing has begun to surpass Chen Manyuan. In the later stages of the Liberation War, Wei Guoqing served as the political commissar of the 10th Corps, while Chen Manyuan was the deputy commander of the 18th Corps. In terms of military rank, Wei Guoqing's status is higher. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chen Manyuan and Wei Guoqing, two Guangxi natives, both returned to Guangxi to engage in local work.
According to the standards for awarding titles at the time, people engaged in local work did not participate in the awarding of military ranks, but Wei Guoqing's situation was different. He was sent to Vietnam as the head of the military advisory group to assist the Vietnamese people in resisting foreign aggression. At the same time, Wei Guoqing also served as the deputy commander of the public security forces, and although he did not have a real shift, he was fully qualified as a general as a deputy commander. The reason why Wei Guoqing was able to be rated as a general is related to the recommendation of Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh had good relations with Chinese state leaders, and Wei Guoqing provided important help to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, so Ho Chi Minh considered him a rare general and naturally recommended him for the rank of general. In 1955, when the title was conferred, the two marshals of *** and *** were responsible for formulating the military ranks, and the candidates for the generals included Wei Guoqing and three Guangxi people, all of whom were from the Red Seventh Army. The list of generals selected by the Red Seventh Army did not include Chen Manyuan's name. This is because Chen Manyuan has left the army and held major leadership positions in Guangxi, including deputy secretary and first secretary of the provincial party committee, so he does not appear in the list of titles. Although Mo Wenhua and Wei Guoqing are both political commissars of the Corps, and Li Tianyou is only the deputy commander of the Corps, it seems unlikely that Li Tianyou will be assessed as a general.
However, due to Li Tianyou's extremely high prestige, as the first commander of the ace 38th Army, he was once a tiger general in the northeast, so he was inevitably rated as a general (Wei Guoqing and Ho Chi Minh, etc.). Wei Guoqing was the political commissar of the 10th Corps, concurrently served as the deputy commander of the Public Security Army, and also made military contributions to Vietnam's resistance to France, and was recommended by President Ho Chi Minh, so he was naturally awarded the rank of general. In contrast, Mo Wenhua's regret is greater, he served as the political commissar of the 14th Corps and the 13th Corps successively, the rank is higher than Li Tianyou, and the same level as Wei Guoqing, it stands to reason that he should also be rated as a general, but in the end he was only rated as a lieutenant general. Initially, the number of founding generals was limited to 55, but later it was increased by two. Due to the large number of candidates, the number of places is limited after all. If you insist on saying who was "squeezed out", it should be Mo Wenhua, not Chen Manyuan. The Red Seventh Army only rated two founding generals, Li Tianyou and Wei Guoqing, both of whom had remarkable achievements. Li Tianyou served as acting commander and deputy chief of the general staff of the Guangzhou Military Region, while Wei Guoqing served as the first political commissar of the Guangzhou Military Region and the first secretary of the two Guangxi Military Regions.
Chen Manyuan later served as the deputy minister of the Ministry of Agricultural Reclamation and the dean of the Logistics College, and relatively speaking, his achievements were not as good as Li Tianyou and Wei Guoqing. (Reference books: "Biography of Senior Generals", "Founding General Wei Guoqing").