Lü Zhengcao

Lü Zhengcao (simplified Chinese: 吕正操; traditional Chinese: 呂正操; pinyin: Lǚ Zhèngcāo) (4 January 1904– 13 October 2009) was a Chinese military officer. He was one of the original Shang Jiang of the People's Liberation Army.

Lü was born in Haicheng, in the province of Liaoning. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1937. He fought in China's war against Japan 1937–1945 as well as the civil war against the Kuomintang 1945–1949.

Before he joined the Communists, Lü worked as an assistant to the Kuomintang general, Zhang Xueliang. It was in this role that he was a witness to the Xi'an Incident, whereby Zhang and his fellow general, Yang Hucheng, forced the then-Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek to suspend the civil war with the Communists in 1936 in order and join forces against the Japanese.

Lü resigned from the Kuomintang in 1937 and joined the Communist Party. He then commanded a military force that fought the Japanese army in northern China.

Following the Communist victory of 1949, Lü served as a senior military leader of the PRC. He was appointed as a Shang Jiang (general) in 1955 following the re-establishment of rank.

In 1985, to support the return of the critically endangered Père David's deer to China, Lü Zhengcao helped found and chair the China Milu Foundation, now known as the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation.

On 13 October 2009, Lü died in Beijing at the age of 104 by Western age reckoning, or at the age of 105 by the traditional age system. At the time of his death, he was the last survivor of the original generals of the People's Liberation Army.