He was born in Lezhi, near Chengdu, Sichuan, into a moderately wealthy magistrate's family. A comrade of Lin Biao from their guerilla days, Chen was a commander of the New Fourth Army during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), spearheaded the Shandong counter-offensive during the Chinese Civil War, and later commanded the Communist armies that defeated the KMT forces at Huai-Hai and conquered the lower Yangtze region in 1948-49. He was made a Marshal of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1955.