group. Born in the Sangzhi, Hunan, he and his siblings, including He Ying, grew up in a poor peasant household, despite his father being a minor Qing military officer. His father was a member of the Gelaohui (Elder Brother Society), a secret society dating back to the early Qing dynasty. A cowherd during his youth, he received no formal education. When He was 20 he killed a local government tax assessor who had killed his uncle for defaulting on his taxes. He then fled and became an outlaw, giving rise to the legend that he began his revolutionary career with just two kitchen knives. After beginning his life as an outlaw he gained a reputation as a "Robin Hood-like figure". His signature weapon was a butcher knife. Around 1918 He raised a volunteer revolutionary army that was aligned with a local Hunan warlord, and in 1920, his personal army joined the National Revolutionary Army. In 1923 He was promoted to command the Nationalist Twentieth Army. In 1925 He ran a school for training Kuomintang soldiers. While running this school, He became close with some of his students who were also Communist Party members. During the 1926 Northern Expedition, He commanded the 1st Division, 9th Corps of the National Revolutionary Army. He served under Zhang Fakui during the Northern Expedition. In late 1926 He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1927, after the collapse of Wang Jingwei's leftist Kuomintang government in Wuhan and Chiang Kai-shek's suppression of communists, He left the Kuomintang and joined the Communists, commanding the 20th Corps, 1st Column of the Red Army. He and Zhu De planned and led the main force of the Nanchang Uprising in 1927. In the Nanchang Uprising He and Zhu led a combined force of 24,000 men and attempted to seize the city of Nanchang, but they were not able to secure it against the inevitable Kuomintang attempt to retake the city. The campaign suffered from logistical difficulties, and the communists suffered 50% casualties in the two months of fighting. Most of He's soldiers who survived surrendered, deserted, and/or rejoined the KMT. Only 2,000 survivors eventually returned to fight for the Communists in 1928, when Zhu reformed his forces in Hunan. After his forces were defeated, He fled to Lufeng, Guangdong. He spent some time in Hong Kong, but was later sent by the Party to Shanghai, then to Wuhan. Chiang