In the Summer of 1940, Chen's unit participated in the Hundred Regiments Campaign near Taiyuan, and by September had succeeded the reassigned Xu Shiyou as 385th Brigade Commander; his political commissar at the time was future Public Security Minister Xie Fuzhi [REF].
In the Spring of 1949, after the fall of Nanjing, Chen's 3rd Army moved into Zhejiang, and saw action at Hangzhou and Shanghai.