Major General is the lowest-level general rank. Currently, the Chinese Army mainly serves as major general ranks officers with the ranks of the army and deputy army ranks. They serve as major general . It can be said that major general is the backbone of senior officers in the Chinese army.
So how many major generals are there in an army?
The number of major generals is uncertain
Generally speaking, when the current military and deputy military officers in our country are basically awarded the rank of major generals, as long as we understand how many military-level positions and how many deputy military-level positions there are in an army, we can figure out how many major generals there are in an army.
However, it should be noted that there is a situation where one position is held in the army, and is that an officer also holds two positions at the same level in the army.
For example, the former Major General Chen Bingde (now General) in my country. From 1985 to 1990, he also served as deputy commander of the 12th Army Army and chief of staff of the 12th Army Army. Both positions held were deputy military-level positions .
In addition, Chen Bingde was awarded the rank of major general in 1988. That is to say, when he first served these two deputy military positions in 1985, both were still colonels. Therefore, there may be cases where the position of an officer has been promoted in the army, but the rank of a military rank has not been officially awarded.
In the above two aspects, it is not only General Chen Bingde, but also a more typical situation, that is, General Wang Yinfang, .
Wang Yinfang was the commander of the 71st Group Army of the People's Liberation Army. Later, in December 2017, he was promoted to deputy commander of the Northern Theater Command and also served as commander of the Northern Theater Command Army.
Both positions are at the deputy theater level, and they should be the rank of lieutenant general. But when Wang Yinfang later appeared on TV, she appeared in the scene of wearing a deputy theater-level qualification seal, but the military rank was still a major general. If we open Baidu Encyclopedia now, we will find that General Wang Yinfang's rank still shows the major general.
In short, the number of major generals in an army of is not fixed, and there may be changes due to the rank and part-time issues . Of course, since my country's military reform in 2017, it has been rare for senior officers to work part-time in the army.
As for the issue of rank awarding, our country used to pay attention to a position that spans three levels of military rank, so some officers have gone up, but the ranks are still the original rank for a long time in the future.
Now our army is relatively strict about the relationship between position and military rank, but it does not explicitly stipulate that a level of military rank should be held for a level of position. So now there will be situations like General Wang Yinfang, but General Wang Yinfang's situation is just an exception among the special cases.
Number of major generals in an army
Back to the question of how many major generals there are in an army. In the China People's Liberation Army's army group system, there are two positions at the top of the army, one is the commander and the other is the political commissar of the army group. There are four deputy military-level positions, namely the deputy commander of the army, the deputy political commissar of the army, the chief of staff of the army, and the director of the political department of the army.
In addition, we must also consider the existence of the "Party Committee" organization in the group army, so there are actually more positions in the group army, including the chief and deputy military-level positions.
However, the Party Committee of the Group Army is basically organized by the commander of , political commissar , etc. For example, the political commissar generally serves as the secretary of the Party Committee of the Group Army, and the commander generally serves as the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Group Army. Therefore, the position of the Party Committee organization will not be taken into consideration here.
So in this way, the number of major generals in our army should be 6 . However, this requires the situation before and after the military reform. After the army reform, there is naturally only one deputy commander in a group of army, but before the military reform in 2017, there may be two deputy commanders in a group of army.
Here we take General Chen Bingde as an example. When he was the deputy commander of the 12th Army, he also had a colleague named Xu Wenyi . General Xu Wenyi was also the deputy commander of the 12th Army at that time, and he took office and stepped down with General Chen Bingde.
In addition, we have to consider the situation of taking over, which is like when we plan to resign from a company, we usually have to apply one month or a week in advance. Then the company will send someone to take over our position. During this period, we are still in this position in theory, and the people who come to take over the position at the same time are also considered in this position.
So within the army, there may be a situation where an officer has not been transferred yet, but at the same time there are new officers in this position. Then before the military reform, there are more major generals in the group army than in the army and deputy military level. is likely to be in the case of more than in the army level. If this happens, there will be more than 6 or 7 major generals in an army.
Military ranks during the war
In fact, it is said that there are ten thousand words. The correspondence between ranks and positions will only be stable in peacetime . In a state of war, the awarding of ranks and positions will be much more chaotic.
Although major general-level officers are also considered senior officers, the positions of chief and deputy army-level positions in the group are not strategic positions. Most of the time, they need to go to the front line in person, and there is a high possibility of death.
Like this Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Russia has killed several officers with general ranks. Once this happens, the people below have to continue commanding. If the position is high enough, it is possible that the officer with low rank can hold a high-level position.
For example, the director of the political department of the group army, as a deputy military-level position, if he dies, it is usually the deputy director of the political department below. If the deputy director of the Political Department is also killed, the officer who is now the secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Group Army will be replaced.
Deputy Director of the Political Department is a division-level officer with a military rank of colonel. After his death, the military rank of officers who took over the position of director of the political department naturally became worse and worse.
If the war is very fierce at this time, the country may not have time to award ranks to the officers who come up. Then, at that time, officers with low-ranking ranks will be very common for officers to hold high-ranking positions.
For this reason, many countries also have the concept of "job rank" , that is, they are granted temporary ranks based on their positions, and will be cancelled after the war or a certain battle. Like the United States, and even the Republic of China, all have a military rank system. During the Anti-Japanese War , the National Government issued military ranks indiscriminately, which was due to the rank system of offices.
