Yang was born into an intellectual family in
Xi'an,
Shaanxi, on 1 December 1923, while his
ancestral home in
Weinan. He attended Xi'an Provincial No. 1 High School and graduated from the
Counter-Japanese Military and Political University. He became a member of the
Chinese National Liberation Vanguard in 1936. He enlisted in the
Eighth Route Army in 1938, and joined the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the same year. During the
Second Sino-Japanese War, he participated in the Battle of Qingkou and the . During the
Chinese Civil War, he engaged in the , ,
Battle of Jinan,
Huaihai campaign, and
Yangtze River Crossing campaign. He was political commissar of the
Central Guard Regiment in June 1953, and held that office until February 1974. He also served as deputy director of the
Central Guard Bureau since 1965. During the
Cultural Revolution in July 1968, he marched the to stabilize the situation of
Tsinghua University. As a result of his distinguished performance, he was made
party secretary of Tsinghua University. He was appointed director of the Central Guard Bureau in December 1978, in addition to serving as deputy director of the
General Office of the Chinese Communist Party in September 1980 and director of the Security Bureau of the
People's Liberation Army General Staff Department in January 1983. He was promoted to the rank of
lieutenant general (
zhongjiang) in September 1988 and
general (
shangjiang) in 1994. On 12 November 2020, he died in
Beijing, at the age of 96. ==References==