Decades after his death, military genius Lin Biao remains a mystery

No man in the history of the People's Republic has embodied so many contradictions as Marshal Lin Biao - who to this day remains a mysterious figure to most people.

Lin, born in Hubei in 1907, was once the young Bonaparte of what was then the Red Army, rising through the ranks and leading the army from victory to victory. Lin was made an army corps commander at the tender age of 23. He became the chief commander of the Red Army's elite 1st Army Group at 25. By then, Lin was already a feared and respected name on the battlefield.

He played a pivotal role in leading the communist army to the final victory in the civil war against the Kuomintang. After suffering initial reverses, he scored a decisive victory and conquered the whole of northeast China. His army then carried all before it, fighting all the way from ice-bound Heilongjiang to the tropical island of Hainan . Of the three major battles the communists won in the civil war, Lin was responsible for two of them.

His unrivalled military genius was widely recognised in the party and the army, making him the youngest of the republic's 10 great marshals. In 1969, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong hand-picked Lin to succeed him. For millions of Chinese back then, Lin represented the bright future of the People's Republic.

But cracks soon started to appear in the seemingly iron-clad alliance between Lin and Mao. When his bitter and ill-fated power struggle with Mao came to light, the Chinese public was stunned.

Lin came to be seen as the master of political intrigue, whose brilliance was only matched by his ruthlessness and ambition for power. He represented the greatest challenge to Mao in all the Great Helmsman's brutal struggles for power, before and after the founding of the republic. At one point, Lin was said to have hatched a military coup to kill Mao, although few historians now believe the validity of the story.

Then came his tragic end - details of which still remain one of the biggest mysteries in the history of the People's Republic. In 1971, Lin, together with his ambitious wife and only son, Lin Liguo , died in a plane crash in Mongolia while trying to flee China and defect to the nation's bitter enemy, the Soviet Union. His original destination was Hong Kong, but Lin had to abort the plan at the last minute after he was betrayed by his daughter, Lin Doudou - a brainwashed admirer of Mao.