During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Wu was appointed head of the Eighth Route Army's Lanzhou office, which he developed into a hub for receiving and transporting military aid from the Soviet Union for China's war effort.[1] After the surrender of Japan at the end the war, Wu was appointed Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the formerly Japanese-occupied Northeast China. He became Chairman of the Shenyang Military Control Commission after the PLA seized the city in November 1948, and a member of the Northeast People's Government when it was founded in August 1949.[2]