During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he fought with the Imperial Japanese Army in north China's Shandong province.

After war, he was assigned to northeast China, where he successively served as regimental commander of the Northeast Field Corps and division chief of staff of the Fourth Field Army.

[citation needed] After the founding of the Communist State in 1958, he became deputy commander of the Artillery Division of Guangzhou Military Region.

He attained the rank of major general (shao jiang) in 1961.

[3] Sun died of illness in Nanjing, Jiangsu, on 5 January 2019, at age 99.