He was the Communist Party First Secretary and top leader of Shanxi province until he was overthrown by the rebel Red Guards at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

Wei Heng was born in 1915 to a poor peasant family in Shapochi village (沙泊池) in Lingchuan County, Shanxi province.

[1] After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, Wei Heng joined the Chinese Red Army in January 1938.

[1] After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Wei served in a series of leadership posts in locales in Shanxi province, including a stint as Party Secretary of Yuncheng.

[2] He was the third provincial-level chief to choose suicide as an escape from torture, after Wan Xiaotang of Tianjin and Yan Hongyan of Yunnan.