He was the son of a wealthy landowner, but joined the Kuomintang's (KMT) National Revolutionary Army (NRA), against his parents' wishes, in 1924.

Xu politically survived Zhang's defection to the KMT in the late-1930s; he rejoined the Red Army in a less senior position under the leadership of Mao Zedong.

He held numerous political and military positions, and survived the Cultural Revolution despite attempting to moderate some of its more destructive effects.

[2] After graduation he had a short career as school teacher, then despite his parents' objections, he joined and attended the first class of the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924.

[6][1] With Ye Jianying as Xu's Chief of Staff, he helped Zhang to establish new communist bases and expanded the 4th Red Army to number 30,000 men.

[citation needed] In 1934 Chiang Kai-shek defeated the armies associated with Zhou Enlai, forcing them to undertake the Long March.

He briefly spend time with Luo Ronghuan building bases in Communist-controlled areas of Shandong before being transferred to He Long's United Defense Army, in which he served as deputy commander.

After the Communists won the civil War in 1949, Xu served as the General Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army.

Xu may not have been active as PLA Chief-of-Staff (1949–54), but was named one of the 10 Marshals in 1955, (the only Northerner to have received this honour) and as a member of the party Military Affairs Committee in 1961.

Later in 1976 he was one of the military supporters of Hua Guofeng's coup against the Gang of Four, which eventually brought Deng back to power and formally ended the Cultural Revolution.

[10] In 1978, Xu was almost killed in an accident of Chinese HJ-73 ATGM demonstration when the missile suddenly malfunctioned and turned 180 degrees after traveling several hundred meters, flying in opposite direction toward the observation platform, where Xu and other top ranking Chinese officers were sitting, and landed right in front of the platform.

His official obituary stated that "his life was a glorious one... Xu was an outstanding Communist, a great proletarian revolutionary, a strategist, and one of the founders of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

Zhu De Peng Dehuai Lin Biao Liu Bocheng He Long Chen Yi Luo Ronghuan Xu Xiangqian Nie Rongzhen Ye Jianying