Before the Mukden Incident, Yao was a captain, commanding a Company in the Third Battalion, 676th Regiment, 27th Brigade of the Kirin Provincial Army.
Following the events at Manchuria, he joined Wang Delin's Chinese People's National Salvation Army.
After the Army, led by Wang Delin, was defeated, it retreated from Manchukuo[citation needed].
Acting Commander-in-Chief of the National Salvation Army, Wu Yicheng, soon appointed Yao to Brigade Commander.
Following Yao's death in battle, in 1938, the wife of Kong Xianrong, another of Wang Delin's subordinates, led the small band of his remaining forces, which continued to fight until the spring of 1941, when the group was annihilated[citation needed].