Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the total annihilation of his high command. On January 24, the Ministry of Defense announced that China’s top uniformed officer, General Zhang Youxia, and the military’s chief of staff, General Liu Zhenli, were being investigated for “serious violations of party discipline and law”—usually regime code for corruption. One Western press account even says that Zhang leaked nuclear secrets to the United States. The ministry’s terse announcement masked the