Shu Tong was a general with the PLA and a calligrapher who later became the first chairman of the Chinese Calligraphers Association in 1981. He died May 27, 1998, at age 92. Mao Zedong once described him ironically as "the Red Army's Calligraphy Master."

His style combines traditional Chinese characters with a semi-cursive hand--xing shu ( 行 書) . The strokes are heavy, wet with ink, and vigorous. The density and thickness of each line is rendered more supple by a pronounced cuvilinear quality to many strokes. There is an overall harmonious balance between the white space surrounding each character and its strong black ink.