“[We] must take strong and forceful measures to crack down on corrupt practices that undermine the building of combat abilities, and thoroughly investigate and root out those ‘big rats’ who tamper with military spending,” the PLA Daily said in a commentary on Friday.

It was an unusual literary reference for the publication and dates back to the Book of Songs in classical Chinese poetry.

Authorities have offered no details about the case against Zhang, the country’s top uniformed officer and the first-ranked vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu, chief of the CMC Joint Staff Department.