A Xinhua picture released on Sunday of a young Xi Jinping shows the now general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) clad in military uniform and wearing an easy smile.

Xi started his career as a serviceman.

The up-and-coming young man, 26 years old, looking clean-cut and energetic in the photo, was serving at the time in the General Office of the Central Military Commission (CMC).

He worked from 1979 to 1982 as secretary to Geng Biao, a key military strategist who contributed to the founding of the People's Republic of China. Geng was a soldier-turned-diplomat who resumed his military post in 1979.

Xi is epaulet-free in the picture since China abolished the rank system in 1965 and didn't restore it until 1980s.

Xi's service years may offer a clue to his close attention to the development of China's military.

In another picture, Xi, who now chairs the CMC and is the commander-in-chief of China's 2.3-million-strong armed forces, comes to "lunch and learn" with soldiers in a canteen during his latest inspection at the Guangzhou military theater of operations of the People's Liberation Army.

With a modest portion of food on his dinner plate, Xi appears to be listening carefully to the comments of a young serviceman, about the age Xi was when he served in the military.

During his three-day inspection beginning on Dec. 8, Xi called on the armed forces to strengthen the capacity to wage a multifaceted, regional war in the Information Age, and to "adopt real combat criteria in military training and intensify such awareness among soldiers."