Ye Ting joined the Kuomintang when Sun Yat-sen founded it in 1919 (the Kuomintang existed prior to 1919 but was called the Chinese Revolutionary Party) and from 1921 was a battalion commander in the National Revolutionary Army. In 1924 he studied in the Soviet Union and in December of that year joined the Communist Party of China. In September 1925 he returned to China to serve first as staff officer, then as independent regiment commander, in the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army.