Huang Shaoxiong

Huang Shaoxiong or Huang Shaohong (1895-1966), was a warlord in Guangxi Province, and governed Guangxi as part of the New Guangxi Clique, though the later part of the Warlord Era and a leader in the later years of the Republic of China.

Huang Shaoxiong was born in 1895, in Rong county, Guangxi, China. After the 1911 revolution he attended Guangxi Military Cadre Training School in Guilin along with Bai Chongxi, and Li Zongren. Later he rose to commanded the Model Battalion, a modern professional military formation equipped with machineguns.

In the confused power struggles following the Ao-Gui Wars, local military figures began to carve out territory in Guangxi and dominate it. In the southwest were the opium trails from both Yunnan and Guizhou that ran through Baise and then down the river to Nanning, from whence opium usually went out through Wuzhou, where the trade was financed. During the Ao-Gui wars, Huang Shaohong, then the commander of the Model Battalion, attempted to stay neutral and relocated to Baise in the far northwest. By stages, Huang came to control Baise, and with it, the opium trade. Later he expanded his control to Wuzhou, thus locking up the portals through which opium both entered and left Guangxi. By the spring of 1924, the new Guangxi Clique had formed and created the Guangxi Pacification Army. Li Zongren was the Commander in Chief, Huang Shaohong the deputy Commander, and Bai Chongxi the Chief-of-Staff. By August they had defeated and driven the former ruler Lu Rongting and other contenders out of the province and Huang became the civil governor of Guangxi from 1924 to 1929. He was also interior and transportation minister in the National Government of Chiang Kai-shek after 1927.

Later he became chairman of the government of Zhejiang from 1934 to 1935 and Hubei from 1936 to 1937. Again from 1937 to 1946 he became chairman of the government of Zhejiang and commander of the 15th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. During World War II, Huang was named deputy commander-in-chief of the 2nd War Zone. After the war, he was named head of the Supervisory Committee and elected member of the Legislative Yuan (parliament).

During the Chinese Civil War in the peace talks in March 1949, Huang was one of the Kuomintang delegates. He and Zhang Zhizhong agreed to accept the cease-fire conditions submitted by the Communist Party. When the Kuomintang leadership turned them down later, Huang fled to Hong Kong and declared his revolt from the KMT and joined the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in September 1949.

After the founding of the People's Republic, Huang was elected a member of the State Council, National People's Congress, and CPPCC. He was also a member of the Standing Committee of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee. During the Cultural Revolution, he was determined to be a "rightist." Unable to stand the persecution of the Red Guards, he committed suicide at home on August 31, 1966, in Beijing, China.

Sources
* [http://rulers.org/indexh3.html Huang Shaohong] (with photo)
* [http://rulers.org/chinprov.html (rulers of) Administrative Divisions, China]
* [http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/resources/zhuang/zhuang19.htm THE ZHUANG AND THE 1911 REVOLUTION]