Tang Jiyao

Tang Jiyao (1883 – May 23, 1927) was a Chinese general and warlord of Yunnan during the Warlord Era of Republican China. Tang Jiyao was military governor of Yunnan from 1913-1927.

Life
Tang was born in Huize county(會澤縣) in 1883 in nowadays Qujing, Yunnan province. Along with Cai E, Tang Jiyao originally took the civil examinations, but when influenced by republicanism, he decided to become a military man. He became a revolutionary warrior in southwestern China after he finished his military studies in Japan.

During the Xinhai Revolution, Tang attacked the revolutionary government of Guizhou with his Yunnan army, and conquered the province, becoming military governor of Guizhou. Liu Xianshi succeeded Tang as Guizhou Governor when Tang returned to Yunnan to succeed Cai E as military governor of Yunnan. Tang Jiyao replaced Cai E as military Governor of Yunnan in 1913. Tang agreed with Cai E that the military was the most important institution in China and should play a major role in government, leading to the Yunnan army persisting as a major force.

When Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself as the emperor of China in the December of 1915, Tang announced the independence of Yunnan with Cai E (Tsai Ao), Li Jiejun and others. He was also a leader of the army which fought successfully against the army of Yuan Shikai in the National Protection War. Tang became military leader of the National Protection movement.

Tang was a notable figure because of his federalist, anti-Communist ideology and pro-Sun Yat-sen policies. After Cai E died in 1916, Tang helped Sun set up the Constitutional Protection Movement in 1917 and started his own party, the People's Party (民治党) while remaining a member of Sun's KMT. He assisted Sun in defeating the Old Guangxi Clique and later Chen Jiongming's rebellion.

Tang Jiyao had a cousin, Tang Jiyu, who was also a General. Tang Jiyao sought to use propaganda to gain publicity for himself on the national stage in China. He smuggled confiscated opium to Shanghai, but the local Green Gang ratted them out to the British authorities, and much of the opium ended up on the black market. Tang Jiyu avoided Shanghai during the trial against officials involved in the opium deal in 1916.

Tang Jiyao set up an opium trafficking scheme in Yunnan, with monopolies, taxes, and licenses, and succeeded in producing large amounts of opium from poppy plants, which were suited to Yunnan's climate. He transported opium via Indochina to Haiphong, which was a port, and then it was sent to China via the coast.

Some of General Tang Jiyao's behaviour and actions are described in colourful ways in two books by the French journalist and novelist Lucien Bodard, i.e. "Monsieur le consul" (The French Consul, 1973) and "Le fils du consul" (The Consul's Son, 1975), based on his souvenirs when he was a child and his father, Albert Bodard, was Consul of France, successively in Chengdu, Sechuan, and in Yunnanfu, later called Kunming, in Yunnan. In these two books, there are chapters with extensive descriptions of General Tang Jiyao dealings with French authorities in China and Hanoi, Vietnam, as part of his efforts to develop his drug trade to finance weapons purchase for his army, while France was trying to build a railroad from Hanoi to Kunming and further to Chengdu, to expand their economic and political interests in Southern China, from their French Indochina colony. There are also descriptions of Tang Jiyao's relations, alliances and conflicts with other Chinese generals.

When Sun Yat-sen was appointed as Grand Marshal of the military government in Guangzhou, Tang Jiyao was promoted to Marshal.

The Guangxi Clique tried to seize the Yunnan Army and remove Tang as its leader in 1920.

Downfall
Six days after Sun's death in 1925, Tang claimed to be Sun's successor and head of the Kuomintang, the party flatly rejected his claims. Upset, he invaded Guangdong and Guangxi but was defeated by Li Zongren in the Yunnan-Guangxi War. Tang's claim to military leadership may have been a pretext, since what he really wanted was opium routes through Guangxi. He later became vice premier of Chen Jiongming's China Public Interest Party. He died in 1927 in Kunming, one month after he was ousted by Hu Ruoyu and Long Yun in a military coup, which made him lose all of his power in Yunnan. Long Yun then supported Chiang Kai-shek's Nanjing government, dissolved the People's Party, and expelled Chen's party.