In the history of China, the only person who served two terms as president and three terms as vice president is Li Yuanhong. Born in Hubei, Lai Yuanhong (1864-1928) entered the Beiyang Naval Academy in Tianjin in 1883, served in the Beiyang Marine Division in 1888, and in 1894, participated in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese naval war. After the war, he joined Zhang Zhidong, the governor of the two rivers. After the establishment of the Republic of China, he became vice president. After the death of Yuan Shikai, he was succeeded as president by the vice president, and in 1922, he resumed the presidency with the support of the direct warlords.
The scholar Yan Fu said about Li Yuanhong, “The morality of Li Gong is believed by the world. However, to save the country and survive, such morality cannot be effective. Why? The reason is softness and darkness! Reading through the history of the West and the East, I think the most dangerous person in the world is no more than a good and dark coward. If you are the head of a Family, you will not be able to protect your family; if you are the head of a country, you will not be able to protect your country.” The main idea is that Li Yuanhong’s moral standard is obvious to the world, but he is too soft in politics. Whether this is true or not is a matter of historical judgment, not the focus of this article.
Li Yuanhong had only one wife and one concubine, namely his wife Wu Jingjun and his wife Gui Wenxiu. Li Yuanhong and Wu Jingjun raised two sons and two daughters: the eldest daughter, Li Shaofen, the eldest son, Li Shaoji, the second daughter, Li Shaofang, and the second son, Li Shaoye. Because of such expectations, he attached great importance to the Education of his children. He invited a teacher to set up a school at his Home, and his children studied both ancient poetry and literature, as well as mathematics, science and chemistry, with special emphasis on English.
Among the four children of Lai Yuen-hung, Lai Shao-fang and Lai Shao-ye did not attend university due to their frailty and illness, while Lai Shao-fen and Lai Shao-ki had the experience of attending university and studying abroad. Lai Shaofen was the first student of Nankai University founded in 1919 and was in the same class with Zhou Enlai; after graduating from university in 1923, she went to study in the United States with the support of Lai Yuanhong. She often wrote to her father about what she had seen in the United States.
Four years later, Lai Shaofen obtained a master’s degree in education from Columbia University and departed for China. Upon her return, Li Yuanhong, who was deeply honored, held a grand welcome party for her and lifted the rule that for many years did not allow his daughter to speak with male guests.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, Lai joined the “Democratic Revolution” and did a lot of united front work for the Chinese Communist Party. However, with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, she, with her many overseas connections, became a target of criticism and died of a heart attack on December 8, 1966, at the age of 65, the same age as her father, Li Yuanhong.
Born in 1903, Li Yuanhong’s eldest son, Li Shaoji, had high hopes for him; in 1920, Li Shaoji was sent to Japan to study at an aristocratic school, and in 1923, he returned to China to study at the Department of Political Science in Nankai; after Li Yuanhong’s death in 1928, Li Shaoji inherited his father’s position in the industrial company he invested in, serving as director of Zhongxing Coal Mine, etc. Later, the coal mine was occupied by The Japanese. When the coal mine was later occupied by the Japanese, he took refuge in Shanghai and refused to cooperate with the Japanese. After the victory of the war, while reviving the coal mine, he vigorously developed the subsidiary shipping company. Afterwards, he temporarily lived in Hong Kong.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, Lai Shaoji was invited to Beijing by the Chinese Communist Party. At the banquet, he met Zhou Enlai and, impressed by the deceitful words of the Chinese Communist Party, chose to return to the mainland to develop his industry, while sailing back to the mainland the twenty-odd ships moored in Hong Kong. After that, he applied for the public-private partnership of Zhongxing Coal Mine together with other directors, which was approved, and the business of the shipping company, which was included within the planning of the Shanghai Shipping Bureau.
Like his sister Lai Shaofen, Lai Shaoji did not escape persecution during the Cultural Revolution. His home was raided, his bank deposits and remittances from his children abroad were frozen, and his monthly living expenses were so meager that he had no choice but to seek refuge with his brother, Lai Shao Ye, in Tianjin, where he died in 1983 after a long illness.
Li Yuanhong’s second daughter, Li Shaofang, married Yuan Shih-k’ai’s ninth son, Yuan Kejiu, who died in 1945 at the age of 38 due to ill health and dissatisfaction with her Marriage.
Lai Shao-yeh, the youngest son of Lai Yuen-hung, had an introverted personality and loved ancient literature, history, guqin, calligraphy and was fascinated by Buddhism. After the death of his Parents, he tried to convert to Buddhism, but was discouraged by his family, and later assisted his elder brother in running his business. During the Cultural Revolution, he was also under attack because of his family background. His oldest son, Lai Changjun, was persecuted to death in the second year of the Cultural Revolution. His daughter, Lai Changruo, was sent to labor in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and was transferred back to Tianjin in 1977, where she died shortly afterwards. Li Shaoye died in 1996 at the age of 84.
Not only were Lai’s children persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party, but his grave was excavated by the Red Guards with explosives, and some of the burial objects were collected by the provincial museum in 2012.
According to the archival materials discovered by chance by Mr. Yu Changting, a folk collector in Wuhan, Li Yuanhong’s tomb was “raided” as a grave of the “Four Olds”, and was the work of the so-called “revolutionary masses” and “Red Guards” at the Time. It was an organized act of the so-called “revolutionary masses” and “Red Guards” at that time, not a sudden excavation by two factions of Red Guards as previously believed; the time of the excavation was also confirmed for the first time in archival texts: June 5, 1967; the “unit of seizure” was the then The time of the excavation was also confirmed for the first time in archival texts: June 5, 1967; the “unit of seizure” was the “Revolutionary Mass Organization of the Comprehensive Survey and Design Brigade of the Hubei Forestry Department”. The most valuable archival material is a page of the “list of materials handed over”, which clearly records that after the excavation of Li’s tomb, only some of the burial objects were handed over to the provincial museum for collection, and a number of burial objects were “retained” and the value of 80.02 yuan was offset by the “tomb bombing expenses “.
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