Cao Rulin

Cao Rulin

Cao Rulin

(1877-1966)

Runtian

He was a senior official in the early Republic of China and the head of the new Department of communications. Born in Shanghai in 1877. He entered a private school when he was young, and then went to Hanyang railway school. In his early years, he studied in the University of law and politics in Japan.

During the May 4th movement, he was accused of being a traitor and his house was burned down. During the Anti Japanese War, Cao Rulin refused to cooperate with the Japanese and refused to take up the post of puppet. Later, Cao Rulin passively assumed the false titles of supreme adviser of the puppet North China provisional government and advisory member of the North China Government Affairs Committee, but he did not contribute to the Japanese, which was regarded as keeping the late Festival. On August 4, 1966, Cao Rulin died of illness in Detroit, USA.

Life of the characters

In 1900, he went to study in Japan to support constitutional monarchy and oppose Sun Yat Sen's Republican Revolution. He returned to China in 1904 and worked in the Department of Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce. He was transferred to the Ministry of foreign affairs. In 1913, he was appointed as the first member of the Senate by Yuan Shikai.

In August 1904, he served as vice minister of the Ministry of foreign affairs.

In the spring of 1911, he was appointed Deputy Minister of foreign affairs of the Qing government.

In August 1913, he served as Deputy Foreign Minister of Yuan Shikai's government.

In January 1915, he participated in the negotiation with the Japanese Minister on "Article 21".

In April 1916, he served as the director general of communications, and later as the director general of foreign affairs, and as the Prime Minister of the Bank of communications.

In January 1917, he borrowed 5 million yen from Japan's Industrial Bank and other banks through Xiyuan guisan.

In July 1917, he served as the Minister of communications of Duan Qirui cabinet. In March of the next year, he concurrently served as the chief financial officer and borrowed a large amount of money from Japan for military pay.

In the autumn of 1918, he did not hesitate to lose the sovereignty of Shandong railway and borrowed money from Japan again. He became the leader of the new transportation department by virtue of his important positions in transportation and finance.

At the beginning of 1919, Qian Nengxun was appointed as the Minister of communications of the cabinet. During the May 4th movement, Beijing students surrounded Cao's house and set fire to it. On June 10, the Beijing government was forced to order his removal from office.

Since then, he has been transferred to the industrial sector and still serves as the general manager of Bank of communications, general manager of China general commercial bank, general manager of Tianhe coal mining company, general manager of Industrial Bank of China, and chairman of Jingxing and Zhengfeng coal mining companies.

In 1927, he served as chairman of the Finance Committee of Zhang zuolin's military government.

In July 1936, he served as a member of Jicha administrative committee.

In March 1942, he served as an advisory member of the puppet North China Government Affairs Committee and chairman of Xinmin printing company.

He went to Taiwan in 1949 and Japan in 1950.

He moved to the United States in 1957.

He died in Detroit on August 4, 1966 at the age of 89.

Anecdotes of characters

The history of zhaojialou in Beijing should not be too long, but it is very well-known, because the May 4th movement, the May 4th movement, the“

Burning Zhao house

”That's where it happened. Zhaojialou is an alley in old Beijing. It is still a mystery why the building is named "Zhao family". In the 11th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Yixin wrote the manuscript of Beijing's lanes. At that time, the notes on Beijing's lanes were very detailed. Perhaps Zhao's house was not well-known at that time, and Zhu Yixin did not add notes on the owner of Zhao's house. As time goes by, it's even more lost. Zhaojialou is a small alley, which is located in the north of the east end of Chang'an Street in Beijing. According to the research, it was originally zigzag U-shaped, with a total length of no more than 300 meters. It was later divided into two parts. The front is called former zhaojialou alley, and the back is called latter zhaojialou alley. The eastern courtyard of Cao Rulin's residence was basically destroyed by the fire of the May 4th movement. After the 1950s, Cao's old house was demolished and a new building was built on the original site to become a guest house of a certain unit. Later, it was changed to zhaojialou hotel with the house number of "No.1 zhaojialou, Dongcheng District".

So far, no accurate information has been found on when Zhao's house became Cao Rulin's residence. According to the recollection data, Cao's house was divided into eastern and Western courtyard. The Western courtyard was a Chinese style house, while the eastern courtyard was a western style bungalow. The memory of Cao's servant I met is that I worked in Cao's mansion in September 1918. It can be seen that it was at least 1918 when I became Cao's residence. As a matter of fact, Cao Rulin not only has a residence in Zhao's house, but also has two bedrooms, one in the West Guanyin temple and the other in the Scylla Hutong. The eldest lady and her children, including Cao's parents, moved from Shanghai in the winter of 1918, and both lived in Zhao's house.

Cao Rulin, Lu Zongyu and Zhang Zongxiang, both from Zhejiang, went to Japan to study together. In 1904, they returned to China to participate in the "special economic course" and were awarded the title of principal by the Qing government. Cao Rulin worked in the Ministry of Commerce and commerce, and later transferred to the Ministry of foreign affairs. During the period of Beiyang, he became a senior official, humiliated his country several times, borrowed money from the Japanese, and was also a participant in the negotiation of the 21st article. He was regarded as a pro Japanese faction. Therefore, Cao's family suffered the heaviest blow in the May 4th movement. What makes Cao Rulin most angry is that the stories of burning Cao's house have sprung up, there are stories of electric leakage and fire, and there are stories of Cao's family taking advantage of the fire and robbing. Newspapers and periodicals that support and sympathize with the student movement also use these two stories. Of course, the purpose is to protect the students from persecution by the authorities (the students were outraged by Kuang Husheng, a senior student of Higher Mathematics in Beijing at that time, and later engaged in the anti Zhang movement in Hunan with Mao Zedong, who died of illness in 1933). On June 10, president Xu Shichang issued an order to remove Cao, Lu and Zhang from their posts. He also denied that the students had burned Cao's house. Cao Rulin was very angry when he saw the newspaper in the hospital and asked Xu immediately. He began to vent his anger by resigning from the post of traffic chief. After his dismissal, he still served as the manager of Bank of Communications (at that time, the newspaper said that Cao resigned from the post of manager of Bank of communications, but actually he still retained it). However, after the May 4th Incident, he was deeply stimulated and vowed not to interfere in politics any more and to be a member of the opposition. He first went to the French hospital in dongjiaomin lane. One day later, he hid in santiao Tongren Hospital in Dongdan, still feeling uninsured, and moved to Tuancheng in Beihai (at that time, Tuancheng was under the jurisdiction of Beijing Suiyuan Railway Bureau) to thank guests behind closed doors. In the winter of 1919, Cao took refuge in the German concession in Tianjin. Every time he expressed his future ambition with Dai Fugu's "drinking in a good mood", his poem said: "life is peaceful and contented, that is carefree, do not sigh when Ming Dynasty. When hehe is still quiet, leisure is better than labor. Peace is the only way to be calm. Everything is like chess. Wang Xie's fame and fame have a legacy, and he vies to be Liu Ruan's drunken pottery. " It seems that Cao Rulin regards self-discipline as his motto. Nevertheless, Cao Rulin's mood has been gloomy. Although he lived in the concession as an apartment, people did not forget and forgive him. His son was studying in Nankai, Tianjin, but none of his classmates was willing to sit with him, so he had to sit at a separate table. At recess and after school, none of his classmates paid any attention to him. This kind of situation, Cao Rulin will not know, its inner pain can be imagined.

After the Zhao house was repaired, Cao Rulin and his family moved back to Beijing and still lived here. However, most of Cao lived in Tianjin. In 1922, he built a new building in Tongfu road at Dengshikou. There is a theater building in the east courtyard, which is very grand. The back door is at No.7 Jianchang Hutong. In November, Cao held a banquet for his father. After Zhixi came to power, Cao moved to Tianjin because he belonged to the transportation department of Beiyang Group and was close to Anhui Department. Tongfu Jiadao residence was rented to the Danish Minister as an embassy, leaving only the backyard, and the family went in and out from Jianchang Hutong. The house here was sold in 1937.

Whether Cao Rulin was at home or not when Zhao's house was burned is a mystery that has not yet been made clear. It is generally believed that Cao happened to be absent, while the students beat up Zhang Zongxiang. In fact, according to later research, Cao Rulin had heard that "students wanted to make trouble" and had a secret discussion at home with Zhang Zongxiang, Japanese Chouji Nakagawa (this person protected Zhang Zongxiang with his body when the students beat him hard, so that Zhang survived), and police chief Wu Bingxiang on how to deal with the students (there were still armed police in the hospital at that time). One way of saying is that when the students rushed in, Cao Rulin hid in a box on the mezzanine of the two bedrooms. However, Cao's servants witnessed that after hearing the call, Cao slipped out of the small back door and went straight to the kitchen, put on the clothes and hats of the kitchen staff, and then went out of the East small door and fled to the French hospital in dongjiaomin lane.

Personal evaluation

Cao Rulin is one of the origins of being defined as a famous traitor, which can be traced back to 1905. On November 17 of that year, Chinese and Japanese ambassadors Yi Zhe and shoutaro Komura started negotiations on the Treaty of the three eastern provinces in Beijing. Yuan Shikai participated in the negotiations as one of the Chinese representatives, while Cao Rulin, the "Japan link", appeared as Yuan Shikai's assistant. In fact, the main agreement and supplementary agreement on the three provinces of the East signed in this negotiation are to refine and make public the interests that Japan has secretly embezzled. After Yuan Shikai took office as president in 1913, Cao Rulin became Vice Minister of the foreign ministry from an adviser, and sat down on the crater of Japan diplomacy. On January 18, 1915, Japan submitted a document with warships and guns blatantly printed on it (that is, the "Twenty-one articles" known as treason at that time). In his memoir memories of one's life, Cao Rulin wrote about this period of history: "at this meeting, I worked hard with general director Lu Zixing (Lu Zhengxiang) to plan for later action Among the 21 items proposed by Japan, 10 were not satisfied with the conclusion, while the fifth humiliating condition was finally rejected and withdrawn. Although we can't be complacent about the outcome of the meeting, chief Lu and I have done our best. " "The people of the world ignore the content of this negotiation, spread false information and lose the truth."

On May 9, 1915, when Cao Rulin and others personally sent the "Twenty-one items" to the Japanese Embassy, Cao Rulin was also "sad at heart, if he had the feeling of personally handing down his watch.".

After Yuan Shikai's death, Japan provided a huge amount of "Xiyuan Loan" to Duan Qirui's government, which made Duan Qirui, who strongly advocated to compromise with Japan in the "21 article" negotiation earlier. Cao Rulin, who was promoted to the post of chief traffic officer, Zhang Zongxiang, who was the minister in Japan, and Lu Zongyu, the president of the monetary Bureau, had been pushed to the opposite side of strong public opinion. With the development of the May 4th movement, in June 1919

Chinese PinYin : Cao Ru Lin