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Liu Kunyi
Hunan Army veteran and long-serving Liangjiang governor-general who arranged the 1900 Southeast Mutual Protection and co-wrote the 1901 reform memorials
A walled hilltop city with a tall brick gate tower stands above a pine-covered cliff, its wall running along the ridge, while a long wooden bridge crosses a wide river below and plains, islets and layered mountains stretch into the distance, with no person in view.
Also known as Zi Xianzhuang · Shi Zhongcheng
Liu Kunyi, courtesy name Xianzhuang, came from Xinning in Hunan; a government stipend student, he joined his kinsman Liu Changyou's militia in 1855 to fight the Taipings and rose through military merit. He became governor of Jiangxi in 1865, governor-general at Canton in 1875 and in 1879 governor-general of Liangjiang and commissioner for the southern ports, a post he held, with breaks, for more than a decade in all. During the war with Japan he was sent as imperial commissioner to direct the armies around Shanhaiguan. In 1900 he and Zhang Zhidong, with other southeastern governors, reached an agreement with the foreign consuls to keep the Yangzi provinces out of the fighting, the so-called Southeast Mutual Protection, and in 1901 the two men jointly submitted three memorials setting out a reform programme. He died in office at Jiangning in 1902 and was given the posthumous name Zhongcheng.
Life and times
Dates 1830 CE–1902 CE