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Cai E
Hunanese officer trained in Japan who led the 1911 Kunming uprising, and in late 1915 raised the National Protection Army in Yunnan against Yuan Shikai's monarchy
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
Also known as Yuanming Genyin · Zi Songpo
Cai E, born Cai Genyin, courtesy name Songpo, came from Shaoyang in Baoqing, Hunan. He studied under Liang Qichao at the Shiwu academy in Changsha in 1898, went to Japan in 1899, took the name E after a failed rising in 1900, and graduated from the Japanese Army Officers' School in 1904, then trained troops in southern provinces. Commanding a brigade of the Yunnan New Army in 1911, he led the Kunming uprising of 30 October and was chosen military governor of Yunnan. When Yuan Shikai prepared to make himself emperor in 1915, Cai, posted to Beijing since 1913, slipped away through Japan to Yunnan, where on 25 December he joined Tang Jiyao and Li Liejun in declaring independence and led the National Protection Army's First Army into Sichuan. After Yuan's death he became military governor and civil governor of Sichuan, but throat disease took him to Fukuoka for treatment, and he died there on 8 November 1916; he received a state burial on Yuelu Mountain in 1917.
Life and times
Dates 1882 CE–1916 CE