Bai Chongxi

Bai Chongxi (18 March 1893 – 2 December 1966) was a Hui Muslim general in the National Revolutionary Army and a top figure in the Kuomintang. Along with his close ally Li Zongren, he ran Guangxi province as a warlord from the mid-1920s until 1949, commanding his own troops and enjoying considerable independence. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek swung between conflict and cooperation: he and Li backed an anti-Chiang alliance in the 1930 Central Plains War, but later fought alongside Chiang against Japan and then the Communists. Bai became the Republic of China’s first defense minister, serving from 1946 to 1948. After the Nationalist defeat in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, where he died in 1966.

Born in Guilin, Guangxi, Bai was given the courtesy name Jiansheng and the Muslim name Omar Bai Chongxi. He was the second of three sons in a family said to have originated in Sichuan, descended from a Persian merchant named Baiderluden (Badruddin), whose line took the Chinese surname Bai. At 14, he entered the Guangxi Military Cadre Training School in Guilin, a modern academy run by Cai E. There he met classmates Huang Shaohong and Li Zongren, who would become the other two leading figures of Guangxi’s military. His family briefly pulled him out to study at the civilian Guangxi Schools of Law and Political Science. When the Xinhai Revolution erupted in 1911, Bai joined a Students Dare to Die corps led by Huang. He then moved through the Nanjing Enlistment Corps to the Second Military Preparatory School in Wuchang, graduating in 1914. After six months of pre-cadet training, he entered the third class of Baoding Military Academy in June 1915. Upon returning to Guangxi, he became a probationary officer in the 1st Guangxi Division.

Bai rose to prominence during the warlord era by allying with Huang and Li in support of Kuomintang leader Sun Yat-sen. This group, known as the New Guangxi Clique, moved against Guangxi warlord Lu Rongting in 1924, bringing the province under ROC control and establishing Bai and Li as a new generation of leaders. Bai served as acting chief of staff for the Nationalists and commanded the 13th Army. He participated in the Northern Expedition (1926–28) as chief of staff of the National Revolutionary Army, winning many victories through speed, maneuver, and surprise against larger enemy forces. He led the Eastern Route Army that captured Hangzhou and Shanghai in 1927. As garrison commander of Shanghai, he took part in the April 4, 1927 purge of Communist elements from the army and Shanghai’s labor unions. Bai also commanded the forward units that first entered Beijing, and was credited as the senior commander on site to complete the expedition. For his battlefield exploits, he earned the nickname Xiao Zhuge—“Zhuge Liang Jr.”—after the famed strategist of the Three Kingdoms. In 1928, during the expedition, he defeated and destroyed Fengtian Clique General Zhang Zongchang, capturing 20,000 of his 50,000 troops and nearly capturing Zhang himself, who fled to Manchuria.

After the Northern Expedition, Bai had about 2,000 Muslims under his control in Beijing in 1928; *Time* magazine reported they “swaggered riotously.” That June, Bai announced that the Kuomintang would seize Manchuria and that its enemies would “scatter like dead leaves before the rising wind.” By December 1928, he was bankrupt and out of money. He planned to lead 60,000 troops from east China to Xinjiang and build a railroad as a barrier against Russian encroachment, but some saw this as a move against Feng Yuxiang, and the Military Council refused to let him leave Beiping for Hankou. At the end of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek began trying to eliminate the Guangxi forces. In 1929, Bai had to flee to Vietnam to avoid harm. Chiang ended the self-ruling governments of Li and Bai in Hankou and Canton, and captured Hankou during the dispute between the Guangxi faction and Nanjing. From 1930 to 1936, Bai played a key role in the Reconstruction of Guangxi, which became a “model” province with progressive administration, supplying over 900,000 soldiers for the war against Japan. During the Chinese Civil War, he fought the Communists but allowed them to slip through Guangxi during the Long March. In 1931, prominent Muslims including Generals Ma Liang, Ma Fuxiang, and Bai met in Nanjing to discuss tolerance between Hui and Han.

In 1936, Bai, Li Zongren, and Chen Jitang called for a war against Japan, seeing the Japanese threat. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 triggered full-scale hostilities, Bai served as chief of staff of the 4th Army Group.