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Gungsangnorbu

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Gungsangnorbu
Gongsangnorbu, as pictured in the 1925 edition of Who's Who in China[1]
Jasagh of the Kharachin Right Banner
In office
1898[2]–1930
Preceded byWangdut Namzil
Succeeded byBanner abolished
Head of the Josutu League
In office
1918–1930
Director of the Bureau of Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
In office
February 1923 – July 1928
Preceded byTawangbulagjal
Succeeded byPosition abolished
(Yan Xishan as head of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission)
In office
16 October 1912 – April 1922
Preceded byYao Xiguang (acting)
Succeeded byXiyan
Minister for Inner Mongolia[3]
In office
1912–1913
MonarchBogd Khan of Mongolia
Prime MinisterTögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren
Minister for National Minority Affairs
In office
1 July – 12 July 1917
MonarchXuantong Emperor
Prime MinisterZhang Xun
Preceded byPosition restored (last: Dashou)
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born1871
Kharachin Right Banner, Qing Empire
Died1930 (aged 58–59)
Josutu League, Republic of China
Political partyRoyalist Party
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese貢桑諾爾布
Simplified Chinese贡桑诺尔布
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinGòngsāngnuò'ěrbù
Wade–GilesKung Sang No Erh Pu

Gungsangnorbu[a] (1871 – 1930) was an Inner Mongolian jasagh and politician of the Republic of China.[5] Some scholars describe him as a moderate, progressive moderniser caught between the influence of conservative older leaders and young radicals.[6] Others describe him less favourably as a conservative who, despite his early activities for promoting education, would go on to become protective of his own rights and interest as a member of the nobility, and suspicious of young Mongols who had received a modern education as potential challengers to those interests.[7]

Names

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His Mongolian name, which is of Tibetan origin, is transcribed into Chinese as Chinese: 貢桑諾爾布.[1] In the (proleptic) Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet, it is written Гүнсэнноров (Günsennorov).[8] His courtesy name was Chinese: 樂亭; pinyin: Lètíng.[1] His art-name was Chinese: 夔庵; pinyin: Kuí'ān, and he was consequently also known as Prince Gung.[9]

Career

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Gungsangnorbu was prince of Right Harqin Banner (today part of Chifeng).[7] He was born and spent his childhood in his ancestral home, the Ka La Qin Palace. In 1902, he established what has been described as one of the first modern schools in Inner Mongolia.[5] In 1903, he was invited to visit Japan along with a group of Manchu nobles, where he was highly impressed with the Meiji period reforms; upon his return to Inner Mongolia established a military school and a girls' school, both with Japanese teachers.[10] Among his pupils there was Serengdongrub.[11] Later, he sent a small number of Mongolian students to Japan, including Altanochir.[7] In 1911, he was a Chinese legislator for the Advisory Council.

Gungsangnorbu, fourth from left

When the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1911, Gungsangnorbu probably joined the Royalist Party and advocated the independence of Mongolia from China. As Outer Mongolia managed to gain independence with Russian support, Gungsangnorbu turned to the Japanese. He and other Inner Mongolian princes took loans and received arms from the Japanese to prepare their secession from China. The Imperial Japanese Army even dispatched a major and two captains in December 1911 to act as liaison officers for Gungsangnorbu.[9] In the aftermath of the Xinhai Revolution, Gungsangnorbu made some attempts to form an alliance with Bogd Khan and the Khalkha Mongols in the newly independent state of Mongolia, with the Pan-Mongolist aim of annexing China's Inner Mongolian territories to an independent, Mongol-dominated Greater Mongolia. However, political fragmentation and the reality of a large Han Chinese population in his own domains thwarted this idea. He restricted himself to a more modest effort to attempt to consolidate his own power and unite the Inner Mongolian nobility. He began purchasing weapons from a group of Japanese army officers in Beijing connected to Kawashima Naniwa; however, the arms shipments were intercepted and the officers involved arrested, bringing to an end Gungsangnorbu's efforts to strengthen his own military power.[12] Instead, he participated in Yuan Shikai's Beiyang government, taking a position as director of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and overseeing the establishment of the Mongolian and Tibetan Academy in Beijing, which trained a number of cadres who would go on to achieve prominence in Inner Mongolian politics in the coming decades.[5] He was the only Mongol prince to achieve ministerial rank in Yuan's government.[6] He would hold that position for seventeen years, though in the chaos of the Warlord era he was not able to achieve all that he hoped for. After the 1928 Northern Expedition he resigned from his position, and died two years later.[6]

Notes

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  1. ^ Mongolian: ᠭᠦᠩᠰᠡᠩᠨᠣᠷᠪᠤ, romanizedGünsennorob;[4] Chinese: 貢桑諾爾布

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Who's who in China 1925, p. 432.
  2. ^ Erxun, Zhao. 清史稿·藩部世表 [Drafts of Qing History: List of Fan Departments] (in Chinese). Zhonghua Book Company.
  3. ^ 张子新,蒙藏委员会涉藏事务研究,中央民族大学硕士学位论文,2007年
  4. ^ "ГҮНСЭННОРОВ Ванданнамжилын" (in Mongolian). Монголын түүхийн тайлбар толь.
  5. ^ a b c Black et al. 1991, p. 151.
  6. ^ a b c Hyer & Jagchid 1983, pp. [1]–4.
  7. ^ a b c Li & Cribb 2003, p. 92.
  8. ^ Lonjid 2010, p. 2.
  9. ^ a b Boyd (2011), p. 74.
  10. ^ Li & Cribb 2003, p. 91.
  11. ^ Cotton 1989, pp. 19–20.
  12. ^ Li & Cribb 2003, pp. 93–4.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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  • Jagchid, Sechin (1988), "Prince Gungsangnorbu and Inner Mongolian modernization", Essays in Mongolian studies, Monographs of the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Utah: Brigham Young University, ISBN 978-0-912575-06-3