Ts'ai O (18 December 1882-8 November 1916), able and scholarly Hunanese military commander who served as military governor of Yunnan after the revolution. In 1913-15 he held posts at Peking while laying plans for a revolt against Yuan Shih-k'ai, who hoped to become monarch. The anti-Yuan campaign began at Yunnan in December 1915 and ended with Yuan's death in June 1916.

Paoch'ing (later Shaoyang), Hunan, was the birthplace of Ts'ai O. He was the eldest son in a prosperous peasant family. Until he was 15, he received a classical education under the guidance of private tutors in preparation for the civil service examinations. In 1895 he passed the examinations for the sheng-yuan degree. He sat for the chü-jen examination two years later, but failed them.

Ts'ai was introduced to reformist thought by his tutor Fan Chui, with whom he studied from 1894 to 1897. Fan was a close associate of T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang (1867-1900), who taught at the newly established Shih-wu hsueh-t'ang (Academy of Current Affairs) at Changsha, and of T'an Ssu-t'ung (ECCP, II, 702-5). In 1897 Ts'ai O entered the academy, where he was strongly influenced by the new chief lecturer, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.). When the academy was closed in September 1898 following the failure of the Hundred Days Reform, Ts'ai applied for admission to the Liang-hu shu-yuan but was denied entrance because of his association with the defeated reformers. In 1899 Ts'ai and several of his former classmates traveled to Japan at the invitation of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. In Tokyo he studied for a time with Liang and T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang before entering the Great Harmony Secondary School, established by Liang and others in Tokyo for students whose schools in China had been closed. In 1900 Ts'ai and other students returned to China to assist in the preparations being made by T'ang Ts'ai-ch'ang for an uprising at Hankow. Ts'ai was sent to persuade officers in Hunan's New Army to cooperate in their revolutionary plans. He thus escaped the fate of 18 of his fellow conspirators, who were executed at Hankow when their plot was discovered by the imperial authorities. Ts'ai returned to Japan and enrolled at the Seijo Military Preparatory School, an action which reflected his preoccupation with the question of national power.

Two complementary ideas had come to dominate the thinking of Ts'ai O : an urgent sense of China's backwardness and weakness in a starkly competitive world, and an awareness of the imperative need for the development of China's national power. Japan was Ts'ai's model for the transformation of China into a strong military power. In an article entitled "A Militant Citizenry," published in the Hsin-min ts'ung-pao [renovation of the people] in 1902, Ts'ai centered his attention on the need to develop a martial spirit in China. He traced the absence of a martial spirit to several sources: an educational system in which the energies and talents of young Chinese were exhausted and dissipated in learning "useless formalities and ornamental phrases"; a perversion of Confucianism by such scholars as Liu Hsiang (77-6 B.C.) and Chu Hsi (1130-1200), who, Ts'ai asserted, were really Taoists ; the low social status accorded the military in China; and the failure of Chinese literature and music to glorify martial qualities. Ts'ai noted with admiration that the Japanese system of education developed the qualities of the soldier almost unconsciously in students—art classes, for example, were devoted to the drawing of warships and artillery pieces. He also noted the high social status of the military in Japan and the contributions of Japanese literature, philosophy, and music to the development of a martial spirit, stating that China would have to emulate Japan in order to survive. Ts'ai's concern with national power also extended to political institutions, where it served as his rationale for supporting republicanism. He argued that in a republic all the people bear limitless duties and obligations and that all human resources can be mobilized in the struggle for national survival, whereas in a monarchy only the monarch has rights and only he has a sense of responsibility to the country.

After being graduated from the Seijo Military Preparatory School in 1902 and from the Shikan Gakko [military academy] in 1904, Ts'ai O returned to China, where he held a series of military posts in Kiangsi, Hunan, Kwangsi, and Yunnan. He spent most of the 1904-10 period in Kwangsi, where his posts included superintendent of the Kwangsi Middle Military School, supervisor of the Academy of Military Instruction, and assistant director of the provincial military bureau. During the five years he served in Kwangsi, he faced many obstacles in his efforts to retrain and modernize the provincial forces. His letters of the period convey the impression that he conceived of himself as waging a personal struggle of great importance to his country against nearly overwhelming odds. His efforts to restore order to a critically deteriorating provincial army won him a reputation as a stern disciplinarian, and his practice of appointing Hunanese rather than natives of Kwangsi to positions of importance in the Kwangsi military training programs aroused the hostility of Kwangsi military men. In 1910 a protest movement calling for the removal of Ts'ai from office was begun by military school students. It culminated in the impeachment of Ts'ai by the Kwangsi provincial assembly. He later was exonerated, but by that time he had accepted an appointment from Li Ching-hsi, the governor general of Yunnan, as commander of the 37th Brigade and instructor at the Yunnan Military Academy. When Ts'ai arrived in Yunnan in the spring of 191 1, he was ordered to make a compilation of inspiring and instructive maxims relating to the command of military forces. The result was the Tseng Hu chih-ping yü-lu, a collection of writings by Tseng Kuo-fan and Hu Lin-i. In his accompanying commentary to these writings, Ts'ai cited five qualities which he considered the essentials of military leadership : knowledge, sincerity, humaneness, discipline, and courage. He attributed the military successes of Tseng and Hu, "two scholars with no practical experience in military affairs," wholly to the absolute sincerity with which they undertook their task. Ts'ai used the term humaneness to refer to the Confucian concept of the relationship that should exist between father and son, applying the concept to superiors and subordinates in a military organization. Ts'ai's commentary was his most traditional piece of writing—his emphases and modes of expression were Confucian in tone, and his comments on sincerity and humaneness were Confucian in substance.

In the 1904-10 period Ts'ai O was not a professional revolutionary, nor was he involved in any of the uprisings associated with the T'ung-meng-hui. However, he was associated on several occasions with preparations made by fellow Hunanese for revolutionary uprisings, and while serving as a training officer in various provinces he did not hesitate to appoint known T'ung-meng-hui activists to important posts. A striking feature of his activities both during this_period and later was his ability to cooperate, within limits, with sharply disparate groups. His dual loyalty to a revolutionist, Huang Hsing (q.v.), and to a constitutional reformer, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, grew out of the strongly personal character of his loyalties and his concept of himself as a leader who should draw factions together. Although his personal qualities of caution and reserve drew him to the reformers, his beliefs about national power made him sympathetic to the aims of the republican revolutionaries.

On 30 October 1911 Ts'ai O led his 37th Brigade in a successful revolt against Manchu authority in Yunnan, thus joining the revolution of 1 9 1 1 . The foundations ofthe revolt in Yunnan had been laid several years earlier. In 1908-10 more than 20 Yunnanese graduates of the Shikan Gakko, all of whom were T'ung-menghui activists, had returned to Yunnan to receive important military posts. Some of them had become instructors at the Yunnan Military Academy in Kunming, and others had been given field commands. At the time of the revolution, therefore, Ts'ai O's 37th Brigade, the largest military unit in the Kunming area, had one regimental commander and six battalion commanders who were graduates of the Shikan Gakko and members of the Tung-meng-hui. On hearing of the Wuchang revolt of 10 October 1911, Ts'ai called a meeting of his regimental and battalion commanders to determine the course of action they would take. The composition of this group made revolution in Yunnan inevitable. On 31 October an independent military government was established at Kunming, and Ts'ai O was elected military governor.

In his new position Ts'ai O soon demonstrated considerable skill in maintaining order among competing military factions. His success was the result of his administrative abilities, his carefully cultivated reputation for impartiality, and his well-developed flair for the dramatic. He served as military governor of Yunnan until the summer of 1913, when he resigned on the understanding that he would be appointed to a similar position in his native Hunan. Yuan Shih-k'ai, however, decided to deprive the popular and ambitious Ts'ai of his military power and did not make the promised Hunan appointment. Instead, he appointed Ts'ai to a series of prestigious but politically innocuous posts at Peking. In 1913 Ts'ai became assistant director of the translation bureau of the ministry of war and a member of the political conference established by Yuan Shih-k'ai to determine the duties to be assumed by those members of the Parliament who remained at Peking after Yuan's cancellation of the Kuomintang's parliamentary membership on 4 November. The following year he served as a member of the political council, a sort of legislative yuan, and as director of the land measurement bureau. As soon as Ts'ai O learned of Yuan Shih-k'ai's plans to become monarch, he began working to overthrow Yuan's regime. To allay Yuan's suspicions, he affected a life of debauchery, living, drinking, and feasting with the sing-song girl Hsiao Feng-hsien. He also quarreled publicly with his wife, Liu Hsieh-chen, and divorced her so that he could send her back to Hunan in safety. Yuan, who had kept Ts'ai under surveillance since Ts'ai's arrival in Peking, was taken in by these deceptions. The surveillance was relaxed, leaving Ts'ai relatively free to plot and to plan his escape from Peking. During this period, Ts'ai also cultivated the acquaintance of such loyal Yuan adherents as Yang Tu, whom he frequently entertained at the home of Hsiao Feng-hsien. On 16 August 1915 he was sent by Yang to Tientsin to persuade his former teacher Liang Ch'i-ch'ao to support Yuan. Unknown to Yang, Ts'ai and Liang had been in communication for some time and had been making plans for a revolt against the monarchists. They were supported in this effort by Ts'ai's friend T'ang Chi-yao (q.v.), the governor of Yunnan, and they agreed that Yunnan should be the base of military operations against Yuan. It also was agreed at Tientsin that Ts'ai would try to remain in Yuan's confidence for several months so that preparations could be made for the Yunnan uprising. Ts'ai then returned to Peking, his feigned debauchery, his revolutionary plans. Kuomintang leaders began to arrive in Yunnan to support the movement, and important preparations for war had been made by the time Ts'ai finally escaped from Peking in December.

Ts'ai O arrived in Yunnan on 19 December 1915. Four days later, a telegram was sent to Yuan requesting a clear statement from him in support of the republican system. On 24 December, an ultimatum was telegraphed to Yuan, giving him 24 hours to make a statement of loyalty to the republic and to execute 12 men who were closely associated with the monarchical movement. Yuan failed to reply, and on 25 December T'ang Chi-yao, Ts'ai O, and Li Lieh-chun (q.v.) issued a statement declaring Yunnan's independence and announcing that military action would be taken against Yuan. At a military conference, the armed forces in the area were organized as the National Protection Army (Hu-kuo chün). Ts'ai O became commander in chief of its First Army, with Lo P'ei-chin as chiefof staff and with Liu Yun-feng, Chao Yu-hsin, and Ku Pin-chen as divisional commanders. The Second Army was led by Li Lieh-chun, and the Third Army was commanded by T'ang Chi-yao, who also served as military governor ofthe independent province. At the beginning of 1916 Ts'ai O led his First Army into southern Szechwan; Li Lieh-chun moved into Kwangsi; and part of the Third Army under Tai K'an marched into Kweichow. Their progress was such that on 22 March, Yuan Shih-k'ai announced the abandonment of the monarchy, though he retained control as president. By this time, Kweichow and Kwangsi had joined the ranks of independent provinces. On 31 March a ceasefire agreement was signed by the commanders on the Szechwan-Kweichow front. The National Protection Army wished to regroup its forces, and Yuan's commanders, disheartened by his announcement, were not eager to continue fighting. In general, however, compromise was not reached, for the leaders of the independent provinces insisted that Yuan resign in favor of Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) and that the National Assembly of 1913 be restored. In April and May 1916 Kwangtung, Szechwan, Chekiang, Shensi, Hunan, Fukien, and even Heilungkiang declared independence. When Yuan Shih-k'ai persisted in his refusal to step down, a military council was established at Chaoch'ing (Kaoyao) on 8 May 1916 for the stated purpose of serving as the legitimate government of China until Li Yuan-hung succeeded Yuan. The council's members were: T'ang Chi-yao (chairman), Ts'en Ch'un-hsuan (acting chairman), Ts'ai O, Liu Hsieh-shih, Lu Jung-t'ing, Ch'en Ping-kun, Lu Kung-wang, Lung Chi-kuang, T'ang Hsiang-ming, Li Liehchun, T'ai Kan, Lo P'ei-chin, Li Ting-hsien, and Liu Chuan-hou. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was chief of the political committee; Chang Shih-chao was secretary general; and Li Ken-yuan was staff officer to the allied northern expeditionary forces and liaison officer in Shanghai. The foreign relations representatives were T'ang Shao-yi, Wang Ch'ung-hui, and Wen Chung-yao; and the representatives in Shanghai were Fan Yuan-lien, Ku Chung-hsiu, and Niu Yung-chien. After Yuan Shih-k'ai died on 6 June and Li Yuan-hung succeeded him, the council dissolved itself on 14 July. Thus ended the anti-Yuan movement which Ts'ai O fostered.

On 6 July 1916 Li Yuan-hung appointed Ts'ai O governor of Szechwan. Ts'ai assumed office at Chengtu in late July, but resigned two weeks later when it was discovered that he had an advanced case of throat cancer. He went to Japan for treatment and died in Tokyo on 8 November 1916. Ts'ai T'ing-k'ai & m m