Tu Yü-ming (1903-), Whampoa graduate who was one of Chiang Kai-shek's favorite commanders. In 1945 he helped strengthen Nationalist control of Yunnan by ousting Lung Yun (q.v.). In the civil war with the Chinese Communists he served in Manchuria and at Hsuchow in the decisive Hwai-Hai battle. He was captured by the Chinese Communists in January 1949. The son of Tu Tou-yuan, a teaching scholar who held the chü-jen degree, Tu Yü-ming was born in Michih, Shensi. After the republic was established in 1912, Tu Tou-yuan taught at the Yülin Middle School, and the young Tu studied there. In 1924, having completed his course of study at Yülin, Tu Yü-ming went to Canton and enrolled in the first class at the Whampoa Military Academy. He served in one of the training regiments and participated in the second so-called eastern expedition (see Chiang Kai-shek). After graduation, he participated in the Northern Expedition, gradually working his way up from company commander to vice commander of a division.

Little is known about Tu Yu-ming's activities in the early 1930's. In May 1937 Tu was charged with the creation of an armored corps. It is doubtful that he was able to complete this task, for the Sino-Japanese war broke out two months later and a Chinese biographer has stated that Tu participated in the battles of Woosung-Shanghai, Hsinkow, and Nanking. Because his name does not appear on the official order of battle as a unit commander in any one of those engagements, it may be assumed that he served as a staff officer or (in the lower Yangtze sector) as commander of the embryo armored force. In any event, in January 1938 he became the commander of the 200th Division, in which capacity he participated in the 1938 battles of Taierchuang, Lanfeng, Hsinyang, and Sanhaikow. With the loss of the Wuhan area and the removal of the National Government to Chungking, the 200th Division was expanded into the Fifth and New Eleventh armies. Tu was appointed commander of the Fifth Army. After the War in the Pacific began in December 1941, the United States and Great Britain, hard pressed by the Japanese in the new war theater, called upon China to send troops into Burma to relieve pressure on the British forces by the advancing Japanese. The National Government in March 1942 designated the Fifth, Sixth, and Sixty-sixth armies for use in that expedition. The over-all Chinese commander was Lo Cho-ying, but the Fifth and Sixth armies in particular were to be subject to the direct orders of Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell as commander of U.S. forces in the China-Burma-India theater and Chiang Kaishek's chief of staff. The expedition had a good beginning. Tu Yu-ming's Fifth Army at this time was composed of the 22nd, the 96th, and the 200th divisions. Stilwell judged him to be "O.K. Solid on tactics. Ready to fight." The Japanese took Rangoon on 8 March and moved north. The 200th Division under Tai An-lan had taken up a position at Toungoo the day before, and it stubbornly resisted the Japanese 55th Division for 12 days. The 22nd Division had moved into position to attack the Japanese in a pincers movement. Stilwell, seeing the opportunity for an important victory, ordered a concerted attack. He soon realized that he was not in field command after all: the official American history of the war records that "Tu was prolific with excuses as to why an attack was impossible"; and it soon became evident that Chiang Kai-shek in distant Chungking was retaining direct control over the troops he had nominally placed under Stilwell. His orders to both Lo Cho-ying and Tu Yü-ming bypassed Stilwell. Tu did not move the 22nd Division, and the 200th Division was forced to retire on 29 March. Plans for further operations envisaged a trap to be laid by coordinating the Fifth Army's three divisions in a series of moves. The first part of the plan was smoothly and successfully accomplished, and in April 1942 the trap was ready to be sprung. At that juncture, however, British withdrawals and defeats evidently gave rise to second thoughts at Chungking. Chiang Kai-shek issued a series of conflicting orders which hopelessly snarled the command situation. Stilwell's orders to Tu Yü-ming went unobeyed, heavy losses were suffered by some of the Chinese units, and the Irrawaddy front was lost. At the end of April, the Japanese took Lashio, cutting off the Burma Road. The perilous retreat of British and Chinese units from Burma into India and China then began. The 200th Division retreated from Taunggyi in the direction of the China border, but the rest of the Fifth Army moved toward India. The 22nd and 96th divisions were within a few days' march of the Indian border and safety when Tu Yü-ming received orders from Chungking to withdraw to China. The two divisions changed direction, received new conflicting orders, parted company, and attempted to make their separate ways back to China. The 22nd Division arrived in China in fairly good shape, but the 96th Division fared less well. In January 1943 Tu Yü-ming was made commander in chief of the Y-Force reserve (the Fifth Group Army) at Kunming, Yunnan. He commanded this American-equipped unit for the rest of the war. At the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945, the Yunnanese forces of Lung Yun (q.v.) were sent to Indo-China to take over from the Japanese in that area. The Nationalist authorities took advantage of this opportunity to strengthen their control of Yunnan. Tu staged a coup at Kunming late in 1945, and Lung Yun was replaced as military governor by Lu Han (q.v.).

On 15 October 1945 Tu Yu-ming was appointed peace preservation officer for the Northeast. At this time the National Government was trying to reestablish its authority in Manchuria. On 29 October, Tu flew to Changchun to join his superior officer, Hsiung Shih-hui (q.v.), the director of the Northeast headquarters of the Military Affairs Commission. The Manchurian operation was not a success, and by early November the Nationalists at Changchun had been confined to their headquarters by the Chinese Communists. The Nationalist officials withdrew by air to Peiping on 1 7 November. Manchuria continued to be a major theater of Nationalist-Communist conflict in 1946-47. By the summer of 1947, following an offensive led by Lin Piao (q.v.), the Chinese Communists had seized the initiative. Chiang Kai-shek declared the Communists to be in a state of rebellion and ordered national mobilization. At the end of August, he replaced Hsiung Shih-hui with Ch'en Ch'eng (q.v.). Tu Yu-ming was removed from field command in Manchuria at the same time. He was reappointed to this post in October 1948, but the Nationalists were forced to abandon their Manchurian effort in November of that year.

In November 1 948 Tu Yu-ming was appointed deputy field commander, under Liu Chih (q.v.), at Hsuchow. The decisive Hwai-Hai battle began in that sector on 6 November 1948 with a half-million troops committed on each side. This massive battle was a disaster for the Nationalists almost from the beginning. On 28 November, Liu Chih, Chiang Wei-kuo (q.v.), and Li Mi of the Thirteenth Army Group flew out of Hsuchow to Pengpu. Tu Yu-ming remained behind. On 1 December, he led the Nationalist rearguard forces out of Hsuchow in an effort to break through Communist lines and join forces with the Twelfth Army Group, which had been trapped nearby. However, Tu's 130,000-man force was similarly trapped by the Communists about 20 miles west of Hsuchow. It managed to hold out for a time, despite strong Communist attack, but it finally was forced to surrender on 10 January 1949. Tu Yu-ming was captured while trying to escape from the battleground in the guise of a common soldier.

Tu Yu-ming was among the 33 former Nationalist leaders who, having been held as "war criminals," were pardoned by the Central People's Government at Peking in December 1959. They were said to have "repented, acknowledged their crimes, and shown that they were turning over a new leaf." Tu Yueh-sheng Orig. Yung