Ku Cheng-lun (23 September 1890-3 November 1953), known as "the father of the Chinese military police." He also served the National Government as governor of Kansu (1941-46), minister of food (1947), and governor of Kweichow (1948-49).

A native of Aushun, Kweichow, Ku Chenglun was the eldest son of Ku Yung-ch'ien, a scholar who held the chü-jen degree. Two of his younger brothers were Ku Cheng-kang and Ku Cheng-ting (q.v.). After being graduated from the Kweichow Military Primary School in 1905, he attended the Wuchang Military Middle School for three years. In 1908 he went to Japan, where he studied at the Shimbu Gakko [military preparatory academy] and the Shikan Gakko [military academy], specializing in artillery.

When news of the Wuchang revolt of October 1911 reached Japan, Ku immediately returned to China to join the revolutionary forces. He served as an aide to Huang Hsing (q.v.) in the Hanyang general headquarters and received the rank of major. After the republic was established in 1912, he served under Huang in the ministry of war. Huang remained in Nanking as commander in chief of the southern forces when the provisional government was moved to Peking, and Ku continued to serve as his aide. He soon received the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the autumn of 1913 when the so-called second revolution against Yuan Shih-k'ai failed, Ku followed Huang to Japan and returned to his studies at the Shikan Gakko. He was graduated in 1915 as a member of the eleventh artillery class, and he returned to Kweichow in September 1916 to command the artillery regiment in the 1st Division of the Kweichow army. In August 1920 he was promoted commander of the Second Mixed Brigade.

After hostilities broke out between Canton and Peking in 1920, Ku, fighting on the side of Canton, led his Kweichow troops into Szechwan, but soon returned to his native province. In April 1921 he was named commander of forces guarding Kweichow's southern route. In May, Sun Yat-sen, who was campaigning against Lu Jung-t'ing (q.v.) in Kwangsi, appointed Ku commander in chief of the Kweichow forces. In cooperation with the troops under the command of Li Lieh-chün and Ch'en Chiungming (qq.v.), these forces inflicted a crushing defeat on Lu Jung-t'ing. Sun Yat-sen established headquarters in Kweilin in December and assumed personal direction of a northern expedition. Ku's troops were ordered to march into Hunan in the spring of 1922. However, the expedition was halted by the revolt of Ch'en Chiung-ming in Kwangtung. Ku's troops, cut off" from rear support and stranded in southern Hunan, soon dispersed.

In July 1925, on the recommendation of Ho Yao-tsu (q.v.), his classmate at Shikan Gakko, Ku was appointed an adviser to the 1st Division of the Hunan army and dean of the Officer Training School. Chiang Kai-shek launched the Northern Expedition from Canton in July 1926. In September, after being defeated in battle by the troops of T'ang Sheng-chih and Li Tsung-jen (qq.v.), Ho Yao-tsu decided to join the revolutionary cause. He received command of the Independent 2nd Division of the National Revolutionary Army, with Ku Cheng-lun as his deputy commander. During the incident at Nanking of 24 March 1927, the Independent 2nd Division was expanded into the Fortieth Army and was assigned the task of maintaining order in Nanking. On 1 7 February 1928 Ku Cheng-lun was appointed commandant of Nanking, which was under martial law. He became vice commandant of the capital garrison on 10 May. When the National Government established a military police system in January 1932, Ku was named provost marshal and commandant of the Nanking garrison. During the 1930's Ku devoted most of his attention to the organization and training of the military police force, which later developed into one of the major organs responsible for internal security. He organized a training center for police cadets and drew up a set of regulations governing the power and responsibilities of the military police. As a result of his efforts, the force was expanded from two regiments in 1932 to thirty regiments in 1935. He thus earned the title of "father of the Chinese military police." In November 1935 Ku Cheng-lun and his two younger brothers Ku Cheng-kang and Ku Cheng-ting were elected by the Kuomintang Fifth National Congress to the Central Executive Committee. On 11 September 1937, after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, Ku Chenglun was appointed vice supervisor of military law, a post which was directly under the jurisdiction of the Military Affairs Council. As the Japanese approached Nanking in November, he and his military police evacuated the city. After serving in Wuchang and Chihchiang, he became director of the Hupeh-Hunan-Szechwan- Kweichow border area pacification bureau on 28 February 1939. He soon rid the district of the bandits who long had plagued it. His efforts were rewarded on 1 December 1940, when he received the governorship of Kansu.

During the more than six years that he governed Kansu, Ku worked to reorganize and increase the efficiency of the local administrative structures below the hsien level, especially the village and town governments. At the same time, he forcibly broke the alliance of corrupt politicians, bandits, and opium smugglers in southern Kansu. Ku's arrival at Kansu coincided with the completion of the Huanghui canal, which could irrigate 30,000 mou of land. To enable peasant farmers to benefit from this project, he bought all lands in the irrigated district in the name of the provincial government and then sold them to the peasants on a 15-year mortgage plan. This project was the first "land to the tiller" program to be put into effect in Nationalist-controlled territory. Ku also reorganized the grain transportation system in the province, which greatly reduced the cost of transport, enriched the provincial treasury, and made the food price index of Kansu the most stable of all the provinces of wartime China.

Ku was also responsible for a rapid increase in school and college enrollment in Kansu, which had been known as one of China's most backward provinces. According to provincial statistics, the number of college students in Kansu in 1945 was 30 times the 1937 figure; the number of middle school students had quadrupled; and the number of primary school students had doubled.

In recognition of his achievements in Kansu, Ku was appointed minister of food and a member of the administrative council of the Executive Yuan in May 1947. A year later, he became governor of Kweichow. By this time, he was in poor health, and the anxiety caused by the civil war with the Communists aggravated his stomach condition. As the Communists approached Kweiyang in November 1949, Ku managed to escape and fly to Hong Kong, but he had to leave behind his mother and his younger brother Ku Cheng-k'ai. Ku Cheng-lun died in Taipei on 3 November 1953.