Ho Ch'eng-chün (20 June 1882-7 May 1961), was a military officer and protege of Huang Hsing who became a leading intermediary in negotiations with independent generals and among competing factions in the Kuomintang. He held such posts as governor of Hupeh (1929-32; 1937-38), director of the Generalissimo's Wuhan headquarters, and director general of the courts-martial (1939-46).

Little is known of Ho Ch'eng-chün's background or childhood except that he was born into a prosperous family in Suihsien, Hupeh. At the age of 14 he applied to a military preparatory school in Hupeh, but was rejected because he was too young and because he could not meet the required physical standards. At the age of 19 he won first place in the examinations for the district school, and the education commissioner of Hupeh province recommended him for study at the Ching-hsin Academy. After the imperial examination system was abolished in 1905, the Ching-hsin and the Liang-hu academies were merged to form a new institution. When Ho was a student there, he was influenced by Huang Hsing (q.v.), who had returned from Japan to attempt to convert students and army officers to the anti-Manchu revolutionary cause.

In 1907 Ho Ch'eng-chün won a Hupeh government scholarship for study in Japan. He enrolled at the Shimbu Gakko in Tokyo. After graduation, he was admitted to the infantry course at the Shikan Gakko [military academy], where he was a member of the fifth class. He joined the T'ung-meng-hui under the sponsorship of Huang Hsing. After graduation in 1909, Ho Ch'eng-chün returned to China, where he planned to join the staff of VVu Lu-chen, who was serving as border defense commissioner at Yenki in Manchuria. However, government-sponsored scholars returning from abroad were required to serve in their native provinces, and Ho therefore went to the Hupeh training bureau at Wuchang. In 1910 Wu Lu-chen, then commanding the 6th Brigade, which was stationed at Paoting, Chihli (Hopei), requested that Ho be assigned to head a regiment under his command. The request was refused, and Ho was assigned instead to the personnel division of the Board of War at Peking. While serving in that key office in the highest military organ of the imperial government, he established new contacts with anti-Manchu revolutionaries in north China.

After the Wuchang revolt in October 1911, Ho Ch'eng-chün served in the First Army, commanded by Yin-ch'ang, the minister of war. Ho sought to leave the government forces but friends dissuaded him, saying that his resignation would be regarded as a sign that he intended to join the rebels. He reluctantly returned to Peking, where he learned that Wu Lu-chen had been appointed governor of Shansi. He decided to join Wu and was making travel arrangements when word came that W^u had been assassinated. Fearing for his own safety. Ho immediately went to Tientsin and then joined Huang Hsing at Shanghai. Huang sent him to Nanking to assist the revolutionaries in establishing a provisional central government. After Sun Yat-sen's inauguration as provisional president on 1 January 1912, Huang Hsing was made minister of war. Huang named Ho Ch'eng-chün his chief adjutant. When Yuan Shih-k'ai assumed the presidency and the provisional government was moved to Peking, Huang Hsing remained at Nanking in charge of the rear headquarters of the revolutionary armies in central China. Ho continued to be Huang's chief subordinate. The rear headquarters at Nanking was abolished in June, and Ho went to Hupeh. In November, when Huang Hsing was named director general of the Hankow-Canton and Szechwan railroads, he sent Ho to Peking to serve as his liaison officer. Ho remained at Peking after Huang resigned in January 1913.

Ho left north China in March 1913 and went to Shanghai, where he served Huang Hsing as chief of staff during the so-called second revolution. When that move against Yuan Shih-k'ai failed, he was among those who fled to Japan. In the summer of 1914, after Sun Yat-sen had reorganized the revolutionary party as the Chung-hua ko-ming-tang, Ho Ch'eng-chün covertly returned to China to organize a new uprising against Yuan Shih-k'ai; he went to Shanghai. Ch'en Ch'i-mei (q.v.) arrived shortly thereafter, and the two men became close associates. Yuan Shih-k'ai died in June 1916, and Li Yuan-hung succeeded to the presidency. When Li invited Huang Hsing to visit Peking, Huang sent Ho to north China to assess the situation. He remained there for a few weeks, but then returned to Shanghai at the end of October 1916 because Huang Hsing had died.

In 1917, after Sun Yat-sen's military government was organized in south China, Ho Ch'engchun went to Canton. Sun ordered him to mobilize support in the Yangtze valley. Ho went secretly to Shasi, Hupeh, but he was prevented from carrying out his mission by Wang Chan-yuan, the military governor of Hupeh. Ho and his troops marched to Ch'angte, where he joined Li Shu-ch'eng, the commissioner of western Hunan. In March 1918, when Peiyang forces from north China moved into Hunan, Ch'eng Ch'ien (q.v.), the commander in chief of the Hunan army, called on Li Shu-ch'eng and Ho Ch'eng-chün for assistance. They complied, but Ho was outflanked by Peiyang forces. In May 1918 he left Hunan and went to Canton. He then went to Shanghai, where Sun Yat-sen had moved.

Ho remained at Shanghai until the Peiyang forces were expelled from Hunan in October 1920. Sun Yat-sen then sent him to Hunan, where he gained the political support of T'an Yen-k'ai. However, T'an soon was forced from power by Chao Heng-t'i. Ho went to Hunan again in mid- 1921 to participate in a military drive against Wang Chan-yuan in Hupeh. That move failed when Wu P'ei-fu (q.v.) came to the aid of W^ang Chan-yuan.

Sun Yat-sen, as a part of his attempt to strengthen his political alliances in the south, employed Ho Ch'eng-chün as a personal emissary to gain support for the Kuomintang, sending him first to Yunnan province, where T'ang Chi-yao, a schoolmate of Ho in Japan, had consolidated control early in 1922. Although Ho spent three months in Kunming, the provincial capital, he failed to win support for Sun. He was more successful in Fukien, where he helped to prepare the way for the establishment of a temporary base of power for the Kuomintang. In 1923 and 1924 Ho held several military commands under Hsü Ch'ung-chih and T'an Yen-k'ai. In August 1925, after the death of Sun Yat-sen, he returned to Canton and assisted Chiang Kai-shek in the eastern expedition against Ch'en Chiung-ming. After the expeditionary forces had occupied Waichow, Ch'en's principal base in eastern Kwangtung, Ho returned to Shanghai.

The Northern Expedition was launched in July 1926, and Chiang Kai-shek sent Ho to Shanghai in an attempt to gain the support of Sun Ch'uan-fang (q.v.), who then controlled the lower Yangtze provinces. Ho, who had been a schoolmate of Sun Ch'uan-fang at the Shikan Gakko, urged Sun to ally himself with the National Revolutionary Army of Chiang Kai-shek for a joint attack on W'u P'ei-fu, Sun's sometimes superior officer. Sun believed that his position was vulnerable because of the geographical proximity of the northern generals, and he decided not to join forces with Chiang Kai-shek.

After the Nationalist forces had captured Wuhan in October 1926, Chiang Kai-shek assigned Ho to help organize the Hupeh Political Council. For a time. Ho served as a member of that body and as pacification commissioner of northern Hupeh, but he came into conflict with the Hunanese general T'ang Sheng-chih (q.v.) and was forced to withdraw from the area. After Chiang Kai-shek broke relations with Wuhan and ertablished a regime at Nanking, Ho Ch'eng-chün became a member of the Military Affairs Commission at Nanking and senior adviser in the general headquarters of the National Revolutionary Army.

In the early summer of 1927 Ho was assigned to win the support of Yen Hsi-shan (q.v.) in Shansi province. Although the northern sections of the Peking-Hankow railroad were then under the control of the Fengtien forces {see Chang Tso-lin), Ho succeeded in reaching Tientsin. Han Lun-ch'ün, a Fengtien army commander who had been a schoolmate of Ho, arranged for him to meet Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) and others at Peking. Chang Hsuehliang lent Ho his private railway car for the trip to see Yen at Taiyuan. Yen already had shown an equivocal attitude toward his alliance with Chang Tso-lin, and Ho Ch'eng-chün's negotiations with Yen proceeded smoothly. Soon after the discussions, Yen became.e northern commander of the National Revolutionary Army. After receiving news of Chiang Kaishek's temporary retirement, Ho returned to central China, stopping at Peking to confer with Chang Hsueh-liang and Han Lun-ch'ün about Manchuria's possible acceptance of Nationalist rule.

When the Northern Expedition was resumed in April 1928, Ho Ch'eng-chün, as director of Chiang Kai-shek's Hsuchow headquarters, utilized his ties with officers in the opposition forces of Sun Ch'uan-fang and Chang Tsung-ch'ang to contribute substantially to the Nationalist campaign in the Hsuchow sector.

After Chiang Kai-shek's First Group Army clashed with the Japanese in the Tsinan Incident of May 1928, Chiang sent Hsiung Shih-hui to negotiate with the Japanese, but Hsiung made little headway. On 9 May, Ho replaced Hsiung in the negotiations. The Japanese commander, after presenting terms that Ho found unacceptable, detained him until 12 May. After going to Yenchow for discussions with Chiang Kai-shek, Ho returned to Hsuchow.

The Northern Expedition bypassed Tsinan; Ho Ch'eng-chün was ordered to proceed from Hsuchow by sea to Tientsin and Peking. He negotiated with Wang Shih-chen, Hsiung Hsiling, Yen Hsi-shan, and representatives of the Fengtien Army to save Peking from the ravages of war. In the end, the Fengtien forces withdrew eastward. Yen Hsi-shan maintained order in the evacuated areas, and on 6 June his Shansi army occupied Peking. On 8 July 1928 Ho accompanied representatives of Chang Hsuehliang to a meeting with Chiang Kai-shek to discuss Manchuria's possible acceptance of Nationalist rule. Arrangements were made, and in December 1928 the Nationalist flag was raised over Manchuria.

After Chiang Kai-shek assumed the chairmanship of the National Government at Nanking in 1928, Ho Ch'eng-chün became a chief military counselor. His efforts to induce Liu Hsiang in Szechwan and the Kweichow generals to support the National Government met with little success. When the Kwangsi military officers threatened Chiang Kai-shek's authority in February 1929, Ho was ordered to go to Peiping, where the Kwangsi general Pai Ch'ung-hsi (q.v.) was based. Ho persuaded divisional commanders in north China to remain loyal to Nanking. Chang Hsueh-liang assisted him by ordering troops under Yu Hsueh-chung to threaten Pai Ch'unghsi's positions in the area. Pai was forced out of northern China.

Ho Ch'eng-chün was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang at the Third National Congress in March 1929. In April he was appointed provincial governor of Hupeh. New crises arose, and Ho had to contend with political maneuvers in both north China and Manchuria. Yen Hsishan regarded the presence of Ho Ch'eng-chün and T'ang Sheng-chih in north China as a barrier to the expansion of his own power. Ho visited Yen Hsi-shan at Taiyuan in August 1929 and satisfied Yen's demands regarding the control and distribution of personnel in both Shansi and Hopei. In Manchuria, China and the Soviet Union were involved in a dispute about Chang Hsueh-liang's seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Chang invited Ho to come to Manchuria for a consultation so that he could coordinate his moves with those of Nanking. With Chiang Kai-shek's consent, Ho left for Mukden on 1 7 August and remained with Chang Hsuehliang for two weeks before returning to Peiping. But he was unable to affect the outcome of the Manchurian situation; Soviet military action led to the restoration of the status quo ante on the rail line.

Ho Ch'eng-chün visited Shansi in September 1929 to report on the Manchurian situation to Yen Hsi-shan. Yen seemed to be somewhat evasive in dealing with him. The reason became clear in October when the possibility of an alliance between Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yü-hsiang (q.v.) became known. Ho then went to Chengchow to win the support of T'ang Sheng-chih's forces, reported to Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking, and on 20 October went to Kaifeng to direct operations against Feng Yü-hsiang's forces. After Feng's troops had been defeated, T'ang Sheng-chih on 5 December 1929 announced his intention to oppose Chiang Kai-shek. Ho escaped from Kaifeng, made his way to Hsuchow, and then went to Tsingtao and Nanking. In February 1930 Ho finally went to Wuchang to assume the governorship of Hupeh province, to which he had been appointed ten months earlier. He also became the director of Chiang Kai-shek's Wuhan headquarters. Two months later, Li Tsung-jen joined the northern coalition of Feng Yü-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan in opposing Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang appointed Ho Ying-ch'in to succeed Ho Ch'eng-chün as director of the W'uhan headquarters, and Ho Ch'eng-chün was assigned responsibility for operations along the Peking-Hankow rail line. He assumed overall command of several armies in that sector. These armies had not been under Nationalist command for long, and their loyalty to Chiang Kai-shek was uncertain. Because Ho Ch'eng-chün had long-standing associations with their commanders, he was successful in holding these armies on Chiang's side. Ho's assignment was to defeat Feng Yü-hsiang's forces along the rail line and to join the National Government forces at Chengchow. His armies began their attack in May 1930, with some initial success. However, Feng's and Ho's troops soon reached a stalemate. In mid-August, National Government forces on the eastern front captured Tsinan, enabling Chiang Kai-shek to shift troops to the Peking-Hankow railroad front. With Ho Ch'eng-chün holding a major command, the Nationalists began a general offensive on 11 September 1930, and by the end of that month, the armies of Feng Yü-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan were in retreat. In the meantime, however, the Chinese Communists seized the opportunity to expand their territorial bases in the central Yangtze provinces. By the time Ho returned to his provincial post at Wuchang, they had established themselves in almost half of Hupeh's 70 hsien. Campaigns against the Communists in 1930-31 had little success in Hupeh. In 1931 a severe flood inundated much of the province. Ho Ch'eng-chün held both civil and military responsibility in Hupeh; he now requested that he be relieved of one of his functions. In March 1932 Hsia Tou-yin was named to succeed him as provincial governor. In June, the military structure in central China was reorganized, with Ho becoming pacification commissioner of Hupeh and commander in chief for military operations against the Communists in the Hupeh-Anhwei area. He held the latter post until 1937 and participated in anti-Communist campaigns in the Hupeh-Anhwei area, in Hunan, and in Kiangsi.

In March 1933, when the Japanese attacked the Great Wall passes, Chiang Kai-shek sent Ho to Paoting to assume charge of the headquarters there. After the Tangku truce was signed on 31 May, Ho returned to Wuchang. In 1935 Ho Ch'eng-chün was reelected to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. He also became pacification commissioner for the Honan-Hupeh border district. In the winter of 1936, the office of the Hupeh pacification commissioner was renamed the Generalissimo's headquarters. Ho continued to be its director.

After the outbreak of war with Japan in 1937, the National Government moved from Nanking to Wuhan in October. The provincial governments of the Yangtze region were reorganized in November, and Ho again became governor of Hupeh. In June 1938 he was succeeded as provincial governor by Ch'en Ch'eng (q.v.). The National Government was forced to evacuate the Wuhan cities in October 1938, and the Generalissimo's Wuhan headquarters was abolished. In January 1939, at the Nationalist wartime capital of Chungking, Ho was appointed director general of the courts-martial. He held that post throughout the remaining war years.

In 1946, at the age of 64, Ho Ch'eng-chün retired from military service. He returned to Hupeh, where he was elected speaker of the provincial assembly. In the winter of 1948, he was injured in a fall and underwent medical treatment in Shanghai. He moved to Hong Kong in the spring of 1949 and to Taiwan in December. In March 1960 he was given the honor of transmitting the certificate of election to Vice President Ch'en Ch'eng. On 7 May 1961, he died in Taipei. His book, Pa-shih hui-i [reminescences at eighty] was published in Taipei in 1961.