Huang Mu-sung (1885-20 March 1937), military man who served as dean of the Paoting Military Academy and deputy commander of the cadet corps of the Whampoa Military Academy. He represented the National Government on special missions to Sinkiang (1933) and Tibet (1934) and became chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in 1935. He became governor of Kwangtung in 1936.

Meihsien, Kwangtung, was the birthplace of Huang Mu-sung. His parents were prosperous landholders of Hakka extraction. After receiving a traditional education in the Chinese classics at local schools, he enrolled at the Peking Military Academy in 1903. Four years later he was sent as a government-sponsored student to the Shikan Gakko [military academy] in Japan, where he majored in military engineering. After graduation in November 1908, he returned to China and became an instructor at the Peking Military Academy. Huang soon transferred to the newly established Paoting Military Academy. He eventually became dean of the academy, and in 1919 he attained the rank of major general. After participating in a Sino-Russian conference at Moscow in 1920, he served as a staff officer in the Peking military office which was responsible for Sino-Russian affairs.

In 1924 Huang Mu-sung declared allegiance to the Kuomintang and moved to Canton, where he joined the staff of the Whampoa Military Academy, headed by Chiang Kai-shek. When the Northern Expedition was launched in 1926, Huang was assigned to remain at Whampoa as deputy commander of the cadet corps and Kuomintang political commissar. After the Nationalist military forces consolidated control of the lower Yangtze valley, Huang was sent to Nanking, where he served as commander of the Third Army for several months. He then returned to Kwangtung as commander of the Third Army.

After Chang Hsueh-liang (q.v.) pledged allegiance to the National Government on 29 December 1928, Huang Mu-sung served for a few months as president of the military college at Peking. In January 1930 he was made chief of the survey bureau of the Nationalist army's general staff. In that capacity, he participated in international conferences on problems of land survey and aerial photography. He also served on the Chinese delegation to the preparatory commission for general disarmament which met (1926-31) under the auspices of the League of Nations at Geneva, Switzerland. In December 1931 he was elected to alternate membership on the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. When the World Disarmament Conference convened at Geneva in February 1932, Huang attended the meetings as plenipotentiary representative of China. The conference was adjourned in March 1933, and Huang returned to Nanking to become deputy chief of army general staff and chief of the border affairs section.

In the spring of 1933, after Sheng Shih-ts'ai (q.v.) seized power in Sinkiang and clashed with the Muslim forces of Ma Chung-ying (q.v.), Huang Mu-sung received a special appointment as pacification commissioner of Sinkiang. He arrived at Urumchi on 10 June 1933 to find the troops of Sheng and Ma ready to do battle again. He immediately issued a directive forbidding military action, but Sheng and Ma ignored it. Sheng emerged victorious from the ensuing battle. Soon afterwards, he accused Huang Mu-sung of plotting to overthrow him and placed Huang under house arrest. On 4 July, Sheng had three National Government officials (also alleged plotters) shot within sight of the house in which Huang was being held. Sheng and Liu Wen-lung, then the acting governor of Sinkiang, informed the National Government of the supposed plot and requested a full investigation of the matter. Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Ching-wei replied by telegram with a warning to Sheng to exercise caution in pursuing the matter, and the Executive Yuan ordered Huang Mu-sung to return to Nanking immediately to report on the matter. Sheng permitted Huang to leave Sinkiang only after he had wired Nanking recommending that the authority of Sheng Shih-ts'ai and Liu Wen-lung in Sinkiang be confirmed. Huang reached Nanking on 21 July, and the National Government confirmed the authority of Sheng Shih-ts'ai on 1 August. In January 1934, a month after the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (q.v.), the National Government appointed Huang Mu-sung Chinese high commissioner in Tibet. At that time, the National Government was seeking to restore Chinese authority in Tibet. After arriving in Lhasa in April, Huang represented the National Government at a memorial service for the Dalai, issued a proclamation exhorting the Tibetans to place their trust in the National Government as the sole source of lasting prosperity and happiness, and began to negotiate with the Ka-dreng Hutukhtu, who had become the regent of Tibet. Huang Mu-sung proposed that China and Tibet resume full relations and that the pro-Chinese Panchen Lama (q.v.) be permitted to return to Tibet. The Ka-dreng Hutukhtu agreed in principle to the establishment of a Chinese commissioner's office in Tibet; the Panchen Lama would be allowed to return if he did not bring a large Chinese entourage with him and if he would not attempt to exercise any political authority at Lhasa.

After returning to Nanking in October 1934, Huang reported that British influence continued to be the dominant external force in Tibetan affairs. He then proposed that the National Government provide the Panchen Lama, who had been given the title of pacification commissioner of the Western Regions in December 1932, with a military force for his return to China. In February 1935 the Panchen was assigned a miUtary escort of some 500 Chinese troops. He established headquarters in the Alashan region of Ninghsia province. In March, Huang Mu-sung was made ohairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. He soon persuaded the Executive Yuan to recognize the autonomy of Inner Mongolian tribes to improve relations between Inner Mongolia and the National Government. On 2 April, he received the rank of lieutenant general. He was elected to membership on the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in November. On 28 July 1936 Huang Mu-sung was appointed governor of Kwangtung, succeeding Ch'en Ch'i-tang (q.v.). Many observers believed that the appointment reflected Chiang Kai-shek's personal confidence in Huang as a man who could consolidate National Government authority in south China. Huang reportedly had been one of the men who had recommended Chiang for study in Japan in 1908, and Chiang had revered him as a teacher. Huang assumed office at Canton in August 1936, with Yü Han-mou (q.v) as his pacification commissioner. He died on 20 March 1937, at the age of 52. He was survived by his wife, five sons, three daughters, and his 82-year-old mother.