Lung Yün (1888-27 June 1962), was governor of Yunnan from 1928 until 1945, when he was deposed. He spent 1945-48 in Chungking and Nanking as an unwilling guest of the National Government. After 1949 he held nominally senior posts in the Central People's Government. He came under censure as a rightist in 1957 and was dismissed from his official posts in February 1958.

A member of the minority group known as the Lolo, Lung Yün was born in the Chaot'ung district of Yunnan. Little is known about his early years except that he joined a number of secret societies in the Yunnan-Szechwan border area. He eventually came to the attention of T'ang Chi-yao (q.v.j, who secured a place for him at the Yunnan Provincial Military Academy. After graduation in 1912, he joined T'ang's personal military staff. In this capacity, he participated in the Yunnan uprising of 1915, which resulted in the thwarting of Yuan Shih-k"ai's monarchical ambitions and in the election of T'ang Chi-yao as military governor of an independent Yunnan. Lung continued to serve in T'ang's personal force until 1924 when he received command of the Fifth Army of the Yunnan forces.

By 1927 considerable opposition to the iron rule of T'ang Chi-yao had developed in Yunnan. In February 1927 Lung Yün, Hu Jo-yu, and two other military leaders staged a coup and presented T'ang with demands for reform. The Yunnan provincial government was reorganized so that Lung Yun held power, although T'ang Chi-yao received the post of director general. After T'ang Chi-yao's death in May, Lung Yün announced his support of the National Government and his readiness to commit troops to the Xorthern Expedition. He ^as appointed commander of the Thirty-eighth Army of the National Revolutionary Army. The National Government took further action in 1928, recognizing Lung Yün as governor of Yunnan and appointing him commander of the Thirteenth Route Army. By this time. Lung had consolidated his control of the province, and it was undisturbed by the civil wars that persisted in many provinces even after the national unification of China under the Kuomintang. He ran Yunnan as he wished, maintaining a loose alliance with the National Government. Lung was elected an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in 1931 and a full member of the Central Supervisory Committee in 1935. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937 roused the people of Yunnan from their indifference to national affairs. Lung Yün joined other military leaders in answering Chiang Kai-shek's call to a conference in Nanking. The successful construction of the Burma Road in about a year's time was in some measure due to the efforts of Lung Yün. As the Japanese advanced, Yunnan came to have a special significance because it was a border province, a link with the outside world. The political climate of Yunnan also was disturbed by the influx of schools and universities, the faculties of which contained intellectuals of many political persuasions. Lung Yün's support was sought by all factions in the war, but he remained an ally of the National Government and worked to maintain the stability of Yunnan. However, neither he nor the National Government authorities were oblivious to the delicate situation created by his entrenched position as governor of a semi-independent Yunnan. After the War in the Pacific began. Lung Yün found it impossible to close his province to outside armies, for many units had to make use of the Burma Road. By this time, Chiang Kai-shek had established a Kunming headquarters, with Lung *as director, thereby giving Lung some authority over the movements of outside forces. Although this appointment appeased Lung to some degree, he refused to allow Chinese or foreign combat troops into the city of Kunming.

In 1944 Ch'en Ming-shu and T'an P'ing-shan began to form a group to oppose the ruling circles of the National Government. It was inaugurated in Chungking in 1945 as the San Min Chu I Comrades Association, and it advocated the restoration of the platform presented by Sun Yat-sen at the First National Congress of the Kuomintang. Lung Yün reportedly became a member of this group. However, at the war's end, the Nationalist authorities moved quickly to bring Yunnan under their control. The Yunnan forces were sent to Indo-China to receive the surrender of the Japanese army in that area, and Tu Yü-ming (q.v.) staged a coup at Kunming in late 1945. Lung Yün was escorted to Chungking, where he was named head of the military council of the Military Affairs Commission. When the National Government returned to Nanking and the council was abolished, he was given a nominal post as a strategy adviser. His close relative and deputy commander, Lu Han (q.v.), succeeded him as governor of Yunnan. Throughout this period Lung was kept under close surveillance that amounted to house arrest. Toward the end of 1948, he escaped from his supervisors, assumed a disguise, and took a plane to Hong Kong. Although he was associated with such dissidents as Li Chi-shen q.v.) in Hong Kong, he did not accompany them to the Communist-occupied areas in north China in 1949. He refused an invitation to serve as a delegate at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but he nevertheless was made a member of the Central People's Government Council, a vice chairman of the National Defense Council, and a vice chairman of the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee. [459] Ma Chan-shan Early in 1950 Lung Yun left Hong Kong and went to Peking to assume office. In 1954 he served as a delegate from Yunnan to the National People's Congress, at which he made a speech extolling the new constitution, because of its provisions concerning the equality of various ethnic minorities in China. Two years later, he became a vice chairman of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee. In 1957, however, he was accused of being a rightist. He appeared before the National People's Congress in July 1957 and admitted that he had failed to remold his ideology, had criticized the Soviet Union, and had betrayed the love shown him by the Chinese Communist party. After confessing to wrong thinking, he was attacked by other leaders of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee, who accused him, among other things, of confiscating more than 3,000 mou of land from peasants. In February 1958 Lung Yün was dismissed from his official posts, which then included membership on the standing committee of the National Peoples Congress and vice chairmanship of the National Defense Council, and was required to study and remold his ideas. Although he was removed from the vice chairmanship of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee, he continued to serve on the standing committee of that organization.

Lung Yün died at Peking on 27 June 1962. He was survived by his wife, nee Ku Ying-chiu, by his daughter, Kuo-pi, and by five of his six sons, Sheng-wu, Sheng-tsu, Sheng-wen, Shenghsun, and Sheng-te. Another son, Shengtseng, had been killed in Yunnan in 1950.