Former Residence of Li Zongren

Former Residence of Li Zongren

The Former Residence of Li Zongren is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu Province.

Former Residence of Li Zongren

The Former Residence of Li Zongren in Nanjing faces south and covers an area of 4,473 square meters. It is located at No. 30 (formerly No. 68) Fuhougang, Gulou District. The residence was originally built in July 1934 by Yao Cong (1891–1977), then Deputy Director of the General Office of the Nationalist Government’s Military Commission and Director of the Capital Affairs Office. This site is now the First Kindergarten of Jiangsu Provincial Government Agencies.

The courtyard features lush trees including pines, camphor, neolitsea, and paulownias, interspersed with pleasing sights such as a pond and rockeries. The property includes one gatehouse, one building, and two bungalows. The main building of the residence is a three-story Western-style structure with a basement, built with brick-concrete construction. It has wooden flooring and steel-framed windows and doors. The first floor has an interior corridor exuding grandeur, while the second floor boasts a bright and spacious balcony. The roof is covered with blue-gray tiles, and the exterior walls are finished with plain blue bricks. Two bungalows are built behind the main building and connected via a corridor. The entire residence consists of four buildings with 22 rooms, covering a total floor area of 227.1 square meters.

On August 9, 1937, central government and Red Army representatives were invited to Nanjing to attend the National Defense Conference, and both stayed at Yao Cong’s residence. During the War of Resistance against Japan, the residence was occupied by the Japanese army. In 1945, after the war ended, Yao Cong returned to Nanjing and reclaimed the residence. The following year, he rented it to the Czech Embassy for one year. After the lease expired, he took back the house and then rented it to the Inspiration Society, which repurposed it as a guesthouse for U.S. troops. Later, since Li Zongren had no residence in Nanjing, and Yao Cong owned properties elsewhere such as at Gaoloumen, he vacated the residence. In 1947, Li Zongren and his entourage moved in and stayed until leaving shortly before the liberation. In March 1992, the Nanjing Municipal Government designated the “Former Site of Li Zongren’s Residence” as a municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.

According to Shen Zui, a former agent of the Military Statistics Bureau, after Li Zongren moved into the Fuhougang residence in 1947, the Confidential Bureau of the Nationalist Ministry of Defense, acting on Chiang Kai-shek’s orders, plotted to assassinate him. However, after suffering major defeats in the three major battles, Chiang was forced to consider multiple options: temporarily stepping down himself and having Li Zongren act as president to await U.S. aid; sending Zhang Qun to Japan to recruit mercenaries to escalate the war; or simply eliminating Li Zongren and holding out along the Yangtze River. After much deliberation, Chiang chose the first option and instructed agents that they did not need to wait for his command to assassinate Li Zongren outside Nanjing—but if Li remained in Nanjing, any assassination had to await his order. For this, the head of the Confidential Bureau, Mao Renfeng, devised a detailed assassination plan. First, an old bookstore was set up at the street corner of Fuhougang to monitor Li Zongren’s movements, with a Thompson submachine gun and several grenades hidden inside. Two agents were also to pose as electricians from the Nanjing Power Company, ostensibly repairing transformers, but actually standing atop them to fire handguns from outside the wall into Li’s bedroom and dining room. The bullets used by the snipers were loaded with highly lethal explosives, designed to cause instant death upon impact. Second, to prevent Li Zongren from suddenly leaving Nanjing, Mao Renfeng opened a small grocery store on the roadside leading from Guanghua Gate to the airport, bought a wooden shack near Xiaguan Railway Station to set up a cigarette stand, and opened a small restaurant near Tangshan on the Nanjing-Hangzhou Highway. Agents took turns keeping watch around the clock. No matter where Li Zongren left Nanjing from, he would encounter an ambush by Confidential Bureau agents. However, due to various reasons, these carefully planned assassination schemes were never carried out. In the mid-1960s, when Shen Zui revealed these events to Li Zongren, Li was utterly shocked, deeply moved, and lamented the sharp and complex internal conflicts within the Nationalist government as it teetered on the brink of collapse.

Li Zongren (1891–1969) was a Han Chinese from Lingui, Guangxi. His courtesy name was Delin. He was the overall head of the Whampoa Military Academy’s Nanning Branch. A senior general of the Kuomintang, military strategist, anti-Japanese hero, and patriot, he once served as Vice President and Acting President of the Republic of China. In 1965 (at age 74), he returned to mainland China from the United States. He passed away in Beijing in 1969.

Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi were known as the “Li-Bai duo.” The two were the core of the Guangxi Clique, the most powerful regional military faction within the Kuomintang, and had cooperated seamlessly for many years. Initially, they both joined Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary camp in Guangzhou and... More details about Li Zongren ++

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units