# Zhao Zhongrong

Zhao Zhongrong (1905 – 25 March 1951), courtesy name Yongkuan, was a lieutenant general in the Army of the Republic of China. He was a native of Guo County, Shanxi Province. He graduated from the Law Department of Chaoyang University in Beijing and Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow. He served as the county magistrate of Baotou County and the founder of the Three People's Principles. Executive director of the Central Committee of the Youth League, director of the Peking Office of the 12th War Zone of the Anti-Japanese War, standing member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, and member of the first legislative session after the implementation of the constitution. During the second civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, he was sent to monitor Fu Zuoyi. Fu Zuoyi After the rebellion, Zhao Zhongrong was imprisoned and shot at the Yongdingmen execution ground in Beijing on 25 March 1951.

## Life

Born in Nao County, Daizhou, Taiyuan Prefecture, Shanxi Province in the late Qing Dynasty, he joined the Kuomintang when he was in Taiyuan Middle School. He studied at the Law Department of Chaoyang University in Beijing in 1922. In 1925, he and Chiang Ching-kuo were sent by the Kuomintang to Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow for further studies. After returning to China, he served in the Kuomintang Beiping City Party Headquarters, in 1936 he was appreciated by Shanxi Provincial Chairman Xu Yongchang and appointed as the county magistrate of Baotou County. The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, and Baotou was forced to evacuate after the fall of Baotou in October. In the same year, he served as a major general in the Eighth Theater. In 1938, the Three People's Principles Youth League was established. He served as the preparatory director, director and secretary-general of the Three People's Principles Youth League of Suiyuan Province in 1943. He was elected as the executive director of the Central Committee of the Three People's Principles Youth League in 1945. In 1945, he was appointed as the alternate Central Supervisory Committee member of the sixth session of the Kuomintang. After the end of the Anti-Japanese War, he was promoted to lieutenant general and served as the director of Zhang Yuan's Office of Appeasement in Peking. In 1947, he was elected as the executive director of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang. Member, he was elected as the first legislator of the second district of Shanxi Province after the implementation of the constitution in 1948.
In 1947, when the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party resumed, Fu Zuoyi, director of Zhang Yuan's Office of Appeasement, was renamed Commander-in-Chief of the Suppression of Bandits in North China. At the end of 1948, as the war situation of the Republic of China government took a turn for the worse, Pingjin was surrounded by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, leaving only 200,000 Fu Zuoyi's troops in Peiping in North China. On January 14, 1949, Fu Zuoyi contacted the CCP through third parties Su Jing, Deng Baoshan and others and reached a peace agreement. On January 16, he was ordered to go to North China with Zheng Jiemin, the Minister of Defense of the Republic of China, to urge Fu Zuoyi to go south quickly, and was ordered to monitor Fu Zuoyi. On January 31, 1949, Peiping fell and he was detained by Fu Zuoyi and unable to leave by plane. In June, he was detained by the CCP and his home was ransacked. Zhou Beifeng was responsible for the inspection of his home. In his later years, he recalled that Zhao Zhongrong was stubborn and refused to surrender. He was also unwilling to accept ideological reform at North China Revolutionary University. If he was willing to demote his status, he should be higher than Fu Zuoyi.
On 25 March 1951, he was shot at the Yongdingmen execution ground in Beijing.

### Commemorations

After his death, his family was ruthlessly suppressed and persecuted. His wife was imprisoned by Ruiyun for 20 years. His daughter was sent to Inner Mongolia to do a labor camp. She could not bear the oppression and committed suicide. The other two daughters were persecuted and became mentally ill. After the reform and opening up, Zhao Zhongrong's daughter Zhao Anna moved overseas and began to work hard for her father to be enshrined in the Martyrs' Shrine in Taipei, the Republic of China. In February 2018, Feng Shih-kuan, Minister of Defense of the Republic of China, approved the posthumous recognition of Zhao Zhongrong as a martyr. On 27 March, Zhao Zhongrong was enshrined in the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine, becoming the highest ranking general who died for his country in mainland China and was enshrined in the Martyrs' Shrine after the government moved to Taiwan.
On 10 May 2011, General Hsu Yen-pu, commander of the Army of the Republic of China, led important cadres and representatives of officers and soldiers to preside over the memorial ceremony for the late loyal and martyrs of the Republic of China, Generals Li Minyi and Zhao Zhongrong, at the National Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine.