Li Zongren was born in Xixiang Village (西鄉村), near Guilin in Guangxi Province, the second eldest in a Han family of five boys and three girls. His father, Li Peiying (李培英), was a village schoolmaster. After a patchy education Li enrolled in a provincial military school. He joined the Tongmenghui, the revolutionary party of Sun Yat-sen, in 1910 but had little understanding at that time of Sun's wider goals of reform and national reunification. Li's native province of Guangxi was also the home province of Taiping Gen. Li Xiucheng, to whom Li's family claimed to be related.