Tu Yueh-Sheng (1888–1951): A Tentative Political Biography

Of all the political personalities in the era between 1928 and 1949, Tu Yuehsheng was perhaps the most colorful, certainly the most unusual. Born into the lowest ranks of society, he rose to dazzling heights of power and exercised a political influence no gang leader had ever known before. The intimate relationship between Tu and the Kuomintang regime was a most unusual phenomenon in Chinese politics and deserves careful attention. Even though documentary materials are scarce by the very nature of the case, an investigation may shed important light on contemporary political mechanisms.