Background
Mr. Hu Ao-kung was born at Chiang-lin Hsien, Hubei Province in 1885.
Mr. Hu Ao-kung was born at Chiang-lin Hsien, Hubei Province in 1885.
Mr. Hu graduated from the Ghiang Hsu College, Hubei, High Agriculture College, Peiyang and High Agriculture College, Jiangsi. While a student he joined the revolutionary party and played active parts in the party’s movements.
During the First Revolution which broke out at Wuchang in October 1911, Mr. Hu was one of the commanding officers of the Hubei Revolutionary Troops. When General Li Yuan-hung was elected Tutu of the Province of Hupei by the revolutionists, Mr. Hu became Chief of the General Affairs Department in the Office of the Tutu or Military Governor. Subsequently Mr. Hu was despatched to the North by General Li Yuan-hung to organize revolutionary forces of which he was later elected Commander-in-Chief.
After the establishment of the Republic in 1912 Mr. Hu returned to Hupei and was appointed by the provincial government the Director of the Bureau for devising means of living for the Manchus at Chinchow.
In 1913 Mr. Hu was elected a member of the House of Representatives. After the dissolution of Parliament by Yuan Shih-kai in January 1914 Mr. Hu returned to Hupei and very soon became the President of the Chinchow Law College. Later he went to Szechuan and Joined General Ch’en I, then Military Governor of Sichuan.
While in Szechuan he was at different times Secretary to General Ch’en, Protect of a Circuit, and Pacification Commissioner. Mr. Hu played an active part in the Yunnan Uprising against the Yuan Shih-kai monarchical movement. The province of Sichuan was the earliest to declare independence and to respond to Yunnan’s call. In 1917 he was appointed Prefect of the Chiao-Jen Circuit of Guangdong but he did not take up that appointment.
In June 1919 Mr. Hu was awarded the Third Class Chiaho. In April 1921 he was appointed Chief of the Civil Administration Bureau of Hubei. This position he held for about half a year.
The old Parliament was reconvoked in August 1922, and Mr. Hu took his seat as member of the House. In December 1922 he was appointed Vice-Minister of Education. In January 1923 he received the Second Class Tashou Chiaho. In February 1924 he was officially relieved of the Vice-Ministership.
Mr. Hu was the author of many books among which may be mentioned The Principles of Agriculture, The Principles of Forestry, The New Heaven and the New Earth, Literary Works of Ao-Kung, etc.
Mr. Hu was the managing editor of the magazine called To-day which strongly advocated the Marxian Theroy, for Mr. Hu himself was a Marxist.
