Background
General Chao Erh-sun was a descendant of a Chinese Banner family. He was born in 1846.
General Chao Erh-sun was a descendant of a Chinese Banner family. He was born in 1846.
General Chao became a provincial graduate in 1867 and a metropolitan graduate or chin shih in 1874. In the same year he was made a Hanlin with the degree of Pien Hsiu or Hinlin compiler of the College of Hanlins.
The first official position General Chao held was that of assistant examiner for the provincial examinations of Hubei. Subsequently he was appointed a Supervising Censor of the Board of Works.
In 1893 Mr. Chao became a prefect in the province of Kueichow and soon he was promoted to be a Ping Pei Tao or Taotai with power over military forces in the Guangdong Province.
In April 1895 General Chao was appointed Judicial Commissioner of Anhui Province and sometime later he was transferred to the Province of Shenxi.
In November 1898 General Chao was appointed Financial Commissioner of Kansu and Hsin-kiang. In 1902 he was transferred to be Financial Commissioner of Shenxi province. In 1902 General Chao became Governor of Hunan. In August 1904 he was called to Peking and was given the position of acting President of the Board of Revenue. In May 1907 he was appointed Tartar general of Mukden with the concurrent post at Peking of Vice-President of the Board of War. Later he became governor of the metropolitan district and concurrently director of the imperial household affairs.
In May General Chao was appointed Viceroy of Szechuanv He did not assume this office however and in September of the same year he was appointed viceroy of Hu-Kuang Provinces with the brevet title of President of the Board of War and that of President of the Censorate.
In March 1907 General Chao was transferred to act as Viceroy of Sichuan with the concurrent posts of Tartar General of Chengtu and the assistant director-general of the Salt Adminstration. These posts he held until April 1911 when he was appointed Viceroy of Manchuria having under his control all the Tartar Generals of the three provinces.
In March 1912, the First Year of the Republic, a Bill was passed in the provisional assembly in Peking placing him upon equal footing with the Tutuhs of Kirin and Heilungkiang. He was subsequently made a full general and awarded the Second Order of Merit and First Order of Chiaho.
As Tutuh of Fengtian, General Chao was given supreme control of military and diplomatic affairs in three Manchurian Provinces. He resigned from this post on November 3, 1912 and subsequently was appointed director general of the Ching History Compilation Bureau. General Chao was one of the ‘Four Friends of Sungshan” of ex-President Yuan-Shih-kai, the other three being Hsu Shih-chang, Li Ching-hsi and Chang Chien. General Chao was president of the board of directors of the Hsiangshan ‘ Childrens’ Home, in the Western Hills, Peking, which was founded by ex-Premier Hsiung Hsi-ling after the 1917 fall flood in the Province of Zhili.