JUNG-LU

born April 6, 1836, China died April 11, 1903, Peking Pinyin Ronglu official and general during the last years of the Ch'ing dynasty who organized and led one of the first brigades of Chinese troops that used Western firearms and drill. He achieved high office as a favourite of the powerful empress dowager Tz'u-hsi, and he ensured that the army remained loyal to her. In 1898 a reformist group under the Kuang-hs emperor attempted to modernize the Chinese military, administrative, and educational systems. To counteract the tremendous power of the empress dowager and her conservative officials, the emperor secretly replaced Jung-lu as head of the army with Yan Shih-k'ai, one of Jung-lu's protgs and later the first president of the Chinese Republic. Yan was to have mobilized his troops near the capital, eliminated Jung-lu, and then imprisoned the empress dowager. But lacking confidence, Yan confided the plot to Jung-lu, who marched his forces into the capital, threw out the reformers, and imprisoned the emperor in his palace. Jung-lu then became one of the most powerful ministers of the dynasty. In the following year (1899) the empress, under the domination of supporters of the antiforeign Boxer secret societies, ordered all foreigners in China killed. Although Jung-lu did nothing to prevent the spread of the Boxers, he did not press the attack on the besieged foreign diplomats in their legations in Peking. Nevertheless, he fled for his life when foreign troops entered Peking on Aug. 14, 1900. When the court returned in 1902, Jung-lu once again resumed high office.