The bronze statue on the front square outside the gate portrays Prince Gongsa Norbu, the twelfth prince of Harqin. Courtesy name Leting, Gongsa Norbu was born in 1872. At the age of 27 in the 24th year of the Guangxu reign (1898), he inherited the title of prince, serving as Jasagh of the Right Wing Harqin Banner and Assistant League Chief of Zhuosuotu League. He was the last Harqin prince, and also the most enlightened and accomplished ruler in the clan’s history.
He received rigorous education from childhood, erudite and quick-witted, fluent in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan. He excelled at poetry, painting, calligraphy, horse riding and martial combat.
In the fourth lunar month of the 24th Guangxu year, his father Wangdute Namjil passed away. The following spring, Gongsa Norbu travelled to Beijing to formally inherit the princely title. He immediately reformed the corrupt governance left by his father, replacing unlimited corvée labour for banner residents with fixed labour quotas, greatly easing the people’s burden. Building on this foundation, he pushed forward sweeping new policies focusing on education, industry and military training, pioneering five unprecedented firsts across Inner Mongolia.
The first modern school: Chongzheng Academy
Education stood at the heart of Gongsa Norbu’s reforms. In the 28th year of Guangxu (1902), he founded Chongzheng Academy in the mansion’s west compound, offering free schooling to over thirty school-age children of the banner and personally serving as headmaster. The present Mansion Middle School traces its origins to this academy, with a century-long history and tens of thousands of alumni spread nationwide.
The first girls’ school: Yuzheng Girls’ Academy
In the 30th year of Guangxu, Gongsa Norbu visited Japan, receiving an audience with Count Okuma, then Japanese Prime Minister, and touring the World Expo. He witnessed how Japan’s rapid modernisation following the Meiji Restoration stemmed from advanced science and education, while Mongolian backwardness originated from underdeveloped schooling. Deeply inspired by this trip, he founded Yuzheng Girls’ Academy and Shouzheng Military Academy upon returning home. He hired a Japanese female teacher, Kihara Misako, to teach Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese and domestic arts at the girls’ school. The military academy provided combat training to maintain local security.
The first overseas student program
To elevate educational standards and cultivate talent, Gongsa Norbu pioneered sending students abroad. Outstanding pupils from his academies were dispatched to Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and overseas for advanced studies.
The first local newspaper
To raise literacy and help banner residents understand domestic and foreign affairs, he launched Ying Bao, Inner Mongolia’s earliest stone lithography newspaper, alongside a dedicated publishing house.
The first postal and telecommunications service
He established the first telecommunications network in Mongolian territories, personally overseeing pole installation to connect Harqin with Weichang via telephone lines.
These five pioneering achievements opened the closed borders of Harqin Banner and connected its people to the outside world.
For agricultural development, he conducted crop yield experiments and promoted scientific farming. He shipped tens of thousands of mulberry saplings from Zhejiang to Beijing by steamship, then transported them via camels and horses for large-scale mulberry cultivation, sericulture and silk weaving. Four original mulberry trees planted during his reign still survive today.
For industrial advancement, Gongsa Norbu founded five factories producing woven cloth, dyed fabrics, wool felt, soap and batik, developing local industry to create jobs and reduce idle labour among banner residents.
In commerce, he established Sanyi Foreign Firm, attracting merchants from Tianjin, Beijing and beyond. The bustling market earned Harqin the nickname “Little Beijing”.
All these new policies and economic developments were unprecedented in the Chifeng region, driving remarkable progress for Harqin Banner and cementing Gongsa Norbu’s immense prestige across Inner Mongolia.
His progressive vision and enterprising spirit stemmed from close contact with democratic reformists during his official postings in Beijing, including Wu Shouqing, Liang Qichao, Wu Changshuo and Yan Fu. His exchanges with Sun Yat-sen laid the ideological foundation for his forward-thinking reforms.
As recorded on page 166 of Chronicle of the Republic of China published by the National History Institute: At 3 p.m. on August 25, 1912, the Tongmenghui, United Republican Party, National Progressive Association, Republican Realisation Society and National Public Party merged to form the Kuomintang, an alliance known as the Five-Party Republican Coalition. A congress was held to elect party directors. Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren, Wang Chonghui, Gongsa Norbu, Wang Renwen, Wang Zhixiang, Wu Jinglian and Zhang Fenghui were elected nine directors by varying vote counts, with Sun Yat-sen later appointed Chairman. Gongsa Norbu was the only representative of Mongolian and Tibetan ethnic minorities among the founding directors, one of the nine original Kuomintang leaders. He attended numerous key party conferences alongside Sun Yat-sen, publicly articulating the Republic of China’s ethnic policies to the world, making him one of the earliest recorded ethnic minority founders of the Kuomintang.
Shortly after the Kuomintang’s establishment, Yuan Shikai seized state power. To preserve national unity, Sun Yat-sen ceded the presidency to Yuan Shikai. Having witnessed the Hundred Days’ Reform crushed by Yuan Shikai and seeing his reformist friends Liang Qichao, Wu Changshuo and Yan Fu marginalised by the regime, Gongsa Norbu refused to align with Yuan. Returning to Harqin Prince Mansion, he was the first to advocate the slogan “Unity and Autonomy for Mongolian and Han Peoples”, widely embraced by both ethnic groups and trialled across parts of Rehe Province.
Rehe Military Governor Xiong Xiling reported these activities to Yuan Shikai. Intimidated by Gongsa Norbu’s towering influence across Mongolia, Yuan issued a strict imperial edict on September 9, 1919, summoning Gongsa Norbu to Beijing to serve as Director-General of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Bureau, launching his twelve-year political career under the Beiyang Government.
During his tenure, he repeatedly dissuaded separatist movements in Outer Mongolia and Tibet, making vital contributions to safeguarding the unity of the Chinese nation.
In 1931, Gongsa Norbu passed away from cerebral haemorrhage in Beijing at the age of 59. His remains were buried at the Prince Mausoleum in Jianping, Liaoning Province.
The Harqin Prince ranked first among the twenty-four Mongolian princes of Inner Mongolia, granted the privilege of attending imperial audiences before the emperor. Holding the highest rank of Prince Extraordinary, he enjoyed equal official standing with Li Hongzhang.
上一篇：
发表、查看更多关于该信息的评论 
将本信息发给好友 
打印本页
