Huang Jilu, a native of Xuyong County, was born on March 2, 1899 (21st day of the 25th month of the 25th year of the Qing Dynasty) in Huangjiaba, Longchang, Xuyongxing. When the mother dies, she is raised by her grandmother and eldest sister-in-law. At that time, Xuyong was an important base for the activities of the revolutionaries in southern Sichuan, and the family of his cousin Huang Fang (Xuezhi) was the meeting place where the leaders of the Sichuan League, Such as Huang Shuzhong, Xiong Kewu, and Yang Cangbai, often met. In the winter of 1907, Huang Fang was arrested and imprisoned for failing to participate in the Chengdu Uprising, but Huang Jilu's eldest brother Huang Shouxuan went to try to rescue him. In 1908, Huang Jilu went to Chengdu with his brother and entered the Qiangguo Higher Primary School, and after school, he went in and out of prison under the name of prison visits to convey information to the revolutionaries. In his later years, he once recalled: "Because of this opportunity, I was infected with revolutionary thought at a young age and caught up with the big era of the Xinhai Revolution." In the 1911 Sichuan Baolu Movement, he contacted some young friends, made a generous statement to the Chengdu Railway Company, expressed his determination to "break the contract to protect the road", and initiated the establishment of the Sichuan Primary School Students Baolu Comrades Association, which was promoted to president, and the three characters of Huang Xuedian gradually became known.
After the Xinhai Revolution, he went out to study. In 1913, he went to Shanghai and was introduced by Huang Shuzhong (Fusheng) to meet Sun Yat-sen for the first time. Sun Yat-sen said to him: "You must study hard from now on, and you cannot contribute to the revolution without learning." These words taught him a lot, and he has been keen to learn since then. In 1917, he graduated from the middle school of Fudan Public School in Shanghai. In 1918, he went to Japan and entered Keio University. In the autumn of 1919, he went to the United States and studied at California State University and Westling University in Ohio, where he received his bachelor's and master's degrees. In the summer of 1922, he went to Canada and entered the Research Institute of the University of Toronto, and served as the chief writer of the "Awakening China Daily". In the winter of 1923, he was elected as a delegate by the Canadian General Branch of the Kuomintang and returned to China to attend the First National Congress of the Chinese Kuomintang.
From January 20 to 30, 1924, under the auspices of Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese Nationalist Party held its first national congress in Guangzhou with the participation of Communists. Huang Jilu was a member of the Manifesto Review Committee of the Congress, and on the issue of anti-imperialism, he had an argument with Li Dazhao, who was in charge of drafting the manifesto. In his speech at the congress, he also advocated the addition of a clause in the party constitution that "members of the party shall not join other parties", which aroused strong opposition from Mao Zedong and others, thus "openly causing anti-communist debates for the first time." Huang Jilu's words and deeds were praised by Dai Jitao, a rightist faction of the Kuomintang, and others at that time. Since then, Huang Jilu has served as a member and vice chairman of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the base camp, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University and the head of the Department of Law and Politics, and also served in the Guangzhou Special Party Department of the Kuomintang. At that time, the Guangzhou Special Party Department was the nest of the rightists, and Sun Ke and Wu Tiecheng were both executive members. Huang Jilu is the Executive Committee Member and Minister of Youth. In June 1924, together with Sun Ke, he proposed to the Kuomintang Central Party Department a special case to sanction the Communist Party. This project, formally proposed by Zhang Ji and others to Sun Yat-sen, was severely criticized.
After Sun Yat-sen's death in March 1925, the left faction dominated the Kuomintang Central Committee, and the Kuomintang Guangzhou Municipal Party Department felt threatened. Huang Jilu left Guangzhou at this time, traveled to various places at the behest of Hu Hanmin, and together with Lin Sen, Zhang Ji, Xie Zhi, Zou Lu and others from the Xishan Conference, established another Central Committee in Shanghai and served as overseas ministers of the so-called Central Party Department. In January 1926, the Chinese Nationalist Party held its second national congress in Guangzhou and passed the "Impeachment of the Xishan Conference". Huang Jilu and others were given severe warnings and punishments. However, he still served as the so-called Central Workers Minister, the Youth Minister, and sponsored the anti-communist activities of the Sun Wen Doctrine Society, so he was wanted by the Nationalist government in Wuhan.
In 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei openly betrayed the revolution and kuomintang-Communist cooperation broke down, Huang Jilu returned to Sichuan and served as a member of the Kuomintang Sichuan Qing Party Committee, an executive member of the provincial party department, and a professor at Chengdu University. In 1928, he went to Guangzhou and served as an executive member of the Guangdong Provincial Party Department of the Kuomintang and the director of the Propaganda Department, the director of the Kuomintang Daily Newspaper, and a professor at Sun Yat-sen University. In November 1931, he went to Nanjing to attend the Fourth National Congress of the Kuomintang and was elected as an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee. After the meeting, he was appointed as a member of the Southwest Executive Department of the Kuomintang and the Southwest Political Affairs Committee. In November 1935, he was elected as an executive member of the Kuomintang Central Committee and vice chairman of the Local Autonomy Planning Commission; he was recruited to guangxi to assist Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi in handling the "people's organization training" work. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, he went to Nanjing and became deputy director of the Fourth Department of the Military Commission. In 1938, the Three People's Nationalist Youth League was founded in Wuhan, and he served as the party affairs officer and head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Youth League Department, and soon became the deputy head of the Interior Department of the Executive Yuan. In 1939, after Chen Gongbo defected with Wang Jingwei and surrendered to the enemy, Huang Jilu succeeded him as the chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Party Department of the Kuomintang.
In early 1943, Huang Jilu became the president of Sichuan University. At this time, in order to avoid the air raids of the Japanese aircraft, Sichuan University had moved to Mount Emei for classes, and the conditions were extremely difficult. He believes that "the scenery of Mount Asan is solid, but it is only a place to study Buddhism and play, and it is really inappropriate to use it to train young cadres who are responsible for the construction of the country." To this end, the first thing he did after he took office was to move the school back to Chengdu. Then, he raised funds from many sources to build a new school building in Wangjianglou, expand faculties, and hire teachers, claiming that "Sichuan University will not only become the highest and most perfect institution in the country, but also make Sichuan University a famous and perfect university in the world." Under his efforts, the sichuan scale is expanding day by day. When Sichuan University moved back to Chengdu in 1943, there were only 23 departments in 5 colleges of arts, science, law, agriculture and division, with more than 1,000 students; by 1947, there were 6 colleges and 40 departments, with more than 7,000 students. The campus building of Sichuan University spans both banks of the Jinjiang River, down the river, from the Nine Eyes Bridge to the Three Tile Kiln, stretching for nearly ten miles, which plays a certain role in the development of Sichuan University.
Huang Jilu's seven years in Sichuan University were an earth-shaking era in Chinese history. At this turning point in history, he remained steadfast in his reactionary political stance. He fiercely opposed the patriotic democratic movement of teachers and students. In particular, when the Kuomintang regime was about to collapse, he even more connived at the persecution of progressive professors and students by secret agents, and tried his best to obstruct the students' anti-civil war and anti-hunger movements.
In December 1949, Huang Jilu arrived in Hong Kong and went to Taiwan in March 1950. In the Kuomintang government of Taiwan, he successively served as a political councilor, minister of internal affairs, minister of education of the Executive Yuan, director of the Examination and Selection Department, director of the Central Design and Evaluation Commission, director of the National History Museum, chairman of the Central Party History Association, senior minister of the Presidential Office, and adviser to national policy.
Huang Jilu has long been engaged in the study of kuomintang history and the history of the Republic of China. His major works include: "Our Premier", "Democratic Precedents and Democratic Constitutionalism", "The Greatness of the Father of the Nation and the Inheritance of His Revolutionary Cause", "Guangxu Thirty-three Years Ding Wei Sichuan Revolutionary Uprising Movement" and so on. In addition, he also edited the "Complete Works of the Prime Minister", "Chronicles of Revolutionary Figures", "Minutes of the History of the Republic of China" and so on.
In his later years, Huang Jilu was homesick and published dozens of articles such as "Dreaming of Finding My Hometown and My Home" in Taiwan's "Biographical Literature", recalling the past and missing the mainland. On the morning of April 24, 1985, Huang Jilu died of cerebral hemorrhage and cardiopulmonary failure in CarnationAltian Hospital in Taipei.
(Originally published in "Chronicles of Sichuan Province"