Liu Guitang

Liu Guitang, Liu Kuei-tang, 刘桂堂,(1892–1943). Chinese bandit and soldier, involved in the Japanese attempt to control Chahar province in 1933. Noted for switching sides several times and returning to banditry. Later, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, he commanded some Nanjing Government puppet troops.

The former goat-herder Liu Guitang officially became a full-time bandit in 1915 at the age of 23 in the mountains of southern Shandong. Eventually he rose to command a large band of bandits, and eventually surrendered themselves to a Chinese army unit that absorbed them into its ranks, (a common recruitment practice of the time). Liu and his men were given new arms and equipment and then some time later deserted. They later were taken back by the army and deserted once again. Taken back again in 1931, and sent by General Han Fuqu to help garrison northern Shandong. After another desertion they were sent by the Young Marshal Zhang Xueliang to garrison Jehol against the Japanese and Manchukuoan forces in early 1933. There General Liu and his men finally went over to the Japanese and Liu was made a Manchukuoan commander.

Liu Guitang, now under Japanese orders, was sent to the southeastern part of Chahar province in the Dolonor region with the object of causing trouble for the Chinese there. Liu then led his estimated 3,000 troops further east to Changpei. Reported at the time as a Japanese operation it may have been done by Liu without...
Read More