Yu Ta-wei

Yu Ta-wei was a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Tang Tao’s 2026 article in Mathematical Culture gives his date of birth as December 25, 1897; an article by Li Chen-lin published on the website of the Ministry of National Defense gives it as the second day of the twelfth month of the fifteenth year before the Republic (1897), without stating which calendar is meant.⁠[1][2]

His father, Yu Mingyi, was superintendent of the Hunan Army Primary School (formerly the military preparatory school) and later a brigade commander in the Qing army; the Defense Ministry article calls him an enthusiastic supporter of the reform movement. His mother, Zeng Guangshan, was a daughter of the mathematician Zeng Jihong, which made Yu a great-grandson of Zeng Guofan through his mother. Dai Jun’s 2015 article in The Paper calls him Yu Mingyi’s eldest son.⁠[2][3]

A 1992 article by Chen Jing in Global Views Monthly says that Yu was called a child prodigy at the age of five, that in his biography he said he owed his early education and formation to his mother, Zeng Guangshan, and that because his mother worshipped the bodhisattva Guanyin he grew up in that devotion, had kept to it ever since and kept images of Guanyin in his bedroom and his living room.⁠[4]

The Defense Ministry article says that he attended Fudan Middle School in Shanghai in 1911, entered the electrical engineering course of Nanyang Public School (the forerunner of Jiao Tong University) in first place in 1914 and left after half a year because of a lung illness, and in September 1915 entered the third year of the arts faculty of St. John’s University in Shanghai as a transfer student. Tang Tao’s article says that he studied at Fudan University and St. John’s University; Dai Jun’s article says that he graduated from St. John’s University in 1918.⁠[2][1][3]

The Defense Ministry article says that he went to Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry at the end of 1918 to major in philosophy, specialising in mathematical logic, received a doctorate in philosophy in 1921 and was awarded a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship, which sent him to the University of Berlin for further study. Tang Tao’s article says that he went to Harvard in 1918 to study mathematical logic and received a doctorate in mathematics in 1922; Dai Jun’s article says that he received a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard in 1922 and calls him one of three Chinese students in the university’s history to earn a doctorate in mathematical logic, the other two being Zhao Yuanren and Wang Hao.⁠[2][1][3]

Fu Yue-an’s 2023 article in Wenhui Bao says that Yu recalled taking twelve courses in three years at Harvard and receiving an A in every one of them, and that he called examinations great fun; the version of the essay published by Storm Media adds that he once said, half in jest, that one should play a lot at big examinations, play a little at small ones and not play when there was no examination.⁠[5][6]

Fu Yue-an’s article says that Yu described himself and his elder cousin Chen Yinke as classmates for seven years, from Harvard to the University of Berlin in Germany, between 1918 and 1925; the two arrived in Berlin in 1921, when the Chinese students there also included Zhao Yuanren and his wife, Yao Congwu, Fu Sinian, Mao Zishui and Luo Jialun. The Defense Ministry article says that in Berlin the two studied German philosophy and mathematics, read Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and attended Albert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein (1879–1955) was a German-born physicist who formulated the special theory of relativity in 1905 and the general theory in 1915 and received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. From 1933 until his death he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States.Open the full entry’s lectures on relativity.⁠[5][2]

Fu’s article says that he attended Einstein’s lectures on relativity for two weeks and later wrote a paper, “Zur Grundlegung des Klassenkalküls”, which he submitted to a journal that the article describes as edited by Einstein, becoming the first Chinese author published in it; Li Yuan-ping’s open letter of 1992 in Global Views Monthly likewise calls him the first Chinese to publish a paper in a mathematics journal edited by Einstein. The University of Berlin wanted him to stay and teach, and he politely declined; looking back on his time in Berlin, he said that he considered himself the one who had studied best. The Defense Ministry article says that he once remarked that physics had been entering a new era, that of quantum theory and relativity, when he was a student and had now entered a second new era, as if he slightly regretted not having switched to physics.⁠[5][7][6][2]

Li Yuan-ping’s open letter says that Fu Sinian, who later became his brother-in-law, said as early as 1923 (the twelfth year of the Republic) that Yu was China’s most promising scholar; Fu Yue-an’s article says that Fu Sinian said to Mao Zishui that of the Chinese students in Berlin the two most promising were Chen Yinke and Yu Ta-wei.⁠[7][5]

The Defense Ministry article says that during his time in Germany he turned to the ballistics of guns and artillery and became a world-renowned ballistics expert; at the end of 1920, while studying military affairs in Germany, he took part in the government’s purchases of German arms, and he was later appointed head of the commercial investigation office in Germany, supervising the procurement of military supplies from abroad.⁠[2]

The chronology in the Defense Ministry article lists him as head of the commercial investigation office of the legation in Germany in 1928, counsellor of the Ministry of Military Affairs in 1929, and chief secretary of the General Staff with the rank of major general in 1932.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that in 1930 he was ordered to buy 75 mm mountain guns from the Swedish firm Bofors, refused the large kickback the firm offered, said that the money could pay for three more guns and asked for all 15 to be delivered together; after the factory informed the Swedish government of this, he was awarded a medal in recognition of his character.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that in January 1933 he became director of the Ordnance Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs and was promoted to lieutenant general, holding the post until December 30, 1944.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that between the Mukden Incident and the war against Japan the government set up several research institutes and engaged the German ballistics authority Dr. Cranz at a high salary to teach and assist in China, and in 1934 (the twenty-third year of the Republic), with the strong support of Yu as director, an Ordnance Research Institute was set up; with the help of the German government it chose to adapt the German standard Mauser rifle as the rifle of the Republic of China, obtained a set of technical drawings and production equipment in 1934 (the twenty-third year of the Republic) and gave them to the arsenal at Gongxian, Henan, for trial production, which succeeded the following year; because production began in August 1935 (the twenty-fourth year of the Republic), the new rifle was named the Type 24 rifle and later renamed the Chiang Kai-shek rifle, which the article calls the main standard weapon of 3.2 million troops in ten war zones during the eight years of the war against Japan.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that during the eight years of the war, with very limited manpower, materials and mules and horses, he moved more than 30 arsenals, steelworks, materials plants and ordnance technical units intact to the interior and kept munitions production going without interruption.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that in December 1944 he became administrative vice minister of military affairs and the representative of the Republic of China on the Sino-American Combined Staff, negotiating with General Wedemeyer the re-equipment of 36 divisions with American weapons in the last phase of the war against Japan.⁠[2]

Chu Wei-yueh, a former senior researcher of the Second Institute of the Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, writes in a 2021 column in the China Times that at the time of victory over Japan Chiang Kai-shek decided that the Ministry of Military Affairs should take charge of an atomic bomb research programme; the minister was Chen Cheng and the vice minister Yu Ta-wei, who was responsible for bringing together the country’s leading scientists. Yu approached Zeng Zhaolun, a chemistry professor at Southwest Associated University and his brother-in-law, who introduced the physics professor Wu Ta-you and the mathematics professor Hua Luogeng; the three planned the programme together and each chose students, Wu choosing Tsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao Lee (1926–2024) was a Shanghai-born American physicist who taught for decades at Columbia University. In 1956 he and Chen Ning Yang proposed that parity might not be conserved in weak interactions, for which they shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics; from the 1970s he helped advance high-energy physics and the training of physicists in China.Open the full entry and Zhu Guangya, Zeng choosing Tang Aoqing among others, and Hua choosing Sun Benwang, between the autumn of 1945 and the summer of 1946. The column calls Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng the decision-makers and Yu the driving force; it also describes Yu as a Harvard doctor of mathematics who later studied ballistics at the University of Berlin and was taught by Einstein.⁠[8]

The chronology in the Defense Ministry article says that in April 1946 he took part in the meetings of the Committee of Three of representatives of the Nationalist government, the Chinese Communists and the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry, and that in May of that year he received the Order of Blue Sky and White Sun and became Minister of Communications. Dai Jun’s article says that around 1946 he acted as interpreter and liaison between Chiang Kai-shek and George C. MarshallGeorge C. MarshallGeorge C. Marshall (1880–1959) was a five-star U.S. Army general and statesman. He was Army chief of staff during World War II and later served as secretary of state and secretary of defense, and he received the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for proposing and supervising the plan for Europe’s economic recovery, the Marshall Plan.Open the full entry and was one of the members of the Committee of Three in the negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party; Chen Jing’s article says that he took part in the Committee of Three’s negotiations with the Communists in the Northeast. Li Yuan-ping’s open letter says that Yu once said he had been present at most of the conversations between the late President and Marshall, acting as liaison and interpreter.⁠[2][3][4][7]

The Defense Ministry article says that as Minister of Communications he promoted transport construction; it says that at the time the Communists, in rebellion, frequently disrupted transport in many places and that he at once reformed the way the post was carried, with immediate gains in efficiency. Dai Jun’s article says that in 1946 he was Minister of Communications and a member of the Council for U.S. Aid.⁠[2][3]

The Defense Ministry article says that in March 1950, when Chiang Kai-shek resumed the presidency and asked Chen Cheng to form a cabinet, Yu was invited to become Minister of National Defense, but because of an ear ailment the deputy chief of the general staff, Kuo Chi-chiao, served in his place. Dai Jun’s article says that in 1951 he became vice chairman of the Council for U.S. Aid and adviser to the embassy in the United States.⁠[2][3]

The Defense Ministry article says that in 1954 O. K. Yui, who had been asked to form a cabinet, twice pressed him to accept, and in May of that year he became Minister of National Defense, beginning a ten-year term as a civilian minister; the article adds that he had not come from the Whampoa Military Academy system and was not a member of the Kuomintang. Chen Jing’s article says that whenever Chiang Kai-shek asked him to return from the United States to public office, whether as director of ordnance, Minister of Communications or Minister of National Defense, he declined, until Chiang stopped asking and simply announced his appointment as defense minister; the article adds that his biography describes in detail how he and Chiang, speaking Hunanese and Zhejiang dialects respectively, could only converse in writing. A 2017 report by Chang Tien-wan in Newtalk says that he never joined the Kuomintang and never spent a day at a military academy.⁠[2][4][9]

Chang Tien-wan’s report says that after the Nationalist government moved to Taiwan he went through the September 3 bombardment, the battle of Yijiangshan, the evacuation of the Dachen Islands and several air battles.⁠[9]

A memorandum for the record printed in Foreign Relations of the United States, published by the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State, records that on February 24, 1956, Yu, accompanied by General Ho, called on Admiral Radford. He disagreed with the U.S. military personnel on Taiwan who had recommended against providing 8-inch howitzers for Quemoy and asked for the Chinese request to be reconsidered; he said there was an urgent need for the programme for “Long Toms” and asked for faster delivery, adding that for a while he would hold off bombing the mainland if he could get the proper guns; he raised the problem of replacing the current trainees with some 100,000 reserve trainees at the end of the year, and said that two F-84 wings and one F-86 wing of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force were combat ready. Taking his leave, he said that he was returning to Taiwan in much better health than when he had come.⁠[10]

A memorandum of conversation printed in Foreign Relations of the United States records that on February 27, 1957, after three months of medical treatment in the United States and on the eve of his return to Taipei, Yu called at his own request at the State Department on Assistant Secretary Walter S. Robertson and Walter P. McConaughy, director of the Office of Chinese Affairs, to discuss military problems on Taiwan. He said that it was essential to expedite the completion of the Matador missile project, that he wanted the Kung Kuan airfield project pushed more aggressively and that the best U.S. anti-aircraft devices were needed to protect Taiwan, and he hoped that “Nike” missiles could be installed in the near future; he also said that the electronic equipment on Taiwan needed to be modernised and expanded and asked to know more of U.S. military plans in the event of a Chinese Communist attack on the offshore islands. Robertson replied that the President alone could make that decision, in the light of all the circumstances at the time, and that the Chinese government should not anticipate any decision in advance.⁠[11]

Another memorandum of conversation in Foreign Relations of the United States records that on December 9, 1957, Yu, together with the Chinese ambassador Hollington Tong, met Robertson and Ralph N. Clough, director of the Office of Chinese Affairs, at the State Department. He said that the Chinese forces then consisted of 21 divisions plus two tank divisions, a parachute regiment, a marine division and one marine brigade (the brigade not yet combat-ready), that equipment was rated at 84% and training at 80%, and that they were considered combat-ready; on the assumption that the cold war would continue and that brush fires might break out anywhere, he said, it was important to have not only combat-ready troops but “export-ready” troops, and there was quite a difference between the two. He said that he had suggested to Admiral Burke that Nike missiles be placed on Taiwan, and he called the new Chinese attitude of thinking no longer of the money needed for Chinese forces but of the total operational capability of combined United States and Chinese forces in the area “the Copernican revolution in Chinese thought”.⁠[12]

The Defense Ministry article says that in July 1958, as tension rose on the Kinmen and Matsu front, most people thought that the People’s Liberation Army would attack Matsu, but he judged that the target was Kinmen, urged stronger fortifications and more troops there, and predicted that the PLA would first bombard Kinmen and then land.⁠[2]

The Defense Ministry article says that late on the night of August 22, 1958, he flew to Kinmen on an inspection; on August 23 he had breakfast at the Kinmen Defense Command with its commander, Lieutenant General Hu Lien, and the three deputy commanders, Lieutenant General Zhao Jiaxiang, Lieutenant General Ji Xingwen and Major General Zhang Jie, and then crossed by sea to inspect the defensive positions on Lesser Kinmen and the two islets of Dadan and Erdan; that day the PLA heavily bombarded Kinmen, the three deputy commanders for the army, navy and air force, Ji Xingwen, Zhao Jiaxiang and Zhang Jie, were killed, and Yu was wounded in the head by shellfire; after his return to Taipei an X-ray at Army 801 General Hospital (the forerunner of Tri-Service General Hospital) showed a fragment the size of a grain of rice in the back of his skull.⁠[2]

Chen Jing’s article says that at that critical moment he saved not only himself but also Hu Lien, who nearly lost his life, and that the shell fragment was still in his head. The article adds that the personnel office of the Central Personnel Administration obtained approval on January 14, 1965 (the fifty-fourth year of the Republic), to present him with a wound medal in memory of the wound he received in the bombardment while inspecting the Kinmen defences on August 23, 1958 (the forty-seventh year of the Republic).⁠[4]

A telegram of October 27, 1958, from the U.S. embassy, printed in Foreign Relations of the United States, records that on October 25 Admiral Smoot and General Doan held a general discussion with Defense Minister Yu and Chief of the General Staff Tiger Wang on converting Kinmen into an island fortress and that their suggestion met a favourable response, especially from Yu. The embassy’s despatch of November 27 says that Yu would quietly leave Taipei on November 28 on his annual visit to Washington for medical treatment and discussions with officials of the State and Defense Departments, planning to stay about three months, and that as in previous years he had prepared by stating his views and seeking those of senior U.S. officials in Taipei. The despatch says that he asked Admiral Smoot, commander of the United States Taiwan Defense Command, for his views, particularly concurred in Smoot’s concept of strengthening the Chinese air force and navy but was not enthusiastic about reducing the army, and that when the ambassador called on him on November 26 to bid him farewell he encouraged him to come up with a programme of reductions.⁠[13][14]

The Defense Ministry article says that early in 1965 he resigned as Minister of National Defense because of illness, recommending Chiang Ching-kuo, then vice minister of national defense, as his successor, and received from the government the Order of National Glory, the highest military honour; its chronology says that in that year he became a full-time minister without portfolio. Dai Jun’s article likewise says that in 1965 he became a full-time minister without portfolio of the Executive Yuan. Li Yuan-ping’s open letter calls him one of the five recipients of the Order of National Glory.⁠[2][3][7]

In May 1966 he was appointed senior adviser to the Office of the President.⁠[2][3]

Dai Jun’s article says that on January 20, 1977, at the age of eighty, Yu published his will in Taiwan, directing that his body be cremated, that no funeral or memorial ceremony be held and that no condolence gifts be accepted; the will provided that his eldest son, Yu Yang-ho, should fly over the sea off Kinmen and scatter the ashes from the air, first flying over the resting places of Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng in a final salute. Li Yuan-ping’s open letter of 1992 says that twenty years earlier he had made a will in Chinese and English leaving his military books to the Armed Forces University and the rest to National Taiwan University.⁠[3][7]

On October 9, 1981, his wife, Chen Xinwu, died at Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei.⁠[3]

Li Yuan-ping’s open letter says that on the afternoon of January 4, 1992, he handed Yu a red, gold-lettered hardback copy of his Biography of Yu Ta-wei, and that Yu laughed and called it flattery, said that it was right in the main and wrong in the details, and said that it had been written behind closed doors. Chen Jing’s article says that January 6 was his ninety-sixth birthday, when his house was crowded with visitors and dignitaries. Li’s letter adds that by then he was almost completely blind and unable to read and was sorting the nearly ten thousand books on his shelves by subject and packing them, and that two years earlier he had said to Li that his eyesight was failing, that reading had become hard work and that he, a reader, was closing up shop.⁠[7][4]

Dai Jun’s article says that in February 1993 he took refuge in Buddhism, receiving the Dharma name Jingwei.⁠[3]

Yu Ta-wei died on July 8, 1993, at Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei. The Defense Ministry article gives his age as 97, and a caption in it says that he died of kidney cancer; Dai Jun’s article says that he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 95; Tang Tao’s article says that he died of illness in Taipei at 96. A caption in the Defense Ministry article says that President Lee Teng-hui issued a commendation on July 14.⁠[2][3][1]

Dai Jun’s article says that his eldest son, Yu Yang-ho, by then too old to fly the plane himself, nevertheless carried out the will on July 11 by scattering his father’s and his mother’s ashes in the Taiwan Strait, keeping some of the ashes and relics, which he gave to his youngest brother, Yu Hsiao-chi, for safekeeping. The Defense Ministry article says that the funeral was held on July 15, 1993, that the ashes were escorted by Hau Pei-tsun, then senior adviser to the President, on a flight over the Cihu mausoleum, and that under the care of the eldest son, Yu Yang-ho, they were then buried at sea off Kinmen from a naval vessel.⁠[3][2]

Dai Jun’s article says that the Yu Ta-wei Memorial Hall was completed in 1994 in the Banyan Garden on Kinmen.⁠[3]

Dai Jun’s article says that in 2013 his youngest son, Yu Hsiao-chi, had the ashes and relics taken to Chen Yinke’s daughter Chen Liuqiu, asking her to see to them properly, and that Chen Liuqiu thought of the Jianchuan Museum at Anren in Dayi, Chengdu, where she lived. On the morning of August 15, 2015, the ashes were placed there in the presence only of relatives of the younger generations living in Chengdu and Fan Jianchuan; on the morning of September 2 a statue of Yu was unveiled in the presence of members of the Yu family in mainland China, Chen Liuqiu and her sisters with their younger relatives, Fan Jianchuan and others, Chen Liuqiu speaking on behalf of the family; and on September 3 the Xinhua News Agency issued a report on the unveiling of the statue at the Jianchuan Museum.⁠[3]

A September 2017 report by Chang Tien-wan in Newtalk called for the preservation of Yu’s former residence on Wenzhou Street in Taipei, a Japanese-style building of the Shōwa era where he had lived and where his younger brother, Yu Ta-kang, held a cultural salon in the living room attended by Chiang Hsun, Lin Hwai-min, Sanmao, Chiu Kun-liang, Huang Yung-sung and others; the report says that the building was threatened by urban redevelopment and that Yu never owned property.⁠[9]

Fu Yue-an’s article in Storm Media says that the main library of National Taiwan University held a Yu Ta-wei exhibition from July 28 to September 15, 2023.⁠[6]

Chen Jing’s article says that whenever he had time he went to Kinmen, slept in the trenches and ate beef noodles with the troops, and flew in and out along the coast a dozen or more times to assess the enemy’s situation accurately. Fu Yue-an’s article says that on Kinmen he always carried a copy of Augustine’s Confessions to read whenever he could.⁠[4][5]

Fu Yue-an’s article says that Chen Yinke and Yu Ta-wei were cousins, Yu calling Chen’s mother, who married the poet Chen Sanli, his aunt (the Defense Ministry article names her as Yu Mingshi); Yu later married Chen Yinke’s younger sister, Chen Xinwu, so that his aunt became his mother-in-law, and he described the Yu and Chen families as linked by two generations of marriage and three generations of friendship. The Defense Ministry article calls Chen Xinwu a daughter of Chen Sanli and Yu’s elder cousin, while Fu’s article calls her his younger cousin. Dai Jun’s article says that Chen Xinwu was getting older and still unmarried and that Chen Yinke proposed the marriage to Yu on his sister’s behalf several times before Yu agreed.⁠[5][2][3]

His younger sister, Yu Ta-tsai, was the wife of Fu Sinian, a former president of National Taiwan University. Fu Yue-an’s article says that he inscribed a couplet at the front of the collected works of his younger brother, Yu Ta-kang, wishing to be brothers with him in every life and in the next, and wrote another couplet in red ink on the flyleaf of the first volume of Chen Yinke’s collected essays on literature and history.⁠[2][4][6]

The Defense Ministry article says that Yu and his wife raised three sons and that the eldest, Yu Yang-ho, married Chiang Hsiao-chang, the daughter of Chiang Ching-kuo. Dai Jun’s article says that Yu Yang-ho was born while Yu was studying in Berlin; the article first gives his mother as Yu’s German piano teacher, a married woman, and Chen Liuqiu corrects this to a young German woman who was not married; Yu Yang-ho married several times, his last wife being Chiang Hsiao-chang, and he died in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, United States, in May 2010. Li Yuan-ping’s open letter says that Yu, a relative of the Chiang family by marriage (and not the only one), went to Cihu twice a year, on the anniversaries of Chiang Kai-shek’s birth and death.⁠[2][3][7]

Fu Yue-an’s article says that Yu described the first half of his life as forging iron and the second half as fighting wars, calling himself a blacksmith working away under Chiang Kai-shek; after leaving his military post in 1965 he spent 28 years until his death in 1993 as a full-time reader. Fu’s article in Storm Media says that when his eyesight failed he planned to review one discipline each month, starting with Catholic theology with Bishop Stanislaus Lokuang, president of Fu Jen Catholic University, then physics with the physicist Wu Ta-you, president of Academia Sinica, followed by music, fine art, philosophy, mathematics and aesthetics, but not military science, which he did not count as advanced learning; in literature he admitted to being an outsider.⁠[5][6]

Fu Yue-an’s article says that his books now form the Yu Ta-wei Collection of the National Taiwan University Library, more than ten thousand volumes in a ratio of about two foreign-language books to one Chinese, which Fu estimates at about 3,500 Chinese and 7,000 English volumes, and he estimates Yu’s original library at about 15,000 to 20,000 volumes; Yu stamped almost every book, with several seals, which Fu estimates at nearly ten, among them one reading “Shanyin Yu” and one with the maxim that one who knows the enemy and oneself wins every battle. Yu said that his maternal great-grandfather Zeng Guofan’s naming of his study as the Studio of Seeking Plainness (Fu’s Wenhui Bao article notes that another account gives the name as the Studio of Seeking Imperfection) had taught him to work tirelessly, whether or not he had talent.⁠[5][6]

Chen Jing’s article says that in old age he read newspapers and books with a magnifying glass; that he was an accomplished pianist, and in the year before the article appeared Madame Chiang Kai-shek said to him before leaving for the United States that she would love to hear him play again, though he had long given up playing; and that he saw Halley’s Comet twice, at 13 and at 89.⁠[4]

Li Yuan-ping’s open letter says that Yu spoke with a strong Hunan accent; that he called himself a fish, a pun on his surname, that had slipped through the Kuomintang’s net; that when the Who’s Who of the Republic of China published by Chung Hwa Book Company more than ten years earlier wanted an entry on him and asked him to write it, he refused to write a word; and that a biographical dictionary of modern China published by Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry is said to credit him with contributing to the modernisation of the armed forces of the Republic of China and making them the most efficient armed force among the non-communist countries of Asia. Dai Jun’s article says that he loved books all his life and had a large library, enjoyed Peking opera, and supported one China and opposed Taiwan independence.⁠[7][3]