Lu Zuofu

Lu Zuofu (simplified Chinese: 卢作孚; traditional Chinese: 盧作孚, 14 April 1893 – 8 February 1952), formerly known as Lu Kuixian, was a Chinese industrialist and the founder of the Minsheng Shipping Company (currently Chongqing Minsheng Industry). He oversaw the relocation of personnel and supplies from Wuhan and Yichang to Sichuan in 1938. He was the director of National Grain Bureau of the Nationalist government as well as a representative of the First National Assembly.

Lu was born as Lu Kuixian in Hezhou, Chongqing Prefecture on 14 April 1893. His parents were small merchants. In 1900, Lu and his brother attended a local private school, and in the following year he transferred to Ruishan Academy. At the age of 14, he completed primary school, but was unable to pursue further formal education due to financial constraints. In 1908, Lu changed his given name to Si, and later went by his courtesy name Zuofu. He enrolled in a cram school in Chengdu to study mathematics and English.

In 1910, Lu joined the anti-Qing secret society Tongmenghui, and later participated in the Railway Protection Movement. After the fall of the Qing government and subsequent failure of the Second Revolution, Lu fled Chengdu to escape the persecution of suspected revolutionaries. He sought refuge in Jiang'an County of Southern Sichuan, where he worked as a math teacher at a local middle school. In 1914, Lu traveled to Beiping before visiting Shanghai, where he met the writer and reporter Huang Yanpei. Huang recommended him to work as an editor at Commercial Press, but Lu declined the offer. Instead, he returned to his hometown, which had been renamed to Hechuan in 1913, and taught at Hechuan Middle School.

In 1916, Lu went to Chengdu and became a reporter for Qunbao (Chinese: 群报). He briefly return to Hechuan to participate in the compilation of Hechuan County Chronicle, before moving back to Chengdu to work as the editor-in-chief of Chuanbao (Chinese: 川报). During the May Fourth Movement, he joined Young China Association (Chinese: 少年中国学会) and published several articles advocating for "saving the country through education."

At the invitation the warlord Yang Sen, Lu served as the head of the Education Section of Yongning Circuit in 1921. He hired fellow members of Young China Association, including Wang Dexi and Yun Daiying, to implement educational reforms. These efforts were discontinued due to ongoing military conflicts among Sichuan warlords. Three years later, Lu established the Popular Education Center (Chinese: 民众通俗教育馆) in Chengdu with support from Yang Sen. The education center was forced to close after Yang was defeated by rival warlords.

In 1925, Lu returned to Hechuan and founded the Minsheng Industrial Company. Using capital raised with friends, he traveled to Shanghai to order an iron-hulled ship with a carrying capacity of 70.6 tons. Completed in May 1926, the vessel was named "Minsheng" and began transport operation along the Jialing River, connecting Hechuan with Chongqing.

At the beginning of 1927, Lu arrived in Beibei and served as the director of a local special defense corps. In August of that year, he invited Danish engineer Jesper Johansen Schultz to survey, design and oversee the construction of a railway connecting Chuanbei and Hechuan counties. The resulting 16.5-kilometer long Beichuan Railway was fully completed and opened in March 1935.

On 27 March 1928, Lu converted a temple dedicated to Guan Yu into the Beibei Library with approximately 400 books donated by the local community. In 1930, with support from scholars and politicians like Cai Yuanpei, Huang Yanpei and Weng Wenhao, Lu similarly transformed the upper hall of Dongyue Temple in Huoyan Mountain into the Western Science Academy of China (Chinese: 中国西部科学院).