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Long Yun (; 27 November 1884 – 27 June 1962) was governor and Warlord Era of the Chinese province of Yunnan from 1927 to October 1945, when he was overthrown in a coup (known as "The Kunming Incident") by Du Yuming under the order of Chiang Kai-shek.
Long Yun participated in the anti-Qing struggle in its early years. First he joined the local warlord's army in 1911 and was gradually promoted to the rank of corps commander. He served in Tang Jiyao's Yunnan Army for years until February 1927, when he, together with Hu Ruoyu, launched a coup and expelled Tang from office. Soon after that he became 38th Army commander in the National Revolutionary Army, at the same time continuing as Yunnan chairman for more than a decade.
The campaign involved Chinese troops, assisted by American forces, crossing the upper Salween on 11 May 1944 in order to drive Japanese forces from Yunnan into northern Burma. On 11 May about 40,000 Chinese of the Chinese Expeditionary Force crossed the Salween initially and a further 60,000 arrived later. About 17,000–19,000 Chinese and 15,000 Japanese were killed in the resulting battle. There were more Chinese casualties because the Japanese had time to prepare their fortifications on the south side of the river.
Long was among the Nationalist government insiders implicated in corruption during the 1942-1943 American Dollar Bond scandal. After the 1941 Japanese declaration of war against the United States and the United Kingdom, the two allies sought to support China in a concrete way despite logistical limitations following the loss of British Burma. The two countries loaned significant amounts of money to the Nationalist government. The Nationalist government decided to use USD$200 million to absorb excess fabi in an effort to curb inflation. In theory, Chinese purchasers would use fabi to buy bonds at the official exchange rate and be paid in dollars when the bonds were redeemed following victory over Japan. The American Dollar Bonds were issued on March 24, 1942. The public response was poor, with few bond sales. In October 1943, H.H. Kung sent a secret memorandum to Chiang Kai-shek asking that the bond sales end. Subscriptions were closed on October 15, 1943 and a central bank official falsely announced that all bonds had been sold. Secretly, insiders then purchased the remaining bonds using currency acquired on the black market. The result was a windfall for Nationalist government insiders including Long, Kung, members of the Soong sisters, Wei Tao-ming, and others.
Long Yun had been offered a face-saving job in Chongqing earlier, but he had refused. The absence of his army, however, led to the final extraction. That night, 5 October 1945 ("the Kunming Incident"), rifles fired in Kunming and the next morning a score of bodies lay at the South Gate. For four days the battle continued as soldiers of Chiang Kai-shek's army assaulted the place. Only a few companies of Long's troops did any shooting; the warlord never had a chance.
On the fourth day Premier T.V. Soong flew down from Chongqing. He and the Chinese commander in chief, Gen. He Yingqin, had a morning conference with Gen. Long and that afternoon escorted him by air to Chongqing. Gen. Lu Han, Long's former aide, took over the Yunnan government for the Generalissimo.
After being removed from his reign of 18 years, and his meaningless appointment to a position in Chongqing, Long Yun escaped to Hong Kong at the end of 1948 and joined the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee (KMT-RC), a KMT anti-Chiang organization. In August 1949 he declared his revolt against Chiang together with Huang Shaohong in Hong Kong. The KMT-RC ultimately became the largest "democratic party" under Communist Party rule after the founding of the People's Republic.
On June 28, 1950, he became a Vice Chairman of the Southwest Military and Administrative Commission. In early 1953, his position was re-designated as Vice Chairman of the Southwest Administrative Commission.
In September 1954, Long was appointed as a Vice Chairman of the National Defense Council, which was chaired by Mao Zedong. He served alongside senior Communist Party leaders such as Zhu De, Lin Biao, He Long, Peng Dehuai, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping, and Ye Jianying. In 1956, he visited Eastern European countries such as the Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and others. However, he was removed from this position in 1958.
In 1959, he was once again elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
On June 27, 1962, Long died in Beijing due to acute myocardial infarction.
Long was buried in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in grave number 81.
Long Yun refused to change his view and openly complained of his treatment for telling the truth. Ultimately, on the day following his death in 1962, the Chinese government formally declared that he was not a rightist and was thus partially "rehabilitated." In July 1980, nearly two decades after his death, he was finally fully "rehabilitated" in accordance with the Chinese government's policy of admitting the Anti-Rightist Movement had been wrong.
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