Rui Cheng

Rui Cheng (瑞澂, Ruì Chéng) was Shanghai daotai in 1906-1907 and later governor-general of Huguang, whose flight from Wuchang opened the 1911 Revolution.

A Manchu of the Plain Yellow Banner, he served as daotai at Jiujiang before being moved to Shanghai in 1906. There he took over the privately run Zhabei Engineering Bureau, renamed it the North City Road Police Bureau (the forerunner of the Shanghai police bureau) and made himself its head. In 1907 he ordered opium dens in his jurisdiction closed; Li Pingshu (李平书) of the General Engineering Bureau organised a Nanshi volunteer association, supplied with 120 rifles from him, to help.

The gazetteer’s entry on Louis Ratard (巨籁达) places talks with Rui Cheng on extending the French Concession in the same years.

In 1908 he was appointed to Jiangxi and rose to governor-general of Huguang and salt administration official. The gazetteer says he had executed revolutionaries in Wuhan; when the Wuchang uprising began in 1911 he left the city, and he died in Shanghai soon after.