Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Labu
LABU 喇布 d. 1681, age twenty-eight (sui), member of the Imperial Family and second son of Jidu [q. v.], succeeded to the title of Prince Chien (簡親王 Chien Ch'in-wang) in 1670. In 1674 the emperor gave him the rank of Yang-wei Ta-chiang-chün 揚威大將軍 and ordered him to lead an army against Wu San-kuei [q. v.] and other rebels, and to garrison Nanking. In the following year, the emperor sent Labu to Kiangsi to take the place of Yolo [q. v.] who had been ordered to advance from Kiangsi into Hunan. Although Labu succeeded in several minor campaigns around Po-yang Lake, he was unable to prevent the invading army under Han Ta-jên 韓大任 and Kao Ta-chieh 高大節 (last word also written 傑 or 捷) from occupying Chi-an in 1676 and threatening the rear of Yolo's army. Labu was ordered to ease the situation by attacking Chi-an, but he was twice defeated by the brave rebel general, Kao Ta-chieh, when the Manchu army was routed and Labu fled. After Kao Ta-chieh's death, later in the year, Labu again besieged Chi-an, and by the following spring had reduced Han Ta-jên and his forces to starvation. A sudden sortie of the enemy took him by surprise and threw the Manchu troops into confusion, in the course of which Han Ta-jên and his men escaped. For this and for earlier defeats Labu was severely censured by the emperor, but at the beginning of 1678, with the help of Chinese soldiers under Governor-general Tung Wei-kuo 董衛國 (d. Jan. 1684), he succeeded finally in defeating Han Ta-jên and forcing him to surrender. He then advanced to Ch'a-ling in Hunan, which had been recovered a few months earlier. After the death of Wu San-kuei Labu's army advanced and at the beginning of 1679 he recovered Hêng-chou and other cities, continuing on into Kwangsi and Yunnan. In 1681, after seven years of campaigning, he was recalled to Peking where he soon died. A year after his death he was retrospectively accused of inefficiency in operations at Chi-an and posthumously stripped of his titles.
[1/221/9b; 34/124/16b; Liu Chien 劉健, 庭聞錄 T'ing-wên lu (1915, Yü-chang ts'ung-shu edition) 5/8b-11a; Tung-hua lu K'ang-hsi 21: 6, 21: 12; Haenisch, E., T'oung Pao 1913, p. 85.]
George A. Kennedy