Li Genyuan (1879-1965), also known as Yinquan, Yangxi, Xuesheng and Qushi, was a native of Gaoligong Mountain. His ancestral home was Yidu, Shandong (now Qingzhou, Shandong), and he was born in Tengyue Town, Yunnan (now Tengchong, Yunnan). He was a famous modern scholar and a veteran of the Kuomintang.

He became a scholar in 1898 and entered kunming Higher School in 1903. The following year, he went to Japan to study military affairs in the Army and graduated from the Zhengwu Academy and the Military Academy. In the thirty-first year of Guangxu (1905), he joined the Tongmeng Association, and in the next spring, he became the president of the Association of Yunnan Students studying in Japan and the manager of Yunnan Magazine. In the first year of Xuantong (1909), he returned to China and served as the supervisor and infantry science and education officer of Yunnan Province. After the Wuchang uprising, he and Cai E launched a new army response, and established the Han military government. During this period, he served as the commander-in-chief of military affairs and president of the Senate, and also succeeded to the commander of the second Yunnan Army Division and the president of the National Army. Later he took part in the "Second Revolution", the anti-Yuan Shikai emperor movement and the "0" struggle and other revolutionary movements.