Kuo Mo-Jo was born about 1893 in Chia-ting (now Lo-shan), Szechwan. After graduating from high school in Chia-ting and studying for half a year in a college in Ch'eng-tu, he went to Japan to study medicine. While there he married a Japanese nurse. His main interest was in literature and writing, so on returning to China he became one of the co-founders of the Ch'uang-tsao She (Creative Society), a Shanghai group interested in new literary movements. Before the opening of the Northern Expedition in 1926 he was Dean of Arts at Chungshan University in Canton. When the Northern Expedition began he held the position of Chief of the Propaganda Division of the Political Department of the expedition and concurrently Secretary-General of the Provisional Headquarters.

One of the fortunes of war has been the flight from Europe and Asia to the United States of numberless things of value, among them certain Chinese books and manuscripts belonging to the National Library of Peiping. The latter were deposited for safe keeping in the Library of Congress in the autumn of 1941. One very considerable item in this group is the Ming shih-lu or Veritable records of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which the Library of Congress and Columbia University have been permitted to reproduce in micro-film.

Many of the stores in and around Peiping (Peking) keep very full and complete accounts, recording in separate books the purchases and sales of the commodities in which they deal, their silver-copper exchange transactions, the expenditures for food purchased for their employees, their sundry purchases and their expenditures for wages. These account books have been looked on as valuable records and many of the stores have preserved them for many years. Some of the books have been lost through the years, but in many instances it is still possible to secure a relatively complete set of accounts covering from 100 to 150 years.