His family lived on the Dongmen, Fuzhou, for seven generations as part of the Decorated Yellow Banner guard garrison.

He moved to Beijing around 1902, started a photograph business and later taught English in the Academy of Law and Politics for Aristocratic Education.

He quit from the military and focused on his business – Yanguangshi publishing house, which became a pioneer in the field of art reproduction and publication in China.

The company specialized in creating limited-edition prints of authentic artworks, making rare pieces more accessible to collectors and art students.

One major source of the early photo-books published by Yanguangshi was the imperial art collection that he accessed through borrowing from the emperor's relatives and Chen Baochen.

[3] His honesty and integrity in this short post was mentioned by the Emperor's Tutor, Reginald Johnston in his book, Twilight in The Forbidden City.

[5] After Puyi was expelled from Forbidden City to exile in Zhang Yuan, Tianji, Tong moved the family to Tianjin and later to Changchun.

Once Manchuguo started, he became chief of security (a three-star general ranked position) in the Imperial Household Department.

Using the incident as an excuse, Kwantung Army pushed Puyi to relieve Tong from the Chief of Security post, thus stripping his command over Hujun.