Lesson 9: Xinhai Revolution

The struggle of revolutionary aspirants

In the winter of 1906, Liu Daoyi and Cai Shaonan, members of the League, started an armed uprising in Pingxiang, Liuyang and Liling, on the border of Jiangxi and Hunan. More than 30,000 people participated in the uprising, but after fighting for more than a month, the uprising failed. Liu Daoyi was killed in Changsha. The Pingliu-Li uprising was the first armed uprising led by the League after its establishment. Although the uprising failed, the reputation of the League was thus greatly enhanced.

In the summer of 1907, Xu Xilin, a member of the Society of Restoration, started an uprising in Anqing and assassinated Enming, the governor of Anhui. The insurgents fought against the Qing army for four hours, but they were outnumbered and failed, and Xu Xilin was killed. Qiu Jin, a revolutionary, was arrested and killed in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province.

In 1907, Sun Yat-sen went to Hanoi, Vietnam to plan and lead the Guangxi Uprising together with Huang Xing and attacked Zhennan Pass. The insurgent army fought for seven days and nights, but eventually failed due to the lack of ammunition.

In 1910, Sun Yat-sen discussed with Huang Xing and Zhao Sheng about holding the uprising in Guangzhou. After the meeting, Sun went to Europe and the United States to raise funds for the uprising, and Huang Xing went to Hong Kong to set up a coordination department as the leading organ of the uprising. He personally led more than 100 revolutionaries to invade the government offices of the governors of the two provinces, and the governor Zhang Mingqi was so scared that he climbed the back wall and fled. The revolutionaries fought a fierce street battle with the Qing army and fought for one day and one night, but the uprising failed due to the disparity in numbers and many revolutionaries died heroically. Later, the remains of the seventy-two martyrs were collected and buried together in Huanghuagang, Guangzhou, which is called "Huanghuagang Seventy-two Martyrs". This uprising is also called "Huanghuagang Uprising" in history. Although this uprising failed, the indomitable spirit of the revolutionaries and their heroic spirit of dying as if they were returning greatly inspired the fighting spirit of the whole nation.

Wuchang Uprising

In 1911, the Hubei revolutionary organizations, the Literature Society and the Communist Progressive Society, actively planned the uprising under the impetus of the League. At the beginning of October, Sun Wu, the head of the Communist Progressive Society, made a bomb in the Hankow tenement, which exploded accidentally and leaked the uprising plan. The Qing government was searching for revolutionaries everywhere and the situation was very urgent.

On the night of October 10, the revolutionaries of the New Army Engineering Battalion in Wuchang first revolted. They seized the armory, opened the city gate to welcome the artillery stationed outside the city, and then attacked the Governor's Yamen with a combination of foot and artillery. In one night, the whole city of Wuchang was occupied by the insurgents. On October 11, the insurgents established the Hubei Military Government and elected Li Yuanhong, a general of the new army, as the governor.

After the victory of Wuchang Uprising, all provinces responded. By late November, more than half of the country's provinces had declared independence and supported the revolution.

1911 was the year of Xinhai in the lunar calendar, and history calls this revolution "Xinhai Revolution". The Xinhai Revolution overthrew the reactionary rule of the Qing Dynasty and proclaimed the end of China's 2,000-year monarchy. It ushered in a modern national democratic revolution in the full sense of the word, greatly promoting the liberation of the Chinese nation and opening the floodgates of China's progressive trend.（620words）