Xu Xilin believes that military power is unattainable, and it is not bad to have police power. Tao Chengzhang believed that either directly unified the army or carried out group assassination. The two argued as they talked, but they didn't come up with a result.
As the Republic of China Military Government said in the "Tribute to the Father and Elder of Anhui Province": "Anhui Province chokes the southeast of the province, for the throat of Wu Chu, the danger of gu Huo in the west, the advantage of Jianghuai in the middle, the advantage of the terrain, and the crown of the provinces", and there is the Qing Dynasty, Wen has Tongcheng, Wu has the Huai Army, the influence of the Anhui people and the four Frontiers, plus the "civilian revolution", which can be traced back to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang; "Yi Yi but captive", there is the example of Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty. Geography and humanities, Anhui are all places that must be contested by those who intend to be in the world.
The Anhui Revolution at the end of the Qing Dynasty was somewhat different from the provinces. Many of Anhui's Haojie went to other places and made earth-shattering achievements, such as Hefei Wanfuhua assassinating Guangxi Inspector Wang Zhichun in Shanghai, Tongcheng Wu Fan assassinating the five ministers in Beijing, Shouzhou Sun Yujun assassinating Duan Fang, the governor of Liangjiang, Hefei Ni Bingzhang in Guangzhou, Hefei Fan Hongxian organizing the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Coalition army in Jiangsu, and Xiuning Chengjia in the jingshi undercover Prince Su's palace... Which one is not a major event in the history of the revolution?
On the other hand, the revolutionary in Anhui Province has many outsiders among the promoters. Now to say, the first one is called Xu Xilin, no one does not know him. There was also a Han Yan, and few people knew about him.
Why did Xu Xilin go to Anhui?
In August of the thirty-first year of Guangxu (1905), Xu Xilin, deputy superintendent of the Shaoxing Academy, joined hands with Tao Chengzhang, Gong Baoquan and others to establish the Datong Academy. It seems logical: the previous year, the imperial court was allowed to go to private schools in various places, Xu Xilin, as the education director of a government, founded the Datong Academy, which is also a response to the government's call, not to mention that he had already founded the "Dongpu Enthusiastic Primary School" last year, and planned the "Yue County Public School", although it was not successful, it showed that the staff was enthusiastic about education, which was enough to be commended.
Xu Xilin
It's not like that inside. According to Tao Chengzhang's "Chronicle of the Zhejiang Case", "Xi Lin's original intention of opening the Chase School was originally a place for robbing Qianzhuang to hide and hide", because the technical strength was not enough, "there are no pilots among comrades" and gave up (I don't know how they originally planned to rob Qianzhuang, and they also needed to be driven by drivers). Since he could not make a den, Xu Xilin wanted to break the net of fish death, and "wanted to gather the qing officials of Shaoxing City to kill them on the first day of the school year, because of the uprising."
He asked Tao Chengzhang to help him inform the party members in various provinces in Zhejiang to respond at the same time. Although Tao Chengzhang is known as the "Huan Bandit" and is on a par with Wang Jinfa, he is not so enthusiastic and impulsive. He urged Xu Xilin to say that Zhejiang is not a "stronghold" and has insufficient radiation impact on the surrounding areas, and that "if you want to start a disturbance in Zhejiang, you must first go to Anhui and disturb Nanjing with assassination."
Tao Chengzhang
Xu Xilin followed Tao Chengzhang's suggestion and changed the Datong Academy into the Datong Normal School to cultivate talents. Presumably, in the discussion between the two, going to Anhui - assassination - starting an incident - attracting the attention of Nanjing - Zhejiang responded at the same time, such an idea has already taken shape.
Xu Xilin is a typical doer. Once you have made a plan, you will immediately abandon the Chase Academy, which has just opened, and concentrate on how to go to Anhui to revolt. Everyone thought that it was best to enter the army, grasp military power, and "carry out the central revolution and attack the two laws of attacking important towns, thinking that it was a plan to destroy the nest." This kind of thinking is the same as Wu Luzhen, but Wu Luzhen himself is a Japanese non-commissioned officer student, a classmate of Yin Chang, and has achieved the high position of deputy capital, and these Shaoxing people are still Bai Ding. Of the datong academy, Xu Xilin was the oldest, thirty-three years old, and Tao Chengzhang was also twenty-seven years old. However, Xu Xilin said, "It doesn't matter," he found a wealthy businessman Xu Zhongqing and donated 50,000 taels of silver, and donated officials to the five comrades of the Guangfu Society, he himself was Daotai, Tao Chengzhang and another person were prefects, and there were two other tongzhi.
The donation of this officer was not for the purpose of "referring to the provincial candidate", which would be too slow to appoint and would not be able to enter the Army. They donated officials in order to let Zhejiang Inspector Shoushan send them to Japan to study the army, because the imperial court was extremely important to study students at that time, and most of the people who returned from Japan could be reused. To achieve this goal, it was useless to have an official title, and Xu Xilin went to ask his in-laws, Yu Liansan, the former governor of Hunan. He promised to help Yu move to the post of general manager of Zhejiang Railway. Yu Liansan did his best to help, not only helping them persuade Shoushan to approve the five people to go to Japan to study the army, but also writing a letter to Yang Shuxin, the minister in Japan, to plead with him.
According to the intention of Xu Xilin and Tao Chengzhang, the five-member group and his entourage such as Chen Boping and Ma Zonghan will all go to Japan, and the Chase Academy may wish to close, so as not to make a big move. Shengxian Zhu Shaokang and others felt that it was not bad to stay in this school to recruit volunteers. Xu Xilin also went by them, anyway, he was thinking of going to Anhui to make trouble after returning to China.
The trip to Japan did not go well. Wang Kemin, the superintendent of army students, did not look at this group of students either—one was that they were old, and the other was that their behavior was too earthy, see Lu Xun's "Fan Ainong", lu Xun called them "these bird men"—and he prevented them from entering the Zhenwu School of the Army Preparatory School on the grounds of "self-funded students". Xu Xilin sent another telegram to Yu Liansan, who in turn sent a telegram to Zhejiang, asking the inspector to call the minister in Japan to prove that they were publicly funded students. Wang Kemin made a fuss about the physical examination again, and the result was that five people were unqualified, especially Xu Xilin's myopia was severe.
Wang Kemin
What to do? Tao Chengzhang and four others decided to stay and study law and government or policing (Tao Chengzhang did not seem to have entered any special school, and later the Qing court wanted him to "learn Japanese hypnosis", which is also strange). Xu Xilin did not want to stay, but his eyes were too myopic and old, who would take him? Or do you want to go back to your country. Before leaving, the two elder brothers of the Restoration Society discussed it again. Xu Xilin believes that military power is unattainable, and it is not bad to have police power. Tao Chengzhang believed that either directly unified the army or carried out group assassination. The two argued as they talked, but they didn't come up with a result.
Xu Xilin's temperament can be said to be decisive, and it is also possible to say that he is impatient. Later, the revolutionary comrades wrote a biography for him, mentioning two things, one was that he was better off with his long-term brother in the family when he was young, and both of them liked to learn martial arts. One night, the two saw a monk walking in front of the door, and Ping Changsheng said to Xu Xilin: This monk must have the ability, you see him walking alone at night, no one dares to bully him, maybe he will fly over the wall! Xu Xilin immediately thought of the stories he heard about the shaolin temple monks and the like that he heard on weekdays, and when he got up, he went after the monk and wanted to worship him as a teacher. The family found out the next day that Xu Xiaoguan was missing, and sent someone to look for him, and chased him until Xiaoshan found him.
Another thing is that in 1904, the Russian army occupied Fengtian, Xu Xilin heard about it and wept, set up a target at home, painted it in the shape of a Russian soldier, shot it dozens of times a day with a short rifle, indoor projectiles flew wildly, sometimes rebounded over and hit Xu Xilin's shoulder, he did not change his face, and actually practiced a good marksmanship. Such a character as tao chengzhang called him "a fierce temperament, who acts in everything he does, and exercises extremism."