It is almost mid-autumn, and the furnace in Hankou is finally cold in the morning and evening, and only when you eat lunch will you sweat slightly. Tang Caichang, who had gone from Changsha to Beijing for the "Salty and Restoration", passed through here, but felt that he had fallen into an ice cave, from head to toe, from the inside to the outside, through the cold. For no other reason, Tang Cai often heard the news that the Guangxu Emperor had imprisoned Yingtai and failed to change the law. One of his good friends, Tan Sitong, was cut off by the Nara clan at the mouth of the Beijing caishikou, and another friend, Bi Yongnian, was exiled to Japan like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao.
There is no place for the restoration of the country. Tang Cai often hurriedly returned to Hunan, packed up a little, and then took the road to Shanghai, and ran to Hong Kong, Nanyang, Japan, and other places to seek the support of overseas Chinese and instigate the revenge of Tan Si and the six gentlemen. During his stay in Japan, Tang Cai often visited Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who were advocating the "Qin King" of Xingbing. Kang and Liang praised Tang Caichang as being comparable to Xu Jingye, who was fighting against Wu Zetian, and promised to raise military funds for him overseas; Tang Caichang also got acquainted with Sun Yat-sen, who was living in Yokohama at that time, through the introduction of Bi Yongnian, who had joined the Xingzhong Association, and agreed to contact the anti-Qing party such as the Brotherhood of elders and the Triad in the Yangtze River and Pearl River Valleys to launch an uprising.
In the spring of 1899, in response to protests by the Qing government, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs granted 9,000 yuan to "gift" Kang Youwei out of the country. Kang Youwei came to Canada and formed the "Guangxu Association for the Protection and Salvation of the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty" at the headquarters of the Zhigongtang in Yuduoli (present-day Victoria), referred to as the Royalist Association, and served as its president. He put forward the slogan of "exclusively saving the emperor and changing the law to save China and save the yellow race", and issued shares to raise funds, which was very popular with the psychology of overseas Chinese. The Royalists rapidly expanded throughout the Americas, with more than a million members.
In November, Tang Caichang returned to China with Qin Lishan and a cadre of students who were familiar with the party. Before leaving, Liang Qichao held a banquet at the Autumn Leaf Museum in Tokyo, and Sun Yat-sen recommended the comrades of the Xingzhong Association in the Yangtze River Basin for contact. The royalist and revolutionary factions sent wine to each other, wishing for victory in the future, and the scene was tragic and exciting, "there was a great wind, a depression, and a cold water."
Quejiang River in Datong Town, Anhui Province under thick fog (tributary of the Yangtze River) (IC PHOTO/Photo)
As soon as he arrived in Shanghai, Tang Caichang launched a righteous meeting and entrusted the name of "Eastern Literature Society" to the outside world. In the spring of 1900, it was renamed the Self-Reliance Association. And follow the practice of the Brotherhood of Elders, open hotels along the Yangtze River, which is actually the liaison station of the Self-Reliance Association - Fushantang; the issuance of membership cards - rich tickets, with a ticket can receive 1,000 yuan from the leader; second, free ride on the ships of Swire and Jardine Matheson; and three can protect themselves. As a result, in just a few months, the number of members has been endless. In May, Qin Lishan went to Tianjin alone to persuade the Boxer brothers to change the "Qing Dynasty and eliminate the Yang" to "full of revolutionary platoons". He was scolded as a "two-haired son" and almost lost his life.
At the end of July, when the Boxers in the north were fighting with the Eight-Nation Alliance and the southeast were mutually protected, Tang Cai often opened a general organ of the Self-Reliant Army in the Hankou British Concession, personally appointed the inspectors of the various armies, and divided the 20,000 horses into seven routes: the pro-army and the vanguard army were in Hankou, under the command of Tang Caichang; the former army was in Datong, Anhui, under the command of Qin Lishan; the rear army was in Anqing, Anhui; the Chinese army was in Hankou; the left army was in Changde, Hunan; and the right army was in Xindi ( present-day Honghu) in Hubei. It was agreed that on August 9 (the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar), the attack would be launched at the same time, and the three towns of Wuhan would be waved.
Who knows, seeing that the 20,000 yuan of funds previously provided by Kang Youwei will be exhausted, Kang Liang's overseas remittances are still missing. In desperation, Tang Cai often had to postpone the date of the army. Unfortunately, due to the early August concentration of the former army in Tongcheng (tongcheng Zongyang Tongxian County) on the north bank of the Yangtze River, which leaked the wind and caused martial law in the Qing army, Qin Lishan did not receive this information. Next, the good seven-way army echoed each other and became Qin Lishan's lone army in Datong.
Chase Town and Yuezhou on Jiangxin Chau (IC photo/photo)
When the mighty Yangtze River broke into the territory of present-day Tongling, Anhui, it was squeezed by the remnants of the Huangshan Mountains in a northeast-southwest direction, and turned its head and flowed north. Over time, turning there, leaving a pair of silt deposited ZimuZhou, nestled next to each other, the small one is called TeppanZhou, and the big one is called Heyue Zhou (formerly known as Lotus Leaf Continent). The two continents and the villages and towns adjacent to the east coast are collectively known as Datong. It is worth mentioning that the "sea turning back" – the furthest point where the tides of the East China Sea push the river up – is located in Odori, a full 600 kilometers away.
In the era of prosperous water transport, Datong, as a natural haven, is one of the gateways connecting the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the entry and exit of southern Anhui. Although the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties all set up institutions such as "Water Station" and "Inspection Department", and celebrities such as Yang Wanli, Wang Yangming, Zha Shenxing, and Yao Nai also chanted about the prosperity of the fishery and the special beauty of the wind and materials, the real fame of Chase began from Zeng Guofan. In 1863, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom fell into decline, and the Yangtze River resumed sailing. Zeng Guofan restarted the two Huai salt administrations, and selected Heyezhou, where the Xiang Army's marine division was stationed, to open the Lijin Bureau and the Datong Salt Merchants Bureau. Within two years, the Lotus Leaf Island of "Reed Sheds" has been "business traveling", and the tile houses have "one or two thousand homes". After the signing of the Sino-British Yantai Treaty, Chase became a wharf for the goods of the great powers to get on and off merchants, and quickly joined Wuhu, Anqing and Bengbu among the four major commercial ports in Anhui. In its heyday, the noise of the city was noisy, and the Chinese and foreign places were mixed, just like a "little Shanghai" style.
In 2019, on a summer afternoon, I drove across the Tongling Yangtze River Bridge and followed the navigation instructions to Chase. As soon as you reach the top of the slope, you can see a Western building, with a square shape and round arches, standing between a low house. This is the bell tower, donated by a Catholic who won the lottery jackpot. In 1936, at the same time as the bell tower, there was also a church of considerable size. Only later, after repeated wars and chaos, the church was gradually destroyed, but the bell tower built of green bricks silently looked at the white clouds and dogs.
Downhill is Chase, which has been set aside as a 4A-level scenic spot, but it seems that there is no "big move", and the appearance is still clumsy. The old street paved with hemp stone strips is very wide, and can accommodate three or four cars driving side by side. On both sides, overlapping horse-head walls are gray and hundreds of meters long, reflecting the bleakness of time. Took away the oared fishing boat, stopped under the eaves of the doorway, reminding the river and lake that it is not far away...
Following a group of vegetable farmers picking baskets, I boarded the ferry to Heyuezhou. In the midst of the motor booming, I opened my voice and talked with them, and learned that Teppanzhou had become a vegetable planting base, and the Jiajiang River between Yuezhou and Teppanzhou had become a freshwater dolphin national reserve. And Heyuezhou, which has three streets and thirteen lanes, is still the same as before.
The old way they say it is actually full of collapsed walls and decaying grass. In June 1938, the Japanese army continued to carry out air raids for more than 20 days, throwing more than a thousand bombs, and the entire Chase was burned into scorched earth rubble, and the residents of the merchants died and fled. After that, with the rise of roads and railways and the depression of water transport, Heyuezhou, which could only dock small and medium-sized ships, collapsed, and the former prosperity was frozen into a pile of ruins. At the intersection of Heyuetou Road Street, next to a mottled stone wall, I found a cement stele engraved with the words "Former Site of the Salt Merchants Bureau". In 1896, appointed by Zhang Zhidong, the 21-year-old Lin Xu and his father-in-law Shen Yuqing came here to change the Chase Salt Merchants Bureau to the Anhui Salt Supervision and Marketing Bureau. After his official work, Lin Xu looked out into the distance and wrote a poem: Clouds surround Qingshan Mountains and rivers, and there are four clouds in one continent. At that time, he was angry with books and arrogant, and he never thought that two years later, he would be martyred and ranked among the six gentlemen of Wushu; let alone that four years later, this place would become the headquarters of the uprising of the former army of the Self-Reliant Army.
The thousand-year-old town of Datong is said to have the widest street in china's ancient town. (Pang Mian/Photo)
At 8:00 a.m. on August 9, 1900, more than 300 former generals wrapped their heads around Huang Aya, slaughtered and sacrificed flags on the banks of the Tongcheng River, and posted an Anmin notice announcing "the right to preserve China's self-reliance" and "please restore the Guangxu Emperor." Subsequently, the fishing boat went down the river and went straight to Heyuezhou. General Zhang Huazhao of the Qingshui Division heard the change and sent 4 gunboats across the river to block the defense. Unexpectedly, the soldiers on the boat "communicated with the party more, and as soon as they landed, they united with the party members", turned the gun port, and attacked the salt supervision and marketing bureau. Zhang Huazhao was shocked and angry, and threw himself into the river and died. "So the water division was in the hands of Qin Lishan", and the former army immediately occupied the Salt Supervision and Marketing Bureau, the Lijin Bureau, and the Pharmacy (Arsenal), capturing more than 15,000 pieces of silver and a large number of weapons. The inspector of Anhui was rewarded, and successive troops were sent to attack, and the former army "sank eight gunboats and one small steamer with cannons", and suffered heavy casualties.
On the 11th, Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, mobilized heavy troops from Wuhu and Jiangyin (present-day Jiangyin, Jiangsu) to reinforce by land and water. The former army fought hard and retreated to the Salt Supervision bureau. Due to the disparity in strength, the former army was divided into two roads and moved to the Qingyang and Nanling mountains around Tongling. It was night, the moonlight was bright, and the former army that retreated to Qingyang was ambushed twice by the Qing army, except for a few breakthroughs, most of them died heroically, of which more than 40 people jumped off the cliff and committed suicide. On the 12th, Qin Lishan fought with the Qing army in Nanling until the evening, but still lost. More than 120 people were killed in the front army, and after more than 10 people were captured, they were taken to Chase and beheaded. From night to the next day, the other frontier army stranded in Tongling was completely destroyed. On the 14th and 15th, the remnants of the former army in Nanling were surrounded by Qing forces and were annihilated successively, and many leaders of the Brotherhood were killed.
Qin Lishan escaped in disguise and sneaked to Nanjing to try to set fire to the Ordnance Bureau, but failed. After fleeing to Singapore, he learned that Kang Youwei had embezzled huge donations from overseas Chinese, resulting in the failure of the Self-Reliant Army, so he and Kang Youwei cut off their robes and broke with each other, crossed east to Japan, found Liang Qichao, and "asked for an accounting." Liang Qichao kept his words for the teacher, and he could not say bitterly, "Angry and hair into the mountains" the words of the monk. Since then, Liang Has "gradually reverted to his original appearance— scholar, editor, teacher, and intellectual critic." Qin Lishan became the opponent of the royalists and turned to Sun Yat-sen. Six years later, in Yunnan, he instigated a rebellion against the Qing Dynasty, did not obey the water and soil, mistakenly took drugs, and died in Qianya (present-day Yingjiang, Yunnan).
When the news of the former army's uprising reached Hankou, Tang Cai often decided not to wait. On the 21st, when Tang Cai often cut his hair, his entourage was talking about the next day's military raising, and was heard by the shaving smith. In the evening, after Zhang Zhidong sent a note to the British Concession, he sent troops to arrest and arrest More than 30 people, including Tang Caichang, and took them to the Inspectorate of Wuchang for interrogation overnight. On the boat crossing the river, Tang Cai often looked up at the waves full of stars and sighed: "Good starlight." In the early morning of the 23rd, Tang Cai often and more than 20 of his comrades led the neck to kill on the shore of Wuchang Ziyang Lake, leaving a poem: seven feet of micro body to reward the old friend, a heart of blood splashed on the barren hill.
Sea of blood-red begonia flowers in Chase Town (IC photo/photo)
On the way back, I boarded the ferry that was running back and forth again, but there were very few passengers. The sky was shining late, and a remnant of the sun stained the surface of the red river. And in the distance, the green mountains in the distance are still there, and the past is leisurely.
Pang Mian