Has Kang Youwei been to Yantai? Kang Youwei has been to Yantai many times and has left Mobao in Zhangyu Company.
However, when he first came to Yantai, he was in danger and almost lost his life.
After the failure of the Wushu Reformation, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the arrest and murder of the fugitive Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, and on September 28, 1898, Tan Sitong, Yang Rui, Liu Guangdi, Lin Xu, Yang Shenxiu, and Kang Guangren were killed at Caishikou, Beijing.
A korean and Chinese friend pointed out two escape routes to Kang Youwei: First, change into a suit, do not pass through Tianjin, go straight to Shandong, and take the waterway to Japan; The second was to change into monks' uniforms and flee north from Mongolia.
In the early morning of September 20, 1898, Kang Youwei fled to Beijing. Perhaps for the sake of secrecy, he revised the route his friends planned: from the Nanhai Guild Hall straight to majiapu railway station (now Beijing South Railway Station). At the train station, Kang Youwei bought a private room to go to Tianjin. At dusk, Kang Youwei arrived in Tianjin. After a one-day stay in Tianjin, the next day boarded the British Swire company "Chongqing" passenger ship south.
The Qing Court Military Aircraft Department sent a telegram in the evening, asking Rong Lu, the governor of zhizhi, to send troops to the Tianjin Railway Station to strictly investigate the situation. After receiving the secret order, Rong Lu did two things: First, he sent a telegram to inform Li Xijie of Deng Lai Qingdao in Yantai to be ready, and once Kang Youwei escaped from Tianjin, he would let him intercept and arrest him in Yantai. The second is to send the warship "Flying Eagle" to chase after the "Chongqing".
Strangely, the Flying Eagle was about to catch up when it suddenly dropped anchor due to lack of fuel. The reasons for this are different: some say that there is no coal, some say that the boiler is broken, and some say that the captain Liu Guanxiong sympathized with the restoration and deliberately released Kang's horse. Anyway, Kang Youwei finally escaped another disaster.
When the Chongqing arrived in Yantai, it needed to be moored for several hours for technical reasons to replenish fuel and water.
Kang Youwei, who was unaware of the danger, not only appeared on the streets of Yantai in a dignified manner, but also went in and out of the downtown area, chatting and bargaining with peddlers. After buying some pears, I went to the beach to pick up a few pebbles and keep them as a souvenir.
Then, we can't help but ask, since the Qing court's secret telegram has reached Yantai, why has the authorities not taken action? Originally, this was related to the Qing government's secret electricity system.
At that time, the Qing government had a strict system of secrecy for telegram codes, which was simply not accessible to ordinary officials. Secret telegrams from the imperial court were often personally translated by the main officials who had the codebooks. Coincidentally, when the Secret Telegram of the Qing Court hunting Kang Youwei arrived in Yantai, Li Xijie of Deng Lai Daotai went to Jiaozhou because of the incident, and carried a telegram codebook with him.
Although the subordinates who remained in Yantai received the telegram, they suffered from the lack of a codebook and could not translate the telegram, so they did not know the specific content of the telegram. By the time Li Xijie returned to Yantai, took out the codebook, and deciphered this crucial document, Kang Youwei's "Chongqing" had already left Yantai.
Afterwards, when Kang Youwei summed up this adventure, he said with some trepidation that if he had gone to Shanghai, he would have undoubtedly died; if he had not gone to Jiaozhou on the day of Denglai Daotai, he would have undoubtedly died!
Was it an accidental coincidence? Or is it providence? We don't know, maybe we all have it!
After arriving in Shanghai from Yantai, Kang Youwei was rescued by the British and went to Hong Kong, finally ending the legendary journey of nine deaths. He died in Qingdao on March 31, 1927.