The "Gang of Four" at the end of the Qing Dynasty dreamed of moving the capital to Ili, Xinjiang, in an attempt to make a comeback of the Qing Dynasty
Once an opportunity is missed, it will not be.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen once said that the capital of Ili would control all of Asia, but by then it was too late. Earlier than Mr. Sun, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, there were also several people who advocated moving the capital to Ili in an attempt to make a comeback of the decadent Qing Dynasty, but it was still too late.
Let's not say that the place of Ili is suitable for being a capital city, but only the four people of the late Qing Dynasty: Yuan Dahua, Shengyun, Chang Gung, and Zhirui.
Yuan Dahua, transferred from The Inspector of Jiangxi to the Inspector of Xinjiang in 1910, was the last of the 8 Inspectors of Xinjiang since the establishment of the province.
Sheng Yun, who became the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu in 1905, was dismissed from his post in 1909 for opposing the constitution and obstructing the negligence of the New Deal, and then lived in Mancheng, Xi'an. After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising in October 1911, he was re-employed as the Inspector of Shaanxi and the Premier of the Shaanxi Military.
Chang Gung, the successor to the Viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu after Shengyun, was the last Viceroy of Shaanxi and Gansu.
Zhi Rui, the last Ili general of the Qing Dynasty.
Things have to start with Zhi Rui going to work. In addition to the title of general, Zhi Rui also had several identities, he was a scholar, a writer, and a cousin of the Guangxu Emperor's concubines Jinfei and Zhenfei. In addition to the good cultural background, the family composition is also very good. But he had a "problem" that he loved to talk, to write a recital to the imperial court, and to express his own ideas. His proposition mainly has 3 points:
1. The integration of Manchu and Han, everyone enjoys the same rights; 2. Training troops to fight wars to deal with border troubles and foreign insults, in his own words, that is, "border troubles, royal insults, and raising salaries and training troops to save the crisis situation", is a main war faction; 3. All kinds of foreigners are forbidden to travel to Xinjiang, he believes that those who came to Xinjiang to teach and run schools and explore and investigate at that time will bring bad ideological trends and influence to Xinjiang, even spies, and plunder culture and resources, the disadvantages outweigh the benefits, there is no benefit, and they should be "forbidden to travel."
However, zhirui's ideas were not listened to, and he thought that he was a big man who would eventually turn the tide one day, so he was endlessly neglected, and as a result, he annoyed people like Cixi, and as a result, his officials became smaller and smaller. On February 19, 1911, he received a transfer order, that is, he who was then the general of Hangzhou was to be transferred with General Ili, and suddenly felt that his opportunity had come.
When he entered Beijing, ZhiRui stated his own propositions, and also particularly stressed that "although the border defense is in danger, the finances are difficult, although the responsibilities are specialized, the powers are different, and if you want to rectify, you must be flexible." First, he wanted the imperial court to give him greater autonomy; second, he wanted to get more funds from the imperial court to develop the army in the border areas, so that he could have the opportunity to "serve the king" in the future. In the middle of this was his fiery loyalty to the Qing Dynasty, but the one million taels of silver he wanted only received a blank cheque of two hundred thousand taels from his master.
Despite this, Zhi Rui was not discouraged, and his heart was still warm. In August, he left. The history books use a word for his departures—"going west in the summer"—meaning that at this time, people didn't go to Xinjiang, but he moved. Because his heart was hot, he moved quickly, and others went to Xinjiang for more than half a year, or even longer, but he only spent three months, that is, he was fast.
It was around this time that Zhirui received a letter of contact from Yuan Dahua, Shengyun, and Chang Geng: "In case the Qing court is in crisis, contact Xin, Gansu, and Inner Mongolia as one, support Xuan reunification and move westward, temporarily plot partial security, and Xu Tu will recover." "Confidence is more abundant. In November, Zhirui arrived at Huiyuan City, took up the post of general of Ili, and began to let go of his hands and feet. At this time, although Ili was already floating in the hearts of the people and the wind was urgent because of the influence of the revolutionary situation in the interior, Zhirui believed that it did not affect the overall situation, did not have much to do with it, and even privately told his family, "This change (Wuchang Uprising), I am afraid it is not as good as Guangzhou, Anhui Yiping, Manchurians or no death!" The implication is that the imperial court will consider moving the capital, and the opportunity for him to help the building will fall is coming.
To this end, Zhirui did three things: 1. Shut down the propaganda and public opinion positions of the revolutionaries and suspend the "Ili Vernacular Newspaper." It is said that the chief writer at that time begged in front of him for several days, and he did not agree; 2. Reshuffle the cards, disband the Ili New Army, put away their weapons and ammunition in the storeroom, and let them all go home. It is said that when he asked these people to return home, he not only did not pay them for the journey, but also asked them to take off their clothes and store them in the warehouse with weapons and ammunition for later generations to use. He was persuaded to do so inhumanely, at least to leave their clothes behind, which he ostensibly agreed to, but set up a gate on the way home and ordered them to take off their clothes. It was freezing cold, and as a result, many people froze to death on the road. 3. Reuse the bannermen and Mongols to defend the city of Huiyuan, and form a force of about a thousand people to garrison the south bank of the Ili River.
It is said that the three fires of the new official, Zhi Rui, not only burned quickly, took a very short time, but also very fiercely, and he did not seem to realize that this practice would prompt the revolutionaries to speed up the pace of the uprising. For example, the new army, which he ordered to demobilize and return home, was stripped not only of its clothes at the threshold he had set, but also of coils, travel expenses, and some personal belongings, while the troops he had assembled, composed of bannermen and Mongols, were clearly very cattle, and under the banner of raising military salaries, they went around exploiting and extorting money, causing resentment among the people, and all of them threw themselves into the camp of the revolutionary party.
It was the end of 1911, and the Wuchang Uprising had been erupting for several months. Here, let's first talk about what Zhi Rui's "buddies" are doing.
Let's start with Yuan Dahua. He was dealing with the revolutionaries.
Liu Xianjun (1882-1911), a native of Ningxiang, Hunan, was a modern Chinese democratic revolutionary. In his early years, he went to study at the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School. After returning to China, he successively served as a teacher and pipe belt in Hunan, Jiangnan, Zhenjiang and other military camps. In the second half of 1911, Liu Xianjun arrived in Dihua (Urumqi) and persuaded Yuan Dahua, the governor of Xinjiang, to support the republic, and Yuan Dahua arrogantly shouted that he dared to riot and kill without mercy. Subsequently, Liu Xianjun hid in a temple in Dihua to plan an uprising, but due to lack of preparation and traitors to inform, he was surrounded by Yuan Dahua. At the critical juncture of life and death, Liu Xianjun said to one of his comrades-in-arms: "The matter has come to an end, and it is difficult for those who continue to shoulder the heavy responsibility of the success of the revolution, and it is easy for those who die as revolutionaries." If you are difficult, I will be easy. Then let his comrades-in-arms lead people to break through and sneak to Ili, and then try to revolt, and he was generous and righteous. That is to say, Yuan Dahua of Dihua "forced" the revolutionary force to Ili to a certain extent.
Yuan Dahua
Let's talk about Sheng Yun and Chang Gung. They were all busy giving Puyi "the world" in the northwest.
Sheng Yun fought fiercely, and he gathered his old troops to form an army, more than ten seats in Kecheng, Shaanxi, intending to meet Puyi to establish a small dynasty in the western region, but just when he was about to control the whole of Shaanxi, Puyi announced his abdication. It was February 12, 1912, and the Qing Dynasty rule ended. Shengyun still wanted to fight, but his army refused to fight with the revolutionary army, and had no choice but to leave Shaanxi in an attempt to restore the country in the future.
Chang Geng, the history book left him such a passage: "In the first year of Xuan unification, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu was moved." In the third year, the Wuchang incident began, and Xi'an and other places followed. The former governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, Sheng Yun, was ordered to supervise military affairs, and things were slightly decided. At the behest of the abdication, Chang Gung sent the governor to zhao Weixi, the envoy. The more than four years old, the more respectful. ”
These three probably did not expect that the "buddy" Zhirui would leave them first and die a miserable death. In the position of general of Ili, Zhirui worked for less than two months. On January 7, 1912, the Ili Uprising broke out, and on January 8, Zhirui was captured alive. Originally, the revolutionaries wanted to elect ZhiRui as the "Governor of the Capital", but he sternly refused, saying, "If I do what I do, I cannot go to the Northern Imperial Court, ChenZuzu, and die quickly." In the end, a bullet ended his life, and the Qing Dynasty's dream of moving the capital to Ili came to an end.
Today, many netizens call these 4 people "4 good cadres at the end of the Qing Dynasty", and even "the Gang of Four at the end of the Qing Dynasty", but in addition to the single-minded "royalist", none of them seems to be very "bad", and after Zhirui died, he left a lot of bamboo branches and became his "legacy". During his two-year tenure in Xinjiang, Yuan Dahua edited the Xinjiang Atlas, which, although somewhat shoddily made, also preserved precious historical materials for the local area. After leaving office, he refused to be an official of the Republic of China, and served as a cabinet minister in the 1917 Zhang Xun restoration regime, becoming a typical "feudal widow".
It is worth mentioning that Yuan Dahua, as the last inspector of Xinjiang, was the first to propose to build a railway in Xinjiang. In 1911, he said in a related recital that the British were building roads in India with the aim of coveting Tibet; that Russia had surveyed the railway line from Omsk to Tashkent, and the entire line was almost the same as the Sino-Russian border line, just to fight the idea of Xinjiang. Xinjiang is poor and desolate, and the transportation is inconvenient, once there are border police, where to start? He believes that foreigners are taking the railway as the guide in opening up their territory and expanding their territory, and in order to preserve their territory and turn weak into strong, China should also first repair the railways in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang provinces. With this railway, immigrants can be easily manipulated and trained to raise funds.
Shengyun later went north in order to restore the Qing court, and he was very close to the Japanese, and he was a figure who resolutely followed the Japanese route for the restoration. When Zhang Xun restored the Qing Dynasty in 1917, he brought a large amount of money from Japan and became a university fellow. He died on July 23, 1931 in the Tianjin Concession at the age of 72. In 2001, researchers at Northwest University discovered that in April 1902, Shengyun wrote a manuscript for the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi on the opening of Shaanxi University Hall, which had The Guangxu Emperor's handwritten Zhu Pi, and now the predecessor of Northwest University is Shaanxi University Hall, which proves that the initiator of the establishment of Northwest University should be Shengyun. In addition, Shengyun also founded the Gansu Provincial Accelerated Normal School in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, which was later changed to a junior normal school, so that all provinces and counties selected and sent 120 tribute students, students, and supervisors, and also issued a monthly allowance of 3 silver taels for each student, which contributed to the education cause in the northwest.
Chang Geng left Shaanxi to return to Beijing, refused Yuan Shikai's invitation to make him a beiyang general, and remained idle at home, dying of illness in 1914. In his early years, Chang Gung also served as a general in Ili and reclaimed the Baluk Mountain area, which was forcibly leased by Russia for 10 years, which was a rare glorious page for the Qing court to be involved in diplomacy, and it was also a brilliant stroke in his life.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen famously said: "The general trend of the world, the vast soup, the smooth of the prosperity, the rebellion of the dead." This means that the development law of the current world trend is huge, and those who do things according to this law can succeed. However, the 4 "good cadres at the end of the Qing Dynasty" who proposed the capital of Yili before Dr. Sun Yat-sen did not see the general trend of the haohao soup in that year, and eventually became a tragedy of martyrdom.
Now, it is time to return to the opportunity mentioned in the previous article, the 4 "good cadres" at the end of the Qing Dynasty not only did not conform to the general trend of the world, but also did not see the opportunity or opportunity to set the capital in Ili. Before the end of the 16th century, what is now Siberia and the Far East of Russia was not Russian territory. At that time, China should be the Ming Dynasty, at that time, the level of firearms equipment of the Ming Dynasty army was at the advanced level of the world at that time, and there was no problem of Russia's eastward expansion. If, at that time, the capital of Yili might be a very good idea.
After that, dingdu Ili was nothing more than a dream for China that could not be realized. Just like the 4 "good cadres" at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the idea of moving the capital to Ili was just a temporary "partial security", if the Qing Dynasty in their hearts at that time was compared to a plant, it should be called decaying wood; if the Qing Dynasty in their hearts at that time was compared to an animal, it should be called a frog. Rotten wood can not be carved, frogs in the water for too long, not to mention the relocation of the capital, I am afraid that it is difficult to go to the high water of Ili Mountain.