123 years ago today (October 11, 1896), Dr. Sun Yat-sen was easily trapped by the Qing government embassy personnel in London, England, and was almost killed, creating the most sinister "London Disaster" in Dr. Sun Yat-sen's life. So why did the Qing government trap Dr. Sun Yat-sen? How did you get it? Later, how did Dr. Sun Yat-sen escape death?
Let us review the truth of this incident together on this special day.
The Guangzhou uprising revolutionaries were too naïve
Mistakes and failures are inevitable
The first Guangzhou uprising organized by Sun Yat-sen and his comrades in October 1895 was not only lackluster, but even terrible due to its lack of experience and naïveté.
First of all, the arrangement and dispatch of personnel came out of The Big Louzi, as the main force of the "commando team" actually could not arrive on time, so that the organizers in Guangzhou were worried about leaking the wind and had to cancel the uprising. Not only was there a problem in the big link, but even the details were full of all kinds of unexpected flaws: the seven barrels of arms that mattered most were actually piled up with many cargo boxes during transportation, so that these "commandos" could not smoothly take out these arms for surprise attack even when they arrived in Guangzhou. There are so many problems, large and small, which also shows the extent to which the revolutionaries lacked experience in armed uprisings at that time. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Guangzhou Uprising was easily broken and strangled in the cradle by the Qing authorities.
But even such an inexperienced, poorly organized, and eventually stillborn uprising by the planners still gave the Qing government a great shock. These revolutionaries' firm determination to struggle, their political stance of overthrowing their rule by force, and the courage they showed in the struggle to see death as a homecoming all frightened them. Perhaps it was precisely because of this that the Qing government, which had always been obtuse and dull, showed unusual efficiency, and in addition to the rapid execution of Lu Haodong, Zhu Guiquan, Qiu Si, Cheng Kuiguang, Cheng Yaochen and other revolutionaries who fell into their hands, it also launched a global hunt for sun yat-sen, the mastermind of the escape.
This laid the groundwork for the trapping of Sun Yat-sen in London.
Sun Yat-sen fled to London under the pseudonym Sun Yat-sen
The itinerary was all controlled by the Qing government
Although London in 1896 was already a cosmopolitan city, it was difficult to see Chinese – or East Asian faces – on the streets. Therefore, when Sun Yat-sen set foot on the British Isles in the name of Sun Yat-sen, the spies from the Qing government almost did not have to blow their hands to firmly target this "anti-thief leader" with a typical yellow appearance. For the Qing government, the doctor, who assumed the pseudonym Sun Yat-sen, was one of the main criminals in planning and organizing an attempted "rebellion" in Guangzhou a year ago, and was a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh that must be removed as soon as possible. Therefore, they not only took great pains to find out the trajectory of Sun Yat-sen's escape from Guangzhou, from Hong Kong to Japan, through Hawaii to the United States, circumnavigating most of the world to Europe, but also knew his itinerary in the British Isles: the spies not only knew that he arrived in Liverpool at noon on September 30, 1896, but even he was scheduled to take the train to London at 2:50, but somehow he missed the train and had to take the train at 4:45 pm. Finally arrived in London at 9:50 pm and learned everything.
On the other hand, Sun Yixian seems to be a little light. Perhaps because of the Qing government's contempt for his determination to be quick and fast, or perhaps because of the revolutionary's innate fearless spirit, he laughed at all the threats from the Qing court. In London, Sun Yat-sen once talked to a friend about threats from the Qing government, and when the friend's teacher warned him to be careful, he smiled and said, "I don't care." ”
(Appearance of the Qing Embassy on Bowlland Avenue, now the Chinese Embassy in the UK)
At that time, Yang Ru, the qing government's minister to the United States, forwarded the Qing government's instructions to Gong Zhaoyi, the minister in Britain, requesting that sun Yat-sen be extradited from Britain, and also gave Sun Yat-sen's various physical characteristics in detail. By September 25, Yang Ru had telegraphed Gong Zhaoyi that Sun Yat-sen had taken the White Star Steamship Company's "Majestic" ship from New York to London on Wednesday, the 23rd, two days earlier. Upon learning of this news, Gong Zhaoyi immediately sent Counsellor Margery to the British Foreign Office to request the arrest and extradition of Sun Yat-sen, but naturally the British Foreign Office refused.
London was kind to meet the "fellow countrymen"
Sun Yat-sen was easily entrapped
It has to be admitted that although the Western powers used gunboats to blast open the closed door of China under the Qing government, they did objectively bring some advanced ideas to China, at least in the case of the capture of Sun Yat-sen. Although the Qing government had long fully grasped the every move of this "anti-thief", overseas they still did not dare to act arbitrarily, or accepted a civilized approach, trying to extradite him through diplomatic channels.
As an experienced and sensible diplomat, Magri certainly knew that after the British Foreign Office had rejected the Qing embassy's extradition request, the arrest of Sun Yat-sen was "an operation that was clearly doomed to failure." But even so, the Qing embassy was determined to try to arrest Sun Yat-sen.
On the morning of October 11, 1896, after learning of Sun Yat-sen's possible trip to France, the Qing embassy hastily made the decision to launch an arrest operation, and even immediately vacated a house in the embassy to be used as a cell. And the action taken against Sun Yat-sen is like a Hollywood blockbuster.
According to Sun Yat-sen's account to reporters afterwards and to the British Treasury, everything happened very accidentally: he was walking down the street when a Chinese came up with him, first asking him if he was Japanese or Chinese. After learning that Sun was from Guangdong Province, China, the Chinese surnamed Deng—in fact, Deng Tingzheng, the English translator of the Qing embassy—was very happy to say that he was also Cantonese, and quickly gained Sun's trust by virtue of his hometown connections, and then introduced him to two other Chinese. Soon after, Deng Tingheng took advantage of the excuse to leave, while the other two Chinese warmly invited Sun Yat-sen to come in and talk, and under the situation of "no violence, everything is very friendly", the two men half-pushed and half-pulled Sun Yat-sen into the porch, and until Sun heard that the door was locked behind him, he still regarded the two people as friends!
(Dr. Sun Yat-sen was trapped)
According to the principles of international law, the Qing embassy belongs to Chinese territory, as long as Sun Yat-sen voluntarily enters the Qing embassy, then the matter becomes the arrest of a Chinese on Chinese territory, at least in legal terms, the British government has no right to interfere, and may even accept. Judging from the initial reports and Sun's account, the Qing embassy adopted the latter more cunning method of trapping.
Mr. Sun's carelessness and credulity allowed him to fall into the trap of the Qing government embassy personnel and put himself to death.
Thanks to the rescue of a British friend
Sun Yat-sen was able to escape death
After being trapped, Dr. Sun Yat-sen was also a Jiren who had his own heavenly appearance, and was rescued by his British teacher at the Hong Kong Western Medical College, Mr. Kang Deli, and finally escaped from danger.
After his release, Sun Yat-sen spent another nine months in England, witnessing growing trends in social reform and revolution in many industrialized countries. These nine months of experience allowed Sun Yat-sen to see the trend of social reform and revolution, so he gave rise to the idea of solving these social problems through social revolution, coupled with his idea of political revolution, Sun Yat-sen believed that political revolution and social revolution could be used to "complete his contribution in one battle". Thus strengthening his determination and confidence in the democratic revolution in feudal old China.
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