The revolutionary events in Hohhot in history: the big fuss about the "Shengji" foreign trade

In 1919, the May Fourth Movement broke out in Beijing, which shocked the whole country. Under his influence, the first to awaken to the tumochuan were the students. In mid-May, when students in Angelica Sui received news of the May Fourth Movement, they also organized demonstrations in the streets, chanting slogans such as "Punish traitors" and "Boycott Japanese goods." Since then, the students of the schools in Sui have formed a custom of organizing a parade in the streets every year during the "May Fourth" period to carry out commemorative activities.

On the morning of May 7, 1923, more than 1,000 students from Tumut Higher Primary School (the predecessor of today's Hohhot Tumut School), Guisui Middle School (the predecessor of today's Hohhot No. 1 Middle School), and Suiyuan Normal School (the predecessor of the present-day Hohhot Municipal Institute of Education) held a meeting to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the "May Fourth" Movement in the large playground of Guisui Middle School. After the meeting, the students entered the downtown area from the north gate of the old city in an organized and orderly manner, marched and demonstrated along The Great North Street and The Great South Street, shouted the slogans "Abolish the Twenty-one Articles" and "Boycott Japanese Goods", and distributed leaflets to the onlookers to tell the situation of the country.

There is a firm named "Shengxingshi" on the east side of Da Nan Street Road, which was the largest shop in the old city at that time and sold the most Japanese goods, known as "Sheng Ji" foreign firm. This shop has 5 large shops, two floors above and below, a few clean windows, gorgeous decoration, strong capital, rich wealth, and the operation of satin cloth, clothes, shoes and hats, daily necessities, clocks and hardware, pen and ink paper, pastries and candies, children's toys and other goods, most of which are Japanese goods. "Flourishing" has semicolons in Zhangjiakou, Datong, Fengzhen, Jining, and Baotou, and is a chain store of Goods dumped by Japan into Inner Mongolia, so it has long attracted the attention of Guisui students.

When the students' parade came to the door of the "Sheng ji" foreign firm to distribute leaflets, the owner of the foreign bank not only tore up the leaflets, but also shouted and scolded: "I do business to make money, which domestic goods are advantageous, I will sell which domestic goods." You students are not good at studying, and if you do these idle things, you are not full of food." The students argued on the basis of reason, and the owner of the foreign firm was even more arrogant, and actually opened his mouth to hurt people. The students were very angry and reported the situation to the student unions of the schools on the same day.

The next morning, students from all schools came to the large playground of Guisui Middle School to assemble, and Meng Chun, a representative of Mongolian students, told the bad attitude of the owner of the "Shengji" foreign firm and asked for the opinions of the students: "What should I do about this kind of profit-seeking and unrighteous businessman?" Everyone said a word in unison, "Smash! At this time, after hearing the news, the Guisui Police Station and the Student Affairs Bureau sent people to intervene, and took away 12 student representatives to inquire about the situation, and when they learned about the incident, they thought it was inconvenient to intervene and released the student representatives. Therefore, more than 1,000 students from various schools lined up in four columns, and went straight to the Great South Street, first there were 30 strong male students who formed a brave team to rush into the "Shengji" foreign company, the boss saw that the situation was not good and had already slipped away, the second boss with a few employees still wanted to block, the students behind them rushed up, upstairs and downstairs were chaotic, less than a moment's work, inside and outside the mess. In particular, many Japanese children's toys made of rubber are creaked by students, and some people say that this is little Japan begging for forgiveness all over the place, and many years later, some students still remember it fondly.

For a long time, the large and small shops in the old city no longer dared to openly sell Japanese goods, and the Suiyuan Chamber of Commerce also set up a special Japanese goods inspection team to seal and wait for the Japanese goods found in each shop.

In this patriotic struggle to make a big fuss over the "Shengji" foreign trade, a large number of outstanding young Mongolian and Han students emerged, including Duo Songnian, Ulanfu, Kuibi, Zhao Cheng, Foding, and Gao Buzebo of the Tumut Higher Primary School; Li Yuzhi, Ji Yatai, and Meng Chun of the Guisui Middle School; and Fan Jianzhong and Li Zicai of the Suiyuan Normal School. Some of them were admitted to the Mongolian-Tibetan School in Beijing and embarked on the revolutionary road.

Author: Wei Duo

Editor: Ren Ruixin