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How did the first shot of the Wuchang uprising be fired?
The Wuchang Uprising of 1911 is a historical event we are familiar with, and this mutiny in Wuchang was the beginning of the Xinhai Revolution, when the revolutionary party occupied Wuchang overnight, declared independence from the Qing court, and received a response from fifteen provinces in just two months. Such a relatively peaceful transition of power is not only unique in Chinese history, but also rare even in the world.
Relief of the "Wuchang Uprising" on the Monument to the People's Heroes
Looking back from today's perspective, we believe that the backward "feudal" system must be replaced by a more advanced capitalist system, so the success of the Xinhai Revolution is a historical necessity. Such an analysis based on the materialist view of history is good, but the macro-level analysis is difficult to explain why the central imperial court under the authoritarian system lost control of the local government so quickly, and why the huge elite class took the initiative to "decentralize" to accept the republic.
To answer these questions, we need to travel back to the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and from the perspective of that time, we can observe various political changes and truly answer them clearly.
Suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Formation of the Xiang Army: The Rise of Local Power
In essence, the Xinhai Revolution was a challenge to the Qing court by several different forces, including radical revolutionaries, constitutionalists, Han chinese real power factions in the Qing court, awakened intellectuals, and local squires (several forces intersected), among which the revolutionary party and the real power faction could naturally play a decisive role in the change of power. Although the Xinhai Revolution was launched by revolutionaries, it could succeed without much effort, and it also depended on the acquiescence and cooperation of the Local qing Court and even the central real power faction.
Therefore, it can be said that from the moment when the support of the real power faction was lost, the fall of the Qing government was only a matter of time.
And all this began with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement that swept through eighteen provinces half a century ago and lasted for fourteen years.
For the Qing government in the mid-19th century, compared with the foreigners, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement that began during the Daoguang years was a more difficult trouble, because the foreigners at that time were still only greedy for land and commercial interests, while the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was "Fengtian Hu", to overthrow the Qing government, to develop and grow in just a few years, and once threatened the vicinity of the Capital Division.
"Tenno" Hongshu Zen Image
But in the beginning, the Qing court obviously underestimated this "long hair". Since the Manchus set the capital in Beijing, there have been continuous rebellions of the Third Prince of Zhu, the White Lotus Sect, and the Tianli Sect, and even during the Kang Yongqian period, they were not spared, so in the early years of Xianfeng, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had just arisen, the central imperial court did not show excessive concern, but only in accordance with the custom, the local governors and generals consulted on the battle.
However, after killing several local officials in a row of battles and losing Nanjing in three years after Xianfeng, the Qing court finally could not hold back and successively sent the qincha ministers Xiang Rong, Qi Shan, MianYu (jiaqing's son) and other important ministers to lead the army to fight, but it was too late. The Eight Banners army of the imperial court faced the Taiping Army with fewer victories and more losses, and the two large battalions in Jiangbei and Jiangnan that were painstakingly managed were successively attacked by the Taiping Army, and in the Battle of Baoding to defend the Beijing Division, the Xianfeng Emperor personally gave nurhaci the imperial sword to the front-line soldiers to encourage the morale of the army, and the Qing court finally won the battle reluctantly, but also suffered heavy losses.
At this critical juncture, a local armed force active in Hunan gained the attention of the imperial court, that is, the Xiang Army led by Zeng Guofan.
The Xiang Army, also known as Xiang Yong, was organized by Luo Zenan (zeng guofan's in-laws) in 1852 (the second year of Xianfeng) when the Taiping Army entered Xiang, with the main purpose of defending his hometown, and Zeng Guofan, who was at home, became the commander of the Xiang Army. After the initial defeat, the Xiang army broke the Taiping Army in the Battle of Xiangtan, and from then on it was unstoppable, and began to fight in the provinces of Jiangnan, with great momentum, becoming the third force besides the Eight Banners and the Green Battalion. In 1859 (the Xianfeng Decade), the Jiangnan camp of the Qing army was attacked by the Taiping Army, and the Xiang Army became the only force that the Qing court could rely on.
The course of the war will not be repeated, but the result is obvious, that is, the Xiang army led by Zeng Guofan captured Nanjing in the third year of Tongzhi (1864) and finally eliminated the remnants of the Taiping Army. General public opinion also believes that the Xiang army rather than the imperial court pacified the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, such as Sheng Kang's "Continuation of the Imperial Dynasty Classics" described this history in this way: "The calamity of the Yue bandits, the twist bandits, and the Hui bandits was brought to peace by the strength of Chu Yong and Xiang Yong." ”
Although the Xiang Army was able to defeat the Taiping Army, although there were many internal contradictions within the Taiping Army and high-level corruption, an important reason was that the Xiang Army "revived" a military system that had been extinct in Chinese history for a long time, that is, the private army. Wang Minyun's "Chronicle of the Xiang Army" says that "the valuable people of the Xiang Army have their own sects, so they are close to each other from top to bottom." The Xiang Army was developed on the basis of township courage, and most of the troops within the army were in-laws and township parties, with the principle of "the soldiers follow the generals, the soldiers are generals" as the policy, rather than obeying the imperial court, and changing the military standards of "soldiers are impermanent and marshals are impermanent" since the Northern Song Dynasty, forming a local armed force that is separated from the central authorities.
Photo of the Xiang Army musket team
In Chinese history, the combat effectiveness of private armies was often stronger than that of the central army, such as the Tang Youguo (Ziyi) family army, the Song Youyue (Fei) family army, and the Han (Shizhong) family army. The private army was familiar with each other and could cooperate with each other, so that the civilian officials and military generals would not tear each other apart like the army of the imperial court--in the first year of Xianfeng, in the Battle of Yong'an between the Qing army and the Taiping army in the first year of Xianfeng, even if the Minister of Qincha Xiang Ronggui was a member of the Yipin Commandery, the two armies could not cooperate because of the disagreement with the deputy commander Ulantai, and eventually missed the opportunity. The private army, on the other hand, does not involve excessive distribution of benefits and tends to be more consistent in combat.
But as the saying goes, "there are no two sweets in cane", the imperial court enjoyed the strong combat effectiveness of the private army, and naturally had to pay a corresponding price, that is, the decentralization of central authority, which was also the most worried about the imperial court in previous dynasties. Once the generals of these armies supported themselves and even rebelled, it would be a fatal threat to the imperial court. Since the Song Dynasty, China has set the rule of "soldiers are impermanent, and marshals are impermanent", the purpose of which is to prevent the army from threatening the imperial power.
At this time, we do not know whether the Qing court took this into account, but even if it was considered, under the principle of the lesser of the two harming, it had to temporarily allow the development of the Xiang Army to be allowed. And as a result, the tail is not big. Since the Taiping Army was leveled by the Xiang Army, the officers and men of the Xiang Army, who had killed and injured countless relatives and friends, would naturally not easily give up the power they held. Although after the capture of Nanjing in the third year of Tongzhi (1864), Zeng Guofan took the initiative to dismiss most of the Xiang army to avoid the worries of the imperial court, leaving only Li Hongzhang's Anhui (Huai army), Zuo Zongtang's department, and the Yangtze River Water Division, but his generals were not necessarily willing. According to the "Wild Records of the Qing Dynasty", after the Xiang army occupied Nanjing, it had the potential to conquer the Central Plains, and his subordinate Peng Yulin sent a secret letter to Zeng Guofan saying: "There is no owner in the southeast half of the wall, does the teacher care?" "Even if Zeng Guofan didn't have the heart of disobedience, it was already difficult to ride a tiger at this time."
The imperial court naturally also sensed this, and began to guard against the Xiang army, sending Manchu and Mongolian generals such as Turing A, Fu Ming'a, and Senggelinqin to garrison Jiangnan, called bandits, which was actually to dilute the strength of the Xiang army. Unfortunately, it was too late, and the eight flags army and the green battalion soldiers with low combat effectiveness could not be compared with the Xiang army Chu Yong, which had developed on the battlefield, and in the following decades, the strength of the local army in Jiangnan only increased, and the Qing court had to assign many local real-power officials to the Xiang army or officials close to the Xiang army.
Taking the Viceroy of Liangjiang as an example, after the Xiang Army occupied Nanjing, zeng guofan, Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi, Shen Baozhen, Zuo Zongtang, and Zeng Guoquan, all of whom had served as governors of liangjiang for a long time, were all from the Xiang army. After Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, Cixi tried to send Ma Xinyi, whom he trusted, to take over as the governor of Liangjiang, but the latter was assassinated less than two years after taking office, causing the famous "thorn horse case" at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
A film and television adaptation based on the "Thorn Horse Case"
Not only that, from the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), the Governor of Liangjiang, in addition to his original authority, was also in charge of the trade affairs of wukou and was awarded the title of Minister of Trade and Commerce of Nanyang. In the previous Daoguang years, the Viceroy of Liangjiang was already in charge of the Lianghuai Salt Administration, and with military power in hand, the Viceroy of Liangjiang, although named Viceroy, was essentially the head of the military, government, and financial self-sufficiency.
In addition to the Viceroy of Liangjiang, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, Liu Kunyi, and others even occupied many important posts such as university cadets, military aircraft departments, and prime minister Yamen; Li Hongzhang became a well-known powerful minister at home and abroad, and Zuo Zongtang was called a "national hero" for recovering Xinjiang. "ZTE will be xiang nineteen lakes Xiang" is a summary of the official situation at that time. Although these officials were still superficially obeying the orders of the central authorities at this time, by 1900, a great drama of "southeast mutual protection" made the local real power faction and the central government completely stand against each other.
Southeast Mutual Protection: A rehearsal of the independence of the Southern Province
On June 12, 1900, the actual ruling Empress Dowager Cixi hastily declared war on eleven Western countries against the background of the boycott of her own Hai Li chu and the rise of the Boxer Rebellion to "help the Qing Dynasty and destroy the ocean", which opened the prelude to the eight-power alliance's invasion of China. It is worth noting that when Cixi demanded that the edict of declaration of war be distributed everywhere and that the governors of the provinces cooperate in declaring war, Sheng Xuanhuai, then minister of posts and telecommunications and in charge of national communications, privately withheld the edict and gave it only to the governors of the provinces to read, and sent a telegram to the governors not to carry out the orders, blatantly opposing Empress Dowager Cixi.
Sheng Xuanhuai came from Li Hongzhang's shogunate, and it is not known whether this move was instructed by Li Hongzhang, but Li Hongzhang's attitude toward this matter is very clear. According to Luo Huan's "Records of the Change of the Gengzi State", "all the ministers of the frontier are at a loss, but the e-commerce companies are in charge, please go to the direction", and Li Hongzhang, who was the governor of Liangguang at the time, "resolutely replied to the telegram: This chaotic order is also, and Guangdong does not obey the edict." ”
In addition to Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, also had a resolute attitude. Xu Fancheng recorded in the sixteenth article of the "Pengwu Saying Poems" that after Zhang Zhidong received the edict, he consulted his staff on the issue of replying to the telegram, and in order to avoid the dissatisfaction of the imperial court, some people proposed to reply that "the subjects are guilty of serving the southeast and do not dare to obey the edict", but Zhang Zhidong pondered and "threw a smoking gun and said: 'This old widow (referring to Empress Dowager Cixi) will frighten her!'" So it was changed to "The subject sits in the southeast and dies without commandment."
Therefore, under the mediation of Sheng Xuanhuai, among the eight governors of the country, except for the governor of Yungui (The Manchu Guarjia clan), several governors, including Zhang Zhidong, Li Hongzhang, and Liu Kunyi, jointly disobeyed, declaring that Cixi's edict was corrected under the threat of the Boxers, that the southeastern provinces would not participate in the war, and that they had negotiated and signed the nine articles of the Treaty of Mutual Protection of southeast China with the ministers of various countries in Shanghai, which read as follows:
1. The Shanghai Concession shall be jointly protected by all countries, and the Yangtze River and the interior of Suzhou and Hangzhou shall be protected by the various governors, and the two shall not be disturbed, with the main purpose of preserving the life of Chinese and foreign merchants and civilian industries.
2. The Charter for the Common Protection of the Shanghai Concession has been provided for separately.
3. The merchant and civil priestly properties of the Yangtze River and the interior of Suzhou and Hangzhou shall be guaranteed by Liu, minister of Nanyang, and Zhang, governor of the Two Lakes, who are allowed to earnestly and earnestly protect them, and who are informed that the governors of the provinces and the civil and military officials of yan rao are all seriously guaranteed. Rumors have been shown to be prohibited, and the bandits have been severely punished.
Fourth, the Chinese troops in the interior of the Yangtze River have been enough to make the place quiet, and those who have foreign warships at various ports are still moored as usual, but they must restrain people and other sailors from landing.
In the future, if the countries did not wait for the permission of the Chinese governor and merchants, they even sent at most military ships into the Yangtze River and other places, so that the people suspected that they would use the pretext to start a provocation and destroy the human life property of the foreign merchants and priests, and China would not admit compensation afterwards.
6. At Wusong and the yangtze river forts, the warships of various countries shall not berth near the platform, and where the forts are closely opposed, the sailors of the warships shall not practice in places near the forts, so as to avoid each other's mistakes.
7. In the area around the Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau and the Gunpowder Bureau, all countries are allowed not to allow soldiers to cruise and station, and to send foreign troops to patrol and arrest them, in order not to disturb each other. This armament is specially designed for the purpose of preventing and suppressing bandits in the interior of the Yangtze River and protecting Chinese and foreign merchants and civilians.
8. If there are foreign priests and foreigners from all over the country in the mainland, do not venture to the mainland when they encounter remote and undefended places.
9. All attempts to protect the concession must be handled quietly, and the emperor must not be opened to shake people's hearts.
When the "Southeast Mutual Protection" treaty was signed, the governors and ministers took pictures
In hindsight, the treaty as a whole had more advantages than disadvantages, minimizing the losses of the invasion of China by the great powers and protecting Jiangnan, a financial and industrial center, from war, but for the Qing court at that time, this event had a devastating effect. The "Southeast Mutual Protection" was the first time that local power factions openly rebelled against the central government, and such a scene had not appeared since the Song Dynasty. Compared with the Southern Song Dynasty when Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty recalled Yue Fei with twelve gold medals, and Yuan Chonghuan was able to kill the border general Mao Wenlong without asking for instructions in the late Ming Dynasty, the central government's control over the localities in the late Qing Dynasty was far beyond reach.
This is just plain resistance. Privately, when these local officials saw the loss of Beijing and the situation in which Cixi and Guangxu were "hunted in the west of the two palaces and dusted by the two saints," they began to consider the "aftermath" and jointly proposed: If the empress dowager is in trouble, a republic will be established and Li Hongzhang will be elected as the president.
And Li Hongzhang himself did have this intention. Earlier, he had asked the then Governor of Hong Kong, Bu Li: "I have heard foreigners say that if all the ministers in Beijing (because of the Boxer Rebellion) are killed, then the nations have the right to intervene and declare an emperor. Maybe a Han Chinese? During the period of mutual protection in the southeast, Li Hongzhang seriously considered the independence of the two provinces and took the initiative to contact Sun Yat-sen, a revolutionary who was living in exile abroad. According to the "Revolutionary Literature" of the Kuomintang Party History Museum, Li Hongzhang once sent his staff to write to Sun Yat-sen, saying: "Fu Xiang (Li Hongzhang is the prince taifu, so he is called Fu Xiang) because of the northern boxing turmoil, he wants to take the independence of Guangdong Province, and he thinks of enough to help, so please come to Guangdong to coordinate it." Although this plan could not be implemented in the end, Li Hongzhang, who had always been stable, dared to conspire against the Nine Tribes, which also fully demonstrated that with Li Hongzhang's strength at that time, it was enough not to pay attention to the imperial court.
Schematic diagram of the situation in the south-east
On the other hand, on the side of the imperial court, Empress Dowager Cixi, who was boycotted by the courtiers, not only could not punish them, but also praised them afterwards for "measuring up the strength of the situation, not wanting to lightly construct foreign provocations, and sincerely becoming the way to seek the country." After the "two saints" returned to Beijing, the imperial court had to "hand over to the provinces for business" in all major matters, and local officials had since had the right to speak in handling the affairs of the central government, which was extremely abnormal in a feudal country under imperial politics. At this time, although the Qing Dynasty was still nominally a unified regime, it was only a nominal difference compared with the situation of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms at the end of the Tang Dynasty.
Prior to this, Cixi could still use power techniques to check and balance slightly, such as transferring Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang to military aircraft to "rise and fall in the light" and take the opportunity to demote Li Hongzhang after the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. Although it could not cure the fundamentals, it was also slightly beneficial to maintaining the authority of the central authorities. However, after the mutual protection of the southeast, Cixi was forced to depose his own crown prince Pu Juan and exile him to Xinjiang, and his position of power was much worse than before. By 1908, after the collapse of Guangxu and Cixi, the actual ruling regent Zaifeng obviously did not have the ability to compete with the courtiers, and could only allow the provinces to develop freely.
The regent zaifeng at the end of the Qing Dynasty
Therefore, although the southeast mutual protection is called "self-protection", it can actually be regarded as a rehearsal of "independence", the southern provinces and the Qing court have long been separated from Germany, and take advantage of this to begin to develop their own power without restriction, and even if the Qing court does not fall, the final power will shrink to the level of constitutional monarchy, which is only a matter of time.
Abolition of the Imperial Examination and Establishment of a Cabinet: The Late Qing Dynasty's Reform "Tricks"
After the failure of the reform, there were still some reformists who had expectations for political reform, such as Zhang Xiao and Liang Qichao, who called for political reform and constitutional monarchy in both the government and the opposition, hoping to save the danger. In the central imperial court at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Constitutionalists were an important force.
On the other hand, in the feudal order, it was the army that maintained the authority of the imperial court, and the gentry who ruled the localities. Since ancient times, china has said that "the imperial power does not go down to the county", and the officials appointed by the imperial court only reached the level of Zhi County, and further down, they were not under the direct control of the imperial court, but were managed by local gentry.
Group photo of some gentry in Gansu in 1941
Although the gentry had no power to bind the chicken, because they directly dealt with the people, their influence on the local government and even the imperial court could not be underestimated. For example, during the Yongzheng period, the imperial court promoted the "gentry as one errand and one grain", which was heavily hindered by the interests of the gentry class, and finally only implemented it in parts of Henan and Jiangsu, and immediately abolished this "new deal" after Qianlong took the throne.
Therefore, although the two strata of the reformists and the gentry were not as powerful as the local officials who held military power, they had a decisive influence in society and the people, and their attitude towards the Qing government was not as radical as that of the revolutionary party, which could be said to be the object that the Qing court could win. However, the Qing court not only did not cherish this remaining supporter, but because of a series of "reforms", it offended these two classes with completely different demands, completely different backgrounds, and even contradictory, so that their attitude towards the republic turned acquiescence, which became an important reason why the Xinhai Revolution could be carried out peacefully.
Among them, the first to bear the brunt is the abolition of the imperial examination. As the representative class of feudal society, the gentry were often served by imperial court students who had experienced the imperial examination, and their demands were also very simple, one was to maintain the feudal ethics, and the other was to seek promotion and economic interests. Although there were many enlightened people among the gentry at the end of the Qing Dynasty, most of them still gained fame and status because of the imperial examination, and also tried to further their careers through the imperial examination. It can be said that this class's willingness to cooperate with the imperial court to control the localities is closely related to the commitment and hope given to them by the imperial examination.
Although the abolition of the imperial examination was a progressive reform, for the majority of gentry, after the abolition of the imperial examination in 1906, the school education that replaced the imperial examination became the privilege of the city, and the school was no longer related to the career path, and the upward path of the gentry class was completely interrupted, and there was no replacement method, which made the gentry lose the motivation to cooperate with the work of the imperial court while being disappointed. After 1905, passive coping became the attitude of most gentry to govern the localities, for example, "preventing turmoil" has always been the high-pressure red line of the imperial court, and it is also the focus of the gentry's work, but after 1905, the local grassroots resistance to the imperial court has increased significantly, and the frequency of rebellion in different regions has also shown a positive correlation with the promotion prospects of the local gentry, which is enough to show that the gentry at this time have given up obedience to the imperial court.
Statistics of rural rebellions in various places after the abolition of the Imperial Examination in 1905
Prospects for the promotion of gentry in various places before 1905
In addition, the imperial examination is not only a way for the gentry to be promoted, but also the most effective way for local people, including reformers, to enter the central government and realize their political ambitions; the abolition of the imperial examination has cut off the reform path of the local reformers, which has been a major blow to the reformers who originally supported the Qing court, and the establishment of the "imperial cabinet" a few years later has further allowed the reformists in the central government to be completely disappointed in the Qing court.
In the last decade of the Qing Dynasty, although Cixi forcibly stopped changing the law, arrested and killed Tan Si and other officials who changed the law, and almost abolished Guangxu, under the compulsion of the situation, she also had to implement a series of law change measures in the name of the "New Deal", and "abolishing the imperial examination and opening schools" was one of them. However, what the government and opposition, especially the reformists, are most concerned about is the reform of the political system.
Under pressure, between Guangxu and Xuantong, the Qing court successively sent ministers abroad to investigate and set up a political system hall, and at the same time set up a senior government in the local area, and also accepted Wang Buying's proposal to set up a cabinet in 1906, making a positive reform appearance. However, when the Qing court finally officially announced the abolition of the Military Aircraft Division and the establishment of a responsible cabinet, and many reformers thought that their ideas were about to become a reality, the cabinet led by Prince Qing was a big surprise.
In terms of personnel composition, only 6 of the 17 ministers of state in Prince Qing's cabinet were Han Chinese, and the remaining 11 were all held by the imperial family or Manchus, which blatantly violated the constitutional monarchy precedent set by the United Kingdom, which was set by the British, and made people lose sight of the sincerity of the Qing court's reform; in terms of specific powers, although the prime minister's cabinet had an army department and a navy department, military issues were still the responsibility of the military consultative council; at the same time, local officials were deprived of the right to play to the emperor and could only report to the cabinet. This cabinet was ridiculed as a "royal cabinet" for a while, and reform officials were disappointed, and some people began to turn to the revolution. And even those who do not fall to the revolution will find it difficult to rise up and escort such a regime when it faces the fall of power.
Group photo of some members of Prince Qing's cabinet
At this time, it was already 1911, and the reformists and local gentry who had not yet abandoned the Qing Dynasty were also pushed to the opposite side of the imperial court, and the Qing court offended all the classes that had a slight right to speak. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the Wuchang Uprising was able to "respond to a hundred responses".
Of course, although these strata were jointly opposed to the Qing government, they were also full of contradictions with each other, with the revolutionaries represented by Sun Yat-sen wanting to establish a unified republican government, while the warlords everywhere trumpeted "joint provincial autonomy" for their own interests, and the gentry wanted to still let themselves govern the rural areas. Even within the warlords, there were contradictions between the Beiyang warlords and the southern warlords, and the Xinhai Revolution did not resolve these contradictions, laying the foundation for the subsequent warlord melee, the Second Revolution and the Northern Expedition.
Therefore, although the Wuchang uprising was due to the unpopularity of the Qing government, this "revolution" would not touch the interests of too many of the old real power classes, so it was possible to obtain the acquiescence and cooperation of these classes. Although the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing government, the provincial governors were still in place, and it was still the Han landlord class such as Yuan Shikai who ruled China; after the revolution, the localities were still governed by gentry, and this feudal system was not abolished until around 1949.
This is precisely the reason why we say today that the Xinhai Revolution was not complete. In a revolution, the importance of armed struggle is unquestionable, and the Xinhai Revolution did not go through large-scale armed struggle, it was not unnecessary, but it only pushed this demand to the future. The post-revolutionary Republic of China, though called a republic, was more like a constitutional monarchy – the original emperor even lived in the Forbidden City until 1924, when he was expelled from the palace. Even if Yuan Shikai died in the midst of all the world's condemnations, it was his Beiyang forces that controlled North China and the Central Plains for the next ten years.
Sun Yat-sen soon realized this problem and founded the Whampoa Military Academy to train revolutionary forces, and at the same time set plans for the Northern Expedition to try to unify the country with armed struggle. Unfortunately, sun Yat-sen finally failed to see the success of the revolution, and the Northern Expedition was also aborted by the "April 12 Coup". The task of the National Revolution remained until 1949, when it was finally completed by the Chinese Communist Party, which inherited Sun Yat-sen's legacy.
Reference Articles:
Sheng Kang's "Continuation of the Imperial Scriptures"
Wang Minyun's "XiangJun Zhi"
Luo Huan's "Chronicle of the Transformation of gengzi kingdom"
Guo Jiwu, "Southeast Mutual Protection and the Political Situation of the Late Qing Dynasty"
Yi Yeran, "The "Deteriorated" Gentry: Abolishing the Imperial Examination and Grassroots Governance"
Zhang Yufa, "Constitutional Groups in the Qing Dynasty"
(This article only represents the views of the author and does not represent the position of this number)
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