On October 10, 1911, the Wuchang Uprising opened the prelude to the Xinhai Revolution and ushered in the era of democracy and republicanism. With the Wuchang Uprising, Hubei became the center of the Chinese revolution. In the face of the fierce attack of the Qing army, the revolutionary parties in Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong and other provinces rushed to Hubei from all directions to help the newborn Hubei military government against the Beiyang Army.
After the establishment of the Republic of China, Hubei Governor Li Yuanhong was elected vice president, sitting in Wuhan for a long time, Hubei's influence in the country is getting bigger and bigger, at that time there was a celebrity who traveled thousands of miles to Hubei to get married, hoping to marry a Hubei woman, this celebrity is Zhang Taiyan, who is known as "You Heng of the Republic of China".
Zhang Binglin
Zhang Taiyan, whose real name was Zhang Binglin, called himself Taiyan because of his admiration for Gu Yanwu at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and everyone called him "Mr. Taiyan". Zhang Taiyan was a famous scholar in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, whose research scope included history, philosophy, politics and many other aspects, and Lu Xun, Qian Xuan and others had studied under him. Unlike others who are obsessed with studying, Zhang Taiyan still has a desire to make the country stronger. After the end of the Sino-Japanese War, Zhang Taiyan, who had originally studied with the late Qing Dynasty master Yu Fan, resolutely bid farewell to his teacher and went to Shanghai to join the Qiang Society and serve as the editor of the "Current Affairs Newspaper".
At that time, in Zhang Taiyan's mind, he still fantasized about making the Qing government stronger through the change of law, but the truth quickly slapped him with a loud slap. In 1898, the Penghu Reform Law lasted only 103 days before it failed, and Zhang Taiyan was implicated and forced to flee to Taiwan for refuge. After this incident, Zhang Taiyan felt that the "Six Gentlemen of Wushu" had been killed, and his heart became more and more bitter against the diehards led by Empress Dowager Cixi, and he believed that only revolution could save China, so he turned to revolutionary work.
During this period, with the rise of the revolutionary movement, the royalists led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao began to argue with the revolutionaries, and the newspapers of various sides became the main position of their polemics, and Zhang Taiyan also sided with the revolutionary party at this time and launched a fierce debate with his former friends. In 1903, the "Su Bao" that supported the Chinese revolution hired Zhang Shizhao as the chief writer, and invited Zhang Taiyan, Cai Yuanpei and others to write, and for a while the "Su Bao" published many revolutionary articles and became an important position of the revolutionary party.
In the same year, a far-reaching work was published in the "Su Bao", that is, Zou Rong's "Revolutionary Army", which also marked the maturity of Chinese revolutionary thought. As a close friend of Zou Rong, Zhang Taiyan not only personally wrote the preface to the Revolutionary Army, but also wrote a "Refutation of Kang Youwei's Book on Revolution" to refute Kang Youwei's absurd views on the revolution. Because the impact of these two articles was too great, it soon caused panic in the Qing government. Soon after, the Qing government sealed the Su Bao and arrested Zou Rong, Zhang Taiyan and others, which was the famous "Su Bao Case" at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, Zhang Taiyan not only carried out revolutionary theoretical propaganda work, but also established the Guangfu Association together with zhejiang compatriots Cai Yuanpei, Tao Chengzhang, and others. The biggest difference between the Guangfuhui and other revolutionary organizations at that time was that the Guangfuhui did not mainly plan an uprising and become independent, but hoped to attack the rule of the Qing government through assassination and other means, and the famous assassination of the five ministers by Wu Fan was the handiwork of the Guangfuhui. The guangfuhui assassination operations again and again, although they did not achieve much success, frightened the high-ranking officials of the Qing Dynasty, such as Tie Liang, Duanfang and other Manchu officials, who had to pay money to "sponsor" the revolution, hoping that Guangfu would not assassinate them.
In 1906, Zhang Taiyan was released from prison, and Sun Yat-sen and others, who had been famous for him for a long time, immediately welcomed him to Tokyo and made him the editor-in-chief of the Minbao Newspaper. "Minbao" was the organ newspaper of the League at that time, and its main role was to argue with the royalist newspaper "Xinmin Cong Bao" in addition to publicizing the revolution, and the editor-in-chief of the "Xinmin Cong Bao" was no one else, it was Zhang Taiyan's former friend Liang Qichao. It was from this time that the Society of Restoration gradually merged with the League and became a branch of the League.
Zhang Taiyan has a rather strange personality, and has always been known as "you heng of the Republic of China", and he likes to speak bluntly about things that he is not accustomed to, so he has offended many people. In 1907, because He Zhen had an affair with his cousin, Zhang Taiyan directly told He Zhen's husband Liu Shipei, and as a result, he not only had a fight with Liu Shipei, but also was framed by He Zhen. It happened that in this year, Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin of the Guangfuhui were defeated and killed, and Zhang Taiyan was discouraged and even wanted to cut his hair and become a monk. Soon after, because of the disagreement over the development of the "Minbao", Zhang Taiyan also quarreled with Sun Yat-sen and others, and he even claimed that Sun Yat-sen had embezzled the funds of the League and demanded that he give way to Huang Xing.
Cai Yuanpei
After the establishment of the Republic of China, Zhang Taiyan's revolutionary thinking also changed, and he felt that the revolution had been victorious, so he began to call on everyone to withdraw from the League, which aroused the strong dissatisfaction of Sun Yat-sen and others. Zhang Taiyan was dissatisfied with Yuan Shikai at that time, often scolding Yuan Shikai and Cixi for being the same kind of people, on the other hand, he felt that the Kuomintang was not a good person, Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai were one and the same, and both of them should get out of the egg. Under his remarks, it was naturally impossible to please him, and both Yuan Shikai and Sun Yat-sen were very dissatisfied with him. In fact, Zhang Taiyan also has his favorite presidential candidates, that is, Li Yuanhong and Cen Chunxuan, and he even established a Republican Party with Li Yuanhong and others.
After Yuan Shikai became the president, in order to win over the scholars, in view of the fact that Zhang Taiyan was a celebrity at that time, he made him a Jilin envoy. This was actually just a false post that Yuan Shikai had made a mistake in order to win over people, but Zhang Taiyan believed it to be true and felt that he could show his strengths, so he happily ran to Jilin to take office. The result was naturally that he was given a cold reception, and was soon sent away by Chen Zhaochang, the governor of Jilin Province.
After leaving Jilin, Zhang Taiyan had nowhere to go for a while, so he went to Hubei to find Li Yuanhong, the leader of the Republican Party. As the governor of Hubei, Li Yuanhong naturally had to give Zhang Taiyan face and let him be warmly welcomed by the people of Hubei. Probably because the contrast between the cold reception in Jilin before and now is too great, Zhang Taiyan suddenly felt that Hubei people were very good, and when he was happy, he had the idea of marrying a Hubei woman. Zhang Taiyan originally had a wife, but he had already died of illness and had been busy with the revolution before, and when he saw the victory of the revolution, he had the idea of marrying a wife.
Soon after, Zhang Taiyan published a marriage notice in the newspaper, which was also the earliest marriage solicitation in China's newspaper. As for the requirements, he made five points: (1) she must be a woman from Hubei; (2) she must be able to read and hyphenate; (3) it is best to be a bridesmaid; (4) she must not have the vice of the school that demands equality and freedom; (5) she must have the virtue of marrying and obeying her husband. For other points, everyone can understand, but why must marry Hubei women, even Li Yuanhong is confused, after all, in the history of Hubei except Wang Zhaojun has not heard of any beautiful women, far less famous than Zhang Taiyan's hometown Hangzhou beauty. Under Li Yuanhong's inquiry, Zhang Taiyan said his thoughts, it turned out that he felt that Hubei was the place where the Xinhai Revolution was the first righteous, that is sure that the women of Hubei were also very revolutionary, and such a woman was just suitable for him.
In the end, it is unknown whether anyone applied for the recruitment, but Zhang Taiyan himself took a fancy to a Hubei woman, a big girl who graduated from a girls' school and was named Wu Shuqing. Not to mention, Zhang Taiyan still has some vision, although Wu Shuqing is not very famous in later generations, but in Hubei at that time, there was a very loud nickname: "Contemporary Mulan". It turned out that although Wu Shuqing was born in everyone, because her brother studied in the Hubei Wubei Academy, she also had a strong interest in joining the army from an early age.
After the Wuchang Uprising, Wu Shuqing also had the idea of joining the army revolution, so she wrote to Li Yuanhong to ask her to set up a women's Northern Expedition to participate in the Northern Expedition to destroy the Qing government. At that time, when there was such a saying as a female soldier, Li Yuanhong refused when he heard it, on the grounds that there were only men in the army, and women could not join the army. Wu Shuqing was unwilling to give up, and she wrote a "Military Essay" to Li Yuanhong to express her determination to join the army. In the end, Wu Shuqing persuaded Li Yuanhong to successfully organize a women's Northern Expedition of several hundred people, which later participated in the defense of Hanyang and Wuchang.
Li Yuanhong
Although Zhang Taiyan had a crush on Wu Shuqing, he was always embarrassed to say it himself, and when he thought about it, he wanted to find Li Yuanhong as a matchmaker. Unexpectedly, Li Yuanhong was not rude this time, and he told Zhang Taiyan that he did not know Wu Shuqing, and asked him to find a way to find Shi Gongjiu's father, Shi Gongjiu, a member of the Hubei League. In the end, Zhang Taiyan did not have the good intention to entrust people again, and had to leave Hubei in disgrace.
It turned out that wanting to marry a Hubei woman was just Zhang Taiyan's momentary hiccup, and he turned his head and forgot. Soon after, Zhang Taiyan was awarded the second rank by Yuan Shikai in Beijing and returned to Zhejiang. Soon after arriving in Zhejiang, under the introduction of his old friend Cai Yuanpei, he married a Zhejiang woman, and as for what Hubei woman he wanted to marry before, he had already been thrown out of the cloud of nine clouds.