Wen | reversed the north
01 How Li Yuanhong was pushed to the high position of governor
This year marks the 110th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution. When mentioning the Xinhai Revolution, it is naturally impossible not to mention the success of the Wuchang Uprising, and when mentioning the Wuchang Uprising, it is natural that one person cannot be involved, he is Li Yuanhong.
In the politics of the early years of the Republic of China, Li Yuanhong can be said to be a focal point, such as in the "Dispute between the Government and the Yuan" in 1917, when Li Yuanhong, as president, and Duan Qirui, the prime minister, fought for power and triggered Zhang Xun's restoration. However, Li Yuanhong, the great president of the Republic of China, did not insist on defending the republican revolution from the beginning. At least on the eve of the Xinhai Revolution, he was a swinging centrist.
On the eve of the victory of the Xinhai Revolution, Li Yuanhong served as the co-commander (equivalent to a brigade commander) of the 21st Mixed Association of the Qing Army stationed in Wuchang. Within the army, Li Yuanhong's prestige was extremely high, first, because he did not arbitrarily withhold grain and salaries and did not abuse public funds like the old officers; second, because he was sympathetic to his subordinates and especially respected intellectuals, which was a great influence in the new army of the Qing Dynasty, which was dominated by intellectuals; and third, he had a certain leadership ability, and this ability was once affirmed by Zhang Zhidong, the former governor of Huguang. Zhang Xiangshuai and a number of other superiors were promoted, allowing Li Yuanhong to settle for the status quo. Therefore, if there had been no Wuchang Uprising, or if the Xinhai Revolution had won the first victory in other provinces, it is difficult to imagine that Li Yuanhong would have thrown himself into the torrent of republican revolution.
On the night of October 10, 1911, after the officers and men of the Eighth Engineering Battalion of the New Army outside the city took the lead in firing the first shots of the uprising, the new troops of other battalions also revolted, and together with the officers and men of the first uprising, executed the officers who tried to suppress the rebellion, and seized the armory and other key places. This bottom-up revolutionary activity has exposed its weakness from the outset, namely, the lack of unified leadership and command. Although the officers and men of the uprising nominally accepted the leadership of the Central General Association of the League, the core leaders such as Huang Xing and Song Jiaoren were not yet in the two lakes and could not guide the revolution, and Sun Yat-sen was far away in the United States.
In addition, although these insurrectors belonged to the Literary Society and the Communist Progressive Association in practice, the main leaders of these two revolutionary organizations were either killed by the Qing court on the eve of the uprising, or they were far away from home and were absent from the scene of the uprising. For example, Jiang Yiwu, the "president" of the Literary Society, took refuge in other places, and most of his colleagues were captured and killed, while Sun Wu, the supreme leader of the Communist Progressive Association, was seriously injured and transferred to the hospital because he failed to try to produce explosives at a secret residence in Hankou, and was unable to participate in the tense battles that followed.
Therefore, in the general absence of senior leaders, the officers and men of the Wuchang Uprising heroically attacked the Governor of Huguang, Yamen, and even mobilized artillery to bombard the Qing army's barriers. But when the rebel army occupied the general headquarters of the other side, it immediately quarreled over how to stabilize the turbulent social order and pursue the remnants of the enemy, for the simple reason that there was no unified leader to coordinate personnel and distribute the power of office. The Communist Progressive Society and the Literary Society had fought side by side before, but now the conflict over who to choose to be the leader deepened. And it is also in such a complex context that Li Yuanhong has been pushed onto the stage of history.
02 The situation suddenly changed, and Li Yuanhong accelerated his seizure of power
After the outbreak of the uprising, Li Yuanhong initially thought that it was just a few people making trouble, so he also stabbed two soldiers who came to persuade him to lead the uprising, but after the news spread that the key passes of Wuchang City were occupied by the new army of the uprising, Li Yuanhong turned from the original resolute suppression to passive evasion, trying to escape the revolutionary upsurge by fleeing to the home of the chief of staff. However, Li Yuanhong thought too simply, and his prestige in the army made many officers who were wrapped up in the uprising see hope, and they felt that it was not necessary to push Li Yuanhong to be the governor of the capital to coordinate the overall situation, in order to avoid the Qing army from counterattacking and exploiting loopholes. Soon, Li Yuanhong's whereabouts were discovered, and he himself, at the urging of the officers and men of the New Army, held a swearing-in ceremony on the second day of the uprising.
Until now, however, Lai has been uncertain about the prospects of an uprising, and his pessimism is very high. This is not difficult to explain, because Wuhan is the thoroughfare of nine provinces, surrounded by the main force of the Qing army, once the Qing court eased up to dispatch troops to suppress, Li Yuanhong may not be able to sit in a high position. The rebels were displeased with Li Yuanhong's separation from their appearance, but now they needed to use his fame to calm people's minds, so Li Yuanhong sat down in the seat of the governor.
However, when Jiang Yiwu and others rushed back to Wuchang, the political situation soon changed again, and they felt that Hankou and Hanyang were under the pressure of the Qing army's fierce attack, and there were some constitutionalists and old officers at both ends, the situation was critical, and if Li Yuanhong continued to lead passively, then Wuchang would have the risk of gaining and losing. Therefore, in addition to Li Yuanhong's appointment as the governor of the Hubei military government, some members of the literary society headed by Jiang Yiwu contacted the leaders of the Communist Progressive Association and formed a strategic office. This body nominally advised the governor and assisted him in his administration, but in fact monitored Li Yuanhong's movements to prevent him from voluntarily surrendering, and at the same time assumed the responsibility of leading the overall situation at an extraordinary time.
After that, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren and other members of the Alliance association rushed to the three towns of Wuhan one after another, and the camp of revolutionaries in Wuchang gradually grew, but new contradictions arose, first, Li Yuanhong saw that the situation was stable, and he was no longer satisfied with being a "virtual monarch", but wanted to expand his power, so he selected Tang Hualong, the speaker of the local consultative bureau who was "with the same disease" with him, and tried to use Tang's influence to balance Jiang Yiwu and Sun Wu and other revolutionaries, and clear the way for his own centralization. Although Tang's plan to reclaim power was later detected by Jiang Yiwu and expelled, the strengthening of power in Li Yuanhong's hands had shown an accelerating trend.
Second, after Huang Xing and others arrived in Wuhan, just in time for Yuan Shikai to leave the mountains, the Qing army was strengthened, and in the face of a strong enemy, Li Yuanhong continued to react passively, while Huang Xing tried to increase his political influence by personally commanding on the front line, and the result was still unable to save Hankou. Frustrated by this setback, Huang Xing was disheartened and left Wuhan again. For Li Yuanhong, Huang Xing's departure has made him more able to strengthen his personal power without scruples.
(Stills from "Xinhai Revolution")
Third, the gap between the literary society and the Communist Progressive Association was also mastered by Li Yuanhong, who learned about it through getting along. Li Yuanhong found that Sun Wu of the Communist Progressive Association was more ambitious than Jiang Yiwu, and was dissatisfied with the status quo of decentralization with Jiang Yiwu, so Li Sui deliberately placed Sun Wu in the position of military minister in the later internal reorganization, and Jiang Yiwu retired to the deputy post.
03 Yellow Finches in the back
This is not the end, Sun Wu realized that he had Li Yuanhong to support him, and even more brazenly rejected dissidents, such as engaging in assassination activities, Zhang Tingfu, a backbone member of the literary society, originally served as the second town commander and held a part of the military power, Sun Wu was jealous of his position, seeing that there was no reason to overthrow the other side, and even directly sent someone to kill him. Although Tan Renfeng, the representative of the League in Wuhan, had the "merit" of supporting Li Yuanhong as the governor of the capital, he was not tolerated by Sun Wu and was forced to leave Hubei. As for Jiang Yiwu himself, after bearing the blow of the members of the literary society one after another, he was discouraged and disappointed and served as a nominal supervisor. On Li Yuanhong's path to the peak of power, there was only one Sun Wu left.
Sun Wu's "attack everywhere" made him make a lot of enemies, and not only did he not exchange the result of sitting firmly as the head of the Military Affairs Department, but because of the rebellion of the officers and men at the bottom, Li Yuanhong made a move of "mantis catching cicadas and yellow finches behind" and dismissed him from various posts. Of course, Sun's self-cleverness was not unique in Chinese politics at that time, and similar struggles took place among revolutionaries in many provinces, and without exception they granted authority to others.
In just one month, the former Qing Dynasty, who was forcibly promoted to the high position of governor by the rebel officers and soldiers, easily crushed the dissident forces one by one by "dressing up as pigs and eating tigers", and he himself gradually sat in the position of the number one in the Hubei military government. After Sun Yat-sen launched a second revolution because of the assassination of Song Jiaoren, It is not difficult to explain that Li Yuanhong adopted an indifference attitude toward revolutionaries in the southern provinces to secretly help Yuan Shikai in Beijing.
In the final analysis, the revolutionaries still underestimated Li Yuanhong, the "good old man" in the eyes of the officers and men of the New Army.
(Li Yuanhong in Towards the Republic)
bibliography:
Ding Zhongjiang, "History of the Beiyang Warlords", The Commercial Press, July 2019
Jin Chong and "Before and After the Xinhai Revolution", Sanlian Bookstore, August 2021
Wang Laidai, "Analysis of the Hubei Military Government during the Xinhai Revolution", Studies in Modern History, March 1, 1980
Feng Tianyu, "Li Yuanhong Became the Governor of the Ejun Army of the Xinhai Revolution", Journal of Central China Normal University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), November 27, 2010