This year marks the 110th anniversary of the success of the Xinhai Revolution, and the fate of Li Yuanhong, a prominent figure, is extremely dramatic: the times chose him, and he did not live up to the times.
Jiang Wu played Li Yuanhong in "Xinhai Revolution"
Li Yuanhong did not hide under the bed
Li Yuanhong's appearance on the stage of history was an accident.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911, the revolutionaries forced him to sit in the position of "Governor" and lead everyone to do it.
Li Yuanhong was suddenly pushed to the cusp of the storm.
There is a very unbearable rumor about this experience: it is said that Li Yuanhong hid under the bed and refused to come out, and was jokingly called "the governor under the bed".
Later, many old comrades of the League wrote memoirs, making it clear that Li Yuanhong was "avoiding the room" and was not dragged out from under the bed.
But no matter where he hid, Li Yuanhong was certain that he would not join the company at first. He said: "This move is of great importance and must be cautious. ”
Li Yuanhong's hesitation was not unreasonable: he was not a member of the League, and as a general of the new army in the imperial court, he should belong to the target of being killed, and the leader should be a person of high moral standing like Sun Yat-sen.
More important point: the rebellion has been in the Guhua Mountains, and failure is to cut through the door, and everyone must be cautious.
How long wuchang's troublemakers can live, God knows.
Li Yuanhong is not an ambitionist, but very self-aware – this determines his fate.
The revolutionary army took out the pre-prepared notice of anmin and asked Li Yuanhong to sign it, but he refused. Some people think that Li Yuanhong must have been a Manchu Qing lackey with an iron heart, and simply killed it.
But most rational revolutionaries insisted that Li Yuanhong be the governor.
A group of revolutionaries supported Manchu officials as leaders, and it was not enough for others to do it, and there was such a strange thing in the world.
The chosen man of the times
People are not fools, people will not give a big bargain for Li Yuanhong to occupy, it was the situation at that time that urgently required him to come out and take the lead.
The first is that the situation in Wuchang is unstable, and someone needs to press the position.
The Wuchang New Army has about 17,000 troops, about 5,000 progressive forces, and about 1,000 flag bearers who are resolutely opposed, and the remaining ordinary soldiers are watching.
Li Yuanhong, as the third person in the Wuhan New Army, can hold the field.
Li Yuanhong was good at managing the army, and his troops did not even have problems such as withholding military salaries that were common in the old army. Moreover, he was usually loyal and close to the people, and he visited soldiers every New Year's Festival, and middle- and lower-level soldiers liked him.
Wherever Li Yuanhong stood, most of the soldiers followed him.
Second, the Wuchang uprising did not have a strong leader, and the banner was not loud.
The Wuchang uprising was an accidental event, not an elaborate operation. At that time, Sun Yat-sen was in the United States, Huang Xing was in Hong Kong, and Song Jiaoren was in Shanghai, and at that time Wuchang needed a person to carry a flag, at least the name was loud.
Li Yuanhong is the backbone of the Beiyang Army, and his fame can increase his momentum.
In addition, Li Yuanhong was open-minded and had a good relationship with the Hubei Constitutionalists, or a native of Hubei — all the forces could accept his leadership.
The times abandoned a person and did not even say hello. The same is true when choosing someone.
The times thus selected Li Yuanhong.
Li Yuanhong Rong dressed up photo
It has not failed to live up to the mission of the times
On October 13, Li Yuanhong finally agreed to be the governor. He cut off his braids and said, "From now on, I am a member of the junta, living and dying with the kings." ”
Standing on the tide of the times, Li Yuanhong is good at dancing with long sleeves.
Those soldiers who had originally ridden the wall saw That Li Yuanhong standing in the camp of the new forces and followed them one after another, and the hearts and minds of the army and the people in the city were calmed down.
At first, Rui Liang, who was the governor of Huguang, fled to a warship on the Yangtze River to see how the situation developed, but when he heard that Li Yuanhong was the governor of the military government, he was completely desperate, and first ran to Shanghai and then fled to Japan. The Qing army in Hubei was leaderless.
The Qing court sent a navy to attack Wuchang, and the commander Sa Zhenbing and Li Yuanhong had a teacher-student relationship, and Li Yuanhong wrote a letter to the teacher to explain the stakes. Sa Zhenbing turned and ran, and the navy simply revolted.
In the face of foreign journalists, Li Yuanhong communicated directly in English to win international support.
Sun Yat-sen once said: "According to the success of Wuchang, it is an accident." ”
According to statistics, in the late ten years of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 2,000 large and small incidents, and the Qing court carried them over.
The Wuchang Uprising was preceded by two Uprisings by the New Army:
In 1908, the Anqing New Army revolted, when Cixi had just died, Xiong Chengji, who was then an artillery officer, led more than a thousand people from the horse battalion and the artillery battalion to attack Anqing, but failed; in the 1910 Guangzhou New Army Uprising, Ni Yingdian, a member of the alliance, was already a guangzhou new army pipe belt (battalion-level officer), and the uprising failed the next day.
Some later scholars believe that the determination of Li Yuanhong to lead the new Hubei military government is probably the most crucial choice made in the process of the Wuchang uprising.
Li Yuanhong made the most correct choice at the crossroads of life.
A clear stream in a troubled world
At this point, both Sun Yat-sen and Yuan Shikai regarded Li Yuanhong as their own.
After Sun Yat-sen returned to China, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China was established in Nanjing, and Li Yuanhong was elected vice president by unanimous vote. After Sun Yat-sen left office, Li Yuanhong became Yuan Shikai's deputy.
After the overthrow of the Qing court, various ambitious figures appeared on the scene, Yuan Shikai was proclaimed emperor, Zhang Xun was restored... Li Yuanhong did not climb, which was a clear stream in the chaotic world.
In particular, Yuan Shikai, in order to win over Li Yuanhong and his sons and daughters, also made him the "Prince of Wuyi", but Li Yuanhong resigned and refused to rebel.
Li Yuanhong said: "If Xiangcheng (i.e., Yuan Shikai) has ambitions to change the state system, after following the people of the country, he will swear to die and oppose it. ”
On June 6, 1916, Yuan Shikai died, and Li Yuanhong succeeded him as president of the Republic of China. One of the most beautiful things he did during his tenure was to appoint Cai Yuanpei as president of Peking University.
At the invitation of Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Lu Xun and other national elites gathered at Peking University, which became the source of new ideas and further changed modern China.
All this stems from Li Yuanhong's generosity and calmness.
General of the Beiyang Army
End
On June 3, 1928, Li Yuanhong died at the age of 64.
On the fifth day after Li Yuanhong's death, the National Revolutionary Army entered Beijing, opening a new page in history.
The new government paid great respect to Li Yuanhong, the former president of the government, and Chiang Kai-shek, Together with Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and Li Zongren, jointly launched a ceremony in Beiping.
On November 24, 1935, the Nationalist government buried Li Yuanhong in Wuchang with state burial specifications. On the same day, the flag was lowered at half-mast and entertainment stopped. Lin Sen, chairman of the National Government, inscribed a plaque of "Founding Fathers of the Republic of China", which was attended by the top level of the Kuomintang and more than 50,000 people.
The government of the Republic of China posthumously awarded him the rank of first-class army general, on the same level as Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Zhang Xueliang, with only Chiang Kai-shek as a special rank.
Sun Yat-sen once said that Li Yuanhong was "the first great man of the Republic of China."
This evaluation may be too prestigious, but he must be a man of understanding - it is not easy.