Stills of Cai Yi
When I was a child, I watched a TV series called "Legend of the Soul of the Protector of the Nation". I remember that the ending song was particularly passionate, and it is still impressive after many years. At that time, I didn't know what was the Patriotic Uprising and what was the Defending The National Army, but I only knew that there was a very powerful hero who opposed Yuan Shikai's claim to the throne and did a lot of great things, his name was Cai Yi.
Later, I saw this familiar name again in the history textbook, which was related to the Patriotic War. Cai Yi, the main organizer and leader of the patriotic uprising, was a great democratic revolutionary, military and politician in modern times, and a true patriot.
Some people say that Cai Yi had two "big contributions" in his life. The first was that during the Xinhai Revolution, he led the New Army in Yunnan in response to the revolution and completely overthrew the Qing government's rule in Yunnan; the second was to establish a national army to actively crusade against Yuan Shikai, oppose his claim to be emperor, and safeguard the democratic republic. But in reality, these two were only major events that had an important impact on the revolution. In Cai Yi's life, in fact, he has always been doing his best to save the country and save the people.
Cai Was born in December 1882 to an ordinary family in Shaoyang County, Baoqing Province, Hunan Province. When he was young, he studied in a private school, and at the age of 15, he was admitted to the Changsha Shiwu School, where he was taught by his teachers Liang Qichao and Tan Si. As a student of Liang Qichao, many of his ideas and concepts were influenced by it, so that many things after that were often discussed and planned with the teacher.
In 1899, he went to Japan to study. But at this time, China was under the corrupt rule of the Qing government, poor and weak, the Western powers and imperialism were looking at each other, and people were living in deep trouble. Like many enthusiastic young people, Cai Yi saw that the motherland was like this, and he also had many thoughts and feelings in his heart, believing that when young people were self-reliant, saving the country and saving the people was also an unshirkable responsibility and obligation. As he wrote in his poem: "Shed blood to save the people for generations, and the liver and gallbladder are self-rotting bacteria." ”
Therefore, in 1900, Cai Yi returned to China and participated in the Uprising of the Self-Reliant Army. Unfortunately, this uprising failed, and then changed his name to "锷", determined to "save the people" at the cost of "bloodshed".
Cai Yi didn't just shout slogans, he really thought so and did it this way. Because of the failure of the Uprising of the Self-Reliant Army, he learned from the failure and realized that the reason for the failure was, in the final analysis, the weakness of military capabilities and the lack of military knowledge. So he went to Japan to study, entered the Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, and began to focus on studying the military.
Cai Yi was keenly aware that in order to save China, the lack of military affairs must be made up. Therefore, in Japan, he desperately studied military knowledge, eager to find a way and a way to save China in this knowledge. As he learned more and more about military knowledge and mastered the international situation more and more clearly, the idea of "militarism" became clearer and clearer in his mind.
If we want to change the situation in which China's national strength is weak and its vitality is weakened, it is necessary to practice "military nationalism."
In February 1902, he published an article entitled "Military and National Articles" in the "Xinmin Cong Bao" founded by Liang Qichao, expounding on his kind of salvation of the country and democracy.
In 1904, Cai Yi returned from Japan and took up the position of coaching the new army in Yunnan. Under his teaching and leadership, the new army was trained into a brave and warlike army with strong comprehensive ability. In 1911, Cai Yi was appointed as the commander of the 37th Association of the Nineteenth Town of the New Army. All along, although he did not explicitly join the League, he always had contact with the League and said that if there was a revolution, he would definitely support it.
In October of the same year, under the wave of the Xinhai Revolution, Cai Yi also united with the revolutionaries and led the New Army in Kunming to cooperate with and respond to the Wuchang Uprising. At the same time, the Yunnan military government was established, and Cai Yi was appointed as the governor. Under the situation that the revolution was bound to win victory, Cai Yi led the new army to actively respond and cooperate, completely overthrowing the Qing government's rule in Yunnan and accelerating the process of revolution.
Yuan Shikai stills
In October 1913, Cai Yi was transferred to Beijing by Yuan Shikai. Cai Yi has a very unique view of targeted and national defense construction, and during his work, he wrote to Yuan Shikai many times, hoping to build an army with a strong armed force. However, Yuan Shikai was ambitious and did not have much idea about reforming the military, but instead acted perversely, carrying out military dictatorship and restoring the imperial system. At the same time, the crazy co-optation and surveillance of Cai Yi has long exposed Yuan Shikai's intentions.
When he learned that Yuan Shikai wanted to restore the imperial system, his heart was very angry, but there was no way to directly show it. Therefore, in order to more easily realize his strategy, but also for the sake of Mingzhe's self-preservation, during that time, Cai Yi pretended to be completely unintentional politics, and often went to Beijing's Bada Hutong to pretend to mix with the famous prostitute Xiao Fengxian to hoodwink Yuan Shikai.
During this period, he went to Tianjin several times to discuss with his teacher Liang Qichao the plan to attack Yuan Shikai, and initially formulated a strategic plan to launch an armed uprising in Yunnan. By November 1915, Cai Yi began to act. Citing a trip to Japan for medical treatment, he traveled through Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and other places before arriving in Kunming in mid-December. In a roundabout way, the Yunnan army brewed an uprising.
In 1915, Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, sneaked back to Yunnan from Beijing, and on December 25, together with Tang Jiyao and others, announced that Yunnan had independently organized the Patriotic Army to launch a patriotic war. In the Patriotic War, in fact, he was physically ill at that time, but he still actively participated in the war, commanding the inferior army to resist the attack of the superior enemy and forcing the enemy to truce and negotiate peace.
However, in the overall war, both the strength and weapons of the National Protectorate Army were far weaker than the enemy, and at that time, it was still facing the problem of lack of military salaries and food, and in the case of the interruption of the rear assistance, it still fought with the Beiyang Army with its resolute combat strength for several months, firmly containing the main force of the enemy army.
In the end, Yuan Shikai failed, and Li Yuanhong became the president of the Republic of China. Cai was also appointed Governor of Sichuan in 1916. But at this time, Cai Yi's condition deteriorated rapidly because the war delayed treatment, and he hastily dealt with the aftermath of Sichuan Province, traveled east to Japan, and began to treat his own throat cancer. However, because the war delayed the best treatment, the treatment was ineffective and unfortunately died in Japan.
Even so, he left a will:
"If he has a short life and fails to do his best for the Republic of China, he should be buried thinly."
After dying of illness in Japan, he was so patriotic all his life that he should not stay in a foreign land after his death. In April 1917, Cai Yi's ashes were welcomed back to the motherland, and the Beiyang government sent this patriotic general who had spent his life saving the country and the people with a state funeral ceremony at Yuelu Mountain in Changsha.
With a pure heart, he rushed back and forth to save the country and save the people, and he was worthy of the word hero for a lifetime.
Author: Our team has a falling moon