On September 21, 1898, amid the clamor of the crowd, one after another prison cart drove towards Caishikou in Beijing, and the prisoner car carried the six gentlemen of Wushu, who were famous for changing the law, namely Tan Sitong, Kang Guangren, Lin Xu, Yang Rui, Yang Shenxiu, and Liu Guangdi. People found that kang Youwei, the initiator of the change, was not among them, and it turned out that he had received the news in advance and had already slipped away.
On the execution ground, the blood of the six gentlemen stained the earth red.
On the sea, Kang Youwei escaped the pursuit of the Qing court after a series of yin and yang twists and turns, and sat on a large ship. The steamship grunted and rode the wind and waves through the black smoke, getting farther and farther away from China, and Kang Youwei's one was placed in his stomach. No matter how strong Empress Dowager Cixi was, she would not chase him overseas.
Kang Youwei spent half a year in Japan and traveled by boat to Canada. The ship drifted on the sea for more than twenty days, and finally victorian harbor, only to see a Chinese person on the shore waiting to meet Kang Youwei. Kang Youwei couldn't help but be disappointed that he had such a big name in China, and there was only one Chinese person to greet him.
It turned out that the local Chinese organization was very excited to learn that Kang Youwei was coming to Canada, and had long planned to greet him, but he did not know when he would arrive, so he had to send one person to wait on the shore every day. Upon learning of Kang Youwei's arrival, hundreds of Chinese rushed to meet him.
Kang Youwei was very happy to see that he was so popular overseas.
Kang Youwei was good at speeches, and he gave a speech to overseas Chinese about the miserable life of the Guangxu Emperor and Zhenfei, saying that the Guangxu Emperor and Zhenfei were imprisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Guangxu Emperor could not drink some chicken soup if he wanted, and Zhenfei was wearing a single dress in the moon. When the overseas Chinese heard that the emperor and The Zhenfei were so miserable, they couldn't help but shed tears of sadness.
Then, Kang Youwei made a generous statement, saying that we have been poor and weak for thirty years, and our forty million brothers and sisters have lost their lives, all because the old demon wife of Cixi will not let the law change. Our five million Overseas Chinese, and forty million Chinese at home, are all twisted into a rope, and who dares to bully us?
These Chinese who have been bullied overseas for a long time are full of blood.
Kang Youwei asked them: Are you willing to work together to save China? Clap your hands willingly. There was a clap of hands from the stage.
Kang Youwei asked them: Are you willing to save our emperor? Clap your hands willingly. There was a clap of hands on the stage.
Kang Youwei took the opportunity to establish a "company to save the emperors of the Qing Dynasty" in Canada, referred to as the "Royalists". Since it is a company, it is necessary to do business.
To do business, you need to have start-up capital. Where does the money come from? Don't worry, Kang Youwei has a way.
He asked the members to pay two silver ocean membership fees each.
Kang Youwei sent his disciples to the United States, Mexico, South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, and established 11 general associations and 103 branches, with millions of members, and almost all Chinese had royalists. Membership fees are a significant income.
Kang Youwei promised the members: As long as you rescue the emperor, those of you members who contribute more, I will ask the emperor to give you a knighthood according to military merit. He also promised them that whoever saved the driver would be able to meet them.
Some overseas Chinese have a patriotic heart, believing that by rescuing the Guangxu Emperor and implementing the reform of the law, China will become stronger and will no longer be bullied by the great powers. Some people are holding a utilitarian heart, want to save the car and have merit, and in the future they will be crowned kings and marquises, and they have donated huge sums of money to the royalists. Those poor overseas Chinese laborers also hope to join the royalist company, get some dividends in the future, and also invest a little money they have saved with thrift into the company.
In this way, the royalist company became an organization that sprang among overseas Chinese and collected a large amount of money.
How is the money spent? Kang Youwei painted a large cake to fill the hunger of the Chinese people:
He said: There are five million overseas Chinese, and if each of us can smoke a few cigarettes less, drink a few bottles of wine, and save five pieces of American silver per person, we will top ten Chinese silver dollars, and there will be fifty million yuan. If we open a bank and issue paper money, there will be 125 million. We use thirty million to run ships, thirty million to run railways, thirty million to open mines, and five million to run other industries. In the future, the steamship mining railway will be profitable, so we will take out thirty million to save the country, cultivate talents, loyal people, and establish the national system, and China will be saved.
Kang Youwei blew half a bull, did nothing, ran what enterprises, and what enterprises went out of business. However, he himself was no longer short of money to spend, and he took the funds of the Royalist Society, and under the guise of examining the strategies of various countries to save the country and save the people, he leisurely wandered overseas for sixteen years.
In sixteen years, he crossed the Pacific Ocean four times, crossed the Atlantic Ocean nine times, passed through the Indian Ocean eight times, and also traveled to the Arctic Ocean. He has been to 42 countries and regions such as Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, India, Vietnam, Myanmar, Brazil and Egypt. He has seen the Crystal Palace in Britain, climbed the Eiffel Tower in France, visited the Battlefield of Waterloo, sat in a hot air balloon, climbed skyscrapers in New York, seen pyramids in Egypt, seen ancient Buddhist temples, theaters, museums in India, and seen countless more.
On the precarious island of the Arctic Ocean, he witnessed the magical sight of the Arctic polar day.
In Sweden, he saw a small island with a beautiful scenery, so he spent a lot of money to buy the island, built a Chinese-style landscape garden on it, and he and his family lived on the island for three years.
After three years of living tired, Kang Youwei led his family away, the island was gone, and the buildings on the island were gone. Now that the island has long been reclaimed by Sweden, there is almost no trace of kang youwei's family living here.
Kang Youwei took his family, hired servants, and brought servants, stayed in a luxury hotel, and ate a delicious meal. In Kang Youwei's view, he was like the mythical and legendary Shennong clan who "tasted hundreds of herbs", but he did not seek a prescription to save people, but a prescription to save the country.
Kang Youwei watched the scenery overseas, visited the theater, listened to lectures, ran a company, and took a concubine at the same time.
In the United States, he made 17-year-old girl He Xulina the third wife. He Xuli, also known as He Jinlan, is the daughter of an American overseas Chinese, once she heard that the famous Kang Youwei came, asked a few female companions to listen to Kang Youwei's speech, her admiring eyes looked at Kang Youwei who made a generous statement on the stage, and Kang Youwei on the stage also noticed the delicate girl under the stage like a flower bone.
Kang Youwei ignored the 33-year-old age gap and took 17-year-old He Xulina as his third wife.
In 1911, Yasuyuki moved to Japan and hired a 16-year-old girl, Ichioka Tsuruko, as a handmaiden to take care of the daily reception.
Ichioka Tsuruko is beautiful and moving, diligent and capable, and Kang Youwei sees it in his eyes and remembers it in his heart. The following year, he brought Ichioka Tsuruko to Shanghai, and soon after, the 56-year-old Kang Youwei once again ate tender grass for an old cow and adopted a 17-year-old Japanese girl as his fourth wife.
The two wives did not have a good ending, and He Xuli followed Kang Youwei for only seven years before he died of illness at the age of twenty-four. He Xuli's death left Kang Youwei miserable. Whenever the Qingming Festival or the anniversary of He Xuli's festival, Kang Youwei always visited He Xuli's grave, knelt on the ground, and wept bitterly.
When Kang Youwei married Ichioka Tsuruko, his health was no longer good, Ichioka Tsuruko and Kang Youwei's son were similar in age, and the young boy and girl were in a spring heart, and Ichioka Tsuruko was pregnant with Kang Youwei's son's child.
In a panic, Ichioka Tsuruko decided to flee back to Japan. In Japan, Tsuruko Ichioka gave birth to her daughter Ayako, who kept it a secret and did not reveal her daughter's origin to anyone. Tsuruko Ichioka lives a life of poverty and struggles to pull her daughter into adulthood. It was not until her later years that Tsuruko Ichioka told her daughter the mystery of her life, and Ichioka Tsuruko, who had been tormented by guilt all her life, committed suicide.
When Kang Youwei was nearly sixty years old, he married his fifth aunt Liao Dingzheng, and when he was in his sixties, he married a nineteen-year-old girl, Zhang Guang, as the sixth aunt. The fate of these two aunts and wives is also not good.
Ironically, Kang Youwei once used the slogan of equality between men and women, advocated monogamy, advocated the voluntary union of men and women, and advocated marriage after the age of twenty. He did not do it himself, he married the sixth wife, except for the original marriage when she was over twenty years old, the others were teenage girls.
Such a Kang Youwei is really funny!
One of the six gentlemen who were killed was Kang Youwei's younger brother Kang Guangren, and if it were not for Kang Youwei's older brother, Kang Guangren might not have died. Kang Guangren was only 31 years old when he died, and he wondered if Kang Youwei would be at ease when he traveled abroad and took concubines when he remembered his brother who died young.