Author: Our special guest author Yang Kining
On May 17, local time, Mexican President López apologized to China and the Mexican Chinese community for the "Torreón Massacre" that occurred 110 years ago in Torreón, and expressed gratitude for China's "brotherly and rapid" support in fighting the epidemic.
The "Torreón Massacre" occurred in the early morning of May 15, 1911, when the city of Torreón was the main settlement of The Chinese and Overseas Chinese in Mexico, and the last major city captured by the rebels during the Mexican Revolution. In the process of siege, there was a massacre against civilians, in which more than 300 Chinese were brutally killed, and a large number of Chinese residences, shops, restaurants, and banks were looted.
In fact, there is a little-known story behind this. After the failure of the Penghu Reform, Kang Youwei began his 16-year exile abroad, during which he favored Mexico, and even launched his business empire in Mexico, hoping to get a rich return to further support his "royalist" cause, but a "Torreón Massacre" finally made Kang Youwei's ambitions completely disappear...
After the failure of the Penghu Reform, Kang Youwei escaped from the city of Beijing and began his 16-year exile abroad. During his exile, Kang Youwei established the "Royalist Society", in fact, its registered full name is very interesting: "Baoshou Great Qing Emperor Company", this name reflects his very clear political proposition: to protect the country is to protect the emperor, and to protect the emperor is to protect the country.
Since Kang Youwei runs a "company", of course, there must be income, so in the "Royalist Regulations", it is clearly stipulated that all members must pay a membership fee of 2 yuan for publicity, communication, and newspaper operation, and raise funds to open mines and set up industry and commerce. In order to raise money, Kang Youwei sent many disciples to the United States, Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia and other regions with many overseas Chinese, and established more than 100 branches at that time, with more than one million members.
Kang Youwei's family took a group photo with friends during their overseas trip
Why are so many Chinese and overseas Chinese willing to participate? I have to say that Kang Youwei's propaganda and agitation work has been done very well. He once promised the members: "If you save the emperor and restore the throne, the imperial party ministers in the company will definitely contribute to the donation of those who will play according to the military merits and awards." "Whoever has made a contribution to saving the driver, the cloth can be the general." ......
This promise is too inflammatory, many Chinese and overseas Chinese wealthy businessmen heard that it is possible to become a successful rescue driver, guangxu if he re-ascended to the throne, he himself will become the founder of the restoration, and will immediately throw thousands of dollars at Kang Youwei, and those Chinese workers who rely on selling coolies also hope to turn around by betting on the "royalist company". It can be said that compared with Kang Youwei, Sun Yat-sen's fundraising ability of the Xingzhong Association is far inferior.
After all, no amount of donations can last, so the members of the "Royalist Society" soon vigorously developed business in foreign countries to obtain profits to increase the income of the "Royalist Society".
As for Kang Youwei himself, at this time, he slowly showed his business acumen, and he very avant-garde hoped to obtain huge profits by investing in real estate, banking, trams and other industries, in order to quickly enhance the economic strength and influence of the "Royalist Society".
In March 1906, Kang Youwei came to Mexico on the recommendation of Chinese businessmen.
Briefly introduce the history of the Chinese in Mexico. After the 17th century, mexico's capital, Mexico City, saw the emergence of a handful of Chinese silversmiths and shavers. Until the 19th century, there were still very few Chinese. But for more than 20 years in the late 19th century, thanks to the then President Porfirio Díaz, who encouraged foreign immigrants to settle the colonization policy and signed a treaty of friendship and commerce with the Manchu Qing government in 1899, a large number of Chinese poured into Mexico, reaching more than 27,800 people at their peak, most of whom settled in the northern provinces, including the industrial town of Torreón.
Kang Youwei first came to Torreón at a time when the local real estate industry was booming. Torreón is strategically located at the crossroads of Two Major Railway Lines in Mexico, bordered by the river to produce cotton, and is a promising mining area. Kang Youwei has always been very bold in his investment vision and means, in Torreón he boldly invested in real estate, spent 1700 pesos to buy several real estate in the local area, changed hands in an instant, made a profit of 3400 pesos, and quadrupled his assets in a short period of time, which can be described as a huge profit. Kang Youwei was satisfied with this, and wrote a poem to entertain himself here: "Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States are tired of traveling, and they are burning lamps and writing books." LaiYuan Gao Zhai march reclining, getaway is also my house. "Lai Yuan, it is the Chinese name for Torreón at that time.
On May 15, 911, the Torreón Massacre broke out
The small test bull knife made a small fortune, which naturally stimulated Kang Youwei's motivation and directly contributed to his determination to open a bank in Torreón. Soon after, he formed the Huamo Bank, which can be said to pool the funds of Chinese businessmen from all over Mexico, and at the Royalist Conference in New York, he announced that he would also open branches in the United States and Canada.
Why did Kang Youwei open a bank? In fact, it comes from his experience of "flipping houses". Huamo Bank raised money, mainly engaged in real estate investment. In order to promote real estate sales, Huamo Commercial Bank unexpectedly obtained a government permit to build a 13-kilometer-long tram in the eastern city of Torreón. After completion, the commercial company will manage the tram operation on this line.
So, how can Kang Youwei open a bank and repair a tram? It can be said that he did go through the upper line of Mexico.
On June 29, 1907, Kang Youwei paid homage to the long-admired Mexican President Porfirio Díaz. The other party asked why he came to Mexico? Kang Youwei's answer is to write history, because Kang Youwei once said in his writings that the ancestors of the Indians were Xianbei people, who migrated from the continental bridge to the Americas during the Frozen Season. But it is not clear whether Kang Youwei told Díaz this point at the time, because his main purpose of meeting the president was to understand Mexico's policy of foreign immigrants, and he said that the Chinese opened banks in Mexico to buy land because they believed in President Díaz's encouragement policy.
Porfirio Díaz
And Díaz welcomed on the spot, and said that he would try his best to protect, these words really gave Kang You a reassurance pill, and then there was the next blind investment.
In fact, even without the "Torreón Massacre", Kang Youwei's investment in Mexico suffered a serious shortage of funds, and his business in Torreón expanded too quickly, and the land purchased was recovered by the government due to the delay in the opening of trams. Coupled with the private use of the public accounts of the Kang family, Tan Zhangxiao, who took care of the finances, left and right, while Kang Youwei blamed him for poor management, and the two turned against each other, and the royalist society was close to falling apart.
In 1911, the last straw finally fell, anti-government rebellions rose and a wave of Chinese exclusion surged up.
Three years ago, when Kang Youwei visited Díaz, he had been envious of his 35 years of monopoly of power, but in fact, Díaz was in a high position, and the people's resentment had long been boiling. After the opposition rose up, the rule collapsed, and eventually Díaz had to go into exile in Europe and die elsewhere.
On May 5, 1911, in a city near Torreón, a Mexican named Franris gave a street speech calling on Mexicans to expel the Chinese, accusing the Chinese of stealing the Mexicans' jobs and even of being dangerous competitors in winning the favor of local women, and accusing the Chinese of making a lot of money and sending them home.
On May 13, the future Mexican president Madero led 4,500 rebels to defeat the government forces in Torreón, and at first the Chinese did not care about this, and this kind of firefight was common in Mexico.
But on May 15, Madero's rebel army and long-planned mob suddenly attacked the city's commercial district and began a 10-hour massacre and looting, until Madero arrived on horseback to stop the massacre of The Chinese. Afterwards, a total of 308 bodies were found, 5 of whom were Japanese.
The Huamo Bank, a symbol of the rich Chinese in Torreón, was devastated, the safe was blown open, precious metals and silver coins were taken away, and all documents were burned. The huge loss of banks and real estate completely made Kang Youwei's investment in Mexico lose all his money.
However, after the anti-Chinese wave in Mexico, the late Qing government had a rare hard time before the final fall. He quickly protested to the Mexican government and demanded that the killers be punished, the families of the victims be compensated and financially compensated, demanding that the other side compensate 100,000 pesos for each Chinese killed, for a total of more than 30 million pesos.
This time, Daqing was not only a matter of tongue-in-cheek, but actually sent out a strong ship cannon. At that time, the cruiser "Haixi", which had just gone to England to attend the coronation of King George V, was ordered to visit the United States, Cuba, and Mexico to comfort the overseas Chinese.
Just a few days after the "Haixi" was anchored in Cuba, the Qing government issued an ultimatum to Mexico, because the United States expressed its support for the Qing Dynasty at that time, and finally the Mexican government formally apologized for the Chinese exclusion incident, and the two sides began to negotiate the amount of compensation
The Haixi eventually canceled its plans to visit Mexico.
However, 20 days later, the Republic of China was established, and the "Haiji" was finally returned to China by Yi Zhi, and the late Qing court was already unable to protect itself. On the Mexican side, madero, who had originally confessed, was assassinated more than a year later, and his government collapsed, and both sides were in turmoil, and the matter of compensation was gone.
And this belated "apology" 110 years later finally put the 303 "unjust souls" who died tragically in peace.