Ji I Nu Society
Organize and publish historical materials of modern China and disseminate historical knowledge
Author: Lin Xiaojing, a member of the Ji Inu Society Youth Association
In the twenty-first year of the Qing Dynasty (1895), when the Beiyang Fleet suffered a crushing defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, and the national crisis was unprecedentedly serious, a trend of thought for the restoration and reform of the law was born in China. It was also in this year that Chen Baozhen became the governor of Hunan, and this crisis made Chen Baozhen realize the corruption of the Qing regime and began to think about saving the people and trying to survive, "not to sweep away the evil government, to rise up talents, to revitalize the world, and to survive." After that, he became the leader of the Hunan Restoration Movement, one of the few provinces at that time to implement the New Deal. The reform and reform movement presided over by Chen Baozhen in Hunan mainly includes the following aspects:
Chen Baozhen
First, in the political field, after Chen Baozhen took office as the governor of Hunan, he focused on rectifying the rule of officials and improving the atmosphere of the officialdom, which undoubtedly played a positive role, but his rectification of the rule of officials was only adjusted within the feudal ruling regime. In order to promote the effective implementation of the law-changing activities in Hunan, Chen Baozhen specially invited Tan Sitong, Liang Qichao, Tang Caichang, and others to come to Hunan to set up a new policy, and founded a number of new-style institutions following the western affairs line of "using Chinese bodies and western bodies." For example, a security bureau and a relocation center modeled on foreign patrol houses have played a certain role in maintaining social order.
In order to increase local fiscal revenue, Chen Baozhen set up a mining bureau, which belongs to the official supervision and commercial enterprises, that is, the government handed over a part of the mining industry to the merchants, which won the support of the local national bourgeoisie. In addition, Chen Baozhen cooperated with local gentlemen to found the Hefeng Match Company and the Baoshan Cheng Machine Manufacturing Company, and also supported the private stock market to build the Cantonese-Han Railway, founded the Small Wheel Company, and encouraged private companies to start other enterprises. It is precisely under the auspices of Chen Baozhen and others that a number of modern enterprises have emerged in Hunan Province, making considerable contributions to the development of the local economy. Although this business model of the official supervision and commercial office had obvious characteristics of the foreign affairs movement, under the historical conditions at that time, the Hunan Restoration Movement presided over by Chen Baozhen not only had obvious significance in saving the people and trying to survive, but also played an encouraging role for the bourgeois reformists.
Chen Baozhen's family
III. Cultural and Educational Undertakings: In the process of promoting the restoration and reform of the law, there was an urgent need for bourgeois reformers who dared to reform the spirit, so Chen Baozhen, together with Tan Sitong, Huang Zunxian, Xiong Xiling, and others, founded a new-style school. In 1897, the Shiwu School was formally established in Changsha, which was not only an important place for educating and cultivating bourgeois reformist talents, but also became the ideological position for the reformists to propagate the New Deal. In addition, Chen Baozhen also supported the restoration faction in establishing the Hunan Classroom Officials' Hall and the Wubei Academy. In order to spread the reform ideas of the Reform School to the whole province, Guangxu founded the "Xiang Journal" in Changsha in the twenty-third year (1897), and when the Xiang Journal was first established, Chen Baozhen ordered the prefectures and counties to "first donate themselves after receiving the gift, go to the province to order, each time or dozens of volumes, or more than ten volumes, and distribute them to all the students of the academy and the bachelors of urban and rural areas, and read them all, and persuade the gentlemen to buy and distribute them themselves, and the gods and villages are secluded and shabby, and they must all know the affairs of the world, thinking that they will build and build trees in the future." This shows that Chen Baozhen attaches great importance to the establishment of cultural and educational undertakings.
Teacher of the Current Affairs Academy
Although the reform and reform movement presided over by Chen Baozhen in Hunan was of considerable positive significance at that time, Chen Baozhen was not a bourgeois reformist, he was still a representative of the feudal landlord class, and there were fundamental differences with the bourgeois reformists. Although he supported the restoration and reform of the law, he opposed the bourgeois theory of equality of civil rights and clashed with Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others on this issue. It can be said that the bottom line of Chen Baozhen's restoration movement is that he cannot shake the feudal autocratic rule.
bibliography:
Xie Bing, "Chen Baozhen, Inspector of Hunan during the Reform period of the Penghu Reform", Journal of South Central University for Nationalities (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), No. 1, 1982.
Zhu Hongbin, "On the Role of Chen Baozhen in the Reform and Reform Movement", Teaching History, No. 5, 1986.
Zhou Minzhi, "On the Role of Chen Baozhen in the Penghu Restoration Movement", Journal of Bohai University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 3, 1996.
Hua Xing Spring autumn
Editor: Qi Hui