Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
with Li Hongzhang himself to discuss possible cures for China's
national ills. Li, however, did not have time to discuss national affairs
with a nobody who had a Western medical degree but no Jinshi creden-
tials. Sun resented the snub for the rest of his life, and the incident
helped him resolve to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The Manchus, he
concluded, were holding China back; China would be better off led by
a native Chinese regime. By 1895 he had abandoned his medical prac-
tice, and he went to Canton and Hong Kong to foment revolutionary
sentiment. There he broadened his contacts with secret Chinese frater-
nal orders and launched an abortive revolutionary uprising in Canton.
This was foiled, however, and he fled to Hong Kong and thence to
Japan, where he was given a hero's welcome. In Japan Sun decided that
he would needmore money for his revolutionary program, and the best
source for that was the relatively wealthy community of overseas
Chinese in Japan, Hawaii, North America, and Britain. In all of these
places he appealed to the Chinese communities for money for his cause
and tried to inspire them with a vision of his anti-Manchu revolution.
Sun continued his globe-trotting, fund-raising, and anti-Manchu
rhetoric in London the next year, in 1896. There he was lured into the
Sun Yat-Sen. (Library of Congress)
