Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
As for the Manchu scoundrels, our common foes and antagonists,
260 years of their slavery can still be thrown off, let alone a few score
years of it.
Let us steel ourselves in deadly struggles to drive out the
Manchu scoundrels who humiliate us, tyrannize over us, slaughter us
and debauch our women, in the end to restore the great China of our
heritage, to recover our natural rights, to win back the freedom which
should be ours from birth.
Let there be revolution in China! Let there be revolution in China! The
French carried out three revolutions, the Americans the Seven Years War
(of Independence). Therefore there should be revolution in China.
...
...
I should like to hold the whip daily, to take part in the revolution of my
fellowcountrymen, to implore my fellowcountrymen to carry out their
revolution.
How can I bear to see robes and regalia of the Upper Land fall to the
barbarian? Let us lead the heroes of the Middle Plain to win back our
rivers and hills.
Is this the resolve of my fellowcountrymen, too? (Tsou/Lust 1968, 65, 82)
In 1904 Sun traveled once again to Hawaii and the United States
where he politicized the secret Chinese fraternities there and con-
verted them to his anti-Manchu program. The next year, he organized
a union of these fraternities called the Tongmenghui, or United
Chinese League. Initiates into it were told that they were no longer
subjects of the Qing or the Manchus. The league's membership grew
quickly, and by 1906 branches of it had been established in many
places throughout the world and were contributing money for the rev-
olution in China. Meanwhile, Sun's supporters and other like-minded
Chinese patriots were attempting to make several more uprisings in
China. The last of the unsuccessful uprisings against the Manchus
was attempted in the Canton suburb of Huanghuagang in April 1911,
in which several dozen insurgents lost their lives.
The uprising that touched off the revolution instead of being
crushed as just another rebellion occurred on October 10, 1911, in the
city of Wuhan, Hubei province. Wuhan was chosen because of its cen-
tral location in China. Republican revolutionaries were in control of
the city by noon, and two weeks later a neighboring province, Hunan,
announced its break with the Qing. Other provinces quickly followed
suit, and by December 1911, more than half of China had declared its
independence from the Qing government.
Sun Yat-sen read about the October 10 uprising while he was in
Denver, Colorado, on one of his many globe-trotting fund-raising
trips. Sun did not immediately return to China upon learning of the
subsequent success of the uprising but instead made efforts to secure
