Chapter 3 3. The Death of Zhang Zhenwu: The Path of No Return for the First Uprising in Wuchang

After the Wuchang Uprising, Li Yuanhong, who was the commander of the new army in Hubei, should have become the ghost of the revolutionaries, but in the end he was promoted to be the governor. Although the reason was an expedient measure, the consequences were not what those revolutionaries had. expected. Li Yuanhong's character is certainly not bad, but he is only an old military officer, not a revolutionary. He has always resisted and even hated the rebellion; Favorability is just a hasty handing over of public weapons when the group has no leader. Once the crisis is over, sooner or later a "second revolution" or even a "third revolution" will be carried out. For example, the case of Zhang Zhenwu in the early years of the Republic of China was the product of this emotion. .

After the victory of the Wuchang Uprising, although Li Yuanhong was the vice president and the governor of Hubei, the main military generals in Wuhan at that time were actually Sun Wu, Zhang Zhenwu from the Gongjinhui, and Jiang Yiwu from the Literature Society, known as the "Three Wu".The Gongjinhui and the Literary Society were the two main revolutionary groups that promoted the Wuchang Uprising. Before the uprising, the two sides cooperated with each other. However, after Yuan Shikai became the interim president and the situation in various places stabilized, gaps began to appear within the revolutionary party.

The first is Sun Tzu, who was originally appointed as the governor of Wuchang by the Revolutionary Party. He was burnt on the face because of an accidental explosion when making a bomb before the uprising, so he didn't have time to participate in the uprising.But Sun Tzu's qualifications are very old. In his early years, he entered Wuchang Wubei Academy and Japan's Chengcheng School to study military affairs. Later, he joined the Rizhihui, Gongjinhui, and Tongmenghui respectively. For the Minister of Military Affairs.After the success of the Wuchang Uprising, Sun Wu served as the Minister of Military Affairs of the Hubei Military Government, holding military power, and even Li Yuanhong was afraid of him.

However, Sun Wu had a strong desire for personal rights. After he came to power, he not only squeezed out Jiang Yiwu from the Literature Club, but even Zhang Zhenwu and others from the Gongjin Association were in dire straits.For this point, Li Yuanhong saw this, so he could not help but use it skillfully. For example, after Hanyang fell, Huang Xing left Wuhan. The commander-in-chief during the war was originally represented by Jiang Yiwu, but Sun Wu had conflicts with Jiang, and he was unwilling to let Jiang Yiwu control the situation. Therefore, he colluded with Li Yuanhong to appoint Jiang Yiwu as an advisor to the governor's mansion, and Tan Renfeng was appointed as the commander-in-chief during the war.

Sun Wu's domineering and domineering caused a wave, that is, the "Heroes Meeting" incident.The Qunyinghui is a branch of the Gongjinhui, which played an important role in the Wuchang Uprising. One of its leaders was Huang Shenxiang, who served as the commander of the 14th standard of the Revolutionary Army after the outbreak of the uprising, and was later appointed as the guard of the Hubei military government Union.When Huang Shenxiang went to the Ministry of Military Affairs to "thank you" to Sun Wu, Sun Wu sat carelessly with his feet crossed, standing still and arrogant.Seeing this, Huang Shenxiang was extremely indignant, thinking that when we were born and died, you were lying in the hospital for treatment, and now you are lying down in front of your brothers, what the hell? !

When Sun Wu saw Huang Shenxiang coming, he asked from a distance, "Have you received the commission letter?" Huang Shenxiang held back his breath and said, "Yes, I'm here to thank you." You are not small, you have to work hard, don't you listen?" After Huang Shenxiang went out, he was so angry that his lungs would explode. He then said to the members of the Qunyinghui, "Yaoqing (Sun Wu's word) is so proud that he doesn't even care about his old friends. I must kill him!" On the evening of February 27, 1912, under the instigation of Huang Shenxiang and others, some soldiers who were dissatisfied with Sun Wu led their soldiers out of the barracks and rushed towards the Military and Political Department and Sun Wu's house.Along the way, rioting soldiers shouted slogans such as "Down with Sun Wu" and "Expel the bandits", and fired warning shots continuously.Sun Wu was aware of it beforehand, and fled to Hankou after the incident, and all his family and children were detained.Due to the different motivations of those who participated in the riot, the riot quickly turned into a mutiny. The rioters fired guns everywhere and looted wantonly. shoot.

After the incident, Sun Wu had to issue a statement announcing his resignation, but Li Yuanhong took the opportunity to abolish the General Affairs Department. Minister Sun Wu, deputy ministers Jiang Yiwu and Zhang Zhenwu were all dismissed from their posts and reassigned as advisers to the Governor's Mansion in name only.Sun Wu and Jiang Yiwu retreated passively to such idle positions as consultants, but Zhang Zhenwu felt resentful, which triggered a fierce conflict with Li Yuanhong. Zhang Zhenwu was older than Sun Wu and Jiang Yiwu. He went to Japan to study in 1905 and joined the Tongmenghui. He was also a veteran revolutionary party.Before the Wuchang Uprising broke out, due to the destruction of the revolutionary organs, Zhang Zhenwu advocated launching the uprising ahead of time, and played an important leading role in the subsequent Hankou and Hanyang defense battles.

During the Wuchang Uprising, Li Yuanhong repeatedly resigned from the post of governor. Zhang Zhenwu once said: "In this revolution, although the whole city of Wuchang was occupied, all the officials of the Qing Dynasty fled, and none of them were killed to strengthen their prestige. It is too tolerant. Now that Li Yuanhong has Wouldn’t it be better if Li beheaded to show the public that he would not approve of the revolution, and he would not be praised by his comrades, and it has not been made public yet, so as to promote the prestige of the revolutionary army and make a group of Qing officials who are loyal to foreign races afraid?”

This word later reached Li Yuanhong's ears, and Li Yuanhong became deeply wary of Zhang Zhenwu from this, and became more and more resentful towards each other.Zhang Zhenwu looked down on Li Yuanhong quite a bit, he even scolded Li Yuanhong in public and said, "If we hadn't pulled you out, where would you be today?" Zhang Zhenwu was no less domineering than Sun Wu. After the revolution, he organized a guard with short guns of the same color. Wherever Zhang Zhenwu went, the guard followed him, even if he went to see Li Yuanhong.Although Li Yuanhong was angry in his heart, he was frightened by Zhang Zhenwu's gun, so for a long time, he could only dare to be angry and dare not speak out.

After the Battle of Hanyang, Zhang Zhenwu was ordered to go to Shanghai to buy guns, ammunition and clothing. During this period, he clashed with Li Yuanhong, Sun Wu and others.According to Li Yuanhong's reply to Zhang Zhenwu, he said that most of the guns he bought were waste guns and could not be used. If he wanted to buy guns and ammunition in the future, he had to be transported to Hubei for testing before he could pay.In a fit of rage, Zhang Zhenwu distributed half of the guns waiting to be transported in Shanghai to the Yantai Revolutionary Army. The details of the money were not accounted for. Li Yuanhong was angry with his unruly behavior, but he was helpless.

Zhang Zhenwu held the military power in his hand at that time, and he controlled an armed force like the general school regiment, which made Li Yuanhong feel like he was on his back.In fact, Li Yuanhong hated these revolutionaries who took the lead in the uprising, and at this time Yuan Shikai also wanted to take the opportunity to win over Li Yuanhong and jointly deal with the revolutionaries in Wuhan. Under the planning of Yuan Shikai's confidant and deputy chief of staff Chen Huan (Li Yuanhong was also the chief of staff at the time, but he never took up the post and all affairs were entrusted to Chen Huan, the deputy chief of staff), Li Yuanhong decided to cooperate with Yuan Shikai to deal with the "three martial arts" A plan to divert the tiger away from the mountain and get them to Beijing.In May of that year, Yuan Shikai summoned the "Three Wu" to Beijing in the name of "revolutionary leader" and appointed them as military advisers to the Presidential Palace (again idle work).Zhang Zhenwu expressed dissatisfaction with this on many occasions. He complained to Army Chief Duan Qirui: "Are we from Hubei worthy of being an advisor?" Under Zhang Zhenwu's repeated requests, Yuan Shikai had no choice but to make him a Mongolian reclamation envoy to perfunctory.Zhang Zhenwu was in his early forties at the time, when he was in the prime of life, and he really wanted to do something real, so after he accepted the appointment, he sincerely applied to Yuan Shikai for funding to start a specialized agency.Wherever Yuan Shikai had money at this time, he ignored it.In a rage, Zhang Zhenwu returned to Wuchang without authorization, and used his previous influence to openly set up a reclamation office, and planned to recruit a town of elite soldiers to go to Mongolia.For this reason, Zhang Zhenwu proposed to Li Yuanhong to allocate 1,000 yuan per month as the start-up fee. Li Yuanhong was 120% unhappy seeing Zhang Zhenwu go and return, but seeing Zhang Zhenwu gathering his old forces again, he felt a great threat, so he decided to get rid of Zhang Zhenwu.Because Zhang Zhenwu and Sun Wu also had conflicts at that time, Yuan Shikai deliberately sent Hubei senators Liu Chengyu and Zheng Wanzhan back to Wuchang for mediation.Thanks to the efforts of all parties, Sun Wu, Zhang Zhenwu and Li Yuanhong all regained harmony on the surface, but Yuan Shikai struck while the iron was hot and sent another telegram inviting Zhang Zhenwu to Beijing. In early August, more than 30 people, including Zhang Zhenwu and his confidant, Fang Wei, head of the school regiment, accompanied Senators Liu Chengyu and Zheng Wanzhan to Beijing, and thus embarked on a road of no return.Before leaving, Li Yuanhong specially donated 4,000 oceans to Zhang Zhenwu as travel expenses. After Zhang Zhenwu arrived in Beijing, Li Yuanhong sent a confidential telegram to Yuan Shikai, which said: "Zhang Zhenwu supported the revolution as a primary school teacher, and after the uprising he served as the deputy director of the Military Affairs Department. , Swallowing huge sums of money. When Wuchang made a foolish move for the second time, the hearts of the people were so high that Zhenwu secretly instigated the generals and the school regiment to take advantage of the opportunity.... The people of Hubei prayed for a gift from God, but even though the remnants were wiped out, the Yuan Dynasty was not destroyed, and the country was still undecided In autumn, it is unbearable to plant melons and then pick them. With the habitual nature of owls, how can they move to another place for good. Yuan Hongai can't, he can't bear it, and he dares not. Fa-rectification, his entourage maintains a solidarity with the evil, and begs that they all be executed as a warning..." After exposing Zhang Zhenwu's various "illegal" behaviors to Yuan Shikai, Li Yuanhong asked the Beijing side to execute Zhang Zhenwu on the spot. After Yuan Shikai received Li Yuanhong's secret telegram, he took out the codebook and translated it by himself, and then invited his confidants Zhao Bingjun, Feng Guozhang, and Duan Qirui to discuss how to deal with it.The three of Zhao Bingjun proposed to send another telegram to Li Yuanhong, asking if it was Li Yuanhong's original intention, and then make a decision.Two days later, the reply from Wuchang was indeed Li Yuanhong's own idea.Afterwards, Yuan Shikai issued an order to the Military Law Office to arrest Zhang Zhenwu and bring him to justice. Zhang Zhenwu was still unaware that a huge conspiracy had spread online. He was still meeting guests in Beijing at that time, connecting with people from all walks of life and laying the foundation for his future career. On the evening of August 15th, Zhang Zhenwu and the Hubei generals who came to Beijing hosted a banquet for Jiang Guiti, Duan Zhigui and other Beiyang generals at the Liuguo Hotel in order to eliminate the gap between the military circles between the North and the South and resolve the hostility of the previous war.At 10 o'clock that night, after drinking and people dispersed, Zhang Zhenwu was intercepted by lurking military police on his way back to the hotel, and was then bound and escorted to the Gyeonggi Military and Political Law Enforcement Office of Yuhuangge, Xidan Pailou.Later, Lu Jianzhang, chief of the Military Judiciary Department, showed him the telegram from Li Yuanhong requesting the killing of Zhang Zhenwu and the military order from Yuan Shikai ordering his execution.Because the incident happened so suddenly, Zhang Zhenwu was taken aback immediately. He asked Lu Jianzhang loudly: "What crime have I committed? You want to kill me?" Lu Jianzhang spread his hands, expressing that the military order is like a mountain and cannot be changed. At 1 a.m. on the 16th, that is, three hours after Zhang Zhenwu was arrested, without any interrogation, Zhang Zhenwu was tied to a wooden stake in the Military Law Department and ate six peanuts.Before his execution, Zhang Zhenwu looked up to the sky and screamed: "I never thought that the Republic would be so dark!" On the same night, Fang Wei, the head of the general school regiment who accompanied Zhang Zhenwu to Beijing, was also arrested in the hotel and executed outside the city in the early morning. After this incident, Hubei senators Liu Chengyu, Shi Gongjiu, Zheng Wanzhan and others were furious, and they immediately questioned and impeached the provisional Senate.In this incident, Liu Chengyu, who felt fooled and used by Yuan Shikai, pointed out angrily: "The government's current procedures for killing people are basically the same as robbery. If this continues, all the heroes of the Republic of China Uprising will be captured and killed one by one in the future. Someone is the emperor and the king!" Under the impeachment of the senators and the pressure of public opinion, Yuan Shikai pushed Li Yuanhong out, claiming that it was entirely Vice President Li's proposition, while Li Yuanhong threw out Zhang Zhenwu's "embezzlement of public funds", "supporting soldiers for self-defense", "conspiracy to instigate", " The 15 major crimes of accepting concubines and other concubines were used to clear the charges for himself; afterward, Yuan Shikai ordered people to collect the corpses of Zhang Zhenwu and Fang Wei, bought them good coffins, and sent them to Changchun Temple for mourning .Later, Yuan Shikai announced that Zhang Zhenwu would be buried with the military ceremony of a general, and took out 3,000 yuan as the funeral ceremony. Due to the lack of coordination among the various factions in the Senate, and the fact that Zhang Zhenwu himself had weaknesses and problems, both the questioning and impeachment cases could not be discussed due to insufficient quorum. , The killing procedures were not complete, and he repeatedly apologized to the senators.In the end, the case of Zhang Zhenwu's murder came to an end. The key to Zhang Zhenwu's unexplained death was that he had no connections at that time and had no organizational support.It turned out that after the establishment of the Nanjing Provisional Government, several leaders of the Wuchang Uprising who were active in Shanghai at that time, such as Sun Wu and Zhang Zhenwu, did not find positions in the Provisional Government, so they were extremely dissatisfied with the Tongmenghui, especially Huang Xing and others.In the eyes of Sun Wu and others, they are the real heroes of the revolution. Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others in the Tongmenghui are just foreign monks who stole their credit, but these people did not even leave the position of deputy army chief to Sun Wu , Let Sun Wu face extremely embarrassing. At that time, Zhu Rui, the commander of the Zhejiang Army who led the army to conquer Nanjing, was a member of Guangfu, and he had conflicts with the alliance. "The defeat of Hanyang".Later, this group of people organized a group in Shanghai called Minshe, and publicly elected Li Yuanhong as its leader. Its members also included Liu Chengyu, a senator from Hubei, and others.After Zhu Rui led the army back to Zhejiang, the forces of the civil society also took control of the military and political power in Hubei and Zhejiang, and implicitly confronted the Tongmenghui. Therefore, after Zhang Zhenwu was killed, except for Huang Xingfa who sent a telegram to condemn Yuan Shikai's government for killing meritorious persons without authorization, most of the others did not say a word; and it happened that Yuan Shikai invited Sun Yat-sen to Beijing to discuss national affairs. Therefore, the case of Zhang Zhenwu should not be overly exaggerated, and finally it was silent. In fact, apart from Zhang Zhenwu who died indirectly at the hands of Li Yuanhong among the "Three Martial Arts" in Wuchang Uprising at that time, so did Jiang Yiwu.It turned out that after the peace talks between the North and the South, Jiang Yiwu served as the Deputy Minister of Military Affairs in Hubei, but he was forced to resign because of the riots of the "Heroes Association", and he was once depressed politically.After Song Jiaoren was assassinated, Jiang Yiwu returned to Hunan to take part in the "Second Revolution", and once pulled up a team to garrison Yueyang.But the revolutionaries quickly failed in the "Battle of Ganning". Yuan Shikai wanted to arrest the revolutionaries everywhere, and Jiang Yiwu had to escape. Unfortunately, Jiang Yiwu did not go to Japan to seek refuge like Huang Xing and others, but traveled south to Guangxi, where he was caught by the local patrol battalion and later escorted to Guilin for trial.After Li Yuanhong learned that Jiang Yiwu had been arrested, he immediately called Yuan Shikai, requesting that the "rebellious party" be killed quickly, so Yuan Shikai ordered Lu Rongting, the governor of Guangxi, to shoot Jiang Yiwu on the spot.Pitiful for this revolutionary leader, he ended up leaving his body in a foreign land. It is not without reason that Li Yuanhong hated these first revolutionary parties.Before the Wuchang Uprising, Li Yuanhong executed revolutionary soldiers because he wanted to maintain order, but after the uprising, it was more of a struggle for power and personal grievances.Although Li Yuanhong came to power by relying on the Wuchang Uprising, it is well known that he was forced to participate in the revolution by revolutionary soldiers. Therefore, the leaders of the revolutionary party, such as Zhang Zhenwu, Jiang Yiwu and others, could not help but feel contempt for the Hubei governor who was forced out. When the North and South armies were at war, this emotion was even more easily manifested. In fact, those radical revolutionaries in Hubei such as Ji Yulin, Zhan Dabei, Xiong Bingkun, Cai Jimin and others did not stop fighting after the Revolution of 1911. They tried to regain power from Li Yuanhong, but their riots against the Hubei authorities failed several times For example, during the "Second Revolution" period, the aborted "improvement regiment" riots failed to drive Li Yuanhong out of power, but Li Yuanhong severely suppressed them in the name of maintaining law and order. Many revolutionaries were shot dead without trial. After the failure of the "improvement group", Li Yuanhong carried out a severe purge of the revolutionary party in Hubei. At that time, many people were killed and arrested.Under Li Yuanhong's power, the revolutionaries in Hubei left Wuhan one after another, and the city of Shouyi gradually fell silent.After driving out the revolutionaries, Li Yuanhong's rule in Hubei was relatively stable. Sun Wu, who had tasted the ups and downs of the revolution, kept a low profile after the "Heroes Meeting" incident. After Zhang Zhenwu was killed, his revolutionary will became more and more depressed. In December 1915, Sun Wu was appointed by Yuan Shikai to participate in politics in the Senate, and received a salary for idle work.After Yuan Shikai's downfall, Sun Tzu once held insignificant positions such as inspection and supervision, and then died of illness in Beijing on November 10, 1939, not caring about the world for a long time.