Chapter 63 The budding Sun Yat-sen

The Sino-Japanese War was disastrous, and Lafayette Cixi’s birthday photo was correct, but the shouts of long live Shanhu in the Forbidden City could not cover up the news that the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on April 17, 1895. The whole country was outraged. At this historically tragic moment, the three intellectuals each made the most important choice in their lives—— At the age of 29, Sun Yat-sen chose revolution. 37-year-old Kang Youwei chose reform. 42-year-old Zhang Jian, who worked with Yuan Shikai in North Korea, chose industry. Their ultimate goal is to save the country!

On the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, a young man wrote a letter to Li Hongzhang called "A Letter to Li Fu Xiangshu", which contains nearly 8,000 words. , my dear motherland, the economic construction is changing with each passing day, and great achievements have been made, and our broad masses are all rejoicing.After the cliché is over, let’s get to the topic.Later, it should be said that the writing is good, with patriotism and fluent writing, it said some principles that are universally applicable. Everyone should know that this young man is Sun Yat-sen who was introduced earlier and finished watching "Words of a Flourishing Age".

This Sun Yat-sen is not an ordinary person. Today, his hometown is named Zhongshan City. Almost all big cities in China have Zhongshan Road, and it is one of the most central and prosperous avenues in the city. However, it needs to be reminded that Sun Yat-sen never called himself "Sun Yat-sen" throughout his life, and all his public and private documents were signed with "Sun Wen". "Zhongshan" is the two characters in the pseudonym "Zhongshan Qiao" used when he fled to Japan.However, since the world is already familiar with the name Sun Yat-sen, the three characters "Sun Yat-sen" will be used in this book for the time being.

As for Mr. Sun's story, we still start from a file. Those who achieve great things are often born in poverty. At a young age, they have to go into the water to catch shrimps, go up the mountain to chop firewood and herd cattle. There are also a few sick relatives in the family, who wash their faces with tears every day.This is almost a law.It just happens to be basically consistent with Mr. Sun Yat-sen's situation. Sun Yat-sen was born in 1866 in an ordinary peasant tenant family in Cuiheng Village, Guangdong Province. His family was in a difficult situation. At least three generations of his ancestors were poor peasants.When he was young, he lived with his father by catching fish and shrimp, collecting firewood and herding cattle.

When he stopped working, Sun Yat-sen went to the entrance of the village to listen to the bragging of the old people who participated in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, how he fought bravely against the Qing Dynasty, and how he followed the leader Hong Xiuquan to fight for justice for the poor... Listen So Sun Yat-sen regarded Hong Xiuquan as an idol in his heart. Time passed day by day. If Sun Yat-sen didn't have an older brother named Sun Mei, maybe he would just be an ordinary farmer in the future. Sun Mei, a girlish-sounding name, is actually a very strong man. When he was young, he traveled across the oceans to find new hopes. He didn't expect to succeed and become a rich man.

When Sun Yat-sen was 12 years old, Sun Mei sponsored him to study in Honolulu, USA. This experience changed Sun Yat-sen's life.Sun Yat-sen, who called himself "Hong Xiuquan No. 2", was deeply shocked by the power of the United States. After seeing and hearing a lot, he gradually developed some ideas. He feels that the democratic constitutional government in the United States is very good, and one day he will also realize democratic constitutional government in China.In addition, he never forgets the development of American railways. He firmly believes that as long as a certain number of railways are built in China, China's economy will also take off.

With these ideas of saving China, he returned to Guangzhou after five years in the United States, and then went to Hong Kong to study medicine, and entered the Hong Kong College of Western Medicine (now the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong) to study medicine.During his stay in Hong Kong, Sun Yat-sen finally joined the long-awaited Christianity and became an official Christian. Time flies, and Sun Yat-sen stayed in Hong Kong for ten years. Although these years of wandering abroad were a bit lonely, Sun Yat-sen also made good friends like Lu Haodong, Zheng Shiliang, and Chen Shaobai.A few angry young people who are dissatisfied with reality often cook wine and talk about heroes and current affairs in the world.Gradually, Sun Yat-sen's thoughts and ideas became more and more mature. Of course, these friends also became Sun Yat-sen's earliest political "comrades".

However, Sun Yat-sen didn't want to start a violent revolution from the very beginning. If he could achieve his goal by peaceful means, who would want to make trouble with his own head? In the first half of 1894, Sun Yat-sen read a book called "Words of the Flourishing Age" and found that the truth in the book was far more profound than what he had learned in the United States, so he wrote the "Shang Li and Fu Xiangshu" mentioned earlier. This undergraduate thesis did not attract Li Zhongtang's attention. In fact, this is also understandable, maybe Mr. Li didn't read this letter at all, or he saw it and was too lazy to put on a show, so he didn't reply.In short, after the publication of this masterpiece, which entrusted Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary ideals, it fell into the sea.

But Sun Yat-sen obviously regarded this as the arrogance of Mr. Li Er. He thought: Since the Qing Dynasty did not give us the opportunity to wait for the Han people, and ignored our kind words, we will turn against it and create an ideal country that belongs to us. So Sun Yat-sen came to Honolulu, USA, and founded an organization called "Xingzhonghui", and put forward the slogan of "expel the Tartars, restore China, and establish a united government". The earliest members of Xingzhonghui were of course Lu Haodong, Chen Shaobai, Zheng Shiliang and others.Seeing that the organization was weak and isolated, Zheng Shiliang, the leader of the Guangzhou Triad Society, naturally had no hesitation, and recruited some heroes who wanted to rebel from the gang to join the association, forming the original team of the Xingzhong Society.

In other words, Xingzhonghui is essentially a group of green forest heroes led by a few intellectuals to make a revolution.In fact, there is no way to do this. Why do these green forest heroes want money, money, and people? They can't start a revolution empty-handed. A few months later, on February 21, 1895, Xingzhonghui merged Yang Quyun's "Furen Wenshe" and formally established its general meeting in Hong Kong. right" as an oath. The first two sentences of this oath can be summed up in four words: Anti-Qing and Fuming.Some people must be wondering, is the great pioneer of the democratic revolution so narrow-minded as to "drive out the Tartars" and practice Han chauvinism?

To clarify here, this slogan is by no means narrow. As mentioned earlier in this book, the conflict between Manchu and Han was very deep. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty and the Han people never considered each other as a family.Therefore, based on the background at that time, Sun Yat-sen's proposal of "expelling the Tartars and restoring China" was very insightful.Using the excuse of resisting foreign rulers can not only resonate with the majority of the Han people, but also more easily resolve the hostility of the Han intellectuals and Han bureaucrats. It should be said that this is a politically correct and effective political slogan that has nothing to do with Han chauvinism . The topic returns to Mr. Sun Yat-sen. From then on, he began to travel around the world, preaching his ideas, raising funds for activities, and planning armed uprisings. Unfortunately, his results were dismal and he failed even once. Call it "Sun Dabao". For a long time to come, Mr. Sun Yat-sen was thinking about the way to save the country, so let's put him aside for the time being and tell other stories first.