Chapter 14 Huanghuagang: Revolutionary Party and Common People

The revolutionaries during the 1911 period were a typical heroic view of history.They are heroes, and ordinary people are gangsters.The revolution is to foresight the foresight to liberate the hindsight, to rescue the mob with heroes.Therefore, starting from the Xingzhonghui, all revolutions and uprisings are essentially riots conspired by a small number of people.In the past, textbooks always accused revolutionary parties of not mobilizing the masses, but in the dictionary of revolutionaries, the concept of mobilizing the masses does not exist at all.They believe that revolution does not require mobilization, and mobilizing the people at the bottom will do more harm than good to the revolution.In other words, as far as the revolution is concerned, the people are a passive thing.

In fact, most of the condescending revolutionaries have compassion for the people, and their revolution, to a large extent, is to save the people and pull them out of slavery under foreign (Manchu) rule.It has both the meaning of national liberation and the value of resisting tyranny.This feeling gave them decisive revolutionary legitimacy.Therefore, although most of the revolutionaries' uprisings failed, there were not many revolutionaries who were arrested as traitors, and there were many generous volunteers. The Huanghuagang Uprising in Guangzhou in April of 1911 was the uprising that the revolutionaries took the most trouble, spent the most money on, and sacrificed the most before the Wuchang Uprising.Much has been said about the course of this uprising.To put it simply, it was Wen Sheng, who was fighting alone, who came out to assassinate Fu Qi twice, which made the Qing officials heighten their vigilance and hunt down the party members, thus destroying the uprising plan. At that time, only Huang Xing led the way to really move, and the original new army and defense battalion did not respond.The failure of the uprising is inevitable.The revolutionaries made careful planning and preparations for this uprising, and raised the most money, more than 170,000. According to the standards at the time, it was enough to arm the army of a town.Officials in the Qing Dynasty also said that the guns of the rebel army were more advanced than theirs.However, even for such an uprising, only 800 forwards were mobilized—vanguards selected from various provinces.When it was time to launch, there were less than 400 people, and there were only more than 100 people who attacked the governor's mansion, but they dared to launch rashly.It seems that in the eyes of the revolutionaries, as long as they move, this small number of people is enough to wipe out the huge Guangzhou.The common people in Guangzhou will follow them, and if they don’t, they won’t help the Qing government.

During the Huanghuagang Uprising, generally speaking, the revolutionaries were very kind to the common people.In their minds, the revolution is to save the people from suffering.Therefore, when they meet people in trouble, no matter what the situation is, they will help out involuntarily.When the revolutionary party attacked the governor's house, it would temporarily stop its actions whenever it encountered old people and children.It was originally planned to plant a bomb in a coffin shop, but it was abandoned because the women and children of the shop lived behind the shop.During the operation, I met a girl who was separated from her family and was crying on the street. The party members told her to go away. She was so frightened that she could only cry and could not move her legs.The gangster had no choice but to drag her into a nearby street, trying to find a house for her to hide in, but they didn't even open the door after knocking on several houses. Finally, the gangster knocked on the door of a tailor's shop and didn't open it. The gangster was furious: No more bombs!The family had no choice but to open the door, and the party members ordered it to pick up the girl before leaving.

Things failed, and a member of the party escaped, but the outsider didn't know the way, so he arrested a blacksmith and asked him to lead the way.Seeing the blacksmith trembling all over, the party member said, are you cold? I'll give you the clothes.The blacksmith said, I am not cold, I am afraid of you.The party member replied: I don't eat people, we do this to eliminate great harm for the people.The blacksmith had just relaxed a little, and could lead the way with trepidation.The uprising failed and the party members were hunted down. Even if they encountered poor people on the way to escape, they would still give them alms.In the generation of Xiaobeimen in Guangzhou, most of them were poor peddlers. When the war spread, women told their children to cry, and party members gave them money to suppress the panic.After the war, many poor people had Hong Kong dollars in their hands, which were all given by the revolutionary party.However, party members who are also in the uprising, if they meet young and middle-aged people who look like educated people, sometimes they are not very polite.That night, a teacher from Luyue Middle School went out with relatives and ran into a group of party members.First, when they were suspected of being Manchus, they were asked to count the number from one to ten (the revolutionary party also identified Manchus in the same way during the Wuchang Uprising later), and when they found out that they were their own compatriots, they were forced to join them.The two shrank and didn't want to do it, the party members were furious, and said: We rushed into the battle, narrowly escaped death, and will seek happiness for our compatriots. This is also your duty. Why are you so cowardly? Its beneficial!Without any explanation, he forced them to follow, walked slower and punched them.Until they met the Qing soldiers, these party members went to fight, and the two fled while taking advantage of the chaos.

In comparison, in most uprisings, the revolutionaries treated the common people better than the party members and even better than the soldiers of the Qing Dynasty.In addition to the large-scale military expansion in the late period of the 1911 Revolution, good and bad were mixed, and many civilian troops came here. In the previous uprisings, the revolutionary party of these student backgrounds certainly did not burn and kill regardless of their carelessness. humanitarian sentiments.There is also great compassion for the suffering people.It's just that the feelings of the revolutionary party are absolutely condescending. They are the saviors and rescuers of the poor.If the rescued seem to be educated and stubborn, and refuse to support the revolution, they will become angry, and if they become angry, murder is possible.In the revolution, the party habitually coerces some people into it, and the revolutionaries may actually do this kind of thing, but the way they do it is not the same.In a sense, it is the common psychology of the party members towards the common people to mourn their misfortune and not to fight when they are angry.It's just that sometimes the "misfortune" of the people actually comes from the imagination of the party members.

When the Revolution of 1911 happened, most of the common people in China, especially farmers, were quite indifferent to the revolution.They were not without dissatisfaction with the Qing government, but they were by no means to the point of revolting.It was the citizens of the cities who were really enthusiastic about the revolution.At the time of the Huanghuagang uprising, even the citizens may not welcome the uprising.However, the confident revolutionaries felt that they had brought liberation to the common people, mainly from alien rule.When they asked the people to prove this liberation with their own actions—cutting their braids—they encountered resistance from the people, and some places even caused riots.However, even by coercion by force, the revolutionary party must carry out this emancipation.During the enlightenment period, the revolutionaries who cared a lot about freedom, equality, and fraternity, but at this time, they are all keen to coerce, and use force to deprive the peasants of their freedom to keep their braids.The revolutionaries think they have this power because they are liberators from above.Cutting braids is not only a kind of liberation, a freedom from slavery, but also a gift from the Revolutionary Party to the people.