Chapter 39 Jiangnan: Restoration Arranged by Business Groups

In our textbooks, the Revolution of 1911 belongs to the standard bourgeois revolution, but most of the people who belonged to the Tongmenghui system to initiate and participate in the revolution had nothing to do with the bourgeoisie.The soldiers of the Southern New Army, who were the main force of the revolution, were nothing more than unemployed scholars in the countryside, while the other members were gangster proletarians. Only overseas Chinese and students may have something to do with the bourgeoisie, but it is hard to say.People overseas are not necessarily bourgeois, and most of them are students from traditional gentry backgrounds.Of course, after the revolution broke out, businessmen and business owners who were new citizens were more enthusiastic about the revolution than rural people.But whether to support the revolution or not has nothing to do with class, it has to do with the degree of openness of life and the degree of Europeanization.We have said that during the Wuchang Uprising, there were business groups involved.Such participation has occurred in many developed regions.In Wuxi and Jiangyin in the south of the Yangtze River, when the revolution was restored, there were basically no foreign revolutionaries, and it was all arranged by business groups.

Wuxi was in the Qing Dynasty, within one city, there were two county governments, one was Wuxi, and the other was called Golden Chamber.After Cheng Dequan, governor of Suzhou, announced the restoration of independence, some prefectures and counties immediately "enshrined constitutional independence" and hoisted white flags.But some counties refused. They would rather listen to Zhang Renjun, Governor of Liangjiang.This is the case in the two counties of Wuxi.Wuxi is a place where the money industry is quite developed. The children of the money industry often travel to and from Shanghai. They are greatly influenced by new thoughts and ideas, and a sports club was established very early.At that time, doing sports was equivalent to practicing military exercises. Therefore, most of them had to buy firearms, hire military officers to teach them, stand at attention, rest, aim and fire.As soon as the Wuchang Uprising broke out, Qian Ye and his colleagues established a business group based on the sports club, with 40 to 50 people, and became the largest armed force in Wuxi.Wuxi Liangzhi County refused to listen to the governor, but the Qianye Business Group was willing to listen.Those with big seals don't have guns, and those with guns don't have big seals.As a result, the business group turned into a recovery team, armed with live ammunition, and marched into the county office.After arriving at the Wuxi county government office, I knew that there was not a single soldier in it, and the recovery was actually tantamount to acting.First, they fired three platoons of guns in a demonstrative way, then entered the inner hall, pulled out the cold-headed magistrate, and asked him to hand over the big seal.Then leave people to stay behind, and the brigade will go to the Jinkui County Office, do the same, and perform again.The difference from the recovery in other places is that the prisons in other places are generally ignored, and one prisoner escapes, and some even open the prison on purpose to release the prisoners.However, when the Wuxi Qianye Business Group attacked the county government, the first thing they paid attention to was to protect the safety of the prison, and specially sent a team of troops to suppress the prisoners who were about to move because the jailers escaped.When you really can't control it, you can use both soft and hard to stabilize the situation.Then some minor criminals were released, and serious criminals were still detained.Obviously, with the recovery of the business group, they are more concerned about the local order, for fear that the criminals will come out and disturb the public order.During the entire revolutionary process, the gun was let off, but no one was injured. The stubborn magistrate let him go after handing over the seal. During the whole process, even the prisoners in the prison did not escape. It was really safe and peaceful. Home.

The situation in Jiangyin is slightly different.Because this place is a fortress, there are many garrisons, including the Jiang Defense Battalion, fortress soldiers, and the permanent Hunan Army.However, after the Wuchang Uprising, local businessmen also organized a public group to collect some guns, with students as the backbone to maintain law and order.After the recovery of Shanghai, more firearms were obtained from Shanghai, and the guild grew further.At the same time, since the surrounding garrisons had run out of food and pay since the Wuchang Uprising, the Gongtuan took the initiative to bear their food and salaries, and the garrisons agreed to obey the orders of the Gongtuan.In this case, the county magistrate certainly did not dare to disobey orders.Restoration of independence thus became an outright ritual.On the selected day, the public regiment set out in line, and the trumpeter of the garrison was borrowed to blow the trumpet in front of the procession, and a grand entrance ceremony was held.The team first went to the Sangong Temple to commemorate the Jiangyin uprising against the Qing Dynasty in the early Qing Dynasty, including Yan Yingyuan.Then line up to blow and blow into the city, and walk along the street.Residents along the way thought that revolutionaries from outside were coming, but when they came out, they were all familiar faces, and their own children were overjoyed.Finally, when I went to the county government office, the original county magistrate handed over his seal and was asked to remain as the head of civil affairs. The county magistrate shy and agreed.Follow the same pattern every day, and do the official duties of the past.Like Wuxi, the Gongtuan also paid special attention to stabilizing order. After the liberation, it immediately cleaned up the prisons, shot two of the more serious criminals, and released some minor criminals.During the whole process, apart from shooting the criminals, no shots were fired, and there were no casualties.

In our textbooks, such an undestructive revolution should be condemned.However, to be fair, the local people, rich or poor, except for a few ruffians, actually prefer this kind of revolution. The system has changed, but it has not been destroyed, and the rhythm of life has not changed.Even the people who run the house and take care of the hospital are their own children, how wonderful.The Revolution of 1911 was a low-intensity revolution.The reason why it was relatively peaceful was to a large extent the participation of the Constitutionalists.Compared with the Revolutionary Party, the Constitutional Party can better represent the interests of emerging entrepreneurs and new and old businessmen.The business associations in places like Wuxi and Jiangyin are actually the foundation of the Constitutional Party.When Cai Rong, the leader of the Wuxi business group, described their recovery process a year later, he made it clear that they were dissatisfied with the Qing government because the Qing court had a false constitution, established a royal cabinet, and took back the road and mining rights of the provinces. It's unreasonable.This kind of understanding is almost exactly the same as that of the leaders of the constitutional petition movement at that time, Zhang Jian, Tang Shouqian, and Tang Hualong.Due to extreme dissatisfaction with the perverse actions of the Qing government, people in the business circles and urban citizens were happy to respond to the revolution.However, they care more about order than the revolutionaries. They don't want the revolution to cause major changes in their original lives, especially those marginalized people and triad elements who take the opportunity to break the order.In this regard, they have a common language with those country gentlemen who do not want revolution.Therefore, as long as they can be in charge, they will definitely use all their strength to curb the rise of the party's power.If not, they will also find ways to limit the development of the party's power.In their view, a party on the fringes of society is really a terrible thing.Because they thought the Revolutionary Party was too close to the CCP, after the revolution, they would rather choose Yuan Shikai than follow Sun Yat-sen.