Chapter 56 Act VII Assassination and Bomb

The favorite weapon of revolutionaries is the bomb.Whether it is an assassination or an uprising, the preferred weapon of the revolutionaries is not a gun or a cannon, but a bomb.This kind of bomb is mostly hand-thrown, similar to the later grenade or hand grenade.The Guangzhou revolutionaries bombed General Fengshan of Guangzhou, Li Zhun, the admiral of the naval division (injured), and the Beijing revolutionaries bombed Liangbi, the commander of the imperial guards, all with bombs.The famous assassination of the five ministers by Wu Yue also used bombs, but before he could get close to the target, the bomb exploded ahead of time due to the shaking of the train.As with assassinations, so with revolutionary insurrections.In the Huanghuagang Uprising in the year of 1911, the revolutionary party's frontrunners all charged with bombs. The bomb king Yu Peilun was a first-class bomb maker, and all the bombs used in the uprising came from his hands.Lin Shishuang led two or three people, throwing while rushing, invincible.Huang Xing later summed up his experience and said that part of the reason for the failure of the uprising was that most of the insurgents were not good at throwing bombs.During the Revolution of 1911, the uprisings of revolutionary parties in various places were almost inseparable from bombs, so that there was a special branch in the revolutionary army—the bomb squad, a group of death squads, who had nothing but bombs in their hands.This kind of thing was a common thing in the later wars, but at that time, the Qing army was afraid of it.

The arms industry in the Qing Dynasty was the fruit of the skills learned from barbarians. Gunpowder was manufactured very early, from black powder to maroon gunpowder to smokeless gunpowder.In the 1880s, mines and mines were being made, but no grenades or hand grenades were being made.Worldwide, weapons such as hand-throwing bombs had already appeared in the early 20th century, but it was not until World War I that they were widely used on the battlefield.It may be because the stability of hand-throwing bombs was not good enough at that time, and it was not convenient for soldiers to carry them with them. If something happened, it would be a very fatal blow to the soldiers who survived in the group.Because of this, during China's military reforms in the early 20th century, the new army, including patrol battalions, was not and could not be equipped with hand-throwing bombs, and of course, the relevant knowledge of use would not be taught.The revolutionaries are just the opposite. It is not easy for them to obtain guns, and they finally raised money. They bought guns from Japan and other places and shipped them to China. All guns were seized.Therefore, making a trial bomb has become the best choice. As long as you can get the relevant chemical raw materials and find a remote place, you can try it.They are not afraid of danger, because what they do is to risk their lives.

No matter what kind of bomb, it is not easy to try it out.There are also great risks in making it, carrying it and using it.The bombs made by the revolutionaries range from the less powerful black powder bombs to the more powerful silver nitrate or even nitroglycerin bombs.The trial production of bombs is a masterpiece of foreign students. They have learned chemical engineering knowledge from abroad, and their only application is to make bombs.Test it in Japan, and test it back home.In Yokohama, Japan, a special bomb development agency was set up, and a Russian nihilist (anarchist) was invited as a professor.Later, after the Japanese tightened their control, most of the bombs produced by the revolutionaries were made in China.A revolutionary later recorded in his memoirs one of the bomb making methods: use ordinary cigarette tin cans, fill them with hydrochloric acid, liquid fuel, and mix a little iron flakes (splash out to increase lethality), with a hole in the middle, Fill the glass tube with sulfuric acid, seal it, and finally cover it with an iron cover.When such a bomb is thrown, it is triggered by impact, but it is extremely dangerous. If you are not careful, you will blow yourself up.

When Yan Xishan was in Japan, he was also a member of the Tongmenghui. According to his own statement, when he returned to China, he brought back two bombs for the revolution.However, after returning to China and becoming an official, it was useless to leave it alone.Cai Yuanpei, who joined the Revolutionary Party as an Hanlin, was once a fan of bombs. It is said that he participated in the trial production of the bomb that Wu Yue assassinated the five ministers.Since the Qing Dynasty and the Hong Kong British authorities in Kowloon and Hong Kong did not care about each other, the revolutionaries set up bomb-making strongholds there.No wonder the revolutionaries in Guangzhou liked to use bombs no matter for assassination or riots, and the supply was plentiful.But in other places, such experiments often failed more, and many people were injured or even lost their lives because of the trial bombs.On the eve of the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, it was because the revolutionaries failed to test the bomb in the British Concession in Hankou, not to mention injuring their own people, and even the government was found. Even the roster of party members fell into the hands of the Qing government, and it almost broke event.In the revolutionary army of the Chongqing Uprising in the Revolution of 1911, there were only six bombs in the bomb team of more than 20 people.In a remote place like Sichuan, it is too difficult to test bombs.Before the revolutionary army entered the city, impatient city students made fake bombs and frightened the prefect of Chongqing and Ba County to hand over their political power.However, the revolutionaries in Yangjiang, Guangdong were not so lucky.They also made fake bombs to scare the local patrol battalions into surrendering.The patrol battalion was really scared and was hesitating when a daredevil dropped the fake bomb, which only smoked.Now people knew it was a fake, and a burst of gunfire drove the revolutionaries away.

Since the Qing army was not equipped with bombs, and no one in the government was willing to take the risk of trial production, they were often quite unfamiliar with bombs.Strangeness creates fear, so the army and officials of the Qing Dynasty, especially the Manchus, often had a special fear of bombs.In the legend, people often pass on the bomb very magically, saying that the bomb of the revolutionaries can not only blow up people, but also blow up the city wall.Even at that time, there were rumors that the revolutionaries had a kind of "human bomb", not the kind that extremist terrorists strap explosives to their bodies today, but that people swallowed the bomb in their stomachs, and after finding the target, they pressed a button , Human bombs exploded together, extremely powerful.In addition, the bomb tactics of the revolutionaries have indeed been successful several times, so the fear of bombs has become a disease of some people.Originally, after Yuan Shikai agreed to the terms of the revolutionaries and forced the Qing government to abdicate, there were still some people in the Manchu pro-noble group who wanted to resist, but after Peng Jiazhen killed Liang Bi with a bomb, all the Manchus were frightened, and Nuo Da’s The dynasty, even the people who went to court are gone.Empress Dowager Longyu, who had no master, had no choice but to hand over the power obediently.This kind of fear of bombs, until Feng Yuxiang forced Puyi out of the palace in 1924, Manchu relatives and nobles still had it.Originally, these relatives wanted to hang on, but the officer in charge of the execution took out a grenade and fiddled with them, scaring them away and walking obediently.But, conversely, if someone uses bombs to frighten the revolutionaries, it will not work.After the independence of Guangdong, all kinds of militiamen came to Guangzhou. There was a mixed bag of fish and dragons. One of the militiamen (Shiziying) brought home-made bombs to the governor's mansion because they failed to pay them. .Hu Hanmin, the governor at the time, was always playing with this, and he didn't care at all. He immediately ordered someone to capture it in the future, shot him on the spot, and even revoked Shiziying.The class used the axe, and the bomb became a stone that hit one's own feet.