Chapter 81 Act Ten Revolutionary Economics

It is common sense in economics that you need to spend money to do things.However, in the past, people always believed that being a bandit robbery was a worthless business, but it was more risky. Once you missed it, you would lose your life.Going one step further, rebellion doesn't seem to require money, just pull up a team and grab power.If you can grab it, you will get a lot of money. If you can't grab it, everyone will have nothing to eat, and they will disperse.Therefore, things like what Chen Sheng and Wu Guang did are generally regarded as worthless business. Although it is said that Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary party envied Hong Xiuquan, they could not, like Hong Xiuquan, first raise their banners and then attack cities and villages to plunder property.Their uprising is a bit like doing business. They first raised capital, bought firearms, spent money to smuggle them back, and spent money to buy off participants, from gangs to the new army and even defense camps, including the activities of the backbone of the uprising, from transportation and accommodation Everything from food to food must be prepared in advance.Many revolutionaries, such as Sun Yat-sen, were originally professional revolutionaries. They had to rely on donations from believers to support themselves.It is not easy to raise a large amount of funds for rebellion.But most of the party members who have property can't keep it.Sun Yat-sen's older brother, Sun Mei, broke his family because he supported his younger brother's revolution.And Zhang Jingjiang, another revolutionary rich man, was exhausted from his property in Paris because of repeated demands, and he was half dead.It is said that A, B, C, D, and E represent 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, and 50,000, respectively, as the codes for remittances between him and Sun Yat-sen.And Sun Yat-sen sent him a C or E at every turn, but he couldn't handle it.However, the biggest source of income for the Revolutionary Party is Nanyang.After all, the Revolutionary Party can only rely on overseas Chinese for donations, and the place with the most Chinese is Southeast Asia, followed by Europe and the United States.Among the members of the Tongmenghui, Sun Yat-sen has the most overseas resources and the strongest fund-raising ability.Only Sun Yat-sen has the most connections among overseas Chinese.What needs to be mentioned is that the donations back then were not all due to the revolutionary consciousness of overseas Chinese.Many donations are actually a little gambling investment by the Chinese in the revolution.When the revolutionaries solicit donations, they often promise the donors some official titles after the success of the revolution.Of course, most of these official titles are unlikely to be honored after the success of the revolution.

Where money is involved, disputes are inevitable.Zhang Taiyan, who was outspoken and outspoken, made a big fuss with Sun Yat-sen because of the funding of "Minbao", which was actually part of the long-term dissatisfaction with Sun Yat-sen from members of the Southeast and Central League.In their view, investing too much funds in Sun Yat-sen's hometown of Guangdong and Guangxi is obviously out of regional preference.However, considering the source of funds, Sun Yat-sen probably had no choice but to choose this way. After all, most of the overseas Chinese in Nanyang came from Guangdong and Guangxi.If we can occupy a place in Guangdong, it will be easier to win overseas aid.In Sun Yat-sen's eyes, places like Wuhan, where the Four World Wars were fought, were especially unacceptable.Therefore, after the Zhang Taiyan incident, the League is actually in a state of partial split.Some members of the original Restoration Association acted on their own in the southeast, while former members of the Huaxing Association from the central region also did their own thing.Of course, they could not count on Sun Yat-sen's fundraising support.

In 1911 (Xinhai Year), the revolutionaries instigated two of the largest uprisings in their history.One was the Guangzhou Uprising in April, and the other was the Wuchang Uprising in October.The Wuchang Uprising was a revolution without money. Before the uprising, the local revolutionaries tried everything to get money.In the end, what he got was his comrade, Mr. Liu, who cheated out of his family five thousand yuan (originally five thousand taels of silver, but his comrade left him a little) under the pretext of donating an official. He used the money to buy some pistols from Shanghai. And bullets, set up a stronghold in the Hankou Concession, bought a lot of flags, and engraved the seal of the governor after the uprising.I don’t know how much of the money was left, but when it came to the uprising, due to the exposure of the stronghold, pistols, flags, big seals, and even unspent money were thrown to the Qing army.The only thing that worked was a few bullets bought from outside.These bullets were secretly brought into the barracks before the stronghold was exposed. Since the bullets of the new army were controlled, these bullets were finally put to great use during the uprising.However, the weapons and ammunition that the insurgents actually used to attack the Governor's Mansion and other strongholds all came from the Chuwangtai arsenal.It can be said that even Liu Gong's five thousand yuan was not of much use.Basically, the Wuchang Uprising was a poor revolution, a revolution that cost nothing.But after occupying Wuhan, there were about 40 million yuan in silver in the treasury.What a deal.

However, during the Canton uprising in April, money was spent very much.Most of the funds needed come from Southeast Asia.Among them, the British East Indies (Malaysia today) donated 50,000, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) 50,000, Siam (Myanmar) and Annam (Vietnam) each 30,000, and the remaining 10,000 probably came from the United States.It cost about 60,000 to 70,000 yuan to buy firearms, and the rest was used to recruit personnel, buy the army, and various miscellaneous expenses. The total cost exceeded the budget by 40,000 yuan, and the total cost was more than 170,000 yuan.This was not a small sum at the time, almost equivalent to the salary of one army and two divisions of the new army for one month.In the Guangzhou uprising, the troops without revolutionary consciousness were recruited and wanted to be bribed.To mobilize revolutionary-minded "selection fronts" from all over the country, everyone's travel and hotel accommodation must be arranged, and everyone's equipment must be bought with money.Later, I looked at the accounts of the revolutionaries, and it was clear how many people each person accounted for, how much money was paid, and what it was used for.During the Wuchang Uprising, the soldiers lived in barracks and ate military rations. The people in their hands were given by the court, but they didn’t fire bullets, so they needed to get some from outside.Even the uprising was spontaneous in the end, and there was no leader, let alone asking for money from the leader.However, we know that the Canton uprising, which cost so much money (almost depleting the revolutionary party's fund-raising capacity), ended in complete failure.Well-meaning people collected seventy-two corpses, but in fact, more than seventy-two revolutionary martyrs died.The money, of course, is all in vain.

It seems that the key to the success of the rebellion lies in the situation, not in the amount of money, the situation is stronger than the people.Without the royal cabinet and the court's efforts to recover the road and mining rights, the revolution in Wuchang might not have been successful.But, at least, the uprising of the new army of the movement is more clever than the imported uprisings of Sun Yat-sen and others, who spend money to buy uprisings, and the cost of economic calculations is much lower.After the Wuchang Uprising, the model of the poor revolution began to be replicated. The uprisings in various places were basically business without capital, and most of them made huge profits.During the New Deal of the Qing Dynasty, some money was saved in various places, which were left for the revolutionaries to spend.