Liu Fuji

Portrait of Liu Fuji

Liu Fuji ( Chinese  劉 復 基  /  刘 复 基 , Pinyin Liú Fùjī ; * January 20, 1885 in Wuling, today's Dingcheng district ; † October 10, 1911 in Wuchang ), also Liu Yaochen ( Chinese  劉瑤臣  /  刘瑶臣 , Pinyin Liú Yáochén ) or Liu Yaozheng was a Chinese journalist and revolutionary who helped prepare the Wuchang uprising .

Liu was born into a peasant family in southern China's Hunan Province . At a young age he read works by authors such as Huang Zongxi , Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi , through which he came into contact with nationalist ideas. In 1901 he made the acquaintance of the revolutionary-minded Song Jiaoren , with whom he later became friends and whose revolutionary attitude he adopted. In 1903 he passed the high school entrance exam in Wuling, but followed his father, who had found government employment. As a result, Liu came into contact with members of secret societies and took a job in a Gelaohui prison in West Hunan.

After Huang Xing , Liu Kuiyi and Song Jiaoren founded Huaxinghui on February 15, 1904 , and began planning for the Changsha Uprising , Liu Fuji became Song Jiaoren's assistant. Liu was commissioned to position himself in Changde and to support the Changsha uprising from there. After the uprising failed, the Huaxinghui withdrew from Hunan in early 1905. Liu first went underground, then traveled to Japan in late 1905, where he joined the Tongmenghui on Song Jiaoren's recommendation .

In the spring of 1906, Liu Fuji was ordered back to China from Japan to promote an agency for the distribution of domestic and foreign press with people like Gu Youhua . At the same time, he distributed secret revolutionary newspapers such as Minbao (People's Newspaper, 民 報). In what is now Wuhan , he became a member of a revolutionary society called Rizhihui (日 知會). After the Ping Liu Li uprising broke out in September , Liu fled to Shanghai, where he once again published revolutionary publications with figures such as Jiang Yiwu and Fu Junjian .

In 1908 he was invited by Liu Xingzheng to work as a publisher and accountant for a newspaper called "Business News" (商務 報) in Wuhan. During his tenure, the tone of the newspaper became increasingly radical. When the Changsha hunger riot broke out in April, a group that included Liu Fuji planned to organize a riot on April 24th to aid the Changsha insurgents. However, this uprising never took place. In September, Liu became a major member of the Society for the Promotion of Military Studies (振武 學 社). In 1910, Liu Fuji was briefly detained after he and He Haiming and Li Baoliang raided a foreign loan advocate named Yang Du in a dispute over railroad funding . This resulted in the closure of business news. In the same year, Liu joined the New Army.

On January 30, 1911, the Society for the Advancement of Military Studies was renamed the Literary Society and was chaired by Jiang Yiwu. Liu Fuji was elected head of the criticism department, which was supposed to ensure a unified ideology for the group. On April 27, the Huanghuagang uprising in Guangzhou failed , and the Qing began to repress suspected revolutionaries. In this Liu asked for leave of absence, went underground and worked as a courier and agitator to promote revolutionary tendencies among the soldiers of the New Army . At a meeting on May 10th, the Literary Society decided to set up a headquarters at 85 Xiaochao Street. Liu was appointed company secretary.

Public display of the heads of Liu Fuji and Peng Chufan after their execution on October 10, 1911.

After the Literary Society decided to jointly organize an uprising with the Society for Common Progress , Liu was involved in planning the uprising. However, the uprising was postponed several times because the governor general had declared martial law on the city. Around noon on October 9, a bomb workshop exploded in a hiding place of the Society for Common Progress in Hankou, exposing the insurgents' plans. Although the Tongmenghui decided to postpone all uprisings, Liu Fuji convinced the other revolutionaries that swift action was necessary. He was arrested shortly after during a Chinese police raid on Xiaochao Street. Liu Fuji, together with the early morning of October 10, Peng Chufan and Yang Hongsheng before the east gate of the Yamen of the governor general of Huguang executed.

Rumors circulating following the execution of the arrested revolutionaries led the soldiers to start the uprising, originally planned for October 9th. The revolutionaries were in the minority in the New Army, but the rumors of the arbitrary executions of men without braids led many non-revolutionary soldiers to join the uprising because they saw it as the safer choice.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} 刘 复 基. In: 鼎 城 名人.湖南省 常德 市 鼎 城区 人民政府, December 9, 2016, accessed on January 12, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Joseph W. Esherick: reform and revolution in China - the 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei . 2nd Edition. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1998, ISBN 0-89264-130-4 , pp. 151 ff .
3. ↑ Joseph W. Esherick: reform and revolution in China - the 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei . 2nd Edition. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1998, ISBN 0-89264-130-4 , pp. 179 .
4. ↑ Dieter Kuhn: The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937 - Draft for a political history of events . 3. Edition. Edition Forum, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 3-927943-25-8 , p. 80 .
5. ↑ Joseph W. Esherick: reform and revolution in China - the 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei . 2nd Edition. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1998, ISBN 0-89264-130-4 , pp. 180 .