The Ping-Liu-Li Uprising and the Uprisings of Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin

After the Tongmenghui was founded, revolutionaries launched many armed uprisings. In winter 1906 Tongmenghui members Liu Daoyi, Cai Shaonan and others, at Pingxiang, Liuyang and Liling on the Jiangxi-Hunan border, rallied secret societies and Anyuan coal miners in an uprising of over 30,000 people; after more than a month of fighting it failed and Liu Daoyi and others were killed in Changsha. It was the first large-scale armed uprising led by the Tongmenghui. The Restoration Society also planned uprisings. In 1907 its members Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin prepared to rise together in Anhui and Zhejiang. Xu Xilin (1873–1907), from Shaoxing, Zhejiang, entered the Qing bureaucracy by purchasing an office. On 6 July 1907, at the graduation ceremony of the police academy, he assassinated Anhui governor Enming and led students in an uprising; after four hours of fighting it failed, and Xu was captured and cruelly killed. Qiu Jin (1875–1907), from Shaoxing, styled herself “Woman Knight of Jianhu,” studied in Japan, joined the Restoration Society and the Tongmenghui, then founded the China Women’s Journal in Shanghai and headed the Datong School in Shaoxing. After Xu’s failure Qing troops surrounded the school; Qiu refused to leave and was captured, writing only the seven characters “autumn wind and rain make one sad to death” under interrogation, and was executed bravely at Xuantingkou in Shaoxing on 15 July. The Tongmenghui also launched uprisings at Huanggang, Zhennanguan, Hekou and elsewhere in Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan. Though all failed, the revolutionaries’ tireless spirit inspired the people, struck heavy blows at Qing rule and laid the basis for the 1911 Revolution.