Wuchang Uprising - October 10, 1911

On this day in 1911, an uprising against the Qing government began in Wuchang in China. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Eves, Welcome to this day
and History Class, a show that will convince you that
history can be fascinating even when you expect it not
to be. Today is October nineteen. The day was October tenth,

(00:25):
nineteen eleven, revolutionaries in wu Chang, China, rebelled against the
rule of the Shing dynasty. The uprising marks the start
of the Shihai Revolution, leading to the fall of China's
last imperial dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
People in China and Taiwan, as well as Chinese people

(00:45):
around the world, commemorate the anniversary of the Wu Chong Uprising,
also known as Double Tan Day. In the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, the Qing dynasty was struggling to
maintain power as imperial powers asserted their dominance in Chinese territory.
The Opium Wars between the Qing and the British government

(01:07):
forced China to open treaty ports for international trade and
forced China to seed Hong Kong to the UK, among
other losses for China, and the First Sino Japanese War
led China to lose more territory, and China's defeat demonstrated
its weakness. A reform movement popped up as the government

(01:29):
lost prestige, but most of the reform measures were repealed.
Disillusionment with Mantu rulers and the Shing dynasty reached a peak,
and revolutionary groups began forming across China. Many of these
groups banned it together in Japan and nineteen oh five
to form the Tong mong Hwi, led by Son xiin

(01:49):
sonja Urn and Huang Shing. The Tong mong Hwai advocated
replacing the Hing government with a republican one. They rejected
the gradual approach to form that loyalists pushed for. The
Tung Ma Hui led rebellions against the Shing in the
years leading up to the Wu Chong Uprising. Chinese people

(02:10):
overseas helped fund revolutionary efforts in China, most of which
originated in South China. In April of nineteen eleven, Huang
Qing and other revolutionaries led a failed uprising in guang
Sho in southern China. In this uprising, like many of
the others, the shingh Army killed many revolutionaries and effectively

(02:31):
put an end to the revolt, but even though the
rebellions often failed, they still destabilized the control of the
Qing dynasty. The uprising in wu Chong on October tenth
turned into a nationalist revolt that spread around South China.
It had its roots in protests against the Qing decision
to nationalize too privately owned railways in Central China. The

(02:55):
Shing court suppressed resistance with armed force, and as the
conflict surrounding the railway issue escalated, support of the Shing
government continued to decline. The government stationed new army regiments
in Hubei Province, where wu Chong is located, but many
of the people in the military in Hubei were revolutionaries
or republican sympathizers. Revolutionaries in the area began plotting and

(03:20):
uprising against the Shan and stockpiling munitions, but on October nine,
a bomb accidentally exploded in a hong Ko building, exposing
the efforts of revolutionaries, so the next day, the Wu
Chang regiment staged a mutiny, taking over government buildings and
seizing control of the city. The day after that, the

(03:42):
revolutionaries established a military government in Hubei Province, similar uprisings
soon began in other Chinese provinces, which declared their allegiance
to the Tung Ma Hue and agreed to secede from
the Shing government. Zung Yi Hian was not directly involved
in the Wouchang uprising, as he was traveling in the

(04:02):
United States when it took place, but he returned to
China near the end of nineteen eleven and was soon
elected as provisional president of the newly declared Republic of China,
though not long after he turned the position over to
Yin Hi Kai. The last emperor of the Shang dynasty,
abdicated in February of nineteen twelve, ending thousands of years

(04:24):
of imperial rule. The Republic of China lasted until nineteen
forty nine, when the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed the People's
Republic of China. I'm each Jeffcote and hopefully you know
a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you haven't gotten your fill of history yet, you
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(04:48):
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(05:10):
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