Xinhai Revolution

The Xinhai Revolution, also called the 1911 Revolution, brought down the Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial house, and created the Republic of China. It was the result of years of unrest, rebellions, and protests. Its success ended over two thousand years of imperial rule, the Qing’s 267-year reign, and launched China’s early republican period. The Qing government had long tried to reform and push back foreign powers, but after 1900, conservative court members saw the reforms as too extreme, while reformers thought they moved too slowly. Various groups—secret anti-Qing societies, exiled revolutionaries, those who wanted to modernize the monarchy, and activists across the country—argued over whether and how to overthrow the dynasty. The breaking point came on 10 October 1911 with the Wuchang Uprising, a revolt by soldiers from the New Army. Similar uprisings quickly spread across the country, and revolutionaries in every province rejected Qing rule. On 1 November 1911, the Qing court made Yuan Shikai, head of the Beiyang Army, prime minister, and he started talks with the revolutionaries. In Nanjing, revolutionary forces set up a temporary coalition government. On 1 January 1912, the Advisory Council announced the Republic of China, with Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Tongmenghui, as its president. A short civil war between northern and southern forces ended in a deal. Sun stepped down in favor of Yuan, who would become president of the new national government if he could get the Qing emperor to abdicate. The six-year-old Xuantong Emperor’s abdication edict was issued on 12 February 1912. Yuan took the oath of office as president on 10 March 1912. In December 1915, Yuan brought back the monarchy, naming himself the Hongxian Emperor, but strong opposition from the public and the army forced him to abdicate in March 1916, restoring the Republic. Yuan’s failure to build a stable central government before his death in June 1916 led to decades of political fragmentation and warlord rule, including an attempt to restore the Qing dynasty. The name “Xinhai Revolution” comes from the traditional Chinese calendar, where “Xinhai” (辛亥) marks the year 1911 in the sexagenary cycle. Both the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China claim to be the rightful successors of the 1911 Revolution and honor its ideals: nationalism, republicanism, modernization, and national unity. 10 October is the National Day of the Republic of China on Taiwan and the Anniversary of the 1911 Revolution in China. **Background**

**Tension between Manchu and Han people** After the Manchu aristocracy took control of China, they followed a policy of prioritizing Manchus (首崇滿洲), which created deep and lasting ethnic conflict with the Han Chinese. Anti-Manchu feeling never fully disappeared during the Qing’s 268-year rule. Early Qing Han thinkers like Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi often called for overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Ming. Though their ideas did not immediately collapse the Qing, the seeds of revolution stayed alive in underground groups and secret societies. Movements by Ming loyalists, the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, the Tiandihui’s activities, the White Lotus Rebellion, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom all showed ethnic resistance, and Sun Yat-sen’s revolution grew from these traditions. The court publicly claimed it treated Manchus and Han equally in government jobs, but in practice their status was not equal. Before the Taiping rebellion, key military and administrative posts mostly went to Manchus, and even positions set aside for Han could be filled by Manchus, while Han had no such right. After the 1890s, anti-Manchu sentiment rose again. Writings from late-Ming loyalist elders became an important source of ideas. Although Wang Fuzhi wrote a lot, he had little influence in the late Ming and early Qing, mainly because Hunan-Xiang literati like Zeng Guofan and Guo Songtao pushed his work. In his Three Principles of the People, Sun Yat-sen wrote: “The Manchu conquest of China was a conquest of the majority by the minority, seeking to make use of the majority Chinese as their slaves,” and “China has been completely subjugated twice already: once under the Yuan dynasty, and once under the Qing.” He believed that under Qing rule, the Han were nothing but four hundred million oppressed subjects of a conquered nation. Feng Ziyou noted that in the early Xingzhonghui, “the only propaganda tools used were a few standalone editions: the Record of Ten Days at Yangzhou, the Record of the Jiading Massacre, and selected reprints of the ‘On the Ruler’ and ‘On the Minister’ chapters from the Waiting for the Dawn.” Huang Xing also said that his distant ancestor, in the early Qing, left a written order that the Huang family’s descendants should never serve as Qing officials. As China’s situation grew more dangerous after the Boxer Rebellion and student movements in Japan developed, the anti-Manchu revolutionary tide rose higher and became hard to contain.