Zou Rong
Encyclopedia
Zou Rong. Chinese nationalist and revolutionary martyr of the anti-Qing movement. Born in Chongqing
, Sichuan
Province, he was sent to Japan
at an early age, where he studied the successful Japanese way of modernization. When he returned to China, he started to write essays on how to free the Chinese nation from the Manchu-Regime and foreign imperialism. In 1903, he published a little book on this topic: The Revolutionary Army. Closely associated with Zhang Binglin
he was implicated in the Subao incident, which rendered him a prison sentence of two years. He died in prison.
Zou found the Qing government unable to deal with the contemporary crisis of colonization, weakness and corruption. For Zou, the Manchu were the source of China's inability to overcome traditional obstacles for modern reforms and he analyzed their mistakes and weaknesses point by point. He was also influenced by racialist Han ideology, as evidenced in his distaste for the Manchu governing class, as he advocated “annihilation the five million and more of the furry and horned Manchu race, cleansing ourselves of 260 years of harsh and unremitting pain, so that the soil of the Chinese subcontinent is made immaculate, and the descendants of the Yellow Emperor will all become Washingtons.”
His calls for sovereignty of the Chinese people included the establishment of a parliament, equal rights for women, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. They were spread internationally by Sun Yat-sen
. The Qing officials tried to arrest and silence Zou Rong. Ironically, he lived in a Foreign concession in Shanghai, where he enjoyed extraterritorial rights and could not be sentenced to death by a Qing Court. Instead, he was sentenced to a two years in prison, where he fell ill and died, at the age of 21.
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...
, Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
Province, he was sent to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
at an early age, where he studied the successful Japanese way of modernization. When he returned to China, he started to write essays on how to free the Chinese nation from the Manchu-Regime and foreign imperialism. In 1903, he published a little book on this topic: The Revolutionary Army. Closely associated with Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin was a Chinese philologist, textual critic and anti-Manchu revolutionary.His philological works include Wen Shi , the first systematic work of Chinese etymology...
he was implicated in the Subao incident, which rendered him a prison sentence of two years. He died in prison.
Zou found the Qing government unable to deal with the contemporary crisis of colonization, weakness and corruption. For Zou, the Manchu were the source of China's inability to overcome traditional obstacles for modern reforms and he analyzed their mistakes and weaknesses point by point. He was also influenced by racialist Han ideology, as evidenced in his distaste for the Manchu governing class, as he advocated “annihilation the five million and more of the furry and horned Manchu race, cleansing ourselves of 260 years of harsh and unremitting pain, so that the soil of the Chinese subcontinent is made immaculate, and the descendants of the Yellow Emperor will all become Washingtons.”
His calls for sovereignty of the Chinese people included the establishment of a parliament, equal rights for women, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. They were spread internationally by Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
. The Qing officials tried to arrest and silence Zou Rong. Ironically, he lived in a Foreign concession in Shanghai, where he enjoyed extraterritorial rights and could not be sentenced to death by a Qing Court. Instead, he was sentenced to a two years in prison, where he fell ill and died, at the age of 21.