Chen Jiongming
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| Chen Jiongming | ||
|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese: | 陳炯明 | |
| Mandarin | ||
| Hanyu Pinyin: | Chen1 Jiong3 Ming2 | |
| Cantonese | ||
| Jyutping: | can4 gwing2 ming4 | |
Chen Jiongming (1878-1933) was a revolutionary figure in the early periods of the Republic of China. Chen Jiongming was born in 1878, in Haifeng, Guangdong, China. He was by training a lawyer and became a Qing legislator, a republican revolutionary, a military leader, a civil administrator and a federalist who sought to reconstruct China as a democratic republic. He joined the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance in 1909 and obtained the post of commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army. He became the Military governor of Guangdong three times (1911-12, 1913, 1920-23) and civil governor of Guangdong from 1920 to 1922 and military governor of Guangxi from 1921 to 1922.
Chen disagreed with Sun Yat-sen about the direction that reform should take. Sun wanted to unite the country by force and institute change through a centralized government based on a one-party system. Chen advocated a multiparty federalism and the peaceful unification of China. Sun Yat-sen and Chen Jiongming soon split over the continuation of the Northern Expedition. Sun conceived it to have begun with the occupation of Guangxi. From there he wished Chen to push into Hunan. Chen, however, only wanted to be the warlord of Guangdong and after Wu Peifu of the Zhili clique in Beijing recognized his power in the south he abandoned Sun Yat-sen, unexpectedly revolting against Sun Yat-sen in 1922, leading his forces to attack Sun's residence as well as office. Sun escaped on a ship and delayed his Northern Expedition. Sun then turned on Chen. Chen fled to Huizhou, eastern Guangdong, after Sun's army defeated him. From 1923 to 1925, the Guangdong government organized two wars eastward against him and he fled to Hong Kong as his remaining forces were completely wiped out in 1925. He died of typhus on September 22nd, 1933 in Hong Kong.
[edit] Legacy
His legacy has been much maligned and twisted by both the KMT and the CCP. Chen has sunk into obscurity, because following a revolt of Chen's troops in 1922 that forced Sun to flee Canton (Guangzhou) Sun's Kuomintang quickly began to publish slanderous material about Chen to discredit him. The Communists, who had entered into an alliance with Sun and who still regard him as the founding hero of the Chinese Revolution have continued to characterize Chen as a traitor and a reactionary warlord.
[edit] References
- Chen Jiongming (with photo)
- Chen Jiongming: Anarchism and the Federalist State
- The Zhuang and the 1911 Revolution
