1. Song Jiaoren was a Chinese republican revolutionary, political leader and a founder of the Kuomintang.
16 Facts About Song Jiaoren
1. 2.
Song Jiaoren led the KMT to electoral victories in China's first democratic election.
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Song Jiaoren based his appeal on the upper class gentry, landowners, and merchants.
4.
When he was six years old, Song Jiaoren began his education at a private school.
5.
When Song was seventeen years old, he graduated and began enrollment at Taoyuan Zhangjiang College.
6.
The influence of his teachers, Huang Shouyi and Qu Fangmei, caused Song Jiaoren to make no effort to pursue the civil service examinations, and he was interested mainly in his time's world events and the counterculture.
7.
Later in 1902, Song Jiaoren was recruited to teach at the Wuchang Normal School, a prestigious private secondary school.
8.
In Wuhan, Song Jiaoren became involved with various local revolutionary groups, including the Huaxinghui, a group of which he became vice president.
9.
Song Jiaoren often discussed politics and revolution with his students, many of whom were opposed to the idea of revolution.
10.
In 1905, together with Sun Yat-sen, Song Jiaoren helped to found and was a leading activist in the Tongmenghui, which was an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the formation of a republic.
11.
Song Jiaoren returned to China in 1910 after the Xinhai Revolution and traveled to Hong Kong the next year to organize the Second Guangzhou Uprising.
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Song Jiaoren spoke out against the increasing authoritarianism of China's provisional president, Yuan Shikai, and expressed concerns towards Yuan's indications that he would like to restore a monarchical system to China with himself as emperor.
13.
Song Jiaoren was appointed to reform China's legal system, and he drafted a provisional constitution, the Republic of China Interim Government Organization Act.
14.
Song Jiaoren was only 30 when he was tasked by Sun Yat-sen to organize the Kuomintang for the 1912 Chinese democratic election campaign, the first in China.
15.
Song Jiaoren proved to be a naturally-skilled political organizer, but he had an arrogant self-confidence, which alienated many potential supporters.
16.
On 20 March 1913, while traveling with a group of colleagues to the Parliament in Beijing, Song Jiaoren was shot twice at close range at the Shanghai Railway Station by a lone gunman, Wu Shiying, who had been contracted by Ying Guixin, a Shanghai underworld figure closely associated with the Yuan Shikai regime.