Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/Tsou Jung
TSOU Jung 鄒容 (T. 威丹), 1885–1905, Apr. 3, anti-Manchu writer, was a native of Pa-hsien (Chungking), Szechwan. His father was a merchant. In 1901 he was sent to Shanghai, and a year later to Japan, to study. He adopted whole-heartedly the revolutionary ideas prevalent among the Chinese students in that country (see under Ch'iu Chin). When he had been in Japan about a year he set forth his ideas of revolt from the Manchu regime in a work, entitled 革命軍 Ko-ming chün ("The Revolutionary Army"). After he had led a group of students in an attack on the official sent by the Peking Government to supervise Chinese students in Japan, he fled to Shanghai where a bookseller published the Ko-ming chün for him.
Meanwhile Tsou made the acquaintance of other revolutionists, including Chang Ping-lin (see under Sun I-jang), then a contributor to the Shanghai newspaper, 蘇報 Su-pao. On May 31, 1903, Chang wrote an editorial attacking Kang Yu-wei (see under T'an Ssŭ-t'ung) and his faction for favoring a constitutional monarchy under the Manchu Emperor, Tsai-t'ien [q. v.]. In this article Chang referred to Tsai-t'ien by name and described him as hsiao-ch'ou 小醜, a "low wretch". Nine days later a favorable review of the Ko-ming chün appeared. These articles so aroused the Ch'ing government that a telegram was sent to the Shanghai authorities ordering them to arrest Chang, Tsou, and four other men, and to suppress the paper. Chang was arrested in the International Settlement and Tsou Jung, who was not found at once, later gave himself up. The trial by a mixed court was unsatisfactory to the Ch'ing government, which wanted to have the prisoners extradited. The request might have been approved, but while the foreign diplomats in Shanghai were debating the matter, Shên Chin 沈藎 (T. 禹希, H. 克誠, d. 1903), a newspaper reporter and a former colleague of Tang Ts'ai-ch'ang (see under Chang Chih-tung), was beaten to death in Peking by order of the government. This shocked the diplomats and influenced their decision to hold the prisoners in the Foreign Settlement. In 1904 Chang was sentenced to three years of hard labor and Tsou to two years. Tsou died in prison one month before his term was up, having reached only the age of twenty. Chang Ping-lin, however, served out his term and was released, but continued his revolutionary activities. In time he became a scholar of high repute.
Tsou Jung's Ko-ming chün is one of the important documents in the Chinese revolt against the Manchus. In it the youthful leader advocated the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty and the monarchy, and the establishment of a Chinese Republic. He rebuked Tsêng Kuo-fan, Tso Tsung-t'ang and Li Hung-chang [qq. v.] for their support of the Manchus in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, and urged his countrymen to realize their status as slaves under alien rulers. The revolution that Tsou worked for took place in 1911, only six years after his death.
[Ko-ming chün (1928 ed.); Kao Liang-tso 高良佐, 記清末兩大文字獄 in 建國月刊 Chien-kuo yüeh-k'an, vol. 10, no. 2 (1934); 6/57/3b; Shanghai yen-chiu tzŭ-liao (研究資料) hsü-chi (1939), pp. 43–48, 71–143.]
Fang Chao-ying