Huanghuagang Uprising
Also called: Second Guangzhou Uprising, Yellow Flower Mound Uprising
On 27 April 1911 a Tongmenghui suicide squad led by Huang Xing stormed the viceroy’s yamen in Guangzhou but was crushed within a day. The dead were buried at Huanghuagang as the “72 Martyrs”, and their sacrifice fired the revolution half a year later.
Pedist · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
After repeated failures the Tongmenghui prepared its largest rising yet in Guangzhou in spring 1911, raising money from overseas Chinese while young volunteers slipped into the city from Japan and Southeast Asia. The plot leaked and the date was put off again and again, until on 27 April (the 29th day of the third lunar month) Huang Xing led some 100 men against the viceroy’s yamen.
The viceroy escaped and the squad was destroyed in street fighting with Qing troops; Huang Xing lost two fingers and barely got away. The scattered bodies were gathered and buried at Huanghuagang north of the city — first counted as 72, hence the “72 Martyrs of Huanghuagang”. The farewell letter of one of them, Lin Juemin, to his wife became widely read.
