Wuchang Uprising
The Wuchang Uprising (traditional Chinese: 武昌起義, simplified Chinese: 武昌起义, pinyin: Wǔchāng Qǐyì) was a military insurgency in China, in the city of Wuchang, now part of Wuhan, which precipitated the fall of China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and the establishment of a republic. The uprising occurred on October 10, 1911. This date is still commemorated as a Chinese national holiday in the Republic of China on Taiwan. The Wuchang uprising is considered the beginning of the Xinhai Revolution, which would end with the abdication of the last Chinese emperor, the boy Puyi.
In 1900, the Qing dynasty had decided to found a series of modernized armies, the so-called "New Armies". At that time, the city of Wuchang, on the Yangtze River in Hubei province, became the country's main military-industrial center, the place where weapons and materiel for the New Armies were produced. Sun Yat-sen's reformist ideas had a major influence on officers and soldiers in Wuchang, many of whom were members of revolutionary organizations.
The uprising itself was triggered by a chance event. A bomb prepared by a revolutionary group exploded by accident, prompting police to investigate and discover lists of military personnel involved in subversive activities against the Qing dynasty. Finding themselves discovered, many members of the New Armies decided to rise up rather than be arrested. The Hubei provincial government fled the city. The insurrection appeared to be just one of several similar protests within the military that had occurred in southern China, and it was thought that the central government could easily put it down. However, the Qing dynasty's delay in putting down the rebellion increased confidence in it, and several provincial governments in southern China withdrew their support for the imperial court, siding with the Wuchang rebels.
Sun Yat-sen was traveling in the United States, near Denver, during the rebellion and heard about it through a newspaper. After trying to raise funds for the revolutionary cause in the United States and Europe, he returned to China in December 1911, and was named president of the new ROC in Nanjing at a meeting of provincial leaders on December 29.
Sun Yat-sen would have to negotiate with Yuan Shikai, the soldier who controlled the powerful Army of the North, to whom he would cede the post of President of the Republic so that he would end up forcing the abdication of the last emperor, on February 12, 1912. Thus, the Xinhai Revolution concluded with the end of imperial China.