Second Guangzhou Uprising

Yellow Flower Mound revolt (Traditional Chinese: 黃花岡之役, simplified Chinese 黄花岗起义) is an uprising led by Huang Xing and his fellow revolutionaries against the Qing Dynasty in Guangzhou.

The Uprising

The uprising took place on April the 27th, 1910. Huang Hsing and nearly a hundred fellow revolutionaries forced their way into the residence of the viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. The uprising was successful in the beginning, but reinforcements of the opposing Qing soldiers then heavily outnumbered them, The uprising turned into a catastrophic defeat. Most revolutionaries were killed, only few managed to escape. Huang Hsing was wounded during the battle; he lost one of his fingers when it was hit by a bullet.

Only 86 bodies were found (only 72 could be identified), and the bodies of others could never be found. The dead were mostly youths with all kinds of social backgrounds, former students, teachers, journalists, and oversea Chinese. Some of them were of high rank in the Alliance.

Before the battle, most of the revolutionaries knew that the battle would probably be lost, since they were heavily outnumbered, but they went into battle anyway. Their letters to their loved ones were later found.

Aftermath

The dead were buried together in one grave on the Yellow Flower Mound, a mound near where they fought and died which has lent its name to the uprising. After the Chinese revolution, a cemetery was built on the mound with the names of those seventy-two revolutionary nationalists.

Some historians believe that the uprising was a direct cause of the Wuchang uprising, which eventually led to the Xihai revolution and the founding of the Republic of China.