Mavericks › Uprising Leaders
Xu Xilin
Restoration Society member who bought an official post in Anhui and in 1907 shot the governor Enming at a police academy ceremony, dying the same day
A mountain camp at night, with a beacon fire burning on a wooden platform at the upper left, several white tents on the slope and a red cloth tied to a rope; a wooden palisade with a gate stands at the right beyond a timber bridge over a rough river, under a clouded moon.
Also known as Zi Bosun
- Roles
- Uprising Leaders
Xu Xilin, courtesy name Bosun, came from Shanyin, now Shaoxing, in Zhejiang and taught at the prefectural school there. He visited Japan in 1903, joined the Restoration Society the next year, and in 1905 founded the Datong School in Shaoxing with Tao Chengzhang to train members of the secret societies. He then bought the rank of circuit intendant and in 1907 was made deputy head of the Anhui police department and its police academy, winning the confidence of the governor Enming. At the academy's graduation ceremony on 6 July that year he shot Enming, led his students to seize the arsenal and was captured after a fight; he was executed the same day and his heart was cut out. The affair led to the arrest of Qiu Jin, who was running the Datong School in Shaoxing, and she was beheaded there on 15 July.
Life and times
Dates 1873 CE–1907 CE