Mavericks › Uprising Leaders
Yu Peilun
Sichuan revolutionary who learned explosives chemistry in Japan, made the bomb for the 1910 plot against the regent, and was executed after the 1911 Guangzhou uprising
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 Yunji
Yu Peilun, courtesy name Yunji, came from Neijiang in Sichuan. He went to Japan with his elder brother in 1905 and studied pharmacy at the Chiba medical college, teaching himself to make explosives and injuring a hand in one experiment. He joined the Revolutionary Alliance in 1908 and the next year went to Beijing with Wang Jingwei and Huang Fusheng to assassinate the regent Zaifeng; he built the bomb, and when the plot was discovered in 1910 and Wang and Huang were arrested, he had already left the capital. In 1911 he made explosives in Japan and Hong Kong for the planned rising in Guangzhou, and on 27 April, with a basket of bombs slung on his chest, he joined Huang Xing's attack on the governor-general's office, fought on until wounded and captured, and was soon executed at twenty-five. He is buried at Huanghuagang in Guangzhou.
Life and times
Dates 1886 CE–1911 CE