The 103 Days of the Hundred Days' Reform in Qing China

The 103 Days of the Hundred Days' Reform

On June 11, 1898, the Guangxu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty issued the Edict on the Definite National Policy, formally launching reform. The 27-year-old emperor hoped that wholesale reform would free China from oppression by the Great Powers. Over the 103 days that followed, he issued more than a hundred reform edicts in succession, abolishing the eight-legged essay in the imperial examinations, establishing the Imperial Capital University, encouraging industry and commerce, dismissing redundant officials, and reforming the military. The reforms came to be known in history as the Wuxu Reform or the Hundred Days' Reform.

One hundred and three days later, on the morning of September 21, 1898, Empress Dowager Cixi suddenly returned to the Forbidden City, placed the Guangxu Emperor under house arrest, and announced that she was resuming regency. All of Guangxu's reform edicts were rescinded. Kang Youwei fled to Japan, and Tan Sitong and the other Six Gentlemen of Wuxu were beheaded at Caishikou. This short-lived reform ended with the Guangxu Emperor losing power and Cixi reasserting control. Although the reform lasted only 103 days, its failure profoundly shaped the revolutionary path China later took.

The Shock of the First Sino-Japanese War

The immediate backdrop to the Hundred Days' Reform was China's catastrophic defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894. The Qing's Beiyang Fleet was annihilated by the Japanese combined fleet. China not only lost to its former "student" Japan but also had to pay 200 million taels of silver in indemnity and cede Taiwan. The defeat made China's elite realize reform was essential. In April 1895, Kang Youwei united more than 1,300 fellow examination candidates in Beijing to submit a joint memorial to the Guangxu Emperor demanding reform. This was the famous Gongche Shangshu.

The memorial never actually reached the emperor, having been intercepted, but Kang Youwei's political reputation was made. A native of Nanhai, Guangdong, Kang had long studied Western political systems and advocated constitutional monarchy. He argued China should follow Japan's Meiji Restoration and the British constitutional model. Over the three years from 1895 to 1898 Kang repeatedly went to Beijing to submit memorials and gradually influenced the Guangxu Emperor. Guangxu was already inclined toward reform, and with Kang's input he resolved to act.

The Emperor Sidelined by Cixi

The Guangxu Emperor ascended the throne in 1875 at the age of four. He was not Emperor Tongzhi's son but his cousin, chosen by Empress Dowager Cixi as heir. Cixi chose him primarily because his young age allowed the dowager to keep control. Throughout his childhood and youth, Guangxu lived in Cixi's shadow.

In 1889, at 18, Guangxu formally took the reins of government. But Cixi did not really hand over power; she continued to hear state affairs at the Summer Palace, and every major decision still required her nod. Guangxu's actual power at court was limited to daily affairs. This sidelined status frustrated him for years. He wanted to act but lacked authority. The reform of 1898 was the first time he genuinely tried to realize his ambitions and his attempt to break free of Cixi's control.

103 Days of Intensive Reform

After the June 11 edict, Guangxu pushed reform at an astonishing pace. In just 103 days he issued more than 200 reform edicts. In education he abolished the eight-legged essay in the imperial examinations and required candidates to write essays on practical affairs. He established the Imperial Capital University, the precursor of Peking University. New-style schools were founded across the country and overseas study was encouraged. Economically he promoted private factories, railways, and mining, with various tax incentives.

Militarily he disbanded the Green Standard Army and organized new-style forces. Politically he dismissed many redundant officials, abolishing posts with no real work. Most of these reforms were correct in principle and matched China's modernization needs. The problem was tempo: the reforms rolled out in 103 days exceeded the total of the first ten years of Japan's Meiji Restoration. Many sacked officials immediately became opponents. Many vested-interest groups felt their survival threatened and united against the reforms.

Yuan Shikai's Crucial Wavering

The most dramatic figure of the Hundred Days' Reform was Yuan Shikai. Yuan commanded the Newly Created Army in Zhili, the only Western-trained modern force in China at the time. Guangxu and Kang Youwei realized that completely escaping Cixi's control required military force. Kang sent Tan Sitong by night to Yuan Shikai, asking him to march on Beijing, surround the Summer Palace, and place Cixi under arrest.

In public Yuan Shikai expressed support for Guangxu. But after Tan Sitong left, Yuan boarded a train to Tianjin and reported everything to Ronglu. Ronglu was Cixi's most trusted minister and held command of the Beiyang military and civil administration. He rushed back to Beijing overnight to report to Cixi. Receiving the intelligence, Cixi acted immediately. At dawn on September 21, 1898, she went directly from the Summer Palace to the Forbidden City and announced the resumption of regency. Guangxu was placed under house arrest on Yingtai, an islet in Zhongnanhai. The reform collapsed in an instant. Yuan Shikai's betrayal has been a focus of historical controversy ever since; many name him as the direct cause of the reform's failure.

The Six Gentlemen of Wuxu

After regaining power, Cixi immediately settled accounts with the reformers. Kang Youwei had advance warning and fled to Shanghai and then Japan. Liang Qichao also fled to Japan. But the other reform leaders had no time to escape. On September 28, Cixi ordered the execution of six leading reformers, known to history as the Six Gentlemen of Wuxu: Tan Sitong, Liu Guangdi, Lin Xu, Yang Rui, Yang Shenxiu, and Kang Guangren (Kang Youwei's younger brother).

Tan Sitong is the most famous. He had a chance to flee but refused. He said reform in every country had required blood sacrifice; since no one had yet died for China's reform, let him be the first. At the Caishikou execution ground he composed a famous death poem: "I face the executioner's blade and laugh toward heaven; both those who stay and those who flee are noble." Tan Sitong, age 33, was beheaded. His sacrifice made the Hundred Days' Reform a spiritual symbol of modern Chinese history. Many later revolutionaries took him as a role model. The spiritual legacy paid for in blood far exceeded the political significance of the reform itself.

Ten Years of Imprisonment on Yingtai

After the reform's collapse, Guangxu was imprisoned on Yingtai islet in Zhongnanhai. Yingtai is a small island in the middle of the Taiye Pool, surrounded by water and connected to land only by a small bridge. Guangxu was tightly guarded there. He was forbidden contact with outsiders and his food was sent daily by Cixi's servants. The imprisonment lasted ten years. During this time Cixi tried several times to depose him and install another emperor, but Western powers objected and the plan was never carried out.

On November 14, 1908, the Guangxu Emperor died at 37. The next day, November 15, Empress Dowager Cixi died at 73. The deaths just one day apart led historians to long suspect Guangxu had been poisoned by Cixi. In 2008 Chinese scholars used modern forensic methods to analyze his hair and found arsenic levels 2,400 times those of an ordinary person, confirming that he had been poisoned. Cixi, near death, feared Guangxu would avenge the reformers if he survived her, and struck first. This truth deepens the tragedy of the Hundred Days' Reform.

The Impact of Failure on China

The consequences of the reform's failure ran deep. First, the path of reform within the system was essentially blocked. The reformers had hoped to transform China through constitutional monarchy; failure made everyone realize the Qing could not reform itself. From 1898 on more and more young people turned to revolution. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary party gained support after the failed reform. The 1911 Xinhai Revolution that overthrew the Qing was the inevitable next step once 1898 had failed.

Second, reformist ideas continued to spread. Although the reform failed, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao continued promoting their ideas while exiled in Japan. Their books and journals influenced an entire generation of Chinese intellectuals. Many of the students sent abroad in the 1900s grew up reading their essays. This intellectual diffusion was the most important legacy of the failed reform. Third, Cixi's image was permanently tarnished. Though she lived another ten years after the reform, the blood of the Six Gentlemen ensured she could never be rehabilitated in historical judgement.

The Lessons the Hundred Days' Reform Left Behind

The Hundred Days' Reform left many lessons for later eras. First, the pacing of reform. Reform must proceed step by step; no political system can digest more than 200 edicts in 103 days. Japan's Meiji Restoration took more than 20 years to modernize, and trying to compress that into a few months in China provoked massive backlash. The pacing failure was a technical mistake.

Second, the real distribution of political power. Guangxu and the reformers assumed that holding imperial favor was enough to push reform, failing to recognize that Cixi controlled far more political resources than the emperor. This misreading of power was a strategic mistake. Third, the danger of relying on external force. The reformers placed their hopes on Yuan Shikai's New Army, but Yuan was a product of Cixi's system, and that reliance was doomed to fail. These lessons are not only relevant to the nineteenth century but serve as warnings to reformers of every era.

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