Because Sun was in exile from China at the time, the Revive China Society was founded in
Honolulu,
Republic of Hawaii. It was the first
Chinese nationalist revolutionary society. The first member of the society was
Deng Yinnan, a friend of Sun Yat-sen, and attended its founding meeting. The oath itself was established when the society was seemingly agricultural in nature. When Sun Yat-sen returned to
Hong Kong in early 1895, he met up again with
Yeung Ku-wan, president of the already existing
Furen Literary Society, whom he had first met in 1891. As they both wanted to take advantage of the uneasy political situation due to the
First Sino-Japanese War, on 18 February 1895 the Furen Literary Society was merged into the Revive China Society, with help from
Yau Lit, a close friend of Sun and member of Furen. Yeung and Sun became the President and Secretary of the Society respectively. They disguised their activities in Hong Kong at 13 Staunton Street under the guise of running a business called "Kuen Hang Club" (乾亨行). In October 1895, the Revive China Society planned to launch an uprising in
Guangzhou, with Yeung directing the uprising in Hong Kong where funds and training location were provided by
Li Ki-tong. However, plans were leaked out and more than 70 members, including
Lu Haodong, a schoolboy friend of Sun Yat-sen, were captured by the Qing government. Prior to the capture, Yeung Ku-wan was elected president (or general manager) of the 'United Government,' which would have been put in power given the uprising managed to overthrow the Qing monarchy, with Sun Yat-sen as the secretary. Under pressure from the Qing government in China, the British Hong Kong government forced Yeung and Sun Yat-sen to leave, barring them from entering Hong Kong over the next five years. During this time, a branch was formed of the society in
Taiwan, in early November, though they failed to garner many members, while another was formed in the
Chinatown of San Francisco, with similar amounts of success. Throughout this time, on numerous occasions did the society attempt to instigate an uprising in China, one prominent example being in the Spring and Summer of 1899, where the society attempted to incite a rebellion in Guangdong, Hunan and Hubei, where he made friends with
Zhang Binglin, and smuggled guns to Ponce's army in the
Philippines, however, no uprising materialized, as his allies in
Yokohama, where Sun Yat-sen had stayed and begun promoting his ideas, all were too disorganized. In the following year, the newspaper of the society,
China Daily, was established, and Yat-sen began desperately working with the Guangdong Triads, as the organization began the slow process of fizzling out. Sun Yat-sen attempted to revitalize the organization, taking trips back to Hawaii, and then to the
United States, but failed to garner attention, and stayed in such conditions until it merged with the
Tongmenghui and became the
Kuomintang. in
Hong Kong ==See also==