Enemy, Friend, Martyr: Commemorating Liangbi (1877–1912), Contesting History

In the early days of the 1911 revolution, even as one southern province after another seceded from the empire, the Qing was not yet vanquished. It was buttressed by the fierce loyalty of the Imperial Guards and the substantial military might of Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), recently called back from retirement by the court. To many at the time, a protracted stalemate between the north and the south seemed likely. But then, on January 26, 1912, a bomb-thrower assaulted Liangbi, head of the Imperial Guards, in front of his Beijing residence.1 The assassin died instantly and Liangbi died an agonizing death three days later. Historians generally agree that this assassination, coming at it did on the heels of several similar high profile strikes, “took the wind out of the Manchu resistance.”2 Within days, the Empress Dowager Longyu agreed to the child-emperor Puyi’s abdication and on February 12, the Qing Empire formally ended. Liangbi (zi Laichen) was known as one of the up-and-coming young Manchus of his time. A collateral descendant of the ruling Aisin Gioro family, he acquired modern military training at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy (Rikugun shikan gakkō) and played a significant role in modernizing the Qing military. In history books, he is chiefly