The Gathering Storm: China on the Eve of Reform

The late 19th century found China at a crossroads. The once-mighty Qing dynasty, having suffered humiliating defeats in the Opium Wars and against Japan in 1895, faced existential threats from foreign powers and internal decay. Against this backdrop emerged a group of reformist intellectuals who believed China could only survive through rapid modernization.

The Guangxu Emperor, though nominally ruling, remained under the thumb of his aunt, the formidable Empress Dowager Cixi. In 1898, the young emperor launched the ambitious Hundred Days’ Reform, appointing progressive thinkers to key positions. This brief flowering of reform would end in bloodshed, with six men paying the ultimate price at Beijing’s Caishikou execution ground.

The Fateful Day: September 28, 1898

As dawn broke over Beijing’s Caishikou district, crowds gathered anticipating the grim spectacle of an execution. By noon, six bound prisoners arrived in carts to face the executioner’s blade under the supervision of Gangyi, Cixi’s trusted minister. The charges labeled them as followers of Kang Youwei, the reform movement’s intellectual leader – an accusation that masked more complex truths about these doomed men.

Profiles in Courage: The Six Martyrs

### Kang Guangren: The Reluctant Martyr

As Kang Youwei’s younger brother, 31-year-old Kang Guangren occupied an ambiguous position. While supporting reform, he privately criticized his brother’s radical methods, urging gradual change through education. His fatal mistake lay in familial loyalty – remaining in Beijing when Kang Youwei fled. Prison guards later recalled his anguished cry: “Why must a brother bear punishment for his sibling’s deeds?”

### Yang Shenxiu: The Radical Scholar

At 49, the Shandong censor was the eldest of the group. A respected scholar-official, Yang had submitted the memorial that convinced Guangxu to begin reforms. His undoing came from reckless analogies comparing Cixi to the usurping Empress Wu Zetian of Tang dynasty lore. When crisis loomed, Yang doubled down, drafting petitions demanding Cixi relinquish power and allegedly plotting her assassination – sealing his fate.

### Lin Xu: The Boy Wonder

The 23-year-old Fujianese prodigy represented reform’s brightest hope. Married into the powerful Shen family (his wife was granddaughter of statesman Shen Baozhen), Lin served in the critical Grand Council secretariat. His brilliance was matched only by his impetuousness – once ordering senior colleagues to draft documents, creating enemies. His connection to conservative powerbroker Ronglu proved worthless when the purge began.

### Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi: The Reluctant Reformers

These Sichuanese officials (aged 41 and 39 respectively) shared similar trajectories. Recommended by reform-minded governor Chen Baozhen, both served as Grand Council secretaries while maintaining distance from Kang Youwei. Yang, protege of powerful viceroy Zhang Zhidong, had called Kang “absurdly arrogant.” Liu, a principled poverty-stricken scholar, once co-signed a defense of Kang despite disagreements – a decision that would cost him dearly.

### Tan Sitong: The Iconic Revolutionary

The 33-year-old son of a Hubei governor became the rebellion’s most famous face. Unlike others seeking to preserve the monarchy, Tan envisioned broader change for China itself. His direct involvement in the alleged plot to overthrow Cixi (including approaching general Yuan Shikai for help) made him irredeemable in imperial eyes. His defiant refusal to flee – “Let China’s reform bloodshed begin with me!” – and prison wall poetry (“I laugh as I face the heavens”) immortalized him.

The Execution: A Nation’s Conscience Dies

At Caishikou, each man met death differently. Kang Guangren struggled against his bonds; Tan Sitong challenged the legality of their execution; Lin Xu maintained aristocratic composure; Yang Shenxiu marched silently; Yang Rui protested the lack of trial; Liu Guangdi refused to kneel, crying “With our deaths, justice perishes!”

A local pharmacist offered numbing “crane’s blood” potion to ease their suffering – all six refused. The executions proceeded with brutal efficiency before a jeering, cheering crowd.

Aftermath: The Martyrs’ Legacy

The disposal of their remains revealed lingering divisions. Kang Guangren’s body lay exposed for days before charitable burial; Yang Shenxiu’s family could afford only a simple grave; Lin Xu’s coffin was desecrated by anti-reform mobs in Fuzhou; Tan Sitong’s loyal servant smuggled his headless corpse back to Hunan.

Tan’s father, the conservative governor Tan Jixun, captured the ambiguity in his elegy: “Slander spreads across nations, nothing but curses; Whether history vindicates, none can say.”

Historical Reckoning

The Six Martyrs’ deaths marked not just the end of reform, but the beginning of revolutionary currents that would eventually topple imperial China. Their varying motivations – from loyal reformism to implicit revolution – reflect the complex ideological landscape of late Qing China.

Modern scholarship reveals these men were neither uniform “Kang party members” nor simple heroes, but complex individuals caught in history’s tide. Their sacrifice, however, became a powerful symbol – proving that some Qing officials valued China’s future above personal survival, planting seeds that would grow into the revolutionary movements of the 20th century.

Today, their legacy endures as China continues debating reform’s proper pace and nature – a testament to how these six lives cut short still speak to the nation’s ongoing journey toward modernization and self-definition.