User talk:CWH/Archive 8

Hi .ch

I noticed you are a part of the Chinese Military History task force.

I am doing research on October 9th 1911 in Hankou during the the Battle of Yangxia. Some Chinese rebels were going to bomb the Russian concession there, but were caught and ran away. When they realized they were caught they started the 1911 Revolution. But this first battle was the Battle of Yangxia. The Russians, Americans, Japanese, British, Austro-Hungarians, Italians, French, and Germans all supported each other in defending the concessions. Mainly the rebels seemed to fight the Qing dynasty forces though.

It seems to me almost a mini Boxer Rebellion as far as the allies were concerned.

I want to know about European, Russian, and especially American involvement in the battle. I have a book that in 2 pages briefly goes over the battle and the foreign involvement in it, but not in much details.

I am wondering if you know of any books or articles that go over the international involvement in this battle. Also if you know of any good books on the War Lord period of China I would appreciate that too.

Thanks (:

~~~~ Historyguy1138 (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Good news! This is an important topic -- be careful it doesn't turn into a book! What would be the title for your article? A good strategy would be to first make an outline, maybe create a WP:Sandbox so that you go looking for specific relevant material.

I remember reading in Mary Wright's volume China in revolution : the first phase, 1900-1913 that revolutionary troops marched alongside the railroad rather than forcing their way onto it. They had learned the lesson from Allied Intervention of 1900. But that was just one instance.

Give me a day or two and I'll come up with a selection of sources. Do you have access to an academic library? I'm afraid that the best sources are still "books." Or can you use the Wikipedia Library? ch (talk) 18:51, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment.

Actually I was just going to expand on the Battle of Yangxia article. I have another friend working on the Russian Concession of Hankow.

You see I actually work with several editors on the Lists of wars involving the United States. I actually created the index article and the colonial articles and am responsible for adding roughly a fourth of all the conflicts in them.

I have even written a few of the articles featured in them:

English invasion of Acadia (1654)

1840 Fiji expedition

Battle of Muddy Flat

I have also written:

Burning of Solevu and Tye

Battle of Malolo

Phil Greenwald

I am currently working on a number of other projects as well.

I have access to the wiki library and have several books, but no access to an academic library sadly.

For more information of what I uncovered:

I found information in the

the Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China https://www.amazon.com/Yangtze-Patrol-China-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557508836, by General Kemp Tolley. He gives us a few pages of the incident on pages 65-69.

Tolley is a good author, but I wish he was better at being more specific in his citations instead of just a blank bibliography.

Also the 1911 revolution article gives a Chinese for the bombing here: 1911 Revolution#Wuchang Uprising:

It reads:

"Revolutionaries intent on overthrowing the Qing dynasty had built bombs, and on 9 October, one of them accidentally exploded.$$$$$ Footnote here $$$$$$ Sun ad no direct part in the uprising and was traveling in the United States to recruit more support from Overseas Chinese. The Qing Viceroy of Huguang, Rui Cheng (瑞澂), tried to track down and arrest the revolutionaries. The squad leader Xiong Bingkun (熊秉坤) and others decided not to delay the uprising any longer and launched the revolt on 10 October 1911, at 7:00 p.m. The revolt was a success; the entire city of Wuchang had been captured by the revolutionaries on the morning of 11 October. That evening, they established a tactical headquarters and announced the establishment of the "Military Government of Hubei of Republic of China". The conference chose Li Yuanhong as the governor of the temporary government. Qing officers like the bannermen Duanfang and Zhao Erfeng were killed by the revolutionary forces.

Revolutionaries killed a German arms dealer in Hankou as he was delivering arms to the Qing. Revolutionaries killed 2 Germans and wounded 2 other Germans at the battle of Hanyang, including a former colonel."

The footnotes source is "王恆偉. [2005] (2006) 中國歷史講堂 No. 6 民國. 中華書局. ISBN 9-6288-8529-4. pp. 3–7."

Historyguy1138 (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Now I see more clearly that your interest is in the foreign, specifically the US, involvement. After casting around in the sources I can find, it seems that there was not a major foreign commitment of force, certainly nothing on the scale of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. The chapter by Chang Peng-yuan in the Wright volume I mentioned above says that the Qing governor at Hankow asked for gunboats to bombard the revolutionaries, but the French and Russians replied that the situation was totally different from 1900. My guess is that adding very much would involve WP:Original research in documents of the time and getting diminishing returns.

I looked at the Kemp Tolley article, which is Start Class. It might be more rewarding to find Start and Stub articles of individuals. There are several sources on Tolley at Internet Archive here. It often has free access to older volumes (unfortunately not the Wright volume). ch (talk) 01:47, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Oooooooh I apologize I met like a mini boxer rebellion on a battle scale not a war scale, I did not mean to imply otherwise.

And I only mean to add bits to the Battle of Yangxia and the 1911 Revolution#Wuchang Uprising not a whole new article. I mean I would if I found enough material maybe a separate article. I have a feeling that maybe there is more on this somewhere but not in English. Or if it is in English it is buried in an archive somewhere.

Also you found Kemp Tolley's entire book for free online? Can you send me a link? That would save me some reading time when I don't have my book right in front of me. Thank you. (: Historyguy1138 (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

By the way there is a separate article I am working on that I think I want to make into a stub, but do not know how. What do I do exactly? (: Historyguy1138 (talk) 03:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Good that you're systematically searching for articles that need improvement. I think the recent Stubathon was much needed. Making a stub is not hard. In fact there is a group, Wikipedia:Stub Makers! There's a useful article Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft.

The Internet Archive is a great but limited resource, but often you can find books by searching a topic on Google Scholar, which will give you maybe a few actual online books but and a million references, especially articles and book reviews you can then get on the Wikipedia Library.

Internet Archive has Tolley's memoir, but not the Yangzi patrol book you want. It's a real problem for people like you and me to get books, though often there are affordable copies at places like Better World Books. But it seems to me that you are doing the right thing by systematically finding a group of related topics. Maybe you can make a list of the American military officers involved and make sure that they have articles or stubs? The article on Smedley Butler is a model.

Cheers in any case! ch (talk) 15:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

This has all been very helpful thank you.

Ah the old "gangster for capitalism" yes, a mixed morals and complex man, but none the less fascinating historically.

In the future I may approach you for other inquiries about the various Yangtze patrols of other countries and small conflicts. (: Historyguy1138 (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2025 (UTC)