Qing Army balloon 1911

Sommer aircraft circa 1909

In the 103 days from June 11 to September 21, 1898, the Qing emperor, Guangxu ( 1875-1908), ordered a series of reforms aimed at making sweeping social and institutional changes. This effort reflected the thinking of a group of progressive scholar-reformers who had impressed the court with the urgency of making innovations for the nation’s survival. Influenced by the Japanese success with modernization, the reformers declared that China needed more than “self-strengthening” and that innovation must be accompanied by institutional and ideological change.

The imperial edicts for reform covered a broad range of subjects, including stamping out corruption and remaking, among other things, the academic and civil-service examination systems, legal system, governmental structure, defense establishment, and postal services. The edicts attempted to modernize agriculture, medicine, and mining and to promote practical studies instead of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. The court also planned to send students abroad for firsthand observation and technical studies. All these changes were to be brought about under a de facto constitutional monarchy.

Opposition to the reform was intense among the conservative ruling elite, especially the Manchus, who, in condemning the announced reform as too radical, proposed instead a more moderate and gradualist course of change. Supported by ultraconservatives and with the tacit support of the political opportunist Yuan Shikai ( 1859-1916), Empress Dowager Ci Xi ( ) engineered a coup d’ tat on September 21, 1898, forcing the young reform-minded Guangxu into seclusion. Ci Xi took over the government as regent. The Hundred Days’ Reform ( ) ended with the rescindment of the new edicts and the execution of six of the reform’s chief advocates. The two principal leaders, Kang Youwei ( 1858-1927) and Liang Qichao ( 1873-1929), fled abroad to found the Baohuang Hui ( or Protect the Emperor Society) and to work, unsuccessfully, for a constitutional monarchy in China.

The conservatives then gave clandestine backing to the antiforeign and anti-Christian movement of secret societies known as Yihetuan ( or Society of Righteousness and Harmony). The movement has been better known in the West as the Boxers (from an earlier name–Yihequan, or Righteousness and Harmony Boxers). In 1900 Boxer bands spread over the north China countryside, burning missionary facilities and killing Chinese Christians. Finally, in June 1900, the Boxers besieged the foreign concessions in Beijing and Tianjin, an action that provoked an allied relief expedition by the offended nations. The Qing declared war against the invaders, who easily crushed their opposition and occupied north China. Under the Protocol of 1901, the court was made to consent to the execution of ten high officials and the punishment of hundreds of others, expansion of the Legation Quarter, payment of war reparations, stationing of foreign troops in China, and razing of some Chinese fortifications.

In the decade that followed, the court belatedly put into effect some reform measures. These included the abolition of the moribund Confucian-based examination, educational and military modernization patterned after the model of Japan, and an experiment, if half-hearted, in constitutional and parliamentary government. The suddenness and ambitiousness of the reform effort actually hindered its success. One effect, to be felt for decades to come, was the establishment of new armies, which, in turn, gave rise to warlordism.

Aviation

Between 1901 and 1911, the Qing Dynasty government assigned students to go abroad to study aeronautical engineering and flying skills.

In 1905, Zhang Zhidong, the Huguang governor, obtained two reconnaissance balloons from Japan and demonstrated them in Wuchang. Balloon teams were established in the armies of the Hubei and Jiangsu provinces and in October of that year, the Hubei Army balloon team performed a demonstration during its autumn exercise at Taihu.

China’s First Aeroplane, 1909

Rene Vallon was a French aviator who had the honour of being the first person to fly an aircraft to, and in, China. His aircraft, Sommer mono- and bi-planes, caused a sensation in Shanghai when he conducted exhibition flights there in 1909-11.

From the outset the Shanghai community displayed the keenest interest in his flights, and although weather conditions several times precluded it, Vallon at last achieved a flight from Kiangwan to Shanghai and back again. It was a wonderful performance in that darkness had set in by the time the aviator returned to his hangar. For that performance the French Municipality of Shanghai presented Vallon with a prize.

The Chinese authorities, military and civil, were enamoured with the performances the aviator had achieved. Present at some of his flights various members of the Government of China who were all deeply impressed.

On Sunday, March 25 1909, General Hsu, commanding the Nanking Division of the Modern Army, was specially deputised by the Chinese Government to witness Vallon’s flights. The aviator made five ascents, and at the close of the demonstration the General observed that it was hardly possible to estimate the usefulness of such machines in time of war, and if the Chinese Government accepted the flying machine for military purposes, the makers of Vallon’s machines would be invited to China to build a number.

Vallon considered his machine as ‘leading edge’ as could be made by then known aviation technology. It was a Sommer biplane designed by Roger Sommer a German living in France, and although it only weighed 750lb, it was capable of carrying a weight of 2,000lb.

On his last flight, May 1911, he took off from a site in Kiangwan, but the wings collapsed while he was demonstrating the plane over the central racecourse and he was killed in the ensuring crash. As a minor consolation, the French named a street in their Shanghai Concession after him.