Chen Jiongming
Chen Jiongming (; 18 January 187822 September 1933), courtesy name Jingcun (竞存/競存), nickname Ayan (阿烟/阿煙), was a Chinese lawyer, military general, revolutionary, anarchist and politician who was best known as a Hailufeng Hokkien revolutionary figure in the early period of the Republic of China. Early life Chen Jiongming was born in 1878 at Haifeng, Guangdong, China as Chen Jie. He was born into a landlord family of moderate wealth and sent to study the Confucian classics in a private school by his grandfather at the age of 5, having been raised by him since his father died in 1881. His grandfather died in 1882, leaving the Chen family with declining wealth. He received the literary degree of Xiucai in 1899, adopting the name Jiongming ("To Illuminate Brightly"), and later the courtesy name Jingcun ("To Compete for Survival"). He married Huang Yun, the daughter of the principal of the school he attended, birthing eight children, five of which were daughters - Buoyao, Biyao, Ruiyao, Shuyao, and Weiyao, and three of which were sons: Dingxia, Dingyan, and Dingbing. In 1904, Chen attended the Haifeng Normal School to train to become a schoolteacher, graduating and applying for a teaching position at the advanced primary school in Haifeng in 1905. He was initially supposed to be the principal, but was banned from joining for his revolutionary ideas. He occasionally went to Huizhou to tutor wealthy students for the district examination. In early 1906, he tried to create a private normal school for training teachers. When that plan failed, he attended the Academy of Law and Political Science in Guangzhou and graduated in August 1908. Early revolutionary During his time at the Academy of Law and Political Science, Chen and his friends often used their vacations to return to Haifeng and promote their Self-Government Association (Zizhihui), trying to eradicate opium smoking, improving local grain depots, and creating nurseries for children. As the East River region was becoming more disorderly, the Governor-General (Zongdu) in Guangzhou gave the magistrate in Huizhou the power to execute prisoners without trial at the scene of the crime, leading to the arrest and execution of everyone in sight when the magistrate heard of a disturbance, once arresting a 13-year-old boy, of which his release was appealed successfully, but to no avail as the villagers discovered he had been executed the day before the appeal went through. Due to this misconduct, the local gentry pleaded to remove the magistrate, but the position of lead petitioner was not taken up by anyone initially, due to the risk of execution if the Governor-General proved the accusations to be false. Therefore, Chen was asked to take up the position for a reward of 1000 US Dollars. He replied, saying that he would first look into the matter himself. He collected evidence and interviewed witnesses, and went to Guangzhou to confront the Governor-General, successfully defending the petition and impeaching the magistrate, later donating his monetary reward at the Huizhou Fraternal Association in Guangzhou, explaining that he