The Trend Of The Times, The Regional Environments, The Interpersonal Networks And The Individual Choices:Xiong Fanyu’s Circuitous Life

As an outstanding person in the last batch of Jin-shi, Xiong Fanyu, who played a major role in the Constitutional Movement and the political changes in Yunnan and Guizhou, had a certain influence in the political life during the period of the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China. Besides politics, he also made some achievements in finance and industry. Nevertheless, few scholars paid attention to this important historical figure in academia for a long time, and there were few related researches about him. In order to present the history objectively and completely, this dissertation sorts of his life experience with an analysis of his thoughts and activities in different times and the change of his identity and interpersonal networks on the basis of enough history materials.Xiong Fanyu encountered the teacher Yanxiu in youth, and built great relationships with schoolmates and the Liu Family of Xingyi when studying in Xuegu College and working in Bishan College. Since then Xiong achieved the rank of Jin-shi in the last imperial examinations in1904, and entered China’s political core zone from the marginal area in the traditional sense. He went to Japan and met a large number of intellectual elites and political elites when studying law and politics in Hosei University and Waseda University. He made newspapers, disseminated constitutionalism and lead the Congressional Petition Movement. After returning to the motherland, he was active in North China, like Beijing and Tianjing, took part in the Talents Recommendation Activity, and successively served as the provost of Henan college of law and politics, the president of Beiyang college of law and politics and the deputy county magistrate of Tianjing. And then, he went back to the Southwest, assisted Li Jingxi and Cai E in governing Yunnan, helped the Revolution Party finish the transfer of power in Yunnan peacefully, and was briefly involved in parliamentary politics in Shanghai and Nanjing at that period. After returning to Guiyang in1913, as an important member of the Constitutionalism Group-the Progressive Party and the provincial warlord group led by the Liu Family of Xingyi, he played a major role in politics and economy in Guizhou, while his personal interests transferred from politics to finance and industry gradually. He was in charge of the provincial finance as the governor of Guizhou Branch of Bank of China, and also engaged in sericulture industry and electric lighting industry actively. The Progressive Party-the Yanjiu Group lost military supports because of Cai E and Dai Kan’s death, meanwhile Xiong Fanyu’s interpersonal networks in national level was broken. In the process of intergenerational conflicts between the old and new provincial warlords, Xiong was assassinated as a victim of the warlord infighting.There are several factors which affected his life deeply. The first is the trend of the times. Xiong Fanyu followed the trend, and became a new intellectual from a traditional scholar-official, while the civil-military relation was changed because of the end of the imperial examination system.The second is the regional environments. Xiong Fanyu accepted constitutional thoughts in Guizhou in the Late Qing Dynasty, and then acquired political knowledge and fought for constitutionalism in Japan and North China. After returning to Guizhou, he made no big achievements, and was killed in the process of power struggles between warlords at last.The third is Xiong’s interpersonal networks, which consist of the regional part and the national part. The former is mainly formed by the Liu Family of Xingyi and linked with geographical relations and kinships. The latter includes Liang Qichao, Yang Du, Dai Kan and some other comrades with a common political ideal. Those two interpersonal circles are so different and overlapped intimately. Xiong Fanyu’s tragic life ending has an important stake in the break of his interpersonal networks in national level.The last is individual choices. The choices at some key points in life will bring a series of unpredictable chain reactions. Xiong’s choices in1909,1913and1920affected his life deeply.This dissertation focuses on the trend of the times, and the change of identity, the regional environments and the interpersonal networks, and tries to link the micro living of a person up to the macro history with two goals--figuring out Xiong Fanyu’s specific life experience and making a further understanding of the social change in modern China.