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Evening Drum and Morning Bell （3）
The Su Bao Case  |
| CCTV.COM 2002-06-23 10:06:47 |
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 The concession tablet in Museum of History of Shanghai is the witness to the history of Shanghai in the past 150 years. After the Opium War, according to Treaty of Nanjing, the Qing court made over a large piece of land to Britain. Since then concessions became an independent kingdom of foreigners.
In concessions, foreigners had their own administration, the municipal council, their own army and police.
The freedom upheld in concessions was a kind of British and American freedom. Apart from maintaining order in people’s livelihood and commerce, the authorities exercised little control on beliefs, opinions of public affairs, the press and publications. It actually provided relaxed environment for anti－Qing Chinese revolutionaries to express their views. Wangping Street was under concession jurisdiction. Dozens of newspaper offices and bookstores sprang up in this street which was barely 200 meters long, turning it into a newspapering center.
 In 1903, a lawsuit of a newspaper caught the attention of Shanghai’s cultural circles. Su Bao （“Jiangsu News”） was a commercial tabloid in the beginning. Zhang Shizhao became its chief editor in May. He had always been involved in anti－Qing activities and was seven times on the Qing court’s wanted list. Since he took over “Jiangsu News” he spread revolutionary ideas against the Qing court and published a preface to Zou Rong’s “The Revolutionary Army” and Zhang Binglin’s “Letter Refuting Kang Youwei’s Views on Revolution” and other articles calling on the establishment of a republic. In his article, Zhang Binglin even called Emperor Guangxu a clown. The Qing court decided to ban “Jiangsu News”. Nevertheless, concessions enjoyed extraterritoriality. In 1903, the concession municipal council proclaimed new regulations for case investigations. Since the Qing court was unable to try a case happened in the concession, it could only file a charge against Zhang Taiyan and others. In July 1903, the Qing government issued two imperial edicts to apply for the extradition of two men and the closing down of “Jiangsu News”. Thus started a six－month long negotiation between the Qing government and foreign consuls in Shanghai.
Empress Dowager Cixi in Beijing was very concerned. In order to suppress revolutionaries she could not but bow her head to the foreigners. In the Summer Palace, she entertained wives of foreign consuls and presented them with valuable gifts in order to achieve the extradition of criminals of the Su Bao case. In the courtroom, Zhang Binglin and Zou Rong defied death. The trial and the Qing court’s interference turned out to be a promotion for anti－Qing revolution. As their crimes were announced, the articles and ideas of Zhang Taiyan and others spread like wildfire. The trial went on for a whole year before the two men were sentenced to short－term imprisonment.
 In April 1905, Zou Rong died of illness in the prison at the age of 20. In 1906, Zhang Binglin was released and went to Japan.
Zou Rong and Zhang Binglin were like two stars in the night sky heralding dawn. Theirs were the greatest names in China in the beginning of the 20th century.
When the Qing court was plunged into a sorry plight by the “Su Bao” case, news of war trickled in from China’s northeast.
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