Xu Xilin

Xu Xilin (1873–1907) was a Chinese revolutionary born in Dongpu, Shanyin, Shaoxing, Zhejiang during the Qing dynasty. In 1903, he traveled to Japan, where he assisted in rescuing Zhang Taiyan, who had been arrested for spreading anti-Qing views. Xu established a publishing house and a public school named Yuejun in Shaoxing with Zong Nengsu and Wang Ziyu. He was invited into the Guangfuhui (China Restoration Society) in 1904 by Cai Yuanpei and Tao Chengzhang in Shanghai. Through his connection to the society, he met his cousin Qiu Jin, whom he introduced to Guangfuhui. Xu declined to join Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary league, the Tongmenghui, when Guangfuhui merged with it. In 1906, he purchased an official rank and was appointed head of police in Anqing, Anhui province. On July 6, 1907, he was arrested before the scheduled Anqing Uprising, part of the Xinhai Revolution. During his interrogation, Xu confessed to planning to assassinate Manchu officials, including En Ming, the provincial governor of Anhui, due to his hatred of the Manchu ethnicity. He was executed by slow slicing the next day, and his heart and liver were consumed by En Ming's guards. Xu's family was arrested by the Qing authorities. His son, Xu Xuewen (1906–1991), who was under 16 at the time, was spared castration due to the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912. Xu Xuewen later married a German woman, Maria Henriette Margarete Bordan, and they had a daughter, Xu Naijin (Nancy Zi) (1937–2005), who married Chiang Hsiao-wen, the son of ...