November 28 1895, Guangzhou Someone leaked. Across the city, police raid homes and intercept squads of would-be rebels. When the triad strike force steps off the ferry, police meet them on the dock. Members of the revived China Society scatter, weaving through alleys, avoiding patrols; but as everyone flees, one man runs the other way. Lu Haodong, the man who designed the flag these would-be revolutionaries fight under, is headed into Guangzhou. He'd nearly escaped before he remembered something. He crashes into the bookshop they'd used as a headquarters. No soldiers? Good. He rifles around until he finds what he's looking for: the membership book: a register of everyone who's joined or supported the revived China Society Lu hears footsteps on the street. No time. He strikes a match. The book is curled to ashes by the time the soldiers take him. Kobe, Japan Sun Yat-sen steps off the steamer, finally safe. When things went sideways, he'd gone to ground in a church, smuggling himself to Macau after dark. He booked passage to Kobe not because he had a plan, but because it was the first ship that was available. Things were bad. The revived China Society was dispersed, out of contact. He'd seen posters offering ten thousand taels of silver for his capture. And, Sun had been banned from Hong Kong. Worse than that, the Revolution had its first martyrs. The governor of Guangzhou had executed five revolutionaries, including Lu Haodong. Lu: one of Sun's oldest friends, who'd helped him deface that idol all those years ago. He'd refused to talk, even under torture. But when Sun picks up a newspaper, he's shocked. The press is calling the uprising a revolution, not a rebellion. He was a revolutionary. A fugitive revolutionary, he reminded himself, living in exile and he needed to change his appearance if he wanted to stay alive. He rented a room and cut off his queue. The act was symbolic as well as practical: the Qing mandated the hairstyle by law. He bought his first set of Western clothes, shaved his unkept on the run stubble down to a mustache, and slicked his hair back with pomade. He looks at himself, a changed man. One who could blend in on the streets of Japan, or disappear into the China towns of Hawaii, the United States, or Southeast Asia Which was good, because he'd be living as an exile, on the run for the next 16 years. London 1896 Nearly a year since the uprising. A very humbling year. Sun had done a tour across Hawaii and the United States, founding new chapters of the revived China society, and soliciting donations. It hadn't gone well. The failed uprising had made him toxic. He barely raised enough from one stop to reach the next. Overseas Chinese in America didn't seem to understand his ideas and were skeptical of whether revolution was even possible. Each meeting attracted one or two dozen people. The only bright spot was an invitation from one of his old medical professors from Hong Kong: Dr. James Cantlie, to visit him in London. For Sun, it was an opportunity to study the British Government, understand the workings of this colonial power, and learn more about economic theory. He saw the sights, and spent days at the British Museum library; devouring economic and social works unavailable in Asia. Each night, he dined with Cantlie, asking questions and refining his ideas. And as he did so, he never noticed: he was being followed. In fact, Qing agents had shadowed him since San Francisco, where he'd been careless enough to pose for a newspaper photograph. That photograph had been posted to every Chinese consulate in America, with agents tracking his every move. Indeed, the Chinese Legation in London had prepared for his arrival. They'd hired a British detective agency to pick up his tail at the dock, and within a week, they knew his movements. And it just so happened that the Chinese Legation was around the corner from Dr. Cantlie's house, on a route Sun walked every day. The order came through: Bring. Him. In. October 11th. A Sunday morning. Sun walks toward the Cantlies' house planning to accompany them to church when two Chinese men approach him They smile, happy to see another countryman. They invite him into their house for tea. Sun offers to come back another time. But, they're insistent. They take his arms and half jokingly pulled him into an open door. He follows. Only when they bar the door does he realize his mistake. An hour later, he's locked alone in a room. A man enters: an elderly British man with a big white beard. He informs Sun that this is the Chinese Legation. British law doesn't apply here, and they have orders to place him under arrest. They're currently awaiting further orders from Beijing .The white bearded man sits down, leaning on his cane. And the questioning begins. October 17 Sun begs the housekeeper to help him. For days, he's tried to bribe the Legation's English servants to carry messages to Cantlie. Each time, they took his money and threw his notes away. He'd tried writing pleas for help and throwing them out the window, but the room they kept him in overlooks a courtyard and the white bearded man simply collects the notes. The man had stopped questioning him. Days before, he informed Sun that the government had booked passage on a steamer. Sun would be returned to China for execution. Sun spent his days and nights praying for deliverance. But now, he's breaking through with the English housekeeper. He begs her to send word to Cantlie: "His house is just around the corner, for pity's sake!" 11:30 p.m Dr. Cantlie's doorbell rings, but when he goes downstairs to answer he only finds a note pushed under the door. He reads it: Sun's been kidnapped. This can't wait until tomorrow. Cantlie knows about Qing justice. Within hours, his favorite student could be gone. And Cantlie knows a man who can help: Sir Halliday Macartney He'd fought with the Qing during the Taiping rebellion, and has connections in the Chinese Government. His house isn't far. Cantlie rings the doorbell. It's the middle of the night. He starts rapping on windows trying to wake someone Squinting to see into the dark house. No one's home. Not Macartney's wife, or his servants, and especially not the white bearded Macartney himself. He was, after all, at the Chinese Legation interrogating Sun. At a loss, Cantlie goes to the local police station. But it's the middle of the night on a Saturday, the time when drunks wander in telling wild stories. They dismiss him. He rushes to Scotland Yard. They take a statement, and tell him to go home. He's at the Foreign Office the moment it opens. They demure. They fear taking public action would endanger British businesses in China. But, the bureaucratic gears begin to turn. Worried that Sun might be smuggled out before authorities act, Cantlie hires a private detective to watch the Legation. Exhausted, he finally goes home. Waiting for him is another employee from the Legation delivering a letter. It's from Sun in his own handwriting on the back of two of his business cards. Hard evidence. And from it, he learns that Sir Halliday Macartney is not a potential ally he Sun's jailer. If Macartney had been home, Cantlie's request for help might have signed his death warrant. And at the exact same time, Macartney is undergoing his own revelation. Unwittingly, Cantlie had hired the same detective agency the Legation had used to shadow Sun. The agency sends Macartney a message: Cantlie knows. It's too late to smuggle Sun out. Things are in motion. The next morning, The Foreign Office leans on Scotland Yard, and within hours the police have the Legation under 24-hour surveillance. Cantlie leaks the story to the press. The headlines are dynamite: Secret Agents Kidnapping a Man on British Soil! A Western Trained Doctor Marked for Death! An English Aristocrat Behind the Outrage! It becomes a sensation. Reporters surround the Legation. The Foreign Office Threatens China with diplomatic reprisals. And that afternoon, after 12 days of detention, Sun walks out the front door and into a horde of photographers. The Qing had tried to silence him. Instead, they'd made him an international celebrity. Sun had entered the Legation as a failed rebel, and emerged as the face of Chinese Revolution. And the press loved Sun. He was a great interviewee: intelligent, charming, and well-mannered. And he was good at crafting his message to target different audiences. Westerners, he knew, liked their revolutionaries moderate. He played up his Christianity and pushed for reforms, saving his more radical ideas for Chinese ears. For, as he conversed with European intelligentsia, and pored over books at London libraries, he started asking questions: Capitalism had built Britain, but how could such a rich society have so many poor people? American Government was an ideal, true, but it didn't live up to its tenants of racial equality. He dreamed of land reform, buying properties from tycoons at fair market value, and distributing it to China's landless peasants. He studied socialist thinkers, and interpreted Abraham Lincoln's words: "of the people, by the people, and for the people" as both a call for participatory government and a fairer economic system. And gradually, his gaze drifted back towards Asia. In London, he befriended a Japanese botanist who introduced him to a new movement: Pan-Asianism; an ideology that proposed Asian countries unify in the fight against Western imperialism. Tokyo, he said, had become a hotbed of Chinese revolutionaries, Philippine independence activists, and Japanese ultra-nationalist syndicates. And, it was awash with black market weapons. "it sounded like a good place to build an alliance", Sun thought. "And, to plan another uprising."
