Transformation Of The Gentry’s Political Identities Around The Time Of Constitutional Monarchy

The late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic period bears the most drastic changes in the history of China. Social ideologies and thoughts such as constitutional monarchy and democratic republicanism surged forward. Social stratum differentiation accelerated, and the country was still subject to domestic strife and foreign aggression. The constitutionalism in late Qing dynasty, including the superincumbent provisional constitution-making of Qing government and the bottom-up constitutionalism movement launched by the Constitutionalists, was a self-rescue political reform faced with a changing world order in Modern China, which profoundly changed the Chinese politics and society before the Revolution of 1911.This study chooses Sun Hong Yi, a figure who was engaged in constitutionalism movement in late Qing dynasty, and tries to probe into the political upheavals of Modern China from the perspective of figure study. Sun Hong Yi, as a pioneer of constitutional force, headed the petition of "Comrades of Petition for Convening Parliament" several times, advocated the convening of parliament, founded many political parties advocating constitutionalism and has experienced the political transformation from upholding constitutionalism to fighting against Yuan Shih-kai and autocratic monarchy. This paper is intended to examine the ideological changes of Sun Hong Yi in the constitutionalism movement in late Qing dynasty through consulting and sorting historical data. It centers on Sun’s interpersonal communication and specific acts and thus investigates his political transformation in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic period, which bears the academic value of filling the vacancy and making up the deficiencies in this sphere of learning.