In this work, the system generally used to romanize Chinese names is pinyin. However, I have kept to traditional usage where it is firmly established; thus Sun Yat-Sen (rather than Sun Yixian), Chiang Kai-shek (rather than Jiang Jieshi), Canton (rather than Guangzhou), and Kuomintang (rather than Guomindang).

Early on in Sun Yat-sen's political career, raising funds to carry out revolutionary activities against the Qing dynasty was his primary occupation. Sun Yat-sen was very adept at finding the necessary funding for his fledgling revolution. "His talent for finding the necessary funding was one of the main reasons Sun earned the title "Father of the Revolution," since he was actually in the United States when the revolution finally occurred in October 1911."[1] Financial and political issues were intimately intertwined from the period of 1894-1911. His persuasive rhetorical skills, dedication, and passion appealed to a broad range of people who contributed to his causes. In his fundraising he drew from family as well as the overseas Chinese communities in Hawaii, North America, Southeast Asia, and Japan. After the establishment of his Xingzhonghui, the precursor of his Tongmenhui and later Kuomintang, Sun successfully raised funds to support his fledgling revolution through a variety of means. "Wherever Sun traveled, he found groups of Hua Qiao(Overseas Chinese) working as successful merchants, students in need of training, and exiled intellectuals. This community of interlinked expatriate Chinese was still linked to the motherland through multiple solidarities--clanic, religious, dialectical, economic--that extended beyond any territorial or national base."[2] Included in these solidarities was their secret societies. Sun joined their secret societies and used his ties with Hongmen secret societies to gain their financial help.

After an extensive investigation, it does not appear Sun Yat-sen had many contacts in his youth with the secret societies he would later join, coopt, and use to overthrow the Qing dynasty, but Sun was certainly aware of them. The only documented contact Sun had with a Triad member during his youth was with Zheng Shiliang, a purported high ranking triad member, who Sun met during his medical training in Canton in 1882. Sun Yat-sen was certainly aware of the triad traditions of clandestine brotherhood, loyalty to the Ming dynasty, and hostility to the Qing Dynasty that had survived for two centuries in the Triads of his native southern China(footnote 14). Sun Yat-sen was also certainly cognizant of the Triad's role in the Taiping revolt which occurred in the 1850's and 1860's and was able to capture 8 Chinese provinces, including his native Canton. After all, Sun's friends nicknamed him Hong Xiuquan, after the famous Taiping revolutionary leader.[3]

Sun Yat-sen's relationship to the overseas Chinese diaspora and their secret societies was fundamental to securing the financial backing and muscle for his revolutionary activities during the period of 1894-1911. Sun once said: "Hua Qiao is the mother of the revolution." Although the intrinsic nature of these secret brotherhoods precluded the detailed documentation of the majority of these events, Sun's relationship with one particular secret society, the Hongmen was so extensive that adequate records do exist, including his own memoirs, to reconstruct many of his dealings with them.[4]

Sun's official relationship with the Hongmen began in 1903, when he joined the Ket On Society. The Ket On Society was a Hongmen organization based on the Hawaiian Islands, primarily Maui and Oahu. Although Sun was made a full member in 1903, his reasons for joining were somewhat devious because the Hongmen were committed to overthrowing the Qing dynasty and reestablishing the Ming dynasty. The goal of Sun's revolutionary ambitions were the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of a Republic based on his three principles of the people in it's place. Although at this point Sun and the Hongmen's aspirations were not in agreement, strategically, it was a smart move to join the Hongmen, because Hongmen brethren were completely committed to aiding fellow brethren and Sun capitalized on this fully. At this time in Chinese history, the Triads were not only enormously influential abroad but also, one of the only bodies capable of anything like a national influence within China itself. [5] In addition, Sun's friend from his Canton days and triad member, Zheng Shiliang, pointed out the huge destabilizing force that could be represented by these secret lodges with their already organized and committed members trained in violent and clandestine action.[6]

"Sun Yat-sen, whose sole strength frequently lay in his powers of persuasion, knew that in order to convince you need to speak the language of the person you are dealing with. He was capable of operating in missionary circles as in the lodges of secret societies, in merchant guilds as in students' cultural societies, and was as active in Tokyo, London and San Francisco as he was in Hong Kong, Hanoi, and Singapore."[7] In fact, Sun's stature, power of persuasion, and rhetorical skills was of such high caliber that, after his induction into the Hongmen , he was promoted to marshal, the second highest position in the society.[8]

In 1904, Sun sailed to San Francisco, which hosted a significant community of overseas Chinese and the headquarters for the Hongmen in America. Using the authority invested in him in Honolulu when he was promoted to marshal in the Hongmen, he convinced leaders of the society to let him rewrite its bylaws. Sun produced a constitution of 80 articles that overnight converted the Hongmen into a revolutionary group with goals mirroring those of his revolutionary Tongmenhui group formed many years before. "Needless to say, Sun attempted to extract money from Hongmen members. Article 62b of the constitution stipulated that all members had to re-register each year by sending $1.00 to the head office. The potential contributions were enormous since the organization had one hundred thousand members."[9] Sun Yat-sen himself estimated that were potentially some 35 million secret society members in China proper alone.[10]

Sun realized that if he was to utilize the Hongmen for his own purposes, he would first have to create an anti-Qing feeling among it's brethren. He tried to do this by propagandizing the Qing slaughter of Han Chinese during the Qing takeover of the Chinese Capital and the subsequent three centuries of oppression that followed. He next needed to arouse interest in political insurrection and to portray the Hongmen as a revolutionary organization with a long fighting tradition. This he tried to do by inviting members to remember the story of their genesis contained in the Xi Lu legend. In summary, the political situation of 1911 compelled the revolutionaries to develop a convenient interest in the origins of the Hongmen and portray it as a key element in the early Chinese resistance against the Manchurian Qing dynasty. In playing up the Hongmen as a nationalist revolutionary body founded by Ming loyalists for the purpose of overthrowing the Qing dynasty they gave rise to certain perceptions regarding the origins of the Hongmen and were thus able to manipulate the Hongmen for their own revolutionary and financial means.[11]

Sun himself spoke of this effort in his memoirs:

"Amongst the Chinese emigrants in America I found an even more sleepy atmosphere then in the Philippines. I crossed the continent from San Francisco to New York. On my way I stopped at various places for a few days—for ten days at the most—everywhere preaching that to save our mother country from threatening destruction we must overthrow the Qing dynasty, and that the duty of every Chinese citizen was to help to reconstruct China on a new democratic basis.

Although I spared no effort in this propaganda, the people to whom it was directed remained apathetic and little responsive to the ideas of the Chinese Revolution. At that time, however there were fairly widespread amongst the Chinese emigrants the so-called Hongmen societies, although by my time they had been reduced to little more than mutual aid clubs...

The Chinese people were in constant conflict with the Imperial officials, and never abandoned their opposition to the Qing dynasty. The watchwords: "Down with Qing! " and "Long live Ming !" were near and dear to many Chinese. But the same cannot be said of our overseas emigrants, as they, being abroad in a free country, had no necessity to organize societies of a fighting character. Therefore in America the Hongmen societies naturally lost their political color, and became benefit clubs. Many members of the Hongmen societies did not rightly understand the meaning and exact aims which their society pursued. When I approached them, during my stay in America, and asked them, why did they want to overthrow the Qing dynasty and restore the Ming dynasty, very many were not able to give me any positive reply. Later, when our comrades had carried on a protracted revolutionary propaganda in America for several years, members of the Hongmen societies at last realized they were old nationalist revolutionaries." [12]

While in Victoria, Canada on the eve of the 1911 Chinese revolution, Sun experienced a financial windfall with the Hongmen. Sun was scheduled to address a large crowd of over one thousand Hongmen in their society building. Sun had previously given 3 nights of speeches to a very receptive and supportive audience. Now was the fourth a final night of this series of speeches. He set out a scheme with local Hongmen members in which they could harness this enthusiastic local support and turn it into a financially lucrative occasion. "They decided that Sun would give an exceptionally passionate speech and leave the auditorium directly after finishing it. Playing on the emotional high that Sun would have created, Hongmen leaders would suggest that they mortgage the society's building and offer the money to Sun. This strategy paid off, as the organization wholeheartedly supported the idea and agreed to give the money to Sun."[13]

Sun expertly employed his rhetorical skills, power of persuasion, and passion for his cause to manipulate the Hongmen's support and create a domino effect of financial support across the rest of Canada. "Soon Hongmen societies in Montreal and Toronto mortgaged their buildings, and a few wealthy merchants donated generously to the cause. Much of the groundwork had been laid for Sun, but he certainly was the inspiration that triggered this financial windfall. This effort enabled Sun to send $70,000 to the Tongmenhui office in Hong Kong and this money was primarily responsible for funding the revolt in April 1911."[14]

In April 1911, Sun's forces were able to successfully overthrow the Qing dynasty with the help of his Hongmen henchmen, however, this was by all means not the final chapter in the relationship between the Hongmen and politics in China during the Republican period and onwards.

While some secret societies worked with Chiang Kai-Shek and his Kuomintang, others decided to ally with the Communists.

Much scholarship has been done regarding the Kuomintang's relationship with the secret societies. Both the Qingbang(Green Gang) and Hongbang(Red Gang) secret societies were utilized during the Civil War period in Shanghai. "The Green Gang was often hired to break up union meetings and labor strikes, and was also involved in the Chinese Civil War. The Green Gang was a major financial supporter of Chiang Kai-Shek, who became acquainted with the gang when he lived in Shanghai from 1915 to 1923."[15] Primarily, they were used to break up popular movements involving such groups as: students, factory workers, and suspected communists. In a notorious and bloody incident, the Qingbang captured and executed a large number of accused communists in Shanghai's French concession. "Carrying the name of the Society for Common Progress, it was responsible for the White Terror massacre of approximately 5,000 pro-Communist strikers in the City of Shanghai in April 1927. This massacre was ordered by Nationalist leader General Chiang Kai-Shek, who later granted triad boss Du Yuesheng the rank of General in the Nationalist army as a reward for conducting the massacre."[16]

The Green Gang shared its profits from the drug trade with the Kuomintang after the creation of the Opium Suppression Bureau. "In November 1927, for instance, the Shanghai Opium Suppression Bureau seized a shipment of between four hundred and five hundred cases of Persian opium, worth perhaps $2,500,000, on the Chinese section of the waterfront..Green Gang boss Du Yuesheng prevailed upon Bai Chongxi--head of the Kuomintang military in Shanghai--to release it, and Bai permitted its delivery to the French Concession."[17] An interesting side note is that Bai Chongxi was a Chinese Muslim of Persian descent from Guangxi province who opened the first mosque in Taipei. "Control of the opium traffic and its dealings with the workers and the bourgeoisie inevitably involved the Green Gang leadership in the politics of Shanghai and it's environs. Not only did the Green Gang leaders maintain close relations with a succession of warlord regimes, but they also became caught up in the revolutionary politics of the 1920s through their contacts with the two revolutionary parties of the time, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party."[18]

An important focus for the Kuomintang/Green Gang relationship was their involvement in Chiang Kai Shek's anti-communist coup of April 1927. "The support that the Green Gang bosses gave to Chiang at this time was necessary but not in itself, a sufficient condition for the creation of a stable relationship between themselves and the new state system established by the Kuomintang after 1927-28. This was a complex relationship shaped by a number of factors and going through a number of phases during the Nanjing decade."[19] The turning point came with the crisis provoked by the the Shanghai Incident in 1932. In the aftermath of this crisis Du Yuesheng emerged clearly as the most powerful Green Gang boss in Shanghai and the region. "He participated fully in the new corporatist state created by the Nanjing Government, and through this participation enhance significantly his political and economic power."[20]

Hard labor, mass arrests, and infiltration by intelligence organizations were all means contemplated by the Communists from 1921 until 1949 in regards to neutralizing the Hongmen's relationship with the Kuomintang. "As early as 1926, Mao Zedong expressed his concern over the growing influence of the secret societies among the lower strata of society. He perhaps conceived the problem as more a political issue than a social evil, and felt very uneasy about the close collaboration between the Kuomintang and the secret societies."[21]

During this time, however, these secret societies were not dismembered or outlawed by the communists. In fact, Mao and the communists, in order to achieve their aim "...were directed to join secret societies, which at that time controlled the workers unions in big cities, mainly those in the Eastern part of China, such as Shanghai. Party members were instructed to swear allegiance to the leaders of both the Qingbang and a Hongbang and those who joined as initiated members were told to learn their respective societies rules and adhere to them strictly in order to grain promotion to the administrative level."[22]

Mao Zedong went as far as appealing in personal correspondence to the Hongmen to unite with his Communist party for the liberation of the Chinese people from the bonds of oppression. However, his personal invitation didn't garner a warm welcome until 1937 when war was ultimately declared between China and the Empire of Japan. When war was declared the Kuomintang and the Communists agreed to establish a National United Front to combat the Japanese aggression on the Mainland. However, by 1937, numerous high ranking military commanders of the Communist party had already become sworn members of the Elder Brothers secret society who were active all over Northern, Western, and Central China.[23]

"In the end, though, all secret societies were outlawed soon after the Communist take-over of China in 1949."[24] A little known fact is that a prominent Hongmen leader stood atop the Tiananmen in Beijing alongside Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949 as he announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China. This Hongmen member was the leader of the San Francisco based Zhigongdang who helped finance Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolution many years prior.


Bergere, Marie-Claire, Sun Yat-sen (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)

Damon, Allen F., "Financing Revolution: Sun Yat-sen and the Overthrow of the Ch'ing Dynasty" The Hawaiian Journal of History 25 (1991): 161-186

Grasso, June M., Modernization and revolution in China: from the Opium Wars to world power (New York: M.E. Sharp, 2004)

Low, Cheryl-Ann, "Chinese Triads: Perspectives on Histories, Identities, and Spheres of Impact." Singapore History Museum Journal (2002) Pages: 1-65

Martin, Brian G., The Shanghai Green Gang: politics and organized crime, 1919-1937 (California: University of California Press, 1996)

Murray, Diane, The origins of the Tiandihui (Stanford: University Press Stanford, 1994)

Slack, Edward R., Opium, State and Society: China's Narco-economy and the Guomindang, 1924-1937 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2001)

Yatsen, Sun, Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, A Programme of National reconstruction for China by Sun-Yat-Sen (London: 1927): 190-192


[1] Grasso 1994 p. 74
[2] Bergere 2000 p. 6
[3] Bergere 2000 p.34
[4] Damon 1991 p.47
[5] Murray 1994 p.117
[6] Bergere 2000 p. 36
[7] Bergere 2000 p. 6
[8] Damon 1991 p. 50
[9] Damon 1991 p. 51
[10] Low 2002 p. 65
[11] Murray 1994 p. 122
[12] Yatsen 1927 190-192
[13] Damon 1991 p. 52
[14] Damon 1991 p. 53
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gang
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Gang
[17] Slack 2001 p. 82
[18] Martin 1996 p. 6
[19] Martin 1996 p. 6
[20] Martin 1996 p. 6
[21] Low 2002 p. 39
[22] Low 2002 p. 40
[23] Low 2002 p. 40
[24] Low 2002 p. 40