Letter to Miyazaki Toten1 (March 1917)
Esteemed Mr. Hakuro Toten:
We have long admired your lofty integrity, but fate has not granted us the privilege
of a meeting. Even from afar, your reputation is a source of inspiration.
You, sir, supported Mr. Huang2 in life with your spirit; in death, you mourn him
with your tears. Now he is to be buried, and you return, across ten thousand leagues
of billows, to stand at his grave and bid farewell to his coffin.3 Your lofty friendship
reaches as far as the sun and the moon; the sincerity of your mind moves demons and
gods. This is something rarely heard of throughout the whole world and never before
encountered either in the past or in the present. Zhifan4 and Zedong are Hunanese
students who have done some reading in the classics and have in substantial measure
established their aspirations. Today we long for the opportunity to gaze upon your
elegant countenance and to receive your magnificent teachings. If you, sir, actually
grant our request for a meeting, we will count ourselves fortunate indeed.5


1 Miyazaki Toten (1870–1922), also known as Miyazaki Torazo, as well as by the name used in
this letter, Hakuro Toten, was a Japanese friend and supporter of the Chinese revolutionaries of the
generation of Sun Yatsen and Huang Xing.


2 Huang Xing (1879–1916), zi Qingwu, hao Keqiang, originally named Zhen, was a Hunanese who
had been, with Sun Yatsen, one of the two fathers of the Chinese Revolution of 1911. In 1903 he was
one of the founders and president of the Society for China’s Revival, and in 1905 in Japan he joined
with Sun Yatsen in founding Sun’s principal revolutionary organization, the Tongmenghui. He died from
illness in Shanghai on October 31, 1916. Mao and Xiao here refer to him as “Huang gong”; the character
gong, which also has the meaning of duke, is the most respectful of the various Chinese equivalents for
“Mr.” His funeral was to be held in Changsha on April 15, 1917.


3 Miyazaki had come to Changsha sometime before March 7, for on that date he sent a dispatch to
a newspaper in Nagasaki giving his impressions of the city. For further details, see the translation of his
son’s article of 1967 on the subject, in M. Henri Day, Mao Zedong 1917–1927. Documents (Stockholm:
University of Stockholm, 1975), pp. 18–20 (Skriftserien for Orientaliska Studier no. 14). The precise
date of Mao’s letter is not known, but it was obviously written after Miyazaki’s arrival.


4 Xiao Zhifan, the co-signatory of this letter, also known as Xiao Zizhang, was a friend and fellow
student of Mao’s. For further details, see the note to Mao’s letter of August 3, 1915, to his elder brother,
Xiao Zisheng, and (regarding later developments) the note to Mao’s letter of February 19, 1920, to Tao
Yi.


5 Miyazaki Toten did indeed visit the First Normal School, not only to meet with Mao and Xiao,
but to give a talk there. See his son’s account, already cited, Day, Mao Zedong, p. 19.