Letter to Huang Yanpei
(June 10, 1952)

Source: Shuxin, p, 435,

See text Feb. 17, 1951, source note.

Mr. Renzhi:'
Your gracious letter of June 8 has been received. The year 1840 refe;
the year in which Lin Zexu” led the people's masses of Guangzhou inp
tance against the attack of the British, that is, the year of the so-called Op
War, It does not refer to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.’ I’m afraid our IT
ory has failed you. China's modem revolutionary Struggle has for its
first and foremost, the opposition against the invasion of imperialism.” h
fore it is possible to trace its roots to the Opium War and Lin Zexu mn |
Guangzhou “Battalion for the Suppression of the 'British™’ of its day. BU
would be far too remote to trace it to over two thousand years ago
memorate Chen Sheng and Wu Guang. That was a peasant uprising ¢
times, and not a modern revolution,
In response, and with my respect,
Mao Zedong

June 10

Notes

1. “Renzhi" is Huang"s zi, Foran explanation of this usage, see text Oct, 15, 1949, note 1
2. See text Feb, 14, 1957, now 1 :

involving several tens of thousands troops, overs thousand cavalry, and several hundred of ui
(a fairly large-scale uprising equivalent to the size and strength of a medium-sized siate of p oy
days). Chen was crowned by the insurrectionary troops and made his “capital” at Chen Ms
(today’s Husiyang sium, Henan). They were eventually defeated by the Qin general Zhang #
Chen and Wu's uprising ts known as the first popular (in Communist Chinese historiography t
first peasant) rebellion in China's history

4, See text Jul. 9, 1957, note 53,

5. This refers to the popular nickname given to the Guangdong militia that grew out of the al
yuanli Incident of tate May 1841. This incident, occurring in the second year of the “Opti

http: / /dz

y APRIL - JUNE 1952 / 269

+ was the culmination of severe rising tension between the Cantonese populace and the Brit-ws “uunioned in and off-harbor in Guangzhou (Canton). On May 29, 1841, a Britrsh patrol
gan usehold of Zhang Zhaoguang in the village of Tonghus, near Sanyuanli. The local
yiolated emed themselves and gathered on a hill fronting the British camp. For the next two
eines ~ was prolonged fighting, and on June |. the British troops were forced to reembark off

ey harbor. This incident is known to the Chinese as the first popular movement in Chi-
Gee history against imperialism. The history and significance of this event are discussed
f Wakeman (1966).