Huang Yuanyong - Mystery of His Death

Mystery of His Death

Huang was assassinated while visiting San Francisco, United States on Christmas Day, 25 December 1915, at the age of 30.

The circumstances of Huang's death remain a mystery, not only because there was political instability in China, but also because he was assassinated in San Francisco, far from his home. As a result, there are several possible explanations for the incident.

There were two versions of the story of the murder of Huang. One possibility is that Huang was shot by a killer sent by Yuan Shikai as payback for Huang's opposition to Yuan's monarchic system. Another version was that he was mistakenly assassinated by Liu Beihai (劉北海), a member of the Zhonghua Revolutionary Party (中華革命黨), which was later known as the Nationalist Party (國民黨). The Party suspected that Huang was indeed working for Yuan, and his purpose for visiting the U.S. was to promote the monarchic system. However there is still not enough evidence to prove that Huang's death was related to Yuan, even today.

The date of Huang's assassination has also been called into some doubt. In the introduction of Yuansheng yi zhu 《遠生遺著》, a posthumous collection of Huang's articles, Lin Zhijun (林志鈞) recalled that he had heard the news on the night of 27 December 1915, and gives this date as the day of Huang's death. However, some scholars, including Li Shengduo (李盛鐸), believed that Huang was indeed killed on 25 December, as the date the news came did not necessarily have to be the day of the assassination. Therefore, generally, it has been accepted that the date of Huang's death was 25 December 1915.