Tan Sitong

Who was Tan Sitong?

Tan Sitong, courtesy name Fusheng, pseudonym Zhuangfei, was a well-known Chinese politician, thinker and reformist in the late Qing Dynasty; he was however, finally executed at the age of 33 when the Reformation Movement failed. He was one of the "Six gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform". He occupies a place of tremendous importance in modern Chinese history. To many contemporaries, his execution symbolised the political failure of Qing Dynasty's reformation from within itself and turned the intellectual class to seek violent and hostile means, through revolution, to overthrow the Qing Dynasty.