謝纘泰

繁體中文

謝纘泰（1872–1938），原名謝贊泰，字聖安，號康如，1872年生於澳洲悉尼，籍貫廣東開平。他父親謝日昌係太平天國部將、洪門洪順堂香主，太平天國滅亡後逃到澳洲，所以謝纘泰自細就孕育咗反清思想。1887年他隨父移居香港，就讀中央書院（皇仁書院前身），畢業後喺香港政府工務局任文員近十年，亦曾任洋行買辦同經理。1892年他同楊衢雲等人在上環百子里創辦輔仁文社，被認為係近代中國第一個反清革命組織；1895年他加入興中會，係僅次於楊衢雲、孫中山嘅第三號人物，負責對外交涉工作，並參與策劃乙未廣州起義，起義失敗後留港處理善後。1898年他創作《時局圖》，以漫畫揭露列強瓜分中國嘅危機，被視為中國第一張現代意義嘅漫畫。他亦係航空先驅，1899年設計出「中國號」飛艇圖樣，係中國歷史上最早嘅飛艇設計。1902年他聯同李紀堂、洪全福聯絡會黨，創立「大明順天國」計劃攻佔廣州，因泄密而失敗。1903年他與克寧漢創辦《南華早報》並任編輯。中華民國成立後，他獲聘為臨時稽勳局名譽審議，但好快退出官場，轉營農、礦業；1924年他喺《南華早報》發表英文《中華民國革命秘史》，對孫中山多所批評，令他喺國民黨官方史書中幾乎消失。1938年4月4日，他喺灣仔軒尼詩道寓所病逝，終年六十五歲。

English

Tse Tsan-tai (1872–1938) was born in Sydney to a family from Kaiping, Guangdong. His father Tse Yat-cheong had been a general of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and an elder of a Triad lodge, and after the Taipings fell he fled to Australia, where his son's anti-Qing convictions took shape. Tse moved to Hong Kong with his father in 1887 and studied at the Central School (later Queen's College), then worked for nearly ten years as a clerk in the government's Public Works Department and later as a comprador and manager for foreign firms. In 1892 he and Yeung Ku-wan founded the Furen Literary Society in Pak Tsz Lane, Sheung Wan, regarded as the first anti-Qing revolutionary organisation in modern China. Joining the Revive China Society in 1895 as its third-ranking figure after Yeung and Sun Yat-sen, he handled its external affairs and helped plan the 1895 Guangzhou uprising, staying in Hong Kong afterwards to deal with the aftermath. In 1898 he drew The Situation in the Far East, exposing the scramble for concessions; it is considered China's first modern political cartoon. An aviation pioneer as well, he produced in 1899 the design for a 'China' airship, the earliest such plan in Chinese history. In 1902 he joined Lee Kai-tong and Hung Chuen-fuk in organising secret-society networks for the Datong Shuntian Kingdom plot to seize Guangzhou, which failed after a leak. With Alfred Cunningham he founded the South China Morning Post in 1903 and served as its editor. After the Republic was founded he was appointed an honorary adviser to the bureau for rewarding revolutionary merit, but soon left public life for farming and mining; in 1924 the South China Morning Post published his English memoir The Secret History of the Chinese Revolution, which was sharply critical of Sun Yat-sen and helped erase him from official Kuomintang history. He died at his home on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai on 4 April 1938, aged 65.