It was during this period, from the decisive defeat of the dynasty by Japan in 1895 to the Republican Revolution of 1911-1912, that the Chinese revolutionaries most eagerly studied military manuals and sought to purchase Western arms to offset the great advantages gained by the modernized portions of the imperial army. Sun Yat-sen became almost as much a military authority as he was a political philosopher and leader; his chief military follower, General Huang Hsing, performed for the revolutionaries the services rendered for the regime by Yüan Shih-k'ai. On both sides there was the anxiety to master the mysteries of twentieth century warfare. The World War had not yet begun, nor had the staggering burdens of modern armament become evident. Great as were the improvements in fighting, prewar military organization seemed still primarily a matter of well-equipped infantry, properly led, properly drilled, and supported by adequate artillery and other auxiliary services. Wireless, gas, airplanes, tanks, submarines, torpedo launches, and mechanized or aerialized infantry were little more than a matter of speculation. The proportions of present-day military budgets no one could foresee. _The Army and the Republican Revolution_ The Republican Revolution of 1911-1912 was the last overt act in the collapse of the ideologically maintained social system; it brought armies into violently free play in the support of movements toward re-formation of the ideology and articulation and control of the society. On October 10, 1911, the troops of the Wuch'ang garrison rose in mutiny and sided with the revolution. A series of uprisings engineered by military and agitational leaders followed, province by province, all directed against the imperial power in the North. The use of violence in Chinese politics served to accentuate a condition which had affected China even in the earliest historic times--the unresolved contradictions between the North and the South. Differences of race, spoken language, and economy produced fundamental cleavages accentuated by temperament. Traditionally the North was more conservative and solidaristic, the South more rebellious and enterprising. Sun Yat-sen was a Southerner; militarism reached its sharpest effectiveness in the North.