On October 10 of the third year of Xuantong Period of the Qing Dynasty (1911), an armed uprising broke out in Wuchang. Before uprising, with the purpose of overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty, bourgeois revolutionaries conducted deep and wide propaganda and mobilization and founded various revolutionary organizations in Wuhan. In earlier September 1911, the Qing Government moved part of the Hubei new army to Sichuan for suppressing the people's uprising there, which made a good chance for the uprising in Wuhan. On September 14th, Literature Society and gongjinhui, the two greatest revolutionary organizations in Hubei, jointly founded the uprising headquarters in Wuchang and decided to rise up. On the morning of October 9th, the bomb at the office of the political arrangement exploded accidentally and unfortunately, and the uprising proclamation, beadroll and official seal fell into the hands of Rui Cheng, the governor-general of Hunan and Hubei, who demolished the uprising headquarters in Wuchang the same day, and decided to raid the revolutionaries according to the beadroll. At this critical moment, the conductors from the basal backbones of revolutionary organizations contacted each other secretly and made a decision of immediate uprising.

On the night of 10th, the revolutionaries fired to rise in revolt at the engineering barracks of new army, and then led on the new army of all barracks to rise up successively. Under the guidance of Wu Zhaolin, Cai Jimin, etc., the revolutionary army seized the official residence of the governor and government offices including fan, nie, etc. in Hubei. Rui Cheng fled in panic into the Chu-Yu Ship anchored by the river, and Zhang Biao, the controller of Qing army, also discarded the city and fled away. On the morning of 11th, the revolutionary army took the whole city of Wuchang. But the leaders such as Jiang Yiwu, Sun Wu disappeared then, thus the acephalous revolutionary army recommended Li Yuanhong, the assistant governor of Qing army, as the commander-in-chief, founded Hubei Military Government, proclaimed the abolishment of the Qing Dynasty's imperialism and the founding of Republic of China, as well as published an open telegram for call to uprising of every province. As the beginning of the Revolution of 1911 (led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty), Wuchang Uprising played a most important role in raising upsurge of the democratic revolution, which also was called "the lead in launching the Revolution of 1911" since 1911 was the year of xinhai in traditional Chinese chronology.