History of the Republic of China
On the other hand, since the failure of the Second Revolution, Sun Yat-sen and his allies were trying to rebuild the revolutionary movement. In July 1914 Sun established the Chinese Revolutionary Party (). He felt that his failures at building a consistent revolutionary movement stemmed from the lack of cohesiveness among its members. To that end, Sun required that party members to be totally loyal to Sun and follow a series of rather harsh rules. Some of his earlier associates, including Huang Xing, balked at the idea of such authoritarian organization and refused to join Sun. However, they agreed that the republic must not revert to imperial rule.
SMS Emden
"Emden" spent the first half of 1914 on the normal routine of cruises in Chinese and Japanese waters without incident. During the July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, "Emden" was the only German cruiser in Tsingtao; Spee's two armored cruisers, and , were cruising in the South Pacific and was en route to replace "Nürnberg" off the coast of Mexico. On 31 July, with war days away, Müller decided to put to sea to begin commerce raiding once war had been formally declared. Two days later, on 2 August, Germany declared war on Russia, and the following day, "Emden" captured the Russian steamer "Ryazan". The Russian vessel was sent back to Tsingtao, where she was converted into the auxiliary cruiser .