and bought many Western books there, and started developing his ideology based on these writings. He was influenced by Protestant Christianity in his quest for reform. In 1883, Kang founded the Anti-Footbinding Society near Canton. Kang Youwei launched the Society for the Study of National Strengthening (Qiangxue hui) in Beijing. It is the first political group established by reformists in China. Through it, Kang became acquainted with Governor-General Zhang Zhidong and received his financial support to inaugurate the Paper of the Society for the Study of the National Strengthening (Qiangxue bao) in January 1896. In the same month, the society was dissolved and the paper had to cease publication. Kang was a strong believer in constitutional monarchy and wanted to remodel the country after Meiji Japan. These ideas angered his colleagues in the scholarly class who regarded him as a heretic. In 1895, China was defeated by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War. To protest against Treaty of Shimonoseki, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and over 600 civil examination candidates signed a petition to the Guangxu Emperor, known to history as Gongche Shangshu movement. This movement is taken as the sign of the appearance of reformists and the start of Chinese mass political movements. Kang and his noted student, Liang Qichao, were important participants in a campaign to modernize China now known as the Hundred Days' Reform. The reforms introduced radical change into the Chinese government. Empress Dowager Cixi staged a coup that put an end to the reforms, put the Guangxu Emperor under house arrest, and ordered Kang's arrest and execution on the basis that he had tried to have her assassinated. Kang fled the country but also organized the Protect the Emperor Society which promoted the cause of the Guangxu Emperor, mainly in Chinese diaspora communities, and advocated the removal of Cixi. Kang relied on his principal American military advisor, General Homer Lea to head the military branch of the Protect the Emperor Society. Kang traveled throughout the world to promote his ideas. He competed with the revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen's Revive China Society and Revolutionary Alliance for funds and followers among overseas Chinese. Kang visited India twice, first in 1901–1903 and then again in October 1909, in part to study India, which he regarded as comparable to China. Although his information about Indian history was derived from English authors, he observed that India's plight as a colonised country