Kang Youwei (; Cantonese: Hōng Yáuh-wàih; 19March 185831March 1927) was a prominent political thinker and reformer in China of the late Qing dynasty. His increasing closeness to and influence over the young Guangxu Emperor sparked conflict between the emperor and his adoptive mother, the regent Empress Dowager Cixi. His ideas were influential in the abortive Hundred Days' Reform. Following the coup by Cixi that ended the reform, Kang was forced to flee. He continued to advocate for a Chinese constitutional monarchy after the founding of the Republic of China. Early life Kang was born on 19March 1858 in Su Village, Danzao Town, Nanhai County, Guangdong province (now the Nanhai District of Foshan City). According to his autobiography, his intellectual gifts were recognized in his childhood by his uncle. As a result, from an early age, he was sent by his family to study the Confucian classics to pass the Chinese civil service exams. However, as a teenager, he was dissatisfied with the scholastic system of his time, especially its emphasis on preparing for the eight-legged essays, which were artificial literary exercises required as part of the examinations. Studying for exams was an extraordinarily rigorous activity so he engaged in Buddhist meditation as a form of relaxation, an unusual leisurely activity for a Chinese scholar of his time. It was during one of these meditations that he had a mystical vision that became the theme for his intellectual pursuits throughout his life. Believing that it was possible to read every book and "become a sage", he embarked on a quasi-messianic pursuit to save humanity. Biography Kang called for an end to property and the family in the interest of an idealized future cosmopolitan utopia and cited Confucius as an example of a reformer and not as a reactionary, as many of his contemporaries did. The latter idea was discussed in great detail in his work A Study of Confucius as a Reformer of Institutions. He argued, to bolster his claims that the rediscovered versions of the Confucian classics were forged, as he treated in detail in A Study of the Forged Classics of the Xin Period. In 1879, Kang traveled to Hong Kong and he was shocked by the prosperity there, which started his interest in Western culture and thoughts. In 1882, Kang went to Beijing to take the imperial examination. When he was returning home, he stopped over in Shanghai