Huang Xing
The Wuchang Uprising took many revolutionary leaders by surprise; Huang Xing and Song Jiaoren were unable to reach Wuchang in time. Sun Yat-sen was traveling in the United States speaking to overseas Chinese to appeal for financial support when the uprising took place. Although Sun received a telegram from Huang Xing, he was unable to decipher it, and found out about the uprising the next morning in the newspaper. After the successful uprising in Wuchang, the revolutionaries sent telegraphs to other provinces and asked them to follow their suit, upon which eighteen provinces in Southern and Central China agreed to secede from the Qing government by the end of December, 1911.