The Wuchang Uprising was an armed rebellion against the ruling Qing dynasty that took place in Wuchang (now a District of Wuhan), Hubei, China on 10 October 1911, beginning the Xinhai Revolution that successfully overthrew China's last imperial dynasty.

Toward the end of the Qing dynasty, some of the newly proposed administrative and national reforms were underway. One of them was the reorganization of the Chinese army, then called the Beiyang Army. It was mobilized to suppress violent resistors of the proposed railroad system. This phase of the uprising was propelled by underground revolutionary groups such as the Tongmenghui, which was formed from several factions. The Tongmenghui was being funded by the wealthy Sun family, who owned thousands of acres in Hawaii. When he heard about the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, Sun returned to China.

The rebel commander, Xiong Bingkun, gathered together all the revolutionary forces he could and prepared to attack the Qing forces with 100,000 men. The highly motivated revolutionaries, composed of revolutionary cells and ex-military soldiers, conquered Wuchang. The loyal members of the Beiyang Army under Yuan Shikai were called upon to suppress the rebellion. In the Battle of Yangxia, which took place between October and the beginning of December, fighting broke out at the cities of Hankou and Hanyang along the Yangtze River. However, the revolutionaries had inferior weapons and lost the battle at Hankou. The Beiyang Army then decided to burn the city. At Hanyang, the Qing army took possession of the munitions factory and destroyed the rebels' artillery. As many as 3,000 revolutionaries died there. Despite those setbacks, many other provinces defected, including Sichuan, Nanjing, and Shaanxi. In addition, the entire Qing navy defected.