近代湖南是一个绅权势力强大的省份,湖南绅士因镇压太平天国起义之功,长期在“忠义之邦”的形象中顾影自怜,反对一切外来的新生事物,以顽固、守旧而著称于世,但是由于甲午战败的强烈刺激,一向自负的湖南绅士开始由保守而激进,湖南由此成为了全国最富朝气的省份,湖南官绅创办的南学会和湖南保卫局,开创了地方自治的先声,冲击了传统的政治体制,为清末地方自治运动的兴起提供了重要的范例和有益的经验,也为20世纪20年代湖南盛极一时的省宪自治运动提供了掩人耳目的幌子。 In modern times, Hunan was a province with strong power of gentry. Due to the suppression of the power of the Taiping Rebellion, the Hunan gentleman, longstanding in the image of “loyalty and righteousness”, was self-pitying and objected to all foreign new things and was known to be stubborn and conservative. However, due to the strong stimulation of the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Hunan gentlemen, who had always been conceited, began to be conservative and radical. As a result, Hunan became the most prosperous province in the country. The Hunan Association and Hunan Security Bureau, founded by the Hunan gentry, set a precedent for local autonomy. , Shocked the traditional political system, provided an important example and useful experience for the rise of the local self-government movement in the late Qing dynasty, and provided a cover-up for the purpose of deceiving the people in the 1920s Hunan Province, a thriving provincial constitutional autonomy movement.