When the Hundred Days’ Reform failed in 1898, Liang Qichao took refuge in the Japanese legation and urged Tan Sitong to escape with him. Tan refused. “In every country, reform has come through bloodshed. In China, no one has yet been heard to shed blood for reform, and that is why the country does not prosper. If someone must, let it begin with me.”
While awaiting execution, he is said to have written a poem with the line “I draw my sword and laugh toward heaven.” The diary of Tang Xuan, an official of the Board of Punishments at the time, records slightly different wording.