The tomb of Hong Quanfu, a forgotten revolutionary, has been discovered in Hong Kong's Happy Valley Cemetery.

Hong Quanfu was the brother of Hong Xiuquan, the king of the "Taiping heavenly kingdom," territory ruled for more than a decade by Taiping insurgents, the South China Morning Post reported.

The uprising against the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was brutally suppressed in 1864.

Hong Quanfu was a prince of the short-lived "kingdom" who fought in the Taiping army. But when the Qing army captured the rebel capital of Nanjing, he fled to Hong Kong.

A Hong Kong historian said the discovery of Hong's grave helped reinforce Hong Kong's role as the cradle of the prolonged revolution against the Qing Dynasty.

His grave had been untended for several decades when it was found by Andy Tse Kwok-cheong, an adviser to the Hong Kong Museum of History, and Joseph Ting Sun-pao, chief curator of the museum.

Tse said he learned about the existence of Hong's tomb through reading historical records in the Beijing Municipal Archives. It was a fitting discovery for Tse, whose grandfather, Tse Tsan-tai, was a co-organizer of the failed Taiping uprising.

Hong teamed up with Tse to plot an uprising to capture Guangzhou in January 1903.

The Guangzhou uprising failed, and provincial authorities arrested hundreds of revolutionaries.

Hong shaved his head and escaped to Singapore in disguise. He later returned to Hong Kong and died in 1904 at the age of 68.

Tse, who joined forces with Sun Yat-sen to form the Society for the Restoration of China in 1895, founded the South China Morning Post in November 1903 — soon after the abortive uprising — to espouse revolutionary ideals.

(Shenzhen Daily November 17, 2004)