He became a radical politician soon after reaching Japan, and wrote two pamphlets which were popular among revolutionaries, A Sudden Look Back and An Alarm to Awaken the Age.

[3] In response to Russian and Japanese imperialism in Manchuria, he used his blood to write a few dozen letters that were distributed in schools in China.

[4] Chen Tianhua wrote in May 1903, a two part critique published in the Shanghai journal Subao entitled On the Corrupt and Rotten Hunan guanbao.

Chen criticized the gazette's contents for being too militant, prodding it to add essays and news and to slip free of the provincial authorities.

He committed suicide in Tokyo Bay by drowning himself to protest against Japanese restrictions imposed on the activities of Chinese students in December 1905.