Book: The Fight For The Republic in China

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It was said that China could never hope to continue as a nation
unless the constitutional monarchical form of state were adopted;
and if quarrels like those occurring in Mexico and Portugal were to
take place in China, we would soon share the fate of Annam and
Burmah. A large number of people then advocated the restoration of a
monarchy and advanced arguments which were reasonable. In this
proposal all the military and civil officials, scholars and people
concurred; and prayers were addressed to me in most earnest tone by
telegram and in petitions. Owing to the position I was at the time
holding, which laid on me the duty of maintaining the then existing
situation, I repeatedly made declarations resisting the adoption of
the advice; but the people did not seem to realize my embarrassment.
And so it was decided by the acting Li Fa Yuan (_i.e._ the Senate)
that the question of _Kuo-ti_ (form of State) should be settled by
the Convention of Citizens' Representatives. As the result, the
representatives of the Provinces and of the Special Administrative
Areas unanimously decided in favour of a constitutional monarchy,
and in one united voice elected me as the Emperor. Since the
sovereignty of the country has been vested in the citizens of China
and as the decision was made by the entire body of the
representatives, there was no room left to me for further
discussion. Nevertheless, I continued to be of the conviction that
my sudden elevation to the Great Seat would be a violation of my
oath and would compromise my good faith, leaving me unable to
explain myself; I, therefore, declined in earnest words in order to
make clear the view which hath always been mine. The said Senate
however, stated with firmness that the oath of the Chief Executive
rested on a peculiar sanction and should be observed or discarded
according to the will of the people. Their arguments were so
irresistible that there was in truth no excuse for me further to
decline the offer.

Therefore I took refuge behind the excuse of "preparations" in order
that the desire of the people might be satisfied. But I took no
steps actually to carry out the programme. When the trouble in
Yunnan and Kueichow arose, a mandate was officially issued
announcing the decision to postpone the measure and forbidding
further presentation of petitions praying for the enthronement. I
then hastened the convocation of the Li Fa Yuan (_i.e._, a new
Parliament) in order to secure the views of that body and hoping
thus to turn back to the original state of affairs, I, being a man
of bitter experiences, had at once given up all ideas of world
affairs; and having retired into the obscurity of the river Yuan (in
Honan), I had no appetite for the political affairs of the country.
As the result of the revolution in Hsin Hai, I was by mistake
elected by the people. Reluctantly I came out of my retirement and
endeavoured to prop up the tottering structure. I cared for nothing,
but the salvation of the country. A perusal of our history of
several thousand years will reveal in vivid manner the sad fate of
the descendants of ancient kings and emperors. What then could have
prompted me to aspire to the Throne? Yet while the representatives
of the people were unwilling to believe in the sincerity of my
refusal of the offer, a section of the people appear to have
suspected me of harbouring the desire of gaining more power and
privileges. Such difference in thought has resulted in the creation
of an exceedingly dangerous situation. As my sincerity has not been
such as to win the hearts of the people and my judgment has not been
sound enough to appraise every man, I have myself alone to blame for
lack of virtue. Why then should I blame others? The people have been
thrown into misery and my soldiers have been made to bear hardships;
and further the people have been cast into panic and commerce has
rapidly declined. When I search my own heart a measure of sorrow
fills it. I shall, therefore, not be unwilling to suppress myself in
order to yield to others.

I am still of the opinion that the "designation petitions" submitted
through the Tsan Cheng Yuan are unsuited to the demands of the time;
and the official acceptance of the Imperial Throne made on the 11th
day of the 12th month of last year (11th December, 1915) is hereby
cancelled. "The designation petitions" of the Provinces and of the
Special Administrative Areas are hereby all returned through the
State Department to the Tsan Cheng Yuan, _i.e._, the acting Li Fa
Yuan (Parliament), to be forwarded to the petitioners for
destruction; and all the preparations connected therewith are to
cease at once. In this wise I hope to imitate the sincerity of the
Ancients by taking on myself all the blame so that my action may
fall in line with the spirit of humanity which is the expression of
the will of Heaven. I now cleanse my heart and wash my thoughts to
the end that trouble may be averted and the people may have peace.
Those who advocated the monarchical system were prompted by the
desire to strengthen the foundation of the country; but as their
methods have proved unsuitable their patriotism might harm the
country. Those who have opposed the monarchy have done so out of
their desire to express their political views. It may be therefore
presumed that they would not go to the extreme and so endanger the
country. They should, therefore, all hearken to the voice of their
own conscience and sacrifice their prejudices, and with one mind and
one purpose unite in the effort of saving the situation so that the
glorious descendants of the Sacred Continent may be spared the
horrors of internal warfare and the bad omens may be changed into
lucky signs.

In brief I now confess that all the faults of the country are the
result of my own faults. Now that the acceptance of the Imperial
Throne has been cancelled every man will be responsible for his own
action if he further disturbs the peace of the locality and thus
gives an opportunity to others. I, the Great President, being
charged with the duty of ruling over the whole country, cannot
remain idle while the country is racing to perdition. At the present
moment the homesteads are in misery, discipline has been
disregarded, administration is being neglected and real talents have
not been given a chance. When I think of such conditions I awake in
the darkness of midnight. How can we stand as a nation if such a
state of affairs is allowed to continue? Hereafter all officials
should thoroughly get rid of their corrupt habits and endeavour to
achieve merits. They should work with might and main in their
duties, whether in introducing reforms or in abolishing old
corruptions. Let all be not satisfied with empty words and entertain
no bias regarding any affair. They should hold up as their main
principle of administration the policy that only reality will count
and deal out reward or punishment with strict promptness. Let all
our generals, officials, soldiers and people all, all, act in
accordance with this ideal.

This attempt at an _Amende honorable_, so far from being well-received,
was universally looked upon as an admission that Yuan Shih-kai had
almost been beaten and that a little more would complete his ruin.
Though, as we have said, the Northern troops were fighting well in his
cause on the upper reaches of the great Yangtsze, the movement against
him was now spreading as though it had been a dread contagious disease,
the entire South uniting against Peking. His promise to open a proper
Legislative Chamber on 1st May was met with derision. By the middle of
April five provinces--Yunnan, Kueichow, Kwangsi, Kwangtung and
Chekiang--had declared their independence, and eight others were
preparing to follow suit. A Southern Confederacy, with a Supreme
Military Council sitting at Canton, was organized, the brutal Governor
Lung Chi Kwang having been won over against his master, and the scholar
Liang Ch'i-chao flitting from place to place, inspiring move after move.
The old parliament of 1913 was reported to be assembling in Shanghai,
whilst terrorist methods against Peking officials were bruited abroad
precipitating a panic in the capital and leading to an exodus of
well-to-do families who feared a general massacre.

An open agitation to secure Yuan Shih-kai's complete retirement and
exile now commenced. From every quarter notables began telegraphing him
that he must go,--including General Feng Kuo-chang who still held the
balance of power on the Yangtsze. Every enemy Yuan Shih-kai had ever had
was also racing back to China from exile. By the beginning of May the
situation was so threatening that the Foreign Legations became alarmed
and talked of concerting measures to insure their safety. On the 6th May
came the _coup de grace_. The great province of Szechuan, which has a
population greater than the population of France, declared its
independence; and the whole Northern army on the upper reaches of the
Yangtsze was caught in a trap. The story is still told with bated breath
of the terrible manner in which Yuan Shih-kai sated his rage when this
news reached him--Szechuan being governed by a man he had hitherto
thoroughly trusted--one General Chen Yi. Arming himself with a sword and
beside himself with rage he burst into the room where his favourite
concubine was lying with her newly-delivered baby. With a few savage
blows he butchered them both, leaving them lying in their gore, thus
relieving the apoplectic stroke which threatened to overwhelm him.
Nothing better illustrates the real nature of the man who had been so
long the selected bailiff of the Powers.

On the 12th May it became necessary to suspend specie payment in Peking,
the government banks having scarcely a dollar of silver left, a last
attempt to negotiate a loan in America having failed. Meanwhile under
inspiration of General Feng Kuo-chang, a conference to deal with the
situation was assembling at Nanking; but on the 11th May, the Canton
Military Government, representing the Southern Confederacy, had already
unanimously elected Vice-President Li Yuan Hung as president of the
Republic, it being held that legally Yuan Shih-kai had ceased to be
President when he had accepted the Throne on the previous 13th December.
The Vice-President, who had managed to remove his residence outside the
Palace, had already received friendly offers of protection from certain
Powers which he declined, showing courage to the end. Even the Nanking
Conference, though composed of trimmers and wobblers, decided that the
retirement of Yuan Shih-kai was a political necessity, General Feng
Kuo-chang as chairman of the Conference producing at the last moment a
telegram from the fallen Dictator declaring that he was willing to go if
his life and property were guaranteed.

A more dramatic collapse was, however, in store. As May drew to an end
it was plain that there was no government at all left in Peking. The
last phase had been truly reached. Yuan Shih-kai's nervous collapse was
known to all the Legations which were exceedingly anxious about the
possibility of a soldiers' revolt in the capital. The arrival of a first
detachment of the savage hordes of General Chang Hsun added Byzantine
touches to a picture already lurid with a sickened ruler and the
Mephistophelian figure of that ruler's _ame damnee_, the Secretary Liang
Shih-yi, vainly striving to transmute paper into silver, and find the
wherewithal to prevent a sack of the capital. It was said at the time
that Liang Shih-yi had won over his master to trying one last throw of
the dice. The troops of the remaining loyal Generals, such as Ni
Shih-chung of Anhui, were transported up the Yangtsze in an attempt to
restore the situation by a savage display,--but that effort came to
nought.

The situation had become truly appalling in Peking. It was even said
that the neighbouring province of Shantung was to become a separate
state under Japanese protection. Although the Peking administration was
still nominally the Central Government of China, it was amply clear to
observers on the spot that by a process of successive collapses all that
was left of government was simply that pertaining to a city-state of the
antique Greek type--a mal-administration dominated by the enigmatic
personality of Liang Shih-yi. The writ of the capital no longer ran more
than ten miles beyond the city walls. The very Government Departments,
disgusted with, and distrustful of, the many hidden influences at work,
had virtually declared their independence and went their own way,
demanding foreign dollars and foreign banknotes from the public, and
refusing all Chinese money. The fine residuum of undisputed power left
in the hands of the Mal-administrator-in-chief, Liang Shih-yi, was the
control of the copper cash market which he busily juggled with to the
very end netting a few last thousands for his own purse, and showing
that men like water inevitably find their true level. In all China's
tribulations nothing similar had ever been seen. Even in 1900, after the
Boxer bubble had been pricked and the Court had sought safety in flight,
there was a certain dignity and majesty left. Then an immense misfortune
had fallen across the capital; but that misfortune was like a cloak
which hid the nakedness of the victim; and there was at least no
pretence at authority. In the Summer of 1916, had it not been for the
fact that an admirable police and gendarmerie system, comprising 16,000
men, secured the safety of the people, there can be little doubt that
firing and looting would have daily taken place and no woman been safe.
It was the last phase of political collapse with a vengeance: and small
wonder if all Chinese officials, including even high police officers,
sent their valuables either out of the city or into the Legation Quarter
for safe custody. Extraordinary rumours circulated endlessly among the
common people that there would be great trouble on the occasion of the
Dragon Festival, the 5th June; and what actually took place was perhaps
more than a coincidence.

Early on the 6th June an electric thrill ran through Peking--Yuan
Shih-kai was dead! At first the news was not believed, but by eleven
o'clock it was definitely known in the Legation Quarter that he had died
a few minutes after ten o'clock that morning from uraemia of the
blood--the surgeon of the French Legation being in attendance almost to
the last. A certificate issued later by this gentleman immediately
quieted the rumours of suicide, though many still refused to believe
that he was actually dead. "I did not wish this end," he is reported to
have whispered hoarsely a few minutes before he expired, "I did not wish
to be Emperor. Those around me said that the people wanted a king and
named me for the Throne. I believed and was misled." And in this way did
his light flicker out. If there are sermons in stones and books in the
running brooks surely there is an eloquent lesson in this tragedy!
Before expiring the wretched man issued the following Death Mandate in
accordance with the ancient tradition, attempting as the long night fell
on him to make his peace with men:--

LAST MANDATE OF YUAN SHIH-KAI

The Min Kuo has been established for five years. Unworthily have I,
the Great President, been entrusted with the great task by the
citizens. Owing to my lack of virtue and ability I have not been
able fully to transform into deeds what I have desired to
accomplish; and I blush to say that I have not realized one
ten-thousandth part of my original intention to save the country and
the people. I have, since my assumption of the office, worked in
day and thought in the night, planning for the country. It is true
that the foundation of the country is not yet consolidated, the
hardships of the people not yet relieved, and innumerable reforms
are still unattended to. But by the valuable services of the civil
officials and military men, some semblance of peace and order has
been maintained in the provinces and friendly relations with the
Powers upheld till now.

While on the one hand I comfort myself with such things
accomplished, on the other hand I have much to blame myself for. I
was just thinking how I could retire into private life and rest
myself in the forest and near the springs in fulfilment of my
original desire, when illness has suddenly overtaken me. As the
affairs of the State are of gravest importance, the right man must
be secured to take over charge of the same. In accordance with
Article 29 of the Provisional Constitution, which states that in
case the office of the Great President should be vacated for certain
reasons or when the Great President is incapacitated from doing his
duties, the Vice-President shall exercise authority and power in his
stead. I, the Great President, declare in accordance with the
Provisional Constitution that the Vice-President shall exercise in
an acting capacity, the authority and power of the Great President
of the Chung Hua Min Kuo.

The Vice-President being a man of courtesy, good nature, benevolence
and wisdom, will certainly be capable of greatly lessening the
difficulties of the day and place the country on the foundation of
peace, and so remedy the defects of me, the Great President, and
satisfy the expectations of the people of the whole country. The
civil and military officials outside of the Capital as well as the
troops, police and scholars and people should doubly keep in mind
the difficulties and perils of the nation, and endeavour to maintain
peace and order to the best of their ability, placing before
everything else the welfare of the country. The ancients once said:
"It is only when the living do try to become strong that the dead
are not dead." This is also the wish of me, the Great President.

(Signed) TUAN CHI-JUI,
Secretary of State and
Minister of War

TSAO JU-LIN,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and
Communications.

WANG YI-TANG,
Minister of Interior.

CHOW TZU-CHI,
Minister of Finance.

LIU-KUAN-HSIUNG,
Minister of Navy.

CHANG TSUNG-HSIANG,
Minister of Justice and
Agriculture and Commerce.

CHANG KUO-KAN,
Minister of Education.

6th day of the 6th month of the 5th year of Chung Hua Min Kuo.

This tragic denouement did not fail to awaken within very few days
among thinking minds a feeling of profound sympathy for the dead man
coupled with sharp disgust for the part that foreigners had played--not
all, of course--but a great number of them. Briefly, when all the facts
are properly grouped it can be said that Yuan Shih-kai was killed by his
foreign friends--by the sort of advice he has been consistently given in
Constitutional Law, in Finance, in Politics, in Diplomacy. It is easy to
trace step by step the broad road he had been tempted to travel, and to
see how at each turning-point the men who should have taught him how to
be true and loyal to the Western things the country had nominally
adhered to from the proclamation of the Republic, showed him how to be
disloyal and untrue. The tragedy is one which is bound to be deeply
studied throughout the whole world when the facts are properly known and
there is time to think about them, and if there is anything to-day left
to poetic justice the West will know to whom to apportion the blame.

Yuan Shih-kai, the man, when he came out of retirement in 1911, was in
many ways a wonderful Chinese: he was a fount of energy and of a
physical sturdiness rare in a country whose governing classes have
hitherto been recruited from attenuated men, pale from study and the
lotus life. He had a certain task to which to put his hand, a huge task,
indeed, since the reformation of four hundred millions was involved, yet
one which was not beyond him if wisely advised. He was an ignorant man
in certain matters, but he had had much political experience and
apparently possessed a marvellous aptitude for learning. The people
needed a leader to guide them through the great gateway of the West, to
help them to acquire those jewels of wisdom and experience which are a
common heritage. An almost Elizabethan eagerness filled them, as if a
New World they had never dreamed of had been suddenly discovered for
them and lay open to their endeavours. China, hitherto derided as a
decaying land, had been born anew; and in single massive gesture had
proclaimed that she, too, would belong to the elect and be governed
accordingly.

What was the foreign response--the official response? In every
transaction into which it was possible to import them, reaction and
obscurantism were not only commonly employed but heartily recommended.
Not one trace of genuine statesmanship, not one flash of altruism, was
ever seen save the American flash in the pan of 1913, when President
Wilson refused to allow American participation in the great
Reorganization Loan because he held that the terms on which it was to be
granted infringed upon China's sovereign rights. Otherwise there was
nothing but a tacit endorsement of the very policy which has been
tearing the entrails out of Europe--namely militarism. That was the fine
fruit which was offered to a hopeful nation--something that would wither
on the branch or poison the people as they plucked it. They were taught
to believe that political instinct was the ability to misrepresent in a
convincing way the actions and arguments of your opponents and to profit
by their mistakes--not that it is a mighty impulse which can re-make
nations. The Republic was declared by the actions of Western bureaucrats
to be a Republic _pour rire_, not a serious thing; and by this false and
cruel assumption they killed Yuan Shih-kai.

If that epitaph is written on his political tombstone, it will be as
full of blinding truth as is only possible with Last Things.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The incident of Chen-chiao is very celebrated in Chinese annals. A
yellow robe, the symbol of Imperial authority, was thrown around General
Chao Kuang-ying, at a place called Chen-chiao, by his soldiers and
officers when he commanded a force ordered to the front. Chao returned
to the Capital immediately to assume the Imperial Throne, and was thus
"compelled" to become the founder of the famous Sung dynasty.

The "incident of Yuyang" refers to the execution of Yang Kuei-fei, the
favourite concubine of Emperor Yuan Tsung of the Tang dynasty. The
Emperor for a long time was under the alluring influence of Yang
Kuei-fei, who had a paramour named An Lo-hsan. The latter finally
rebelled against the Emperor. The Emperor left the capital and proceeded
to another place together with his favourite concubine, guarded by a
large force of troops. Midway, however, the soldiers threatened to rebel
unless the concubine was killed on the spot. The clamour was such that
the Emperor was forced to sacrifice the favourite of his harem, putting
her to death in the presence of his soldiers.




CHAPTER XIV

THE NEW REGIME,--FROM 1916 TO 1917


Within an hour of the death of Yuan Shih-kai, the veteran General Tuan
Chi-jui, in his capacity of Secretary of State, had called on
Vice-President Li Yuan-hung--the man whom years before he had been sent
to the Yangtsze to bring captive to Peking--and welcomed him as
President of the Republic. At one o'clock on the same day the Ministers
of the Allied Powers who had hastily assembled at the Waichiaopu
(Foreign Office), were informed that General Li Yuan-hung had duly
assumed office and that the peace and security of the capital were fully
guaranteed. No unrest of any sort need be apprehended; for whilst
rumours would no doubt circulate wildly as soon as the populace realized
the tragic nature of the climax which had come the Gendarmerie Corps and
the Metropolitan Police--two forces that numbered 18,000 armed men--were
taking every possible precaution.

In spite of these assurances great uneasiness was felt. The foreign
Legations, which are very imperfectly informed regarding Chinese affairs
although living in the midst of them, could not be convinced that
internal peace could be so suddenly attained after five years of such
fierce rivalries. Among the many gloomy predictions made at the time,
the most common to fall from the lips of Foreign Plenipotentiaries was
the remark that the Japanese would be in full occupation of the country
within three months--the one effective barrier to their advance having
been removed. No better illustration could be given of the inadequate
grasp of politics possessed by those whose peculiar business it should
be to become expert in the science of cause and effect. In China, as in
the Balkans, professional diplomacy errs so constantly because it has
in the main neither the desire nor the training to study dispassionately
from day to day all those complex phenomena which go to make up modern
nationalism. Guided in its conduct almost entirely by a policy of
personal predilections, which is fitfully reinforced by the recollection
of precedents, it is small wonder if such mountains of mistakes choke
every Legation dossier. Determined to have nothing whatever to do, save
in the last resort, with anything that savours of Radicalism, and
inclining naturally towards ideals which have long been abandoned in the
workaday world, diplomacy is the instinctive lover of obscurantism and
the furtive enemy of progress. Distrusting all those generous movements
which spring from the popular desire to benefit by change, it follows
from this that the diplomatic brotherhood inclines towards those truly
detestable things--secret compacts. In the present instance, having been
bitterly disappointed by the complete collapse of the strong man theory,
it was only natural that consolation should be sought by casting doubt
on the future. Never have sensible men been so absurd. The life-story of
Yuan Shih-kai, and the part European and Japanese diplomacy played in
that story, form a chapter which should be taught as a warning to all
who enter politics as a career, since there is exhibited in this history
a complete compendium of all the more vicious traits of Byzantinism.

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