To describe briefly and intelligibly the series of transactions from the 1st January, 1912, when the Republic was proclaimed at Nanking by a handful of provincial delegates, and Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected Provisional President, to the coup d'etat of 4th November, 1913, when Yuan Shih-kai, elected full President a few weeks previously, after having acted as Chief Executive for twenty months, boldly broke up Parliament and made himself de facto Dictator of China, is a matter of extraordinary difficulty.
All through this important period of Chinese history one has the impression that one is in dreamland and that fleeting emotions take the place of more solid things. Plot and counter-plot follow one another so rapidly that an accurate record of them all would be as wearisome as the Book of Chronicles itself; whilst the amazing web of financial intrigue which binds the whole together is so complex—and at the same time so antithetical to the political struggle—that the two stories seem to run counter to one another, although they are as closely united as two assassins pledged to carry through in common a dread adventure. A huge agglomeration of people estimated to number four hundred millions, being left without qualified leaders and told that the system of government, which had been laid down by the Nanking Provisional Constitution and endorsed by the Abdication Edicts, was a system in which every man was as good as neighbour, swayed meaninglessly to and fro, vainly seeking to regain the equilibrium which had been so sensationally lost. A litigious spirit became so universal that all authority was openly derided, crimes of every description being so common as to force most respectable men to withdraw from public affairs and leave a bare rump of desperadoes in power.
Long embarrassed by the struggle to pay her foreign loans and indemnities, China was also virtually penniless. The impossibility of arranging large borrowings on foreign markets without the open support of foreign governments—a support which was hedged round with conditions—made necessary a system of petty expedients under which practically every provincial administration hypothecated every liquid asset it could lay hands upon in order to pay the inordinate number of undisciplined soldiery who littered the countryside. The issue of unguaranteed paper-money soon reached such an immense figure that the market was flooded with a worthless currency which it was unable to absorb. The Provincial leaders, being powerless to introduce improvement, exclaimed that it was the business of the Central Government as representative of the sovereign people to find solutions; and so long as they maintained themselves in office they went their respective ways with a sublime contempt for the chaos around them.
What was this Central Government? In order successfully to understand an unparalleled situation we must indicate its nature.
The manoeuvres to which Yuan Shih-kai had so astutely lent himself from the outbreak of the Revolution had left him at its official close supreme in name. Not only had he secured an Imperial Commission from the abdicating Dynasty to organize a popular Government in obedience to the national wish, but having brought to Peking the Delegates of the Nanking Revolutionary Body he had received from them the formal offer of the Presidency.
These arrangements had, of course, been secretly agreed to en bloc before the fighting had been stopped and the abdication proclaimed, and were part and parcel of the elaborate scenery which officialdom always employs in Asia even when it is dealing with matters within the purview of the masses. They had been made possible by the so-called "Article of Favourable Treatment" drawn- up by Yuan Shih-kai himself, after consultation with the rebellious South. In these Capitulations it had been clearly stipulated that the Manchu Imperial Family should receive in perpetuity a Civil List of $4,000,000 Mexican a year, retaining all their titles as a return for the surrender of their political power, the bitter pill being gilded in such fashion as to hide its real meaning, which alone was a grave political error.
In spite of this agreement, however, great mutual suspicion existed between North and South China. Yuan Shih-kai himself was unable to forget that the bold attempt to assassinate him in the Peking streets on the 17th January, when he was actually engaged in negotiating these very terms of the Abdication, had been apparently inspired from Nanking; whilst the Southern leaders were daily reminded by the vernacular press that the man who held the balance of power had always played the part of traitor in the past and would certainly do the same again in the near future.
When the Delegates came to Peking in February, by far the most important matter which was still in dispute was the question of the oath of office which Yuan Shih-kai was called upon to take to insure that he would be faithful to the Republic. The Delegates had been charged specifically to demand on behalf of the seceding provinces that Yuan Shih-kai should proceed with them to Nanking to take that oath, a course of action which would have been held tantamount by the nation to surrender on his part to those who had been unable to vanquish him in the field. It must also not be forgotten that from the very beginning a sharp and dangerous cleavage of opinion existed as to the manner in which the powers of the new government had been derived. South and Central China claimed, and claimed rightly, that the Nanking Provincial Constitution was the Instrument on which the Republic was based: Yuan Shih-kai declared that the Abdication Edicts, and not the Nanking Instrument had established the Republic, and that therefore it lay within his competence to organize the new government in the way which he considered most fit.
The discussion which raged was suddenly terminated on the night of the 29th February (1912) when without any warning there occurred the extraordinary revolt of the 3rd Division, a picked Northern corps who for forty-eight hours plundered and burnt portions of the capital without any attempts at interference, there being little doubt to-day that this manoeuvre was deliberately arranged as a means of intimidation by Yuan Shih-kai himself. Although the disorders assumed such dimensions that foreign intervention was narrowly escaped, the upshot was that the Nanking Delegates were completely cowed and willing to forget all about forcing the despot of Peking to proceed to the Southern capital. Yuan Shih-kai as the man of the hour was enabled on the 10th March, 1912, to take his oath in Peking as he had wished thus securing full freedom of action during the succeeding years. [Footnote: The defective nature of this oath of office will be patent at a glance: "At the beginning of the Republic there are many things to be taken care of. I, Yuan Shih-kai, sincerely wish to exert my utmost to promote the democratic spirit, to remove the dark blots of despotism, to obey strictly the Constitution, and to abide by the wish of the people, so as to place the country in a safe, united, strong, and firm position, and to effect the happiness and welfare of the divisions of the Chinese race. All these wishes I will fulfil without fail. As soon as a new President is elected by the National Assembly I shall at once vacate my present position. With all sincerity I take this oath before the people of China. "Dated the tenth day of March in the First Year of the Republic of China (1912)."
(Signed) Yuan Shih-kai.]
It was on this astounding basis—by means of an organized revolt— that the Central Government was re-organized; and every act that followed bears the mark of its tainted parentage. Accepting readily as his Ministers in the more unimportant government Departments the nominees of the Southern Confederacy (which was now formally dissolved), Yuan Shih-kai was careful to reserve for his own men everything that concerned the control of the army and the police, as well as the all-important ministry of finance. The framework having been thus erected, attention was almost immediately concentrated on the problem of finding money, an amazing matter which would weary the stoutest reader if given in all its detail but which being part and parcel of the general problem must be referred to.
Certain essential features can be very rapidly exposed. We have already made clear the purely economic nature of the forces which had sapped the foundations of Chinese society. Primarily it had been the disastrous nature of Chinese gold-indebtedness which had given the new ideas the force they required to work their will on the nation. And just because the question of this gold- indebtedness had become so serious and such a drain on the nation, some months before the outbreak of the Revolution an arrangement had been entered into with the bankers of four nations for a Currency Loan of 10,000,000 pounds with which to make an organized effort to re-establish internal credit. But this loan had never actually been floated, as a six months' safety clause had permitted a delay during which the Revolution had come. It was therefore necessary to begin the negotiations anew; and as the rich prizes to be won in the Chinese lottery had attracted general attention in the European financial world through the advertisement which the Revolution had given the country, a host of alternative loan proposals now lay at the disposal of Peking.
Consequently an extraordinary chapter of bargaining commenced. Warned that an International Debt Commission was the goal aimed at by official finance, Yuan Shih-kai and the various parties who made up the Government of the day, though disagreeing on almost every other question, were agreed that this danger must be fought as a common enemy. Though the Four-Power group alleged that they held the first option on all Chinese loans, money had already been advanced by a Franco-Belgian Syndicate to the amount of nearly two million pounds during the critical days of the Abdication. Furious at the prospect of losing their percentages, the Four Power group made the confusion worse confounded by blocking all competing proposals and closing every possible door. Russia and Japan, who had hitherto not been parties to the official consortium, perceiving that participation had become a political necessity, now demanded a place which was grudgingly accorded them; and it was in this way that the celebrated six-power Group arose.
It was round this group and the proposed issue of a 60,000,000 pounds loan to reorganize Chinese finance that the central battle raged. The Belgian Syndicate, having been driven out of business by the financial boycott which the official group was strong enough to organize on the European bourses, it remained for China to see whether she could not find some combination or some man who would be bold enough to ignore all governments.
Her search was not in vain. In September (1912) a London stockbroker, Mr. Birch Crisp, determined to risk a brilliant coup by negotiating by himself a Loan of 10,000,000 pounds; and the world woke up one morning to learn that one man was successfully opposing six governments. The recollection of the storm raised in financial circles by this bold attempt will be fresh in many minds. Every possible weapon was brought into play by international finance to secure that the impudence of financial independence should be properly checked; and so it happened that although 5,000,000 pounds was secured after an intense struggle, it was soon plain that the large requirements of a derelict government could not be satisfied in this Quixotic manner. Two important points had, however, been attained; first, China was kept financially afloat during the year 1912 by the independence of a single member of the London Stock Exchange; secondly, using this coup as a lever the Peking Government secured better terms than otherwise would have been possible from the official consortium.
Meanwhile the general internal situation remained deplorable. Nothing was done for the provinces whose paper currency was depreciating from month to month in an alarming manner; whilst the rivalries between the various leaders instead of diminishing seemed to be increasing. The Tutuhs, or Military Governors, acting precisely as they saw fit, derided the authority of Peking and sought to strengthen their old position by adding to their armed forces. In the capital the old Manchu court, safely entrenched in the vast Winter Palace from which it has not even to-day been ejected (1917) published daily the Imperial Gazette, bestowing honours and decorations on courtiers and clansmen and preserving all the old etiquette. In the North-western provinces, and in Manchuria and Mongolia, the socalled Tsung She Tang, or Imperial Clan Society, intrigued perpetually to create risings which would hasten the restoration of the fallen House; and although these intrigues never rose to the rank of a real menace to the country, the fact that they were surreptitiously supported by the Japanese secret service was a continual source of anxiety. The question of Outer Mongolia was also harassing the Central Government. The Hutuktu or Living Buddha of Urga—the chief city of Outer Mongolia—had utilized the revolution to throw off his allegiance to Peking; and the whole of this vast region had been thrown into complete disorder—which was still further accentuated when Russia on the 21st October (1912) recognized its independence. It was known that as a pendent to this Great Britain was about to insist on the autonomy of Tibet,—a development which greatly hurt Chinese pride.
On the 15th August, 1912, the deplorable situation was well- epitomised by an extraordinary act in Peking, when General Chang Cheng-wu, one of the "heroes" of the original Wuchang rising, who had been enticed to the capital, was suddenly seized after a banquet in his honour and shot without trial at midnight.
This event, trivial in itself during times when judicial murders were common, would have excited nothing more than passing interest had not the national sentiment been so aroused by the chaotic conditions. As it was it served to focus attention on the general maladministration over which Yuan Shih-kai ruled as provisional President. "What is my crime?" had shrieked the unhappy revolutionist as he had been shot and then bayonetted to death. That query was most easily answered. His crime was that he was not strong enough or big enough to compete against more sanguinary men, his disappearance being consequently in obedience to an universal law of nature. Yuan Shih-kai was determined to assert his mastery by any and every means; and as this man had flouted him he must die.
The uproar which this crime aroused was, however, not easily appeased; and the Advisory Council, which was sitting in Peking pending the assembling of the first Parliament, denounced the Provisional President so bitterly that to show that these reproaches were ill-deserved he invited Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the capital treating him with unparalleled honours and requesting him to act as intermediary between the rival factions. All such manoeuvres, however, were inspired with one object,—namely to prove how nobody but the master of Peking could regulate the affairs of the country.
Still no Parliament was assembled. Although the Nanking Provisional Constitution had stipulated that one was to meet within ten months i. e. before 1st November, 1912, the elections were purposely delayed, the attention of the Central Government being concentrated on the problem of destroying all rivals, and everything being subordinate to this war on persons. Rascals, getting daily more and more out of hand, worked their will on rich and poor alike, discrediting by their actions the name of republicanism and destroying public confidence—which was precisely what suited Yuan Shih-kai. Dramatic and extraordinary incidents continually inflamed the public mind, nothing being too singular for those remarkable days.
Very slowly the problem developed, with everyone exclaiming that foreign intervention was becoming inevitable. With the beginning of 1913, being unable to delay the matter any longer, Yuan Shih- kai allowed elections to be held in the provinces. He was so badly beaten at the polls that it seemed in spite of his military power that he would be outvoted and outmanoeuvred in the new National Assembly and his authority undermined. To prevent this a fresh assassination was decided upon. The ablest Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he had been paid 200 pounds for the job by the highest authority in the land, the evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no doubt as to who had instigated the murder.
The storm raised by this evil measure made it appear as if no parliament could ever assemble in Peking. But the feeling had become general that the situation was so desperate that action had to be taken. Not only was their reputation at stake, but the Kuomingtang or Revolutionary Party now knew that the future of their country was involved just as much as the safety of their own lives; and so after a rapid consultation they determined that they would beard the lion in his den. Rather unexpectedly on the 7th April (1913) Parliament was opened in Peking with a huge Southern majority and the benediction of all Radicals. [Footnote: The Parliament of China is composed of a House of Representatives numbering 596 members and a Senate of 274. The Representatives are elected by means of a property and educational franchise which is estimated to give about four million voters (1 per cent of the population) although in practice relatively few vote. The Senate is elected by the Provincial Assemblies by direct ballot. In the opinion of the writer, the Chinese Parliament in spite of obvious shortcoming, is representative of the country in its present transitional stage.] Hopes rose with mercurial rapidity as a solution at last seemed in sight. But hardly had the first formalities been completed and Speakers been elected to both Houses, than by a single dramatic stroke Yuan Shih-kai reduced to nought these labours by stabbing in the back the whole theory and practice of popular government.
The method he employed was simplicity itself, and it is peculiarly characteristic of the man that he should have been so bluntly cynical. Though the Provisional Nanking Constitution, which was the "law" of China so far as there was any law at all, had laid down specifically in article XIX that all measures affecting the National Treasury must receive the assent of Parliament, Yuan Shih-kai, pretending that the small Advisory Council which had assisted him during the previous year and which had only just been dissolved, had sanctioned a foreign loan, peremptorily ordered the signature of the great Reorganization Loan of 25,000,000 pounds which had been secretly under negotiation all Winter with the financial agents of six Powers, [Footnote: The American Group at the last moment dropped out of the Sextuple combination (prior to the signature of the contract) after President Wilson had made his well-known pronouncement deprecating the association of Americans in any financial undertakings which impinged upon the rights of sovereignty of a friendly Power,—which was his considered view of the manner in which foreign governments were assisting their nationals to gain control of the Salt Administration. The exact language the President used was that the conditions of the loan seemed "to touch very nearly the administrative independence of China itself," and that a loan thus obtained was "obnoxious" to the principles upon which the American government rests. It is to be hoped that President Wilson's dictum will be universally accepted after the war and that meddling in Chinese affairs will cease.] although the rupture which had come in the previous June as a forerunner to the Crisp loan had caused the general public to lose sight of the supreme importance of the financial factor. Parliament, seeing that apart from the possibility of a Foreign Debt Commission being created something after the Turkish and Egyptian models, a direct challenge to its existence had been offered, raged and stormed and did its utmost to delay the question; but the Chief Executive having made up his mind shut himself up in his Palace and absolutely refused to see any Parliamentary representatives. Although the Minister of Finance himself hesitated to complete the transaction in the face of the rising storm and actually fled the capital, he was brought back by special train and forced to complete the agreement. At four o'clock in the morning on the 25th April the last documents were signed in the building of a foreign bank and the Finance Minister, galloping his carriage suddenly out of the compound to avoid possible bombs, reported to his master that at last—in spite of the nominal foreign control which was to govern the disbursement— a vast sum was at his disposal to further his own ends.
Safe in the knowledge that possession is nine points of the law, Yuan Shih-kai now treated with derision the resolutions which Parliament passed that the transaction was illegal and the loan agreement null and void. Being openly backed by the agents of the Foreign Powers, he immediately received large cash advances which enabled him to extend his power in so many directions that further argument with him seemed useless. It is necessary to record that the Parliamentary leaders had almost gone down on their knees to certain of the foreign Ministers in Peking in a vain attempt to persuade them to delay—as they could very well have done—the signature of this vital Agreement for forty-eight hours so that it could be formally passed by the National Assembly, and thus save the vital portion of the sovereignty of the country from passing under the heel of one man. But Peking diplomacy is a perverse and disagreeable thing; and the Foreign Ministers of those days, although accredited to a government which while it had not then been formally recognized as a Republic by any Power save the United States, was bound to be so very shortly, were determined to be reactionary and were at heart delighted to find things running back normally to absolutism.
[Footnote: The United States accorded formal recognition to the Republic on the election of the Speakers of the two Houses of Parliament: the other Treaty Powers delayed recognition until Yuan Shih-kai had been elected full President in October. It has been very generally held that the long delay in foreign recognition of the Republic contributed greatly to its internal troubles by making every one doubt the reality of the Nanking transaction. Most important, however, is the historical fact that a group of Powers numbering the two great leaders of democracy in Europe— England and France—did everything they could in Peking to enthrone Yuan Shih-kai as dictator.]
High finance had at last got hold of everything it required from China and was in no mood to relax the monopoly of the salt administration which the Loan Agreement conferred. Nor must be the fact be lost sight of that of the nominal amount of 25,000,000 pounds which had been borrowed, fully half consisted of repayments to foreign Banks and never left Europe. According to the schedules attached to the Agreement, Annex A, comprising the Boxer arrears and bank advances, absorbed 4,317,778 pounds: Annex B, being so- called provincial loans, absorbed a further 2,870,000 pounds: Annex C, being liabilities shortly maturing, amounted to 3,592,263 pounds: Annex D, for disbandment of troops, amounted to 3,000,000 pounds: Annex C, to cover current administrative expenses totalled 5,500,000 pounds: whilst Annex E which covered the reorganization of the Salt Administration, absorbed the last 2,000,000 pounds. The bank profits on this loan alone amounted to 1 1/4 million pounds; whilst Yuan Shih-kai himself was placed in possession by a system of weekly disbursements of a sum roughly amounting to ten million sterling, which was amply sufficient to allow him to wreak his will on his fellow-countrymen. Exasperated to the pitch of despair by this new development, the Central and Southern provinces, after a couple of months' vain argument, began openly to arm. On the 10th July in Kiangse province on the river Yangtsze the Northern garrisons were fired upon from the Hukow forts by the provincial troops under General Li Lieh-chun and the so-called Second Revolution commenced.
The campaign was short and inglorious. The South, ill-furnished with munitions and practically penniless, and always confronted by the same well-trained Northern Divisions who had proved themselves invincible only eighteen months before, fought hard for a while, but never became a serious menace to the Central Government owing to the lack of co-operation between the various Rebel forces in the field. The Kiangse troops under General Li Lieh-chun, who numbered at most 20,000 men, fought stiffly, it is true, for a while but were unable to strike with any success and were gradually driven far back from the river into the mountains of Kiangse where their numbers rapidly melted away. The redoubtable revolutionary Huang Hsin, who had proved useful as a propagandist and a bomb-thrower in earlier days, but who was useless in serious warfare, although he assumed command of the Nanking garrison which had revolted to a man, and attempted a march up the Pukow railway in the direction of Tientsin, found his effort break down almost immediately from lack of organization and fled to Japan. The Nanking troops, although deserted by their leader, offered a strenuous resistance to the capture of the southern capital which was finally effected by the old reactionary General Chang Hsun operating in conjunction with General Feng Kuo-chang who had been dispatched from Peking with a picked force. The attack on the Shanghai arsenal which had been quietly occupied by a small Northern Garrison during the months succeeding the great loan transaction, although pushed with vigour by the South, likewise ultimately collapsed through lack of artillery and proper leadership. The navy, which was wholly Southern in its sympathies and which had been counted upon as a valuable weapon in cutting off the whole Yangtsze Valley, was at the last moment purchased to neutrality by a liberal use of money obtained from the foreign banks, under, it is said, the heading of administrative expenses! The turbulent city of Canton, although it also rose against the authority of Peking, had been well provided for by Yuan Shih-kai. A border General, named Lung Chi-Kwang, with 20,000 semi-savage Kwangsi troops had been moved near the city and at once attacked and overawed the garrison. Appointed Military Governor of the province in return for his services, this Lung Chi-kwang, who was an infamous brute, for three years ruled the South with heartless barbarity, until he was finally ejected by the great rising of 1916. Thoroughly disappointed in this and many other directions the Southern Party was now emasculated; for the moneyed classes had withheld their support to the end, and without money nothing is possible in China. The 1913 outbreak, after lasting a bare two months, ignominiously collapsed with the flight of every one of the leaders on whose heads prices were put. The road was now left open for the last step Yuan Shih-kai had in mind, the coup against Parliament itself, which although unassociated in any direct way with the rising, had undoubtedly maintained secret relations with the rebellious generals in the field.
Parliament had further sinned by appointing a Special Constitutional Drafting Committee which had held its sittings behind closed doors at the Temple of Heaven. During this drafting of the Permanent Constitution, admittance had been absolutely refused to Yuan Shih-kai's delegates who had been sent to urge a modification of the decentralization which had been such a characteristic of the Nanking Instrument. Such details as transpired showed that the principle of absolute money-control was not only to be the dominant note in the Permanent Constitution, but that a new and startling innovation was being included to secure that a de facto Dictatorship should be rendered impossible. Briefly, it was proposed that when Parliament was not actually in session there should be left in Peking a special Parliamentary Committee, charged with supervising and controlling the Executive, and checking any usurpation of power.
This was enough for Yuan Shih-kai: he felt that he was not only an object of general suspicion but that he was being treated with contempt. He determined to finish with it all. He was as yet, however, only provisional President and it was necessary to show cunning. Once more he set to work in a characteristic way. By a liberal use of money Parliament was induced to pass in advance of the main body of articles the Chapter of the Constitution dealing with the election and term of office of the President. When that had been done the two Chambers sitting as an Electoral College, after the model of the French Parliament, being partly bribed and partly terrorised by a military display, were induced to elect him full President.
On the 10th October he took his final oath of office as President for a term of five years before a great gathering of officials and the whole diplomatic body in the magnificent Throne Room of the Winter Palace. Safe now in his Constitutional position nothing remained for him but to strike. On the 4th November he issued an arbitrary Mandate, which received the counter-signature of the whole Cabinet, ordering the unseating of all the so-called Kuomingtang or Radical Senators and Representatives on the counts of conspiracy and secret complicity with the July rising and vaguely referring to the filling of the vacancies thus created by new elections. [Footnote: According to the official lists published subsequent to the coup d'etat, 98 Senators and 252 Members of the House of Representatives had their Parliamentary Certificates impounded by the police as a result of the Mandates of the 4th November, and were ordered to leave the Capital. In addition 34 Senators and 54 Members of the Lower House fled from Peking before their Certificates could be seized. Therefore the total number affected by the proscription was 132 Senators and 306 Representatives. As the quorums in the case of both Houses are half the total membership, any further sittings were thus made impossible.] The Metropolitan Police rigorously carried out the order and although no brutality was shown, it was made clear that if any of the indicted men remained in Peking their lives would be at stake. Having made it impossible for Parliament to sit owing to the lack of quorums, Yuan Shih-kai was able to proceed with his work of reorganization in the way that best suited him; and the novel spectacle was offered of a truly Mexican situation created in the Far East by and with the assent of the Powers. It is significant that the day succeeding this coup d'etat of the 4th November the agreement conceding autonomy to Outer Mongolia was signed with Russia, China simply retaining the right to station a diplomatic representative at Urga. [Footnote: A full copy of this agreement will be found in the appendix.]
In spite of his undisputed power, matters however did not improve. The police-control, judiciously mingled with assassinations, which was now put in full vigour was hardly the administration to make room for which the Manchus had been expelled; and the country secretly chafed and cursed. But the disillusionment of the people was complete. Revolt had been tried in vain; and as the support which the Powers were affording to this regime was well understood there was nothing to do but to wait, safe in the knowledge that such a situation possessed no elements of permanency.
With the Parliament of China effectively destroyed, and the turbulent Yangtsze Valley dragooned into sullen submission, Yuan Shih-kai's task had become so vastly simplified that he held the moment to have arrived when he could openly turn his hand to the problem of making himself absolutely supreme, de jure as well as de facto. But there was one remaining thing to be done. To drive the last nail into the coffin of the Republic it was necessary to discredit and virtually imprison the man who was Vice-President.
It is highly characteristic that although he had received from the hero of the Wuchang Rising the most loyal co-operation—a co- operation of a very arduous character since the Commander of the Middle Yangtsze had had to resist the most desperate attempts to force him over to the side of the rebellion in July, 1913, nevertheless, Yuan Shih-kai was determined to bring this man to Peking as a prisoner of state.
It was just the fact that General Li Yuan-hung was a national hero which impelled the Dictator to action. In the election which had been carried out in October, 1913, by the National Assembly sitting as a National Convention, in spite of every effort to destroy his influence, the personal popularity of the Vice- President had been such that he had received a large number of votes for the office of full President—which had necessitated not one but three ballots being taken, making most people declare that had there been no bribery or intimidation he would have probably been elected to the supreme office in the land, and ousted the ambitious usurper. In such circumstances his complete elimination was deemed an elementary necessity. To secure that end Yuan Shih- kai suddenly dispatched to Wuchang—where the Vice-President had resided without break since 1911—the Minister of War, General Tuan Chi-jui, with implicit instructions to deal with the problem in any way he deemed satisfactory, stopping short of nothing should his victim prove recalcitrant.
Fortunately General Tuan Chi-jui did not belong to the ugly breed of men Yuan Shih-kai loved to surround himself with; and although he was a loyal and efficient officer the politics of the assassin were unknown to him. He was therefore able to convince the Vice- President after a brief discussion that the easiest way out of the ring of intriguers and plotters in which Yuan Shih-kai was rapidly surrounding him in Wuchang was to go voluntarily to the capital. There at least he would be in daily touch with developments and able to fight his own battles without fear of being stabbed in the back; since under the eye of the foreign Legations even Yuan Shih- kai was exhibiting a certain timidity. Indeed after the outcry which General Chang Cheng-wu's judicial murder had aroused he had reserved his ugliest deeds for the provinces, only small men being done to death in Peking. Accordingly, General Li Yuan-hung packed a bag and accompanied only by an aide-de-camp left abruptly for the capital where he arrived on the 11th December, 1913.
A great sensation was caused throughout China by this sudden departure, consternation prevailing among the officers and men of the Hupeh (Wuchang) army when the newspapers began to hint that their beloved chief had been virtually abducted. Although cordially received by Yuan Shih-kai and given as his personal residence the Island Palace where the unfortunate Emperor Kwang Hsu had been so long imprisoned by the Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi after her coup d'etat of 1898, it did not take long for General Li Yuan-hung to understand that his presence was a source of embarrassment to the man who would be king. Being, however, gifted with an astounding fund of patience, he prepared to sit down and allow the great game which he knew would now unroll to be played to its normal ending. What General Li Yuan-hung desired above all was to be forgotten completely and absolutely—springing to life when the hour of deliverance finally arrived. His policy was shown to be not only psychologically accurate, but masterly in a political sense. The greatest ally of honesty in China has always been time, the inherent decency of the race finally discrediting scoundrelism in every period of Chinese history.
The year 1914 dawned with so many obstacles removed that Yuan Shih-kai became more and more peremptory in his methods. In February the young Empress Lun Yi, widow of the Emperor Kwang Hsu, who two years previously in her character of guardian of the boy- Emperor Hsuan Tung, had been cajoled into sanctioning the Abdication Edicts, unexpectedly expired, her death creating profound emotion because it snapped the last link with the past. Yuan Shih-kai's position was considerably strengthened by this auspicious event which secretly greatly delighted him; and by his order for three days the defunct Empress lay in State in the Grand Hall of the Winter Palace and received the obeisance of countless multitudes who appeared strangely moved by this hitherto unknown procedure. There was now only a nine-year old boy between the Dictator and his highest ambitions. Two final problems still remained to be dealt with: to give a legal form to a purely autocratic rule, and to find money to govern the country. The second matter was vastly more important than the first to a man who did not hesitate to base his whole polity on the teachings of Machiavelli, legality being looked upon as only so much political window-dressing to placate foreign opinion and prevent intervention, whilst without money even the semblance of the rights of eminent domain could not be preserved. Everything indeed hinged on the question of finding money.
There was none in China, at least none for the government. Financial chaos still reigned supreme in spite of the great Reorganization Loan of 25,000,000 pounds, which had been carefully arranged more for the purpose of wiping-out international indebtedness and balancing the books of foreign bankers than to institute a modern government. All the available specie in the country had been very quietly remitted in these troubled times by the native merchant-guilds from every part of China to the vast emporium of Shanghai for safe custody, where a sum not far short of a hundred million ounces now choked the vaults of the foreign banks,—being safe from governmental expropriation. The collection of provincial revenues having been long disorganized, Yuan Shih- kai, in spite of his military dictatorship, found it impossible to secure the proper resumption of the provincial remittances. Fresh loans became more and more sought after; by means of forced domestic issues a certain amount of cash was obtained, but the country lived from hand to mouth and everybody was unhappy. Added to this by March the formidable insurrection of the "White Wolf" bandits in Central China—under the legendary leadership of a man who was said to be invulnerable—necessitated the mobilization of a fresh army which ran into scores of battalions and which was vainly engaged for nearly half a year in rounding-up this replica of the Mexican Villa. So demoralized had the army become from long license that this guerilla warfare was waged with all possible slackness until a chance shot mortally wounded the chief brigand and his immense following automatically dispersed. During six months these pests had ravaged three provinces and menaced one of the most strongly fortified cities in Asia—the old capital of China, Hsianfu, whither the Manchu Court had fled in 1900.
Meanwhile wholesale executions were carried out in the provinces with monotonous regularity and all attempts at rising ruthlessly suppressed. In Peking the infamous Chih Fa Chu or Military Court— a sort of Chinese Star-Chamber—was continually engaged in summarily dispatching men suspected of conspiring against the Dictator. Even the printed word was looked upon as seditious, an unfortunate native editor being actually flogged to death in Hankow for telling the truth about conditions in the riverine districts. These cruelties made men more and more determined to pay off the score the very first moment that was possible. Although he was increasingly pressed for ready money, Yuan Shih- kai, by the end of April, 1914, had the situation sufficiently in hand to bring out his supreme surprise,—a brand-new Constitution promulgated under the euphonious title of "The Constitutional Compact."
This precious document, which had no more legality behind it as a governing instrument than a private letter, can be studied by the curious in the appendix where it is given in full: here it is sufficient to say that no such hocuspocus had ever been previously indulged in China. Drafted by an American legal adviser, Dr. Goodnow, who was later to earn unenviable international notoriety as the endorser of the monarchy scheme, it erected what it was pleased to call the Presidential System; that is, it placed all power directly in the hands of the President, giving him a single Secretary of State after the American model and reducing Cabinet Ministers to mere Department Chiefs who received their instructions from the State Department but had no real voice in the actual government. A new provincial system was likewise invented for the provinces, the Tutuhs or Governors of the Revolutionary period being turned into Chiang Chun or Military Officials on the Manchu model and provincial control absolutely centralized in their hands, whilst the Provincial Assemblies established under the former dynasty were summarily abolished. The worship at the Temple of Heaven was also re-established and so was the official worship of Confucius—both Imperialistic measures— whilst a brand-new ceremony, the worship of the two titulary Military Gods, was ordered so as to inculcate military virtue! It was laid down that in the worship of Heaven the President would wear the robes of the Dukes of the Chow dynasty, B. C. 1112, a novel and interesting republican experiment. Excerpts from two Mandates which belong to these days throw a flood of light on the kind of reasoning which was held to justify these developments. The first declares:
… "In a Republic the Sovereign Power is vested in the people, and the main principle is that all things should be determined in accordance with the desires of the majority. These desires may be embraced by two words, namely, existence and happiness. I, the President, came from my farm because I was unable to bear the eternal sufferings of the innocent people. I assumed office and tried vainly to soothe the violent feelings. The greatest evil nowadays is the misunderstanding of true principles. The Republicans on the pretext of public interest try to attain selfish ends, some going so far as to consider the forsaking of parents as a sign of liberty and regarding the violation of the laws as a demonstration of equality. I will certainly do my best to change all this."
In the second Mandate Yuan Shih-kai justifies the re-establishment of the Confucian worship in a singular way, incidentally showing how utterly incomprehensible to him is the idea of representative government, since he would appear to have imagined that by dispatching circular telegrams to the provincial capitals and receiving affirmative replies from his creatures all that is necessary in the way of a national endorsement of high constitutional measures had been obtained.
… "China's devotion to Confucius began with the reign of the Emperor Hsiaowu, of the Han dynasty, who rejected the works of the hundred authors, making the six Confucian classics the leading books. Confucius, born in the time of the tyranny of the nobility, in his works declared that after war disturbances comes peace, and with peace real tranquillity and happiness. This, therefore, is the fountain of Republicanism. After studying the history of China and consulting the opinions of scholars, I find that Confucius must remain the teacher for thousands of generations. But in a Republic the people possess sovereign power. Therefore circular telegrams were dispatched to all the provinces to collect opinions, and many affirmative answers have already been received. Therefore, all colleges, schools, and public bodies are ordered to revive the sacrificial ceremony of Confucius, which shall be carefully and minutely ordained" …
With the formal promulgation of the Constitutional Compact the situation had become bizarre in the extreme. Although even the child-mind might have known that powers for Constitution-making were vested solely in the National Assembly, and that the re- division of authority which was now made was wholly illegal, because Yuan Shih-kai as the bailiff of the Powers was able to do much as he pleased; and at a moment when Liberal Europe was on the eve of plunging into the most terrible war in history in defence of right against might, reaction and Prussianism of the most repulsive type were passed by unnoticed in China. In a few loosely drafted chapters not only was the governance of the country rearranged to suit a purely dictational rule, but the actual Parliament was permanently extinguished and replaced by a single Legislative Chamber (Li Fa Yuan) which from its very composition could be nothing but a harmless debating Society with no greater significance than a dietine of one of the minor German States. Meanwhile, as there was no intention of allowing even this chamber to assemble until the last possible moment, a Senate was got together as the organ of public opinion, ten Senators being chosen to draft yet another Constitution which would be the final one. Remarkable steps were taken a little later in the year (1914) to secure that the succession to the dictatorship should be left in Yuan Shih-kai's own hands. An elaborate ritual was contrived and officially promulgated under the title of the Presidential Succession Law on the 29th December whereby the Chief Executive selected three names which were placed in a gold box in a Stone House in the grounds of the Palace,—the gold box only to be opened when death or incapacity deprived the nation of its self- appointed leader. For the term of the presidency was openly converted into one of ten years and made subject to indefinite renewal by this precious instrument which was the work of the puppet senate. In case of the necessity of an election suddenly arising, an Electoral College was to be formed by fifty members drawn from the Legislative Chamber and fifty from the Senate, the Presidential candidates consisting of the President (if he so desired) and the three whose names were in the gold box in the Stone House in the Palace grounds. It is not definitely known to whom these provisions were due, but it is known that at least they were not the work of the American adviser.
His responsibility, however, was very great; for the keynote of all this scheme, according to Dr. Goodnow, [Footnote: It is significant that Dr. Goodnow carried out all his Constitutional Studies in Germany, specializing in that department known as Administrative Law which has no place, fortunately, in Anglo-Saxon conceptions of the State.] was "centralization of power," a parrot-like phrase which has deluded better men than ever came to China and which—save as a method necessary during a state of war —should have no place in modern politics. But it was precisely this which appealed to Yuan Shih-kai. Although as President he was ex officio Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he now turned this office into a direct and special organization installed within the precincts of the Imperial City. The flags of this new dictatorship constantly floated over his palace, whilst scores of officers were appointed to scores of departments which were directly concerned with centralizing the control of every armed man in the country in the master's hands. Meanwhile in order to placate provincial commanders, a "Palace of Generals," was created in Peking to which were brought all men it was held desirable to emasculate. Here, drawing ample salaries, they could sit in idleness the livelong day, discussing the battles they had never fought and intriguing against one another, two occupations in which the product of the older school of men in China excels. Provincial levies which had any military virtue, were gradually disbanded, though many of the rascals and rapscallions, who were open menaces to good government were left with arms in their hands so as to be an argument in favour of drastic police-rule. Thus it is significant of the underlying falseness and weakness of the dictator's character that he never dared to touch the troops of the reprobate General Chang Hsun, who had made trouble for years, and who had nearly embroiled China in war with Japan during the so-called Second Revolution (July-August, 1913) by massacring some Japanese civilians in the streets of Nanking when the city was recaptured. So far from disbanding his men, Chang Hsun managed constantly to increase his army of 30,000 men on the plea that the post of Inspector-General of the Yangtsze Valley, which had been given to him as a reward for refusing to throw in his lot with the Southern rebels, demanded larger forces. Yuan Shih-kai, although half-afraid of him, found him at various periods useful as a counterweight to other generals in the provinces; in any case he was not the man to risk anything by attempting to crush him. As he was planted with his men astride of the strategically important Pukow railway, it was always possible to order him at a moment's notice into the Yangtsze Valley which was thus constantly under the menace of fire and sword.
Far and wide Yuan Shih-kai now stretched his nets. He even employed Americans throughout the United States in the capacity of press-agents in order to keep American public opinion favourable to him, hoping to invoke their assistance against his life-enemy— Japan—should that be necessary. The precise details of this propaganda and the sums spent in its prosecution are known to the writer; if he refrains from publishing them it is solely for reasons of policy. England it was not necessary to deal with in this way. Chance had willed that the British Representative in Peking should be an old friend who had known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period—a state of affairs not conducive to international happiness.
Slowly the problem developed in a shiftless, irresolute way. Unable to see that China had vastly changed, and that government by rascality had become a physical and moral impossibility, the Legations in Peking adopted an attitude of indifference leaving Yuan Shih-kai to wreak his will on the people. The horde of foreign advisers who had been appointed merely as a piece of political window-dressing, although they were allowed to do no work, were useful in running backwards and forwards between the Legations and the Presidential headquarters and in making each Power suppose that its influence was of increasing importance. It was made abundantly clear that in Yuan Shih-kai's estimation the Legations played in international politics much the same role that provincial capitals did in domestic politics: so long as you bound both to benevolent neutrality the main problem—the consolidation of dictatorial power—could be pushed on with as you wished. Money, however, remained utterly lacking and a new twenty-five million sterling loan was spoken of as inevitable—the accumulated deficit in 1914 being alone estimated at thirty-eight million pounds. But although this financial dearth was annoying, Chinese resources were sufficient to allow the account to be carried on from day to day. Some progress was made in railways, building concessions being liberally granted to foreign corporations, this policy having received a great impetus from the manner in which Dr. Sun Yat Sen had boomed the necessity for better communications during the short time he had ruled at a National Railway Bureau in Shanghai, an office from which he had been relieved in 1913 on it being discovered that he was secretly indenting for quick-firing guns. Certain questions proved annoying and insoluble, for instance the Tibetan question concerning which England was very resolute, as well as the perpetual risings in Inner Mongolia, a region so close to Peking that constant concentrations of troops were necessary. But on the whole as time went on there was increasing indifference both among the Foreign Powers and Chinese for the extraordinary state of affairs which had been allowed to grow up.
There was one notable exception, however, Japan. Never relaxing her grip on a complicated problem, watchful and active, where others were indifferent and slothful, Japan bided her time. Knowing that the hour had almost arrived when it would be possible to strike, Japan was vastly active behind the scenes in China long before the outbreak of the European war gave her the longed for opportunity; and largely because of her the pear, which seemed already almost ripe, finally withered on the tree.