Chinese Revolution · CHAPTER 2 ·
Yuan Shikai and the early republic
Chapter 2 of China in Revolution, 1911–1949: “Yuan Shikai’s Republic”
Yuan Shikai dominated China’s early republic through the Beiyang Army, which was loyal to him personally. He crushed the Nationalists, dissolved parliament and faced Japan’s Twenty-One Demands in 1915, but his attempt to restore the monarchy provoked the National Protection War, and he died in 1916.
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The map above is the world of China, 1912 — The abdication — the edges break away.
Every state on the map that year: The world in 1914 · Europe in 1914.
Part of IB History: China in Revolution →
SHORT EXPLANATION
The early republic acquired a powerful army when Yuan Shikai became president. But the Beiyang Army had been built under the Qing through personal ties to Yuan, and its loyalty gave him the means to defeat the Nationalists, dissolve parliament, and rewrite the constitution. He imposed order for a time without creating institutions that could settle conflicts after him.
Japan's Twenty-One Demands in 1915 exposed China's weakness: Yuan resisted the most intrusive clauses but accepted a reduced settlement. His attempt to restore monarchy then brought war from Yunnan. Provinces defected, his officers withheld support, and he abandoned the empire after 83 days. Yuan died in 1916; rival commanders contested the government, beginning the era of warlord politics.
The full story
Yuan Shikai's republic appears on the map as one blue expanse. To understand how precarious that unity was, look at the force on which the president depended. Yuan (the ● at Peking) commanded the Beiyang Army, whose officers owed their positions and advancement largely to him. The republic needed the army, but its commander could use those personal loyalties against the institutions meant to restrain him.
The elections of 1912–13 offered another way to organize power. Sun Yat-sen's Nationalists won a parliamentary plurality, and their leader Song Jiaoren advocated government through a cabinet responsible to parliament. In March 1913 Song was shot at Shanghai station. Telegrams connected the conspiracy to Yuan's premier, although Yuan's own role remains disputed. When the Nationalists mounted an armed Second Revolution that summer, Yuan crushed it within weeks.
He then dissolved parliament and rewrote the constitution. By 1914 he held a presidency for life, with a legislature of appointees. Yuan had removed an organized political challenge and could enforce his decisions, but the settlement depended heavily on his own authority. What would hold it together when he could no longer command?
Meanwhile Japan was testing China's ability to resist pressure from abroad. After entering the First World War in 1914, Japan seized Germany's position at Tsingtao in Shandong (the coastal ●). In January 1915 it presented the Twenty-One Demands, seeking advantages in Manchuria, mining, and ports. A final group of ‘wishes’ sought Japanese advisers inside the Chinese government itself, raising the prospect of a protectorate.
Yuan publicized the demands abroad and gained sympathy. Japan withdrew the most intrusive group, but Yuan accepted a reduced settlement; its signature on 9 May became National Humiliation Day. Later that year he attempted to strengthen his position in another way, proclaiming a monarchy in December 1915. Instead, Yunnan's generals raised the National Protection Army against him (the ✕ at Kunming). Other provinces defected, and even his Beiyang officers withheld the support he needed.
Yuan abandoned the monarchy after 83 days and died in June 1916. The network he had built did not disappear with him. Its commanders remained, each with resources and relationships of his own, and they now competed for control of the government. The map's single color had concealed a form of unity that the president's death could not sustain.
FULL EXPLANATION
The parliamentary possibility
Knowing that Yuan became a dictator can make the outcome seem unavoidable. Yet the national elections in the winter of 1912–13 gave the Nationalists a plurality, and their thirty-year-old leader Song Jiaoren had a different proposal: a cabinet answerable to parliament. Elected representatives would have had a part in governing, rather than leaving power entirely to the president. The proposal never received a fair trial. Song was shot at Shanghai station in March 1913, before parliament could test it. Telegrams linked the plot to premier Zhao Bingjun, but Yuan's precise involvement remains contested. That distinction matters when assigning responsibility for the murder. His subsequent actions are clear: he crushed the Nationalists' armed challenge and dismantled parliament. Before he sought a throne, he had closed the parliamentary route.
A date for national humiliation
A diplomatic settlement can end a negotiation while leaving a grievance alive. Yuan leaked the secret Twenty-One Demands to foreign audiences, seeking support abroad; the demands also aroused anger at home. Japan withdrew the most intrusive group, but Yuan signed the reduced settlement on 9 May 1915. That date entered the school calendar as National Humiliation Day, among China's early state-sponsored anniversaries of grievance. Paul Cohen and Henrietta Harrison, historians of nationalism, trace a wider shift in national feeling. Anti-Manchu politics had helped bring down the Qing; the conflict with Japan supplied a concrete external focus and a public ritual for remembering injury. Later boycotts, strikes, and student marches drew on that vocabulary, including the protests against the Shandong settlement at Versailles.
Key places on the map
On this day
Why it happened
The Beiyang network. Yuan built the Qing's modern Beiyang Army in the 1890s and 1900s. Its commanders' careers depended on his patronage: he promoted and paid them, and marriages and other connections joined them to his circle. These ties made the army a powerful instrument for the republic, but they did not give the constitution an independent hold over its officers. After Yuan's death, Beiyang commanders and provincial imitators could use their own military networks to pursue power.
A fragile constitutional settlement. The 1912 settlement had been negotiated among elites. About 40 million men were nominally enfranchised for the 1912–13 elections, but the representatives they chose lacked an effective means of enforcing constitutional rules against the army's commander. Song's murder and Yuan's dissolution of parliament showed how little protection those rules afforded. In 1915–16 provincial armies would show that they could resist him by force.
The opportunity for Japan. The European war gave Japan room to act in China. Britain needed the Japanese navy, Russia was absorbed by the war in Europe, and Germany was Japan's enemy. Japan seized the German position in Shandong and presented its demands while the European powers were preoccupied. Although the most intrusive clauses were withdrawn, Japan kept important advantages in Shandong. Another opportunity for Japanese expansion would arise in 1931.
The monarchy miscalculation. Some of Yuan's advisers believed a throne could give his government lasting legitimacy. The American constitutional scholar Frank Goodnow wrote a memorandum on monarchy that supporters quoted beyond its intended scope. But the Qing's fall had ended the old imperial claim to the Mandate of Heaven, and Yuan's own bid failed to secure the backing he needed. Provincial leaders and men in his military network opposed him, combining republican objections with concern for provincial power. Their resistance showed that regional commanders could check the center.
THE TURNING POINT
The National Protection War, 25 December 1915. Cai E and the Yunnan leaders raised armies against Yuan's monarchy on 25 December 1915. As other provinces joined them, Yuan's own commanders withheld support, and the monarchy fell. The result revealed a difference between parliamentary opposition and military resistance: Yuan had subdued the former, but provincial armies could bring down his imperial project. The next chapter's rival cliques would work with the regional strength this conflict had exposed.
What it changed
Military rivalry after Yuan. After Yuan's death, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, and Cao Kun were among the commanders who inherited parts of his Beiyang network. They and their allies fought for the Peking government, whose international recognition and access to customs revenue made it a valuable prize. The grey-tan plates in the next snapshot show the division that followed.
A grievance carried forward. Japan's seizure of Shandong and its Twenty-One Demands gave Chinese nationalism a concrete grievance. The dispute continued after Yuan's death. In 1919 the Versailles settlement awarded Japan Germany's former rights in Shandong, prompting the student marches described in Chapter 3.
Sun seeks another route. Sun Yat-sen's defeat and exile sent him searching for support to build a political movement with military power behind it. Western governments did not provide what he sought. In 1923 he found a partner in Moscow, beginning an arrangement that would shape the party and army in Chapters 4 and 5.
DISCUSSION QUESTION — Was Yuan Shikai the republic’s betrayer, or a leader overwhelmed by an impossible task?
Yuan faced formidable problems. The state was bankrupt, provinces had recently demonstrated that they could secede, and Japan was ready to exploit weakness. He had an instrument of national power, and his efforts to centralize revenue and administration addressed real needs. It is understandable that someone might have looked to him to hold the republic together. Yet the charge of betrayal also has force. Song Jiaoren was murdered, Yuan dissolved parliament, and he sought to become emperor. The difficulties he inherited explain the appeal of strong rule; they do not excuse the destruction of parliamentary opposition. Nor did his personal system solve succession. Yuan died of natural causes at fifty-six, leaving military leaders without a comparable authority to hold them together. His career shows both the attraction of a strongman's promise of order and the fragility of an order dependent on one man.
An interesting fact
Yuan's intended reign was called Hongxian, “Constitutional Abundance.” Its official era ran for 83 days, from 1 January to 22 March 1916, and no coronation took place. Preparations had nevertheless produced the objects of a monarchy: coins were struck, stamps printed, and a porcelain works at Jingdezhen made wares bearing the Hongxian mark. The objects outlasted the empire and became collectors' items.
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