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Updated: June 2, 2025
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.
A fit crown is put on the whole business by the final suggestion that the Constitutional Government of China under the new empire must be a mixture of the Prussian and Japanese systems, Yang Tu's last words being that it is best to be honest with the people! No more damning indictment of Yuan Shih-kai's regime could possibly have been penned.
Remarkable steps were taken a little later in the year to secure that the succession to the dictatorship should be left in Yuan Shih-kai's own hands.
Remarkable steps were taken a little later in the year to secure that the succession to the dictatorship should be left in Yuan Shih-kai's own hands.
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.
Yuan Shih-kai's reward for his share in this counter-revolution was his appointment to the governorship of Shantung province. He moved thither with all his troops in December, 1899. Armed cap-
But finally the position was such that he telegraphed to General Tsao-ao that unless the Yunnan arrangements were hastened he would have to leave Nanking and abandon this important centre to one of Yuan Shih-kai's own henchmen which meant the end of all hopes of the Yangtsze Valley rising en masse.
The second period is choke-full of action; and over every chapter one can see the ominous point of interrogation which was finally answered in his tragic political and physical collapse. Yuan Shih-kai's origin, without being precisely obscure, is unimportant.
Cautious to the end, it will be seen that Yuan Shih-kai's very acceptance is so worded as to convey the idea that he is being forced to a course of action which is against his better instincts. There is no word of what came to be called the Grand Ceremony, i.e. the enthronement. That matter is carefully left in abeyance and the government departments simply told to make the necessary preparations.
He beheaded the two messengers and personally reported the whole plot to the Empress Dowager who was already fully warned. This is no place to enter into the controversial aspect of Yuan Shih-kai's action in 1898 which has been hotly debated by partisans for many years.
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