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Updated: May 24, 2025
Chinese malcontents "the Society of Harmonious Fists," particular habitat Shantung province are casually mentioned; but it is remembered that the provincial governor of Shantung is a strong Chinaman, one Yuan Shih-kai, who has some knowledge of military matters, and, better still, ten thousand foreign-drilled troops. Shantung is all right, never fear such is the comment of the day.
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.
In any case, be this as it may, it was felt in Tokio that the time had arrived to give a proper definition to the relations between the two states, the more so as Yuan Shih-kai, by publicly proclaiming a small war-zone in Shantung within the limits of which the Japanese were alone permitted to wage war against the Germans, had shown himself indifferent to the majesty of Japan.
The nation became deeply and fervently interested in the double-idea; and had Yuan Shih-kai possessed true political vision there is little doubt that by responding to this national call he might have ultimately been borne to the highest pinnacles of his ambitions without effort on his part.
To subscribe to a formula, which besides enthroning Yuan Shih-kai would have been a grievous blow to her Continental ambitions, was an unthinkable thing; and therefore the manoeuvre was foredoomed to failure. The death of Yuan Shih-kai in the Summer of 1916 radically altered the situation.
A mass meeting of the military was followed by the whole body of commissioned men volunteering to hold themselves personally responsible for the maintenance of peace and order in the capital. The dreadful disorders which had ushered in the Yuan Shih-kai regime were thus made impossible; and almost at once men went about their business as usual.
With Yunnan in open revolt and several other provinces about to follow suit, General Feng Kuo-chang was able to telegraph Peking that it was impossible for him to leave his post at Nanking without rebellion breaking out. This veiled threat was understood by Yuan Shih-kai. Grimly he accepted the checkmate. Yet all the while he was acting with his customary energy.
Before the completion of the Formal Constitution, with regard to the duties and privileges of the President the Provisional Constitution regarding the same shall temporarily be followed. Drafted by Dr. Frank Johnson Goodnow, Legal Adviser to Yuan Shih-kai, and promulgated on May 1, 1914 Article 1. The Chung Hua Min Kuo is organized by the people of Chung Hua. Art. 2.
They prove conclusively that the Imperial Family believed that it was only abdicating its political power, whilst retaining all ancient ceremonial rights and titles. Plainly the conception of a Republic, or a People's Government, as it was termed in the native ideographs, was unintelligible to Peking. Yuan Shih-kai had now won everything he wished for.
Homage to the portrait of Yuan Shih-kai by all officials throughout the country was soon to be ordered; sycophantic scholars were busily preparing a volume poetically entitled "The Golden Mirror of the Empire," in which the virtues of the new sovereign were extolled in high-sounding language. The very mention of this was sufficient to make the local price of ivory leap skywards!
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