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betrayed to the Empress Dowager, and the Emperor Kwang Hsu was made to expiate his hundred days of reform in virtual imprisonment to the end of his life in 1908.
Fall of the Manchu Dynasty.The Manchu Dynasty had ruled China for 250 years. In its later years it was weakened by a series of rebellions: the Taiping rebellion (1850–1865), the Mohammedan risings in Yunnan (1856–1875), and the risings in Chinese Turkestan (1864–1877). The Taiping rebellion especially shook the Empire to its foundation and dealt a blow to the prestige of the dynasty, from which it never recovered. Finally, after the death of the then Empress Dowager in 1908, it collapsed through its own inherent weakness.
After some minor attempts at insurrection, the revolutionaries were successful in South China. A brief period followed during which a Republican Government was established at Nanking, with Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the leading figure of the Revolution, as provisional President. On February 12th, 1912, the then Empress Dowager, in the name of the child Emperor, signed a decree of abdication, and a provisional constitutional regime, with Yuan Shih-kai as President, was then inaugurated. With the abdication of the Emperor, his representatives in the provinces, prefectures and districts lost the influence and moral prestige which they had derived from his authority. They became ordinary men, to be obeyed only in so far as they were able to enforce their decisions. The gradual substitution of military for civil governors in the provinces was an inevitable consequence. The post of central executive could, likewise, be held only by the military leader who had the strongest army or was supported by the strongest group of provincial or local military chiefs.
Tendency towards military dictatorship in the North.This tendency toward military dictatorship, which was more apparent in the North, was facilitated by the fact that the army had gained some popularity by the support it had given in many instances to the Revolution. Military leaders did not hesitate to lay claim to the merit of having made the Revolution a success. Most of them were Northern leaders, to a certain extent grouped together in the so-called Peiyang Party—men who had risen from a low status to higher commands in the model army trained by Yuan Shih-kai after the Sino-Japanese war. They could more or less be trusted by him because of the tie of personal allegiance which, in China, has not yet given place to the corporate loyalty which characterises organisations in the West. These men were appointed military governors by Yuan Shih-kai in the provinces under his control. There the power rested in their hands and provincial revenues could accordingly be taken at will by them to be used for their personal armies and adherents.
Position in the South.In the Southern provinces, the situation was different, partly as a result of intercourse with foreign countries and partly on account of the different social customs of the population. The people of South China have always been averse to military autocracy and official interference from outside. Dr. Sun Yat-sen and their other leaders remained faithful to the idea of constitutionalism. They had, however, little military force behind them, because the re-organisation of the army had not yet progressed very far in the provinces south of the Yangtze, and they had no well-equipped arsenals.
Revolt against Yuan Shih-kai, 1913.When, after much procrastination, the first Parliament was convened in Peking in 1913, Yuan Shih-kai had consolidated his military position, and lacked only sufficient financial resources to ensure the loyalty of the provincial armies. A huge foreign loan, the so-called Re-organisation Loan, provided him with the necessary financial means. But his action in concluding that loan without the consent of Parliament brought his political opponents of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party, under Dr. Sun's leadership, into open revolt. In a military sense the South was weaker than the North, and was still more weakened when the victorious Northern