49 Facts About Yuan Shikai

Yuan Shikai was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty and eventually ended the Qing dynasty rule of China in 1912, later becoming the Emperor of China.

Yuan Shikai first tried to save the dynasty with a number of modernization projects including bureaucratic, fiscal, judicial, educational, and other reforms, despite playing a key part in the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform.

Yuan Shikai established the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China during the last years of the Qing dynasty before forcing the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor, the last monarch of the Qing dynasty in 1912.

On 16 September 1859, Yuan Shikai was born in the village of Zhangying to the Yuan Clan which later moved 16 kilometers southeast of Xiangcheng to a hilly area that was easier to defend against bandits.

Yuan Shikai's family was affluent enough to provide Yuan Shikai with a traditional Confucian education.

Yuan Shikai's career began with the purchase of a minor official title in 1880, which was a common method of official promotion in the late Qing.

Yuan Shikai married nine more concubines throughout the course of his life.

The Korean king proposed training 500 troops in the art of modern warfare, and Yuan Shikai was appointed to lead this task in Korea.

Yuan Shikai was outraged yet skeptical and asked Li Hongzhang for advice.

Yuan Shikai, having been put in an ineffective position, was recalled to Tianjin in July 1894, before the official outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War.

Yuan Shikai had three Korean concubines, one of whom was Korean Princess Li's relative, concubine Kim.

Yuan Shikai's rise to fame began with his nominal participation in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the Chinese garrison forces in Korea.

Yuan Shikai's success opened the way for his rise to the top in both military and political sectors.

Yuan Shikai asked reform advocates Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong and others to develop a plan to save him.

Yuan Shikai refused a direct answer, but insisted he was loyal to the Emperor.

Yuan Shikai took the side of the pro-foreign faction in the Imperial Court, along with Prince Qing, Li Hongzhang, and Ronglu.

Yuan Shikai refused to side with the Boxers and attack the Eight-Nation Alliance forces, joining with other Chinese governors who commanded substantial modernized armies like Zhang Zhidong not participating in the Boxer Rebellion.

Yuan Shikai's forces massacred tens of thousands of people in their anti-Boxer campaign in Zhili.

Yuan Shikai operated out of Baoding during the campaign, which ended in 1902.

Yuan Shikai founded a provincial junior college in Jinan, which adopted western ideas of education.

Yuan Shikai created a 2,000-strong police force to keep order in Tianjin, the first of its kind in Chinese history, as a result of the Boxer Protocol forbidding any troops to be staged close to Tianjin.

Yuan Shikai was involved in the transfer of railway control from Sheng Xuanhuai, leading railways and their construction to become a large source of his revenue.

Yuan Shikai played an active role in late-Qing political reforms, including the creation of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Police.

Yuan Shikai further advocated ethnic equality between Manchus and Han Chinese.

Yuan Shikai ordered the Ministry of Education to implement a system of primary and secondary schools and universities with state-mandated curriculum, modeled after the educational system of Meiji-period Japan.

On 27 August 1908, the Qing court promulgated "Principles for a Constitution", which Yuan Shikai helped to draft.

Yuan Shikai's Han-dominated New Army was primarily responsible for the defense of Beijing, as most of the modernized Eight Banner divisions were destroyed in the Boxer Rebellion and the new modernized Banner forces were token in nature.

The public reason for Yuan Shikai's resignation was that he was returning to his home in the village of Huanshang, the prefecture-level city of Anyang, due to a foot disease.

Yuan Shikai had arranged for the marriage of his niece to Duan as a means to consolidate power.

Meanwhile, in the Battle of Yangxia, Yuan Shikai's forces recaptured Hankou and Hanyang from the revolutionaries.

Yuan Shikai knew that complete suppression of the revolution would end his usefulness to the Qing regime.

Yuan Shikai arranged for the abdication of the child emperor Puyi in return for being granted the position of President of the Republic of China.

The Dowager Empress was sitting on a kang [platform] in a side room of the Mind Nature Palace, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as a fat old man [Yuan Shikai] knelt before her on a red cushion, tears streaming down his face.

Yuan Shikai wanted the geographic advantage of having the nation's capital close to his base of military power.

However, the claim that the coup was organized by Yuan Shikai has been challenged by others.

Yuan Shikai was elected Provisional President of the Republic of China by the Nanjing Provisional Senate on 14 February 1912, and sworn in on 10 March of that year.

Anti-Yuan Shikai revolutionaries claimed Yuan Shikai orchestrated the collapse of the KMT internally and dismissed governors interpreted as being pro-KMT.

Subsequently, Yuan Shikai gradually took over the government, using the military as the base of his power.

Yuan Shikai dissolved the national and provincial assemblies, and the House of Representatives and Senate were replaced by the newly formed "Council of State", with Duan Qirui, his trusted Beiyang lieutenant, as prime minister.

Yuan Shikai relied on the American-educated Tsai Tingkan for English translation and connections with western powers.

Finally, Yuan Shikai had himself elected president to a five-year term, publicly labelled the KMT a seditious organization, ordered the KMT's dissolution, and evicted all its members from Parliament.

The KMT's "Second Revolution" ended in failure as Yuan Shikai's troops achieved complete victory over revolutionary uprisings.

Yuan Shikai justified these reforms by stating that representative democracy had been proven inefficient by political infighting.

On 20 November 1915, Yuan Shikai held a specially convened "Representative Assembly" which voted unanimously to offer Yuan Shikai the throne.

Yuan Shikai died of uremia at 10 am on 6 June 1916, at the age of fifty-six.

Yuan Shikai's remains were moved to his home province and placed in a large mausoleum in Anyang.

Yuan Shikai introduced far-ranging modernizations in law and social areas, and trained and organized one of China's first modern armies; but the loyalty Yuan had fostered in the armed forces dissolved after his death, undermining the authority of the central government.

Yuan Shikai financed his regime through large foreign loans, and is criticized for weakening Chinese morale and international prestige, and for allowing the Japanese to gain broad concessions over China.

Yuan Shikai was sometimes referred to by the name of his birthplace, "Xiangcheng", or by a title for tutors of the crown prince, "Kung-pao".