Yuan Shikai 袁世凯
When the uprising broke out in Wuchang, the Qing court recalled Yuan Shikai to service and tasked him with putting down the revolt. The general entered into negotiations with the revolutionaries, secured the abdication of Puyi, and himself became provisional president of the republic. Sun Chun played Yuan twice. In the series For the Sake of the Republic of China he showed how an imperial warlord became president and then set about reshaping the republic to suit himself. In 1911 he was given a shorter period, when both the court and those who wanted to be done with the dynasty had to reckon with Yuan.
Yuan Shikai (袁世凱) was born in 1859 in Xiangcheng, Henan Province. In the early 1880s he entered military service and soon found himself in Korea, where he went on to represent the interests of the Qing government. After China's defeat in the war with Japan, Yuan was tasked with training the new troops at Xiaozhan near Tianjin. The soldiers were armed and drilled along Western lines, and the officers who served under him later formed the command of the Beiyang Army. In 1901 Yuan became governor-general of the metropolitan province of Zhili. Even when the court sent him into retirement in 1909, he kept his ties with the officers.
In the autumn of 1911, when whole provinces broke away from the Qing in the wake of the Wuchang Uprising, the court recalled Yuan to service and entrusted him with the Beiyang Army. He had troops capable of marching on the rebels, while in the south a government of their own was already taking shape. Elected provisional president in Nanjing, Sun Yat-sen agreed to yield the post to Yuan if he secured the emperor's abdication and supported the republic. The edict of abdication for the young Puyi came out on 12 February 1912. Three days later the provisional senate elected Yuan president, and on 10 March he took the oath of office in Beijing. Sun had hoped the new president would assume office in Nanjing, but the government ended up settling in the north, where Yuan could rely on the army.
In the republic Yuan had to deal with an elected parliament in which the Kuomintang's position was especially strong. In the spring of 1913 one of the party's leaders, Song Jiaoren, was assassinated. In the summer the party's supporters rose up against Yuan in what became known as the Second Revolution. His troops put the uprising down. In October the National Assembly elected Yuan permanent president, and as early as November he stripped the Kuomintang deputies of their mandates. The assembly lost its quorum, in January 1914 Yuan dissolved it, and in May he promulgated a new constitutional act. The president now appointed and dismissed ministers himself, and the powers once shared by the government and the parliament were concentrated in his hands.
In 1915 Yuan's supporters launched a campaign for the restoration of the monarchy and began submitting petitions for its return. On 12 December he agreed to accept the crown offered to him, and the reign name Hongxian was chosen for the new era. But while the ceremony was being prepared in Beijing, in Yunnan General Cai E and his allies raised troops in defence of the republic. Other provinces joined them. Yuan failed to secure sufficient support even among the military, and on 22 March 1916 he renounced the throne. The coronation never took place. Yuan continued to serve as president until his death on 6 June. After his death the Beiyang generals long continued to hold key posts in Beijing, but increasingly fought one another for power.
Film and television readily return to that brief time when the fate of the throne depended on Yuan. In the Chinese series Mo Dai Huang Di (1988) he was played by Lee Daai-Chin, and the change of power is shown here through the fate of Puyi himself. In the series For the Sake of the Republic of China (2003) Sun Chun had the time to show Yuan's entire path from service under the Qing to the presidency and the attempt to restore the monarchy. In 1911 (2011), with the same actor, the negotiations over the abdication and the transfer of power come to the fore. Yuan's attempt to ascend the throne is the subject of Beginning of the Great Revival (2011), where he was played by Chow Yun-Fat, and of the series Hu Guo Jun Hun Chuan Qi (2011) with Kent Cheng Jak-Si. In the series Yuan's confrontation with Cai E becomes a storyline of its own, while in the film he is given just a single episode in the chronicle of the decade.
