The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 12: Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1
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THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEW ORDER 213
their accrued privileges, including command over provincial armies, the
retention of tax revenues, and the selection of local and provincial officials.
At the same time, local assemblies below the provincial level swelled
greatly in incidence and assertiveness. To the minds of the provincial-
ists,
the two demands of unity and self-government could be wedded in
federal structures. The early republic was at first a
de facto
confederation
of provinces. But the continuing foreign pressure on Chinese sovereignty
put a great strain on such a loose arrangement.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEW ORDER
The new political order had the task of establishing itself amidst these
unresolved tensions. A brief description of its structure in the spring of
1912 is a necessary preliminary to tracing the main events.
As agreed in the negotiations concluding the revolution, Yuan Shih-
k'ai was president. He swore to a republican oath composed, like the
Provisional Constitution (Lin-shih yueh-fa) of 1912, by the revolutionary
leadership. But the president was endowed by the new constitution with
considerable executive power. Impeachment was not made easy; he was
theoretically commander-in-chief of all China's army and navy; and,
again theoretically, he possessed broad powers of appointment. He was
to share responsibilities with a prime minister and cabinet, whom he
appointed with the concurrence of the parliament or national assembly.
The first prime minister was T'ang Shao-i, an old associate of Yuan's,
whose sympathy for the revolutionary side unexpectedly persisted after
the revolution.
The first provisional parliament of the republic consisted of represen-
tatives from the provinces, five delegates each. The parliament lacked
any significant royalist group, but adherents of the main revolutionary
party, the T'ung-meng hui, held less than one-third of the seats. This
reflected the T'ung-meng hui's failure to dominate more than a minority
of the governments even of those provinces that had joined the revolu-
tion. The other major parties represented either factions that had pre-
viously split from the T'ung-meng hui, or the reformist constitutional
movement of officials and gentry that had adopted republicanism only
during - and in some cases, after - the revolution. One principal achieve-
ment of this parliament was the legislation guiding the election of
a
more
permanent, bicameral parliament and of new provincial assemblies.
(The new assemblies actually were constituted in the first half of 1913.)
Another achievement was the rejection of Yuan's efforts to establish
administrative machinery for subordinating the provinces.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
214
THE ERA OF
YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
In most provinces, political leadership was drawn from two institutions:
the army, especially the leaders of the modern New Army units formed
around the country in the late Ch'ing, and the provincial assemblies.
Although the precipitation of the revolution had often begun at lower
levels,
it was people from these two groups who had consolidated power
as Ch'ing authority collapsed. The top executive was in every province
the military governor (tu-tu). If we exclude the Manchurian provinces
and Kansu, where conditions differed and comparison is difficult, then
12 of the remaining 17 'home' provinces had soldiers as military governors
in the mid summer of 1912. (Of these 12, six were Chinese graduates of
the Japanese Army Officers Academy.) There were five men without mili-
tary backgrounds in this post, two of them in provinces that had not
joined the revolution before the Ch'ing abdication. The balance between
army and provincial assembly varied considerably from province to
province. In Yunnan the New Army officers maintained rigid control
over the provincial government. In Hunan they gave way to leaders out
of the provincial assembly. In a few provinces the revolutionary party
and its adherents were a third force and might even, as in Kwangtung,
dominate the provincial government. In some cases, important sections
of the army, not necessarily including the military governor, were ad-
herents of the revolutionary party or shared its relative radicalism, as
in Hupei and Kiangsu. The resulting politics was often quite confusing.
Remarkably, sufficient cohesion was achieved in most of the formerly
revolutionary provinces to prevent Peking from injecting its power
locally. Only in the three northern provinces of Chihli, Honan and
Shantung and, somewhat less confidently, in Manchuria could Yuan
unilaterally appoint important officials.
Most provincial governments were not only immune to Peking's
control; they were also able to muster sufficient energy to prevent lesser
administrative units from splitting off. The consolidation of provincial
authority was in several cases a difficult process. One pattern by which
the revolution had spread was the establishment of sub-provincial re-
volutionary governments, often at the prefectural level. Their subor-
dination to the provincial government was not always accomplished either
swiftly or completely. But in comparison with Peking's authority in
the formerly revolutionary provinces, the fiscal and appointive powers
of provincial governments in their own domain were extensive by the end
of 1912. This was due partly to the circumstances of the revolution - its
primary act having been the destruction of central authority and its form
being internally decentralized. It also owed much to the assertion that
provinces could best serve China's interests by insisting on their autonomy
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE STRUCTURE OF THE NEW ORDER 215
in the face of the stifling centralization that was believed to have marked
Ch'ing rule, especially in its final years.
Among the many presentations of the case for provincial autonomy
was that written in 1912 by Tai Chi-t'ao, a young journalist in Shanghai.
'With respect to the localities, the role of the province is that of the
highest administrative district. With respect to the centre, it is the largest
sphere of self-government. To attain the goals of republicanism, one
must seek to develop people's rights
[min-ch'iian],
and in seeking to develop
people's rights, the scope of self-government must be enlarged.' Tai
noted that advocates of centralization 'argue that the reason for China's
not prospering is that localism is too ingrained, so that province is set
off from province, and prefecture from prefecture. . .'. But Tai would
reverse the argument. China was too large and its people too numerous to
be ruled through centralized institutions, which had often caused decay
and collapse under the empire. 'Seen in this light, the reason China has
not prospered is that the ideas of centralization are too ingrained and the
concept of self-government too weak.' Provincial autonomy and the
popular election of provincial chiefs, Tai felt, were keys to national
political progress and tranquillity.'
These sentiments were squarely opposed to those of Peking's bureau-
crats,
including the country's president. Tai's analysis also implied the
need to check the attempt of sub-provincial districts to escape provincial
power.
The actual success of provincial governments in extending their power
throughout their provinces varied widely. The Ch'ing in its last few
years had begun establishing self-government councils and assemblies
at the hsien and lesser levels. After the revolution, the incidence of such
bodies mounted rapidly. In the Ch'ing plan, these local representative
organs were supposed to manage and finance a range of local reforms,
particularly in education, under the guidance of centrally appointed of-
ficials. With the revolution, some local assemblies became politically ag-
gressive and presumed to select their own executive authorities, including
county magistrates. Such assertiveness harmonized with one persistent
school of political thought over the centuries that urged a closer, more
organic connection between local elites and their administrators. As a
practical matter in 1912 and 1913, it not only violated the conceptions
entertained for the Chinese polity by the centralizers in Peking; it also
defied provincial authority. Generally speaking, provincial authority
prevailed. But judging from provincial budgets in these years, the success
1 Tai Chi-t'ao, Tai
T'ien-ch'ou
wen-chi
(Collected essays of Tai Chi-t'ao) (Taipei reprint edn,
1962),
187-95.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
2l6 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
was often only partial,
as
more revenue seems
to
have been retained
in
the counties than
had
been
the
case
in
most provinces under
the
Ch'ing.
Meanwhile,
the
charge
on
provincial revenues
was
greatly increased
by
the
expanded armies
of the
revolutionary aftermath. Despite some
demobilization even before
the
Ch'ing abdication, the provinces that had
joined
the
revolution were
in
most cases left with
a
large assortment
of
troops, some inherited from
the
Ch'ing and some conscripted during
the
revolution. The soldiers could not easily be dismissed without payment
of
the arrears that
had
commonly accumulated;
but the
longer they were
retained, the greater was the amount owed and the more likely were they
to take
to
rioting and looting.
In
Kiangsu,
for
example,
a
Japanese consul
estimated that
the
province
had
44,000 soldiers
at the end of
the Ch'ing
rule there, that
the
numbers grew
to
180,000 during
the
revolution,
and that after strenuous efforts
at
disbandment, there were still over
100,000
in
various military units
in
August 1912.
2
The
precise numbers
nationally were
a
matter of speculation. For purposes
of
negotiating loans
with foreign banks,
in
part
to
pay
for
demobilization, the Peking govern-
ment used
a
figure
of
over 800,000 men under arms throughout the coun-
try. As long as such locally financed troops remained, they both strength-
ened
and
weakened
the
provinces. They provided
a
potential defence
against Peking authority; but they drained funds from provincial budgets
that might otherwise have financed reforms
and
given vitality
to pro-
vincial autonomy. Demobilization continued
in
1912
and
1913,
so
that by
the spring
of 1913
there were perhaps half
a
million troops
in
fairly
modernized
or
formal units.
3
But
financing
and
command remained pro-
vincial responsibilities
in
most
of
the formerly revolutionary provinces,
until Yuan's armed assault on provincial autonomy in the summer
of
1913.
Despite numerous mutinies, which were characteristically directed
against
the
actuality
or
threat
of
short wages,
the
armies
did not
turn
against
the
social order
or
challenge
the
dominance
of
the existing elite
groups.
Nor did the
countryside stay long
in a
turbulent state. Reports
of banditry were common, and occasionally villages would rise up against
extortionate taxes
or
malfeasant officials.
But
suppression was regularly
applied
and
rural disturbances
did not
reach proportions worthy
of
na-
tional attention before
the
Second Revolution.
The
threat from below
2 Funatsu Shinichiro, consul
in
Nanking,
to
Uchida Yasuchika, foreign minister, secret
despatch No. 38 (23 Aug. 1912), microfilms of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, MT 5.1.10.5-
1.
3 Japanese General
Staff,
'Kakumei-go
ni
okeru Shina kakusho zogen ichi-ranbyo' (Table
of changes
in
military strength
of
the various Chinese provinces after
the
revolution),
10
March 1913, microfilms
of the
Japanese Foreign Ministry,
MT
5.1.10.5-1, reel 463,
pp.
420-1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
POLITICAL PARTIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT ZIJ
preoccupied the local social and political leadership, even though
it
was
diffuse and unorganized. It was successfully contained, while the national
leadership experimented with liberal politics.
POLITICAL PARTIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
The question
of
whether groups might properly band together outside
the government in order to effect political ends has been
a
lively one in
the course of Chinese history. The weight of orthodox opinion under the
empire had been that such parties, cliques or factions were injurious
to
the proper working of government and were evil in themselves. Much
of this critical view focused on the word
tang
or party. When the Ch'ing
dynasty fell and the sanctions against parties vanished,
it
was as
if
the
centuries of denial had produced an almost unquenchable thirst for polit-
ical parties and associations. Within the first few months
of
the new
republic, some dozen political groups emerged that were at least nominally
in competition for political power through the representative system.
This proliferation
of
political organization was an important expres-
sion of the climate of the revolutionary aftermath, but
it
was also built
upon pre-revolutionary experience. The leaders
in
party formation had
more often than not spent time in Japan, where political parties had been
developing for over three decades and were at the time of the 1911 Revolu-
tion entering
a
new stage
of
importance
in
Japanese politics. Chinese
political parties had been appearing
in
clandestine and conspiratorial
forms since Sun Yat-sen established branches of the Hsing-Chung hui in
Honolulu and Hong Kong in 1894 and 1895. The establishment of pro-
vincial assemblies and the national consultative assembly in the last years
of the Ch'ing stimulated the formation of open political groupings that
hardly pretended to avoid the appearance of being
tang.
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao,
prominent political writer and veteran activist, encouraged these devel-
opments, both in his widely-read essays and as practical adviser from his
exile in Japan. When the revolution came, China's educated elite, par-
ticularly that portion which had absorbed Western notions of political
organization, entered the political game with brash enthusiasm.
Interest first focuses naturally on the leading revolutionary group, of
whom the most famous were Sun Yat-sen, Huang Hsing and Sung Chiao-
jen. These national leaders had no disciplined organization
at
their dis-
posal that effectively reached the local scene. Therefore they did
not
typically control the behaviour
of
even the most committed
of
local
revolutionary activists. Recent scholarship has emphasized the autonomy
of provincial politics after
the
1911 Revolution.
But
national unity
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2l8 THE ERA OF
YUAN
SHIH-K'AI,
I 9 I 2-1 6
remained an ideal, and new national institutions, such as a parliament and
a presidential office, were emerging and acquiring legitimacy. In this
situation, the achievements of the national leadership - or their failures -
were still important to all revolutionaries and affected the general po-
litical climate.
In the first year after the outbreak of the revolution, leading revolution-
aries engaged sequentially in three political roles: as conspirators against
Ch'ing rule, as office-holders and administrative authorities during and
after the revolution, and as organizers of an open political party seeking
victory in a national election.
The rapid spread of revolution under a republican banner owed much
to the propaganda and diffuse conspiratorial network of the T'ung-
meng hui and associated groups. The prestige of the veteran T'ung-meng
hui leadership was greatly enhanced by revolutionary success. But, as
already noted, the revolutionary provincial governments were in most
cases swamped by the ready participation of gentry politicians and army
officers. The local rewards of successful conspiracy were not monopolized
by the prominent conspirators - far from it. Veteran revolutionaries did
emerge as power-holders in some provinces, however, and the resulting
access to funds and armies gave these men special weight in the T'ung-
meng hui camp.
The transition from conspirator to administrator for the national (as
distinct from provincial) leaders occurred first in the inter-provincial
revolutionary capital established in Nanking in January 1912. Sun Yat-
sen, for example, was president of the provisional revolutionary govern-
ment in Nanking from January until that government disbanded in April.
Later, like a few other prominent revolutionaries, he accepted an appoint-
ment in Yuan Shih-k'ai's new republican government in Peking. For
Sun this meant becoming director of railway development, an office that
carried little weight but apparently suited his intention of focusing on
social concerns rather than politics. Huang Hsing was army minister
in the Nanking government and then stayed on to be resident-general
(liu-shou)
of the southern armies by appointment from Yuan Shih-k'ai.
He loyally disbanded soldiers in the Nanking area to the extent permitted
by the money allotted him and then resigned in June 1912. Sung Chiao-
jen, while in Nanking, drafted the constitution under which the new
order was to be governed and, with some other T'ung-meng hui veterans,
joined the new republican cabinet in Peking in the spring of 1912.
Neither the conspiratorial nor the administrative role provided the re-
volutionaries with lasting and predominant positions. Outside the few
provinces where they were in charge or strongly represented, the tendency
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POLITICAL PARTIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 219
in the first year of the republic was towards a reduced proportion of ad-
ministrative power in revolutionary hands. When T'ang Shao-i resigned
as prime minister in late June 1912 over conflict with Yuan, the cabinet
members who had come from Nanking soon followed T'ang out of the
government. Yuan's domination of civil and military officialdom in
Peking made withdrawal the only feasible course. Thereafter, the best
prospect for the veteran revolutionaries' peaceful recovery of national
political influence became party organization, not the perquisites of
bureaucratic office.
The T'ung-meng hui had officially transformed itself from a revolution-
ary society into an open political party in March 1912. T'ang Shao-i,
Yuan Shih-k'ai's choice for the premiership, had joined it as part of the
negotiated arrangements between Peking and the revolutionaries. But it
was a minority party in the provisional parliament, even though it could
marshal a majority by alliance with other sympathetic groups. In August
1912,
under Sung Chiao-jen's leadership, a new party was formed around
the T'ung-meng hui core. Four smaller parties were absorbed and a new
name was adopted: the Kuomintang (KMT), in its later incarnations
usually translated as the Nationalist Party.
The reorganization was more than formal. The new party was the
result of compromise. Its politics seemed significantly less radical than
the old T'ung-meng hui. Mention of Sun Yat-sen's policy towards land
taxation and ownership, which despite its moderation had disturbed those
from socially elite backgrounds, was missing. Advocacy of equality for
women was dropped from the party's platform. A reference to 'interna-
tional equality', raising the issue of China's unequal treaties, was softened
to 'maintaining international peace'. A call for 'administrative unity'
in the T'ung-meng hui programme gave way to a more vague encourage-
ment of 'political unity', while support for 'local self-government' was
retained. The changes were conservative, but with a particular social
and political bias quite different from that of Yuan Shih-k'ai. Sung Chiao-
jen, against the wishes of some revolutionary veterans, was laying the
basis for an approach to a socially conservative gentry constituency that
had already developed a stake in local autonomy and participation in
politics. The revolutionaries had adjusted their stance to the politically
radical but socially conservative character of the revolution. Thus recast,
the party was vastly successful in the national elections of the winter of
1912-13.
Viewed through the eyes of the revolutionary leaders, the first year of
the republic could be seen as a series of retreats. During the revolution
itself,
force was not employed to its limits in a quest for total victory.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
22O THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
(Much revolutionary force was, in any case, not responsive primarily to
the revolutionary party leaders.) Power seemed increasingly to slip from
revolutionary hands as authority was reconstituted. Not until the winter
elections of 1912-13 did the tide turn. Even then, some of the revolution-
aries appeared sceptical about the electoral route to power and the dilution
of revolutionary commitment that this entailed.
4
But when we view the
year through other eyes, the T'ung-meng hui appears more formidable.
In the early months of the republic, some of the leading non-T'ung-
meng hui parties attempted to amalgamate, without much success. One
of them was the Min she, or Association of the People, organized around
Li Yuan-hung, military governor of Hupei and national vice-president in
the new republican order. This party, which emerged in January 1912,
represented the alienation of the Hupei leadership from the T'ung-meng
hui.
It was important because of Li's prestige as chief of the first revolu-
tionary government and his strength as commander of a sizeable army.
Another significant group was the T'ung-i tang, or Unity Party. Its
dominant personality was the scholar Chang Ping-lin, who had been a
republican for a decade and was once a leading member of the T'ung-
meng hui. He broke with that organization in 1910 and was joined by
some of his comrades from the Shanghai revolutionary organization,
the Kuang-fu hui, or Restoration Society. After the revolution he was
also joined by men prominent in Kiangsu and Chekiang affairs, who,
though bureaucratic or 'monarchist' in background, had supported the
revolution as it progressed. These included Chang Chien, the scholar-
reformer who was a minister in Sun Yat-sen's Nanking cabinet, and
Ch'eng Te-ch'iian, imperial governor and then republican military gov-
ernor of Kiangsu. The Unity Party served as a vehicle for former officials
and important gentry who hoped to make the transition to the new order
with the help of Chang Ping-lin.' Its programme, like its name, stressed
unity and spoke of the administrative reorganization of the country's
regions in order to unify the national territory. It did not, in contrast to
the T'ung-meng hui and KMT, specify the importance of local
self-
government.
Many who had played
a
prominent role in organizing for representative
government under the monarchy, through provincial and national as-
semblies, formed another party that responded to Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's
4 Sun Yat-sen was one, at least retrospectively. Li Shou-k'ung,
Min-ch'u chih kuo-hui
(National
assemblies in the early republic), 61-2. A major T'ung-meng hui contingent in Kwangtung
held back from the new party for a time because of their critical view.
5
Ting
Wen-chiang,
tt al. eds.
Liang Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien ch'u-kao (Extended
annals of Mr Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, First draft), 398, 400. Takeuchi Katsumi and Kashiwada
Tenzan, Shina seito
kessha
shi (A history of political parties and societies in China), 1.94.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
POLITICAL PARTIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 221
leadership. By the fall
of
1912
its
name had become the Min-chu tang,
or
Democratic Party. This group
had
formed quasi-parties before
the re-
volution and
had
worked together
in a
variety
of
projects,
in
particular
the petition movement
of
1909 and 1910
for
the opening
of
a parliament.
In its post-revolutionary form, this party was soon advocating the actual
abolition
of
the provincial administrative unit as
a
step towards unifying
the nation's authority and building
a
single strong government.
6
These parties only begin
the
list
of
those that felt themselves
the
besieged minority before T'ung-meng
hui
strength.
In May 1912
they
came together
in the
Kung-ho tang,
or
Republican Party,
in
order,
as
Chang Ping-lin put it in a letter to Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, 'to fend off the power
of a one-party dictatorship'.
7
The new party was unable
for
long
to
con-
tain
the
different groups,
and
Chang Ping-lin's
and
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's
soon re-emerged as separate bodies. But the reasons had not
to
do with
a
changed estimate
of
T'ung-meng hui power. Rather,
the
split was partly
attributable
to
excessive fear
of
that power. Liang was
a
particular object
of revolutionary venom. Some party organizers
in the
first year
of the
republic were anxious
to
avoid the T'ung-meng hui onslaught that might
be provoked
by
Liang's participation.
The T'ung-meng hui hostility
to
Liang Ch'i-ch'ao could be traced back
to
the
competition
for the
loyalty
of
Overseas Chinese
and
Chinese
students abroad during the previous decade, and to bitter debates between
Liang and T'ung-meng hui spokesmen over the desirability
of
revolution,
as well as numerous other issues.
8
Perhaps still caught in a reactive posture,
Liang adhered unseasonably
to the
continuance
of the
Manchu throne,
even as its imminent demise was apparent
in
late 1911 and early 1912.
He
publicly advocated
at
this time
'a
republic with
a
figurehead monarch'
{hsu-chiin
kung-ho).
From
his
listening post
in
Japan,
he
commissioned
emissaries
in
China
to
advance the proposition to, among others, Chang
Ping-lin
and
Yuan Shih-k'ai. Liang's monarchical republic was
the
last
gasp
of
the movement
for a
constitutional monarchy under
the
Ch'ing,
which
he
had been organizing and agitating
for
over
a
decade.
His
final
formulation
was
perhaps
the
movement's most radical statement
of its
case,
with
the
monarch
not
only shorn
of all
power
but
consciously
relegated
to
the role
of
symbol, like the post-1946 Japanese emperor. But
Liang's efforts on its
behalf,
as well as specific plots during the revolution
designed
to
frustrate the real republicans, did nothing
to
reconcile him
to
the T'ung-meng hui group.
6
Li
Shou-k'ung,
Min-ch'u chih
kuo-hui,
72.
7 Ting Wen-chiang, Liang
Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien
ch'u-kao,
398.
8
For an
excellent account
of
some
of
these debates,
see
Martin Bernal,
Chinese socialism
to
129-97-
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
222 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
Liang seems to have adopted the view of his associate Chang Chiin-mai
(Carsun Chang), who wrote him from China on the day of the Manchu
abdication that, although the new political system the revolutionaries had
designed was not what Liang's group had wanted, the country could not
bear any further alterations, as it stood on the verge of disruption.
9
But
attacks on Liang and his followers did not cease after his final abandon-
ment of monarchy. A movement in Kwangtung advocated depriving him
of his public rights as a Chinese citizen. In July 1912, reacting to an
insulting article, some revolutionary editors organized the sacking of the
offices of a reformist journal in Tientsin, and tried to effect the arrest of
its managers, who were Liang's close associates. Party meetings were
disrupted by T'ung-meng hui agents, Liang was told, and threats intimi-
dated others from gathering.
10
Meanwhile, Yuan Shih-k'ai, who had
unsuccessfully sought Liang's support during the revolution, apparently
lost interest after concluding his negotiations with the revolutionaries in
the early the spring of 1912. Even Yuan found Liang a liability in an
atmosphere where the T'ung-meng hui set the political tone. Liang's
representatives in China advised him that he should secure a formal invi-
tation to Peking before returning from Japan." Only after Yuan had re-
ceived Sun Yat-sen and Huang Hsing in the capital could he be induced
to extend the same invitation to Liang at the end of September 1912. The
next month Liang was feted in Peking and shortly resumed his journalis-
tic and political activities in China. But he was still unreconciled to the
revolutionaries, who renewed their attack on him.
12
This view of 1912 from other than T'ung-meng hui eyes shows that,
although revolutionaries were deficient in administrative positions, they
retained considerable political potential. Some of this potential was
realized in the national elections that followed the founding of the KMT
by three-and-a-half months and for which the new party was intended.
These elections stand out as the only occasion when various Chinese
political parties competed for the votes of a substantial nationwide elec-
torate with considerable freedom from bureaucratic manipulation or
coercion.
The formalities of the elections were these. Males over 21 years old,
who either had the equivalent of an elementary schooling or were pro-
perty owners and direct taxpayers at specified levels (the levels were
9 Ting Wen-chiang, Liang
Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien
ch'u-kao,
372.
10
Ibid.
395,
400-1.
The continuing clashes between Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the revolutionaries
are described and analysed by Chang P'eng-yuan, Liang
Ch'i-ch'ao
yii Mm-kuo
cheng-chih
(Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and republican politics), 42-58.
11 Ting Wen-chiang, Liang
Jen-kung hsien-sheng nien-p'u ch'ang-pien
ch'u-kao,
398.
12 For example, Min-lipoo (Independent people's newspaper), 4 Nov. 1912.
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