The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 12: Republican China, 1912-1949, Part 1
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POLITICAL PARTIES AND CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 223
modest but sufficient to exclude well over the majority of adult males)
and who were two years' resident in their voting district (the hsien),
were with few exceptions enfranchised. The proportion of population
registered was probably in the range of
4
to 6 per cent. The electorate was
thereby enormously enlarged over that in the late Ch'ing elections, when
considerably less than
1
per cent qualified. Voting was for representatives
to two new houses of the national parliament and to the provincial as-
semblies. The balloting was indirect: that is, the voters chose electors
who later met to select the actual legislators. The process ran from Decem-
ber 1912 into January 1913 or beyond. The new provincial assemblies
were constituted during the winter months. The new parliament (or
national assembly) gathered in Peking in April 1913.
As a practical matter, some seats in the parliament, such as those de-
signated for Tibet, Mongolia and Overseas Chinese, could not be filled
by election and were effectively appointed by Yuan Shih-k'ai. In this
manner, Ts'ao Ju-lin from Shanghai, practising law in Peking and soon
to receive high office in the Foreign Ministry, became a delegate from
Mongolia in the upper house.
1
' If one leaves aside such anomalies (64
seats out of 274) and counts only those elected from the 21 'home' and
Manchurian provinces, the KMT had won a clear majority in the upper
house (123 seats out of
210).
It was virtually the same in the lower house.
In any case, since many representatives had no party affiliation or indulged
in multiple membership, KMT members exceeded the combined total
from the three other main competing parties in the lower house by 169
to 154. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was very discouraged. The KMT was in an ex-
cellent position to press for a prime minister and cabinet selected from
the predominant party in the parliament.
The explanation for the KMT's victory was, at the most general level,
the political strength derived from being the party most closely identified
with the revolution. Without predominance in the country's decentralized
administrative structures, the KMT had to mobilize this strength by a
direct appeal to the electorate, which was restricted to the educated and
propertied classes. The party apparently relied both on whatever adminis-
trative authority it possessed and on an energetic campaign of persuasion
in regions under hostile or indifferent governorship. In contrast to the
other parties, the KMT espoused local self-government and accepted, at
least under existing circumstances, a large amount of provincial autonomy.
The position was popular with local and provincial elites. The KMT,
then, constructed a winning strategy out of revolutionary prestige,
organizational effectiveness, and a politically attractive programme.
13 Ts'ao Ju-lin,
I-sheng
thih hui-i (A lifetime's recollections), 79.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
224 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, 1912-16
Although its scale has not been measured, the purchase of votes, par-
ticularly to influence the electoral colleges in their choice of members to
the lower house, was widely reported. Thus China's liberal republic was
no more immune to the influence of private and official money on its
electoral process than other large representative systems as they developed.
Neither the reports nor the electoral results, however, suggest that cor-
ruption was decisive nationally.
The leading architect of the KMT victory, Sung Chiao-jen, only 30
years old at the time, was emboldened to plan for his party the attainment
of the national power that was denied the revolutionaries in 1912. The
entente
between Yuan Shih-k'ai and the revolutionaries had been damaged
by the collapse of T'ang Shao-i's cabinet with its T'ung-meng hui par-
ticipation and by instances of Yuan's arbitrary behaviour in the summer
of 1912. But it had been revived in late August and early September by
Sun Yat-sen and Huang Hsing. They visited Peking and joined Yuan in
a celebration of unity, common purpose and mutual respect. As a result
the KMT in the autumn of 1912 was cooperating with, though not signifi-
cantly participating in, Peking's executive government. The KMT's
electoral campaign of the following months was not overtly directed
against Yuan Shih-k'ai. But as its success became apparent in January
and February 1913 Sung Chiao-jen began to attack Yuan's government
and its policies in his speeches.'
4
He pressed more vigorously his assertion
of the parliament as the progenitor of the cabinet, including the prime
minister, and as being responsible for drafting a new more permanent
constitution. He explicitly advocated the diminution of presidential
powers. Indeed, Sung was seriously contemplating ousting Yuan from
his post, despite Sun Yat-sen's continuing endorsement of Yuan's recon-
firmation as president by the new assembly."
Sung Chiao-jen's plans did not come to fruition. He was assassinated
on 20 March 1913 by agents of Yuan's government. The relationship
among elections, parties, the parliament and executive power that he had
envisaged did not come to pass, either in that year or subsequently. Other
political parties were later formed and reformed, but none came to power
except at the head of armies.
The destruction of the parliamentary party movement, however, need
not obscure the extraordinary vigour characterizing it in the first two
years of the republic. It was built, after all, on the previous decade of ex-
14 K. S. Liew, Struggle for
democracy:
Sung Chiao-jen
and
the
if 11
Chinese
Revolution,
186-9.
15
Ibid.
189. Wu Hsiang-hsiang,
Sung
Chiao-jen:
Chung-kuo min-chu hsien-cheng
ti
hsien-ch'U
(Sung
Chiao-jen: precursor of Chinese democracy and constitutional government), 219-6. Ernest
P. Young,
The presidency
of
Yuan
Shih-k'ai:
liberalism
and
dictatorship
in early
republican
China,
115-16, 282-3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
YUAN SHIH-K AI ON THE ISSUES 225
perience in political organization and movement outside the government
and could draw on the intensive study and debate of those years. More-
over, party organization and contest were part of a period marked by
liberal enthusiasms and liberating. social tendencies. For example, re-
verence for officialdom dramatically diminished. A small but highly active
and assertive women's movement, advocating female suffrage, universal
education for women, and reform of marriage practices, drew national
attention. Newspapers proliferated and national issues were strenuously
debated. New hair and clothing styles prospered in the cities. Those of a
conservative bent watched with growing concern the strain on the fa-
miliar social and political integument.
YUAN SHIH-K'AI ON THE ISSUES
No official of the late Ch'ing had achieved more for reform in as short a
time as had Yuan Shih-k'ai. With the backing of Tz'u-hsi, the empress
dowager, and the help of an ever growing entourage recruited on behalf
of reform programmes, he had become involved in almost every aspect
of institutional change and innovation sponsored by the empire in its
last years.'
6
His bent was practical rather than theoretical. He did not
conceive the ideas for reform programmes or develop their rationale;
rather, he implemented them and demonstrated their feasibility. Even
allowing for this pragmatic emphasis, however, one is struck by Yuan's
shift towards conservatism during his presidency.
As a pragmatist and politician, he had accepted the inevitability of a
republic when the forces of the revolution showed their hold on the
country. And during the first years of republicanism, he avoided a serious
rupture with the revolutionary leaders by wooing them and by tactically
retreating when confrontation threatened. But his unease with the polit-
ical and social liberality of the revolutionary aftermath soon became
evident. He thought students had become unruly. Advocates of women's
equality, he felt, were attacking the family and hence the social order.
The removal of Confucius from the primary school curriculum, in his
view, went too far in the first year of the republic. Bureaucratic discipline
16 For research on aspects of Yuan's activities, while Chihli governor-general, see: Esther
Morrison, "The modernization of the Confucian bureaucracy: an historical study of public
administration' (Radcliffe College, Ph.D. dissertation, 1959); Stephen R. MacKinnon,
Power
and politics in late imperial
China:
Yuan
Shi-kai in
Beijing
and
Tianjin,
iaoi-1908; John
E.
Schreclcer, Imperialism and
Chinese
nationalism:
Germany in
Shantung;
Watanabe Atsushi,
'En Seigai seiken no keizaiteki kiban
—
hokuy6-ha no kigyo katsudo' (The economic basis
of the Yuan Shih-k'ai regime: the industrial activity of the Peiyang clique), in Chugoku
kindaika no shakai kozo: Shingai kakwnei no shiteki ichi (The social framework of China's
modernization: the historical position of the 1911 Revolution).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
226 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
had just about disappeared after the revolution, he complained, and
taxes were being frittered away by local interests. The countryside was in
disorder. In general, he was impressed by China's backwardness. Reforms
were necessary, he often asserted, but too much had been attempted too
quickly. Retrenchment was his keynote.
The domestic issues which most exercised Yuan in his first presidential
years were the role of parties and representative assemblies and the rela-
tionship between the provinces and the centre.
Yuan had entered his presidency by swearing to uphold the constitu-
tion. The prominence of representative assemblies was intrinsic to the
provisional constitution as drafted by the revolutionaries in 1912 and
was a natural culmination of political movement and debate during the
previous decade and more. Yuan contested neither the necessity of a
constitution nor the appropriateness of some sort of representative
system. But he was never happy with the forms developed in 1912, and
he increasingly criticized their operations. One focus of complaint was
the political parties. As early as July 1912 he warned, 'If the parties
continue to maintain their own selfish ways and quarrel with each other
without regard to the laws, the proclaimed republic will cease to exist.'
17
When the national elections began in December 1912, Yuan expressed
concern that the winners might put the influence of party above concern
for the general welfare.'
8
The KMT, with its electoral victory, became a particular enemy, but
Yuan also showed little regard for the other parties. As Yuan turned to
constructing his own arrangements for governance, he reflected that 'the
government's hand has been tied by the provisional constitution. On
the one hand the defects of this instrument have deprived the govern-
ment of all liberty of action and on the other hand parliament has entirely
failed to render its cooperation with the executive in promoting the com-
mon weal. The consequence has been complete disorganization of the
administration and ever increasing ruin for the citizens.'
19
In this view,
openly expressed only after Yuan had destroyed the KMT, the parliament
had failed and a constitution more in accord with the needs of government
was required. Yuan's assassination of Sung Chiao-jen in March 1913 was
not simply the removal of a political enemy; it also expressed the gulf
17
The
China year
book,
1913,
514.
18
Cheng-fu kung-pao
(Government gazette), 229 (16 Dec. 1912) 6-8.
19 'Inaugural address of president to the Council of Government', 15 Dec. 1915, British
Foreign Office Archives, Public Record Office, London, FO 228/1852. This document pur-
ports to be a translation of a verbatim and unedited record of Yuan's speech; a comparison
with the formal published text,
Cheng-ju
kung-pao,
585 (19 Dec. 1913) 1-6, tends to support
its authenticity.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
YUAN SHIH-KAI ON THE ISSUES 227
separating Yuan's and Sung's ideas about the proper organization of na-
tional government.
The second divisive domestic issue that preoccupied Yuan was the
degree of centralization appropriate to China's polity. When Liang Ch'i-
ch'ao publicly declined Yuan's offer of a post under the Ch'ing in No-
vember 1911, he identified the fundamental issues facing the country as
two:
whether the government should be monarchical or republican, and
whether the organization of the polity should be federal or unitary.
10
The former question was resolved by the revolution but the latter was
left unanswered. The first year of the republic was marked by the anomaly
of a de facto federation presided over by a president increasingly committed
to a unitary, centralized national structure.
Like the role of representative government and parties, the issue of
centralization had emerged acutely in the previous decade. Many of the
reforms sponsored by the Ch'ing court in its last years were dedicated to
imposing a more centralized control over the country. The 1911 Revolu-
tion was in part a provincial reaction to Peking's pretensions to increased
power. After the revolution those who still believed in a centralized
unity were horrified at the extremes to which federalism had been taken.
Bureaucratic, fiscal, legislative and even military autonomy were exten-
sively assumed by most provincial governments. The argument persuaded
some that federalism cut into the strength of the national government
and that in a world of predatory imperialists, China could not afford any-
thing less than a radical augmentation of power in the central government.
(Those stressing the importance of parties and the national assembly
did not necessarily favour federalism, although liberal centralizers, like
Sung Chiao-jen, found it expedient tactically to ally with defenders of
provincial autonomy and to sponsor some of their demands.)
Yuan, perforce, acquiesced in provincial. autonomy during the early
months of his presidency but showed growing impatience with it. In
July 1912 he went through the motions of confirming in office all the pro-
vincial military governors who in no way owed him their positions.
He piously pleaded for their 'cooperation with the government'.
21
In the
autumn of that year, he tried with little success to assume the authority
to appoint civil officials in the provinces. The effort was generally taken
as interference in the internal affairs of the province and was frequently
rejected, sometimes hotly. In late November, when asking the provincial
authorities to submit to Peking for approval their appointments of county
magistrates, he plaintively noted that the provisional constitution gave
20 Ting Wen-chiang, Liang
Jen-kung hsitn-shcng nien-p'u ch'ang-pitn
ch'u-kao,
346.
21
Cheng-fu
kung-pao,
74 (13 July 1912) 2-3.
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228 THE ERA OF YUAN SHIH-K'AI, I 9 I 2-1 6
him the power to appoint and dismiss officials." There was no detectable
response. His legislative proposals for establishing a role for Peking in
the provinces were unfavourably received by the provisional parliament.
In January 1913 he took advantage of the
de
facto adjournment of the
parliament for the elections to promulgate organizational rules for pro-
vincial government.
2
' A storm of protest at the president's presumption
ensued. Yuan's muted moves to reimpose central authority during his
first year in republican office were largely frustrated. Peking's treasury
correspondingly suffered from a scanty flow of revenue from the pro-
vinces.
The great reforming official of the Ch'ing was, as president, unable or
unwilling to adjust to the decentralized liberal environment of the repub-
lic.
He was offended by its social looseness and by the extreme limits it
placed in practice on his central administration. The KMT electoral
victory in early 1913 presented him with the prospect of further restraint
on his power, even to the point of his removal. Constitutionalism, elec-
tions and provincial autonomy appeared to be forcing him back. Rather
than retreat, he prepared for battle.
THE SECOND REVOLUTION
By the measurement of troops reliably responsive to his orders, Yuan
Shih-k'ai did not command overwhelming force in the spring of 1913.
His purely military advantage lay in the continuing cohesiveness and
manoeuvrability of the units he did control, totalling perhaps about
80,000 men. The remainder of China's armies, several times as many,
lay dispersed, geographically and politically. Yuan's exploitation of his
military advantage depended on political success in acquiring allies and
preventing adverse coalitions. The key to his victory over his enemies
in 1913 was the degree to which he was able to isolate the radicals, get
foreign support, and win at least the benevolent neutrality of power-
holders in most provinces.
Armed civil conflict broke out in July 1913 and lasted for about two
months. The underlying issues were the power of the national assembly
to restructure the national government (an issue brought to a head by the
KMT's electoral victory in early 1913) and Peking's authority in the pro-
vinces. The precipitating event that turned many KMT leaders towards
armed resistance was the assassination of Sung Chiao-jen. Sung was shot
in Shanghai on 20 March 1913, and died two days later. The chain of
22
Ibid.
210 (27 Nov. 1912) 4-5. 23
Ibid.
243 (9 Jan. 1913) 1—5.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE SECOND REVOLUTION 229
evidence placed the planning of this assault in the offices of Yuan's gov-
ernment.
Sun Yat-sen had reiterated in the early weeks of 1913 the support for
Yuan's presidency that he had so conspicuously affirmed in Peking the
previous summer. Sung's murder, however, persuaded Sun that Yuan
had to go. Further, Sung's electoral and parliamentary methods were
now deemed inadequate. In late March 1913 major KMT figures, includ-
ing Sun Yat-sen and Huang Hsing, attempted to line up sufficient military
strength to defeat Yuan on the field. In blunting the parliamentary chal-
lenge to his power by murdering Sung Chtao-jen, Yuan had inspired a
military challenge.
How could a military challenge be mounted
?
Virtually every province
had its own armed forces. Three relatively large concentrations of troops
had survived into the spring of 1913: around Peking in the north (the
largest), in Hupei around Wuhan in Central China, and in Kiangsu around
Nanking in the lower Yangt2e region. Each occupied a corner of China's
most developed communications triangle. Peking connected with Wuhan
and Nanking by rail, and the Yangt2e joined Wuhan to Nanking. Rapid
large-scale troop movements were possible in either direction along each
side of this triangle. Having no real hope of penetrating the core of
Peking's forces, the KMT leaders tried to win allies in Hupei and Kiangsu.
They tried to do this both from above and from below: that is, by seeking
the adherence of the province's military governor, and by calling directly
on subordinate army officers to respond to the and-Yuan message.
In Hupei province, Li Yuan-hung, former Ch'ing officer and national
vice-president, was in charge. Despite his early alienation from the veteran
revolutionary leaders, he had been proposed as a presidential alternative
to Yuan as part of Sung Chiao-jen's plan to cash in on the KMT's electoral
victory. After Sung's death, he was asked to join the military revolt against
Yuan.
24
Simultaneously, it would appear, efforts were made to conscript
radical officers under Li into the anti-Yuan conspiracy.
2J
Li spurned all
overtures. And he interpreted the organization of dissidents in his army
as a threat to
himself.
He had, after all, worked in alliance with Yuan since
the beginning of the republic. Secretly and in small numbers, he invited
troops from Peking to enter Hupei in early April. In May the secrecy was
abandoned and the numbers swelled to over 10,000 of Peking's soldiers,
24 Gaimusho (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) comp. Nihon gaiko
buns/10,
1913 (Documents on
Japan's diplomacy),
2.3
50-1.
25 Hsin-hai shou-i hui-i-lu (Memoirs of the initial uprising of 1911), ed. Chung-kuo jen-min
cheng-chih hsieh-shang hui-i Hu-pei-sheng wei-yuan-hui (Hupei committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference),
1.96-7.
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23O THE ERA OF
YUAN
SHIH-K'AI,
I 9 I 2-1 6
garrisoned along the Yangtze in Hupei.
26
Long before a shot had been
fired, Yuan possessed two of China's three critical military centres.
In Kiangsu, where Huang Hsing had close ties with the best forces, the
military governor was not the dominating figure that Li Yuan-hung was
in his own province. The issue of choice between Yuan and his enemies
was not pressed until the Second Revolution actually broke out. But the
early set-back in Hupei, as well as a widespread disinclination among the
gentry and merchant elite for civil war, darkened prospects for any
uprising. Some of the revolutionaries, especially Huang Hsing, reverted
for a time to legal tactics of opposition, in the mode of the recently assas-
sinated Sung Chiao-jen. But there were two remaining sources of strength
in an anti-Yuan campaign. They were provincialistic resentment at Yuan's
centralizing pretensions, and the network of KMT power-holders in the
provinces.
Several provinces had come into conflict with Peking over issues of
revenue and official appointment. When provincial resistance had been
determined, Yuan had retreated. But he had come close to open hostilities
with one province: Kiangsi, under the military governorship of Li Lieh-
chiin, a KMT adherent. Li brought to his job a background as a superbly
educated Ch'ing army officer, a record of revolutionary activism in 1911,
and an enthusiasm for the autonomy of Kiangsi, his native province.
When Yuan unilaterally appointed a civil governor to share power in
Kiangsi, the appointee was hounded out of the province soon after his
arrival in December 1912. Then in January 1913 Yuan ordered the im-
poundment of
a
legal shipment of arms to Kiangsi. Despite Li Lieh-chiin's
objections, the commander of fortifications at Kiangsi's port on the
Yangtze complied with Yuan's order. The issue then became one of the
authority of the Kiangsi military governor over military officers in
Kiangsi. Fighting was avoided in March only because Yuan backed off.
In the period before Sung Chiao-jen's assassination, no leader had shown
such open hostility towards Yuan. Li Lieh-chun had not shared Sung's
emphasis on a national parliament and constitutional procedures. But
he was keen for a movement to 'punish' Yuan with force.
The combination of KMT leanings and provincialist opposition to
Peking, even if in a less volatile form than in Kiangsi, could also be found
in Kwangtung and Hunan. Anhwei had a KMT provincial chief who
joined the plotting. The anti-Yuan conspirators also had hopes for re-
sponses in Fukien, Szechwan and elsewhere.
26 W. H. Wilkinson, Hankow (11 April, 11 May, 22 May and 8 July 1913), FO 228/1873,
Public Record Office, London. Diary of George Ernest Morrison (7 April 1913), item 97,
G. E. Morrison Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE SECOND REVOLUTION 23I
The revolutionaries' position, then, was not without potential strength
in the spring of
1913.
But the contest with Yuan was not entered into out
of overweening confidence in the result. Rather, it was forced by the
president. Having chosen not to retreat before the KMT electoral victory,
he went on the offensive.
Following the assassination of Sung (20 March) and the military invest-
ment of Hupei (beginning in early April), Yuan's next major move was the
conclusion of
a
large foreign loan. A consortium of foreign banks, guided
by their home governments (Great Britain, France, Germany and the
United States, soon joined by Japan and Russia), had been negotiating a
large loan to the Peking government since the conclusion of the 1911
Revolution. The declared purposes were, chiefly, to refinance delinquent
and imminently maturing payments on China's inherited debts, including
foreign damage claims arising out of the 1911 Revolution, and to cover
immediate governmental expenses. The consortium governments, led
by Great Britain, set as a condition the injection of more foreign personnel
into the Chinese government. Most dramatically, a foreign staff was for
the first time to enter and thereby 'reorganize' the administration of the
official salt monopoly, whose revenue was to guarantee the loan. Mean-
while, the consortium governments worked, largely successfully, to
prevent the Chinese from getting substantial loans outside the consortium.
The Peking authorities faced a most unpleasant facet of China's semi-
colonial condition: a solid front of
the
major capitalist nations, demanding
a larger role in the Chinese polity in exchange for expensive loans. Even
when Woodrow Wilson withdrew the United States from the consortium
in March 1913, the Americans respected the consortium-enforced boycott
of large lending to China until the consortium loan was concluded.
One need not have been a member of the KMT to see the dangers and
to belabour Peking over the loan issue. In early 1913 K'ang Yu-wei,
leader in the 1898 reform movement gnd veteran enemy of Sun Yat-sen,
likened the proposed agreement to offering poisoned food to a starving
man. K'ang argued that some way of avoiding the consortium's death-
dealing bounty could surely be found. And what would the next step be
after trading the salt administration for a £2 5,000,000 loan, which would
in fact provide the Chinese government with little more than £10,000,000
after deductions for past debts and the expenses of floating the loan?
Would not another government agency, or the land tax, have to be offered
up for the next infusion of foreign money, K'ang asked. 'Truly, China
would expire spontaneously, without foreign troops partitioning the
country.' And how curious, he wrote, to be borrowing money from
Russia and England at the very moment they are contending with Peking
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232 THE ERA OF
YUAN
SHIH-K'AI,
I 9 I 2-1 6
for Mongolia and Tibet: 'Who empowered the government to dare to
parcel out to strangers the great expanse of our
5
,000-year-old China ?'
Indignation at the contracting of foreign loans had helped bring down
the Ch'ing. Noting this, K'ang hinted that, despite an observable atmos-
phere of public resignation to the necessity of a foreign loan, a rekindled
indignation could repeat the performance in the republic.
17
And yet in the early hours of 27 April 1913, Yuan went ahead and con-
tracted for the so-called 'Reorganization Loan'. He needed financing for
his anticipated showdown with the revolutionaries. Since the Peking
government was not getting much revenue from the provinces, it was
desperately in need of funds. K'ang Yu-wei's proposed remedy was to
create a unified, national fiscal structure. Yuan agreed. But provincial
and KMT opposition to centralizing initiatives meant that fiscal unifica-
tion would come only with force, and force cost money. A foreign loan
was the only recourse. Such was the logic of Yuan's course of action.
Yuan had decided, well before contracting the loan, not to submit it to
the parliament for ratification. The provisional constitution, by which
Yuan had agreed to rule, plainly required parliament's consent for
this sort of agreement. Anger at the assassination of Sung and the un-
popularity of the loan terms suggested ratification would be difficult.
Meanwhile, the foreign signatories agreed in advance to accept illegal
procedures. When the intention to conclude the agreement became
known, the uproar in the parliament was enormous.
Yuan confided to the British minister in Peking that he regarded the
parliament's proceedings as 'quite hopeless' and that he 'had a plan of
dealing with them if they continued much longer'.
28
During the next
month of May, at least parts of the plan were revealed. An effort to bring
together all the non-KMT parties, which Yuan had been encouraging
since the previous autumn, succeeded, in the form of the Progressive
Party (Chin-pu tang). Liang Ch'i-ch'ao was a leading figure in this coali-
tion. And much money was invested in bribing members of the parlia-
ment. As a result, impeachment of the government was aborted, and the
parliamentary strength of the KMT was reduced. Later Yuan would
resort to physical coercion and intimidation of parliamentary delegates.
By June Yuan's preparations were all but complete. He began ordering
the dismissal of provincial chiefs most hostile to his plans. Li Lieh-chiin,
whose forces in Kiangsi had been on the brink of war in March, was the
27
K'ang
Yu-wei, 'Ta-chieh-chai po-i' (A critique of the large loan), Min-kuo
ching-shih
wen-pien
(Republican essays on public affairs), reprinted in Wu Hsiang-hsiang, ed. Chung-hio hsien-tai
shih-liao
Is'ung-shu
(Collected historical materials on contemporary China), 3.893-5.
28 John Jordan, Peking (30 April 1913), FO 228/1852.
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