page_title: Yuan Shikai
section_title: Late Qing dynasty
hierarchical_section_title: Yuan Shikai / Late Qing dynasty
caption_attribution_description: English: Yuan Shikai as governor of Shandong.
context_page_description: Yuan Shikai was a Chinese military and government official who rose to power during the late Qing dynasty, and He was also the Emperor of the Empire of China. He 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. He established the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China in the last years of the Qing dynasty before the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor, the last monarch of the Qing dynasty, in 1912. Through negotiation, he became the first official president of the Republic of China in 1912. This army and bureaucratic control were the foundation of his autocratic rule as the first formal President of the Republic of China. He was frustrated in a short-lived attempt to restore hereditary monarchy in China, with himself as the Hongxian Emperor. His death shortly after his abdication formalized the fragmentation of the Chinese political system and the end of the Beiyang government as China's central authority.
context_section_description: Yuan's rise to fame began with his nominal participation in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the Chinese garrison forces in Korea. Unlike other officers, however, he avoided the humiliation of Chinese defeat by having been recalled to Beijing several days before the outbreak of conflict.
  As an ally of Li Hongzhang, Yuan was appointed the commander of the first New Army in 1895. Yuan's training program modernized the army,  creating enormous pride, and earning him the loyalty of capable senior officers. By 1901, five of China's seven divisional commanders and most other senior military officers in China were his protégés.  The Qing court relied heavily on his army due to the proximity of its garrison to the capital and their effectiveness. Of the new armies that formed part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, Yuan's was the best trained and most effective.  His success opened the way for his rise to the top in both military and political sectors.
  The Qing Court at the time was divided between progressives under the leadership of the Guangxu Emperor, and conservatives under the Empress Dowager Cixi, who had temporarily retreated to the Summer Palace as a place of "retirement". After the Guangxu Emperor's Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, however, Cixi decided that the reforms were too drastic, and plotted to restore her own regency through a coup d'état. Plans of the coup spread early, and the Emperor was very aware of the plot. He asked reform advocates Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong and others to develop a plan to save him. Yuan's involvement in the coup remains a matter of debate among historians. Tan Sitong reportedly spoke with Yuan several days before the coup, asking Yuan to assist the Emperor against Cixi. Yuan refused a direct answer, but insisted he was loyal to the Emperor. Meanwhile, Manchu General Ronglu was planning manoeuvres for his army to stage the coup.
  According to sources, including the diary of Liang Qichao and contemporary Chinese news sources, Yuan Shikai arrived in Tianjin on 20 September 1898 by train. It was certain that by the evening, Yuan had talked to Ronglu, but what was revealed to him remains ambiguous. Most historians suggest that Yuan had told Ronglu of all details of the Reformers' plans, and asked him to take immediate action. The plot being exposed, Ronglu's troops entered the Forbidden City at dawn on 21 September, forcing the Emperor into seclusion in a lake palace.
  Making a political alliance with the Empress Dowager, and becoming a lasting enemy of the Guangxu Emperor, Yuan left the capital in 1899 for his new appointment as Governor of Shandong. During his three-year tenure the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) erupted; Yuan ensured the suppression of Boxers in the province, though his troops took no active part outside Shandong itself. Yuan took the side of the pro-foreign faction in the Imperial Court, along with Prince Qing, Li Hongzhang, and Ronglu. He 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. He and Zhang ignored Empress Dowager Cixi's declaration of war against the foreign powers and continued to suppress the Boxers. This clique was known as The Mutual Protection of Southeast China. In addition to not fighting the Eight-Nation Alliance and suppressing the Boxers in Shandong, Yuan and his army (the Right Division) also helped the Eight-Nation Alliance suppress the Boxers after the Alliance captured Beijing in August 1900. Yuan Shikai's forces massacred tens of thousands of people in their anti-Boxer campaign in Zhili. Yuan operated out of Baoding during the campaign, which ended in 1902.
  He also founded a provincial junior college (Shandong College, the forerunner of Shandong University) in Jinan, which adopted western ideas of education.
  In June 1902 he was promoted to Viceroy of Zhili, the lucrative Commissioner for North China Trade, and Minister of Beiyang (北洋通商大臣), comprising the modern regions of Liao
caption: Yuan Shikai as Governor of Shandong
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