Yuan Shikai

The general who built China's first modern army, Yuan Shikai used it to negotiate the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912 and became the first formal president of the Republic of China. He then dismantled the young republic's parliament and in December 1915 proclaimed himself emperor, only to give up the throne after 83 days amid revolt. His death in 1916 left the country to rival military commanders.

Yuan was born on 16 September 1859 into a well-off family in Xiangcheng county. After failing the imperial examinations in 1876 and 1879, he turned to the military, joining the Huai Army, in which many relatives served. In 1882 he went with Chinese troops sent to restore order in Korea, then ruled by the Joseon dynasty. When pro-Japanese reformers staged a coup in December 1884, Yuan's soldiers defeated the outnumbered Japanese troops and recovered the king. From 1885 he served as China's imperial resident in Seoul, blocking reform and Japanese influence with a heavy hand. As war with Japan approached in 1894, he was recalled to China.

China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War convinced the court that it needed forces on the European model, and in December 1895 Yuan was given command of a New Army near Tianjin, organised and armed on German lines. Several of its officers later became presidents of the republic or provincial governors. During the Hundred Days' Reform of 1898, reformers asked Yuan to help them against the conservatives; instead he revealed their plan to Ronglu, an ally of Empress Dowager Cixi. Historians still debate whether his disclosure caused her coup of 21 September or came after it, but it is generally thought to have sealed the fate of at least one reformer.

As governor of Shandong from 1899 Yuan suppressed the Boxers and, with other provincial leaders, ignored the court's declaration of war on the foreign powers; his troops later helped crush the Boxers in Zhili, killing tens of thousands of people. Made viceroy of Zhili after Li Hongzhang's death in 1901, he built the Beiyang Army, which reached about 60,000 men, and on his advice the ancient examination system was abolished in 1905. When Cixi died in 1908, the new regent, Prince Chun, dismissed him, officially because of a foot ailment.

The Wuchang Uprising of October 1911 began the 1911 Revolution, and the desperate court recalled Yuan as prime minister. His troops retook Hankou and Hanyang, but rather than finish off the rebels he negotiated with them. The revolutionaries, who had chosen Sun Yat-sen as provisional president, agreed that Yuan should replace him if he secured the abdication of the child emperor Puyi. The emperor abdicated, and in February 1912 Yuan was elected provisional president, keeping his capital in Beijing near his army.

The Kuomintang won the 1913 parliamentary elections, but its leader Song Jiaoren was shot in Shanghai in March. Yuan was accused of involvement, though for lack of evidence he was never implicated. Yuan crushed the "Second Revolution" that followed, banned the Kuomintang, dissolved parliament in early 1914 and issued a new charter giving himself nearly unlimited power. In 1915 he accepted part of Japan's Twenty-One Demands, losing popularity. Then, after a specially convened assembly voted to offer him the crown, he proclaimed himself emperor on 12 December 1915 under the reign title Hongxian.

The governor of Yunnan rebelled within days, other provinces followed, and Yuan's own Beiyang generals deserted him. He renounced the monarchy on 22 March 1916, never having been enthroned, and died of kidney failure on 6 June, aged 56. Both the Nationalists and the Communists later condemned him, and he is sometimes called the father of the warlords, although some historians credit him with genuine modernising reforms.

Our 1900 map shows the Qing empire while Yuan was rising to power, and the 1914 map shows the Republic of China during his presidency; the 1920 map shows the warlord era that followed his death.