Yuan Shikai
Viceroy of Zhili
Yuan Shikai (16 September 1859 – 6 June 1916) was a Chinese general and statesman who served as the second provisional president of the Republic of China and head of the Beiyang government from 1912 to 1916. A major political figure during the late Qing dynasty. On 16 September 1859, Yuan Shikai was born in the village of Zhangying to the Yuan Clan which later moved 16 kilometres southeast of Xiangcheng to a hilly area that was easier to defend against bandits. There, the Yuan family had built the fortified village of Yuanzhaicun. Yuan's family was affluent enough to provide Yuan with a traditional Confucian education. As a young man he enjoyed riding, hunting with dogs, boxing, and entertainment with friends. Though hoping to pursue a career in the civil service, he failed the imperial examinations twice, leading him to decide on an entry into politics through the Huai Army, where many of his relatives served. His career began with the purchase of a minor official title in 1880, which was a common method of official promotion in the late Qing. Using his father's connections, Yuan travelled to Tengzhou, Shandong, and sought a post in the Qing Brigade. Yuan's first marriage was in 1876 to a woman of the Yu family who bore him a first son, Keding, in 1878. Yuan Shikai married nine more concubines throughout the course of his
life. In the early 1870s, Korea under the Joseon dynasty was in the midst of a struggle between isolationists under King Gojong's father Heungseon Daewongun, and progressives, led by Empress Myeongseong, who wanted to open trade. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan had adopted an aggressive foreign policy, contesting Chinese domination of the peninsula. Under the Treaty of Ganghwa, which the Koreans signed with reluctance in 1876, Japan was allowed to send diplomatic missions to Hanseong, and opened trading posts in Incheon and Wonsan. Amidst an internal power struggle which resulted in the queen's exile, the Viceroy of Zhili, Li Hongzhang, sent the 3,000 strong Qing Brigade into Korea. The Korean king proposed training 500 troops in the art of modern warfare, and Yuan Shikai was appointed to lead this task in Korea. Li Hongzhang also recommended Yuan's promotion, with Yuan given the rank of sub-prefect. Following the suppression of Gapsin Coup. In 1885, Yuan was appointed Imperial Resident of Seoul. On the surface the position equalled that of ambassador but in practice, as head official from the suzerain, Yuan had become the supreme adviser on all Korean government policies. Perceiving China's increasing influence on the Korean government, Japan sought more influence through co-suzerainty with China. A series of documents were released to Yuan Shikai, claiming the Korean government had changed its stance towards Chinese protection and would rather turn to the Russian Empire for protection. Yuan was outraged yet skeptical and asked Li Hongzhang for advice. In a treaty signed between Japan and Qing, the two parties agreed that either would send troops into Korea only after notifying the other. Although the Korean government was stable, it was still a protectorate of Qing. Koreans emerged advocating modernization. Another more radicalised group, the Donghak Society, promoting an early nationalist doctrine based partly upon Confucian principles, rose in rebellion against the government. Yuan and Li Hongzhang sent troops into Korea to protect Seoul and Qing's interests, and Japan did the same under the pretext of protecting Japanese trading posts. Tensions boiled over between Japan and China when Japan refused to withdraw its forces and placed a blockade at the 38th parallel north. Li Hongzhang wanted at all costs to avoid a war with Japan and attempted this by asking for international pressure for a Japanese withdrawal. Japan refused, and war broke out. Yuan, having been put in an ineffective position, was recalled to Tianjin in July 1894, before the official outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War. Yuan Shikai had three Korean concubines, one of whom was Korean Princess Li's relative, concubine Kim. 15 of Yuan's children came from these three Korean women. 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 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, the 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 is certain that by the evening, Yuan talked to Ronglu, but what was revealed to him remains ambiguous. Most historians suggest that Yuan told Ronglu all details of the Reformers' plans and asked him to take immediate action. The plot having been 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 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 Peking 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. In June 1902 he was promoted to Viceroy of Zhili, the lucrative commissioner for North China Trade, and Minister of Beiyang, comprising the modern regions of Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong. Having gained the regard of foreigners after helping crush the Boxer Rebellion, he successfully obtained numerous loans to expand his Beiyang Army into the most powerful force in China. He created a 2,000-strong police force to keep order in Tianjin, the first of its kind in Chinese history, as a result of the Boxer Protocol forbidding any troops to be staged close to Tianjin. Yuan was also involved in the transfer of railway control from Sheng Xuanhuai, leading railways and their construction to become a large source of his revenue. Yuan played an active role in late-Qing political reforms, including the creation of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Police. He further advocated ethnic equality between Manchus and Han Chinese.
The New Army, more fully called the Newly Created Army, was the modernised army corps formed under the Qing dynasty in December 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was envisioned as a regular and professional fully trained and equipped according to Western standards with a reserve. In 1903 an imperial edict expanded it to 36 divisions of 12,500 men each, or total of 450,000 in peacetime supplemented by a further 523,000 reservists in wartime though it never achieved a strength above 300,000. There was a forerunner to the effort of modernising the Chinese army, created before the end of the Sino-Japanese War: in February 1895, the Qing court assembled its Dingwu or the Pacification Army, consisting of 10 battalions or ying, totaling 4,750 men. This was initially organized by Hu Yufen aided by German advisor Constantin von Hanneken this force however was after 1 year of training regarded as not having been trained sufficiently to western standards. The command of this Pacification Army was turned over to Yuan Shikai by mid-December 1895, and within a few months was renamed the Newly Created Army and expanded to 7,000 men. (Yuan's Newly Created Army was later to become the Guards Army's Right Division (Wuwei Youjun). The monthly expenses of the brigade were 70,000 taels (840,000 taels annually). The Newly Created Army (or simply the New Army) that was 7,000 men strong
then became the most formidable of the three army groups stationed near Beijing and proved effective against the Boxers in Shandong province. Yuan refused to obey the Imperial Court's orders to halt his suppression of the Boxers when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China during the rebellion and refused to obey orders to fight the alliance. The New Army was gradually expanded and upgraded in the following years. Yuan became increasingly disrespectful of the dynasty and only loyal to the party from which he benefited; his defection to Cixi against the Guangxu Emperor was a major blow to the Hundred Days' Reform. After 1900, Yuan's troops were the only militia that the Qing court could rely on amidst revolutionary uprisings throughout China.
The Viceroy of Zhili, officially in Chinese as the Governor-General of the Directly Subordinate Province and Other Local Areas, in Charge of Military Affairs, Food and Wages, Management of Rivers and Governor Affairs, was one of eight regional Viceroys during the Qing dynasty. The Viceroy of Liangjiang had jurisdiction of military, civil, and political affairs over then Zhili Province (nowadays approx. Hebei, Beijing suburban, Tianjin). The Governor's Office sat in then Zhili Province's Baoding Prefecture City (nowadays Baoding City's Lianchi District). The Viceroy of Zhili was an important post because the province of Zhili, which literally means "directly ruled," was the area surrounding the imperial capital, Beijing. The administrative centre was in Tianjin even though the provincial capital was in Baoding. The Viceroy's duties as well as responsibilities have never been defined entirely. Generally speaking, the Viceroy oversaw the military and civil affairs of Zhili, Shandong and Henan provinces. The Viceroy of Zhili was also highly influential in imperial court politics. The position was set up in 1648 and abolished in 1912.
Awards: Sash, insignia and star of the Imperial Order of the Double Dragon, Stars of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers and the Order of the Red Eagle.
