ic, but the hope of his
heart was to be emperor of China. For twenty years he had plotted for the
throne; he had been emperor for one hundred miserable days; and now he was
watching, impotently, his dream-castles crumble beneath his feet. Yuan was
the strong man of his day, with more power, brains, and personality than
any Chinese since Li-Hung Chang. He always had been a factor in his
political world. His monarchial dream first took definite form as early as
1901 when he became viceroy of Chi-li, the province in which Peking is
situated.

It was then that he began to modernize and get control of the army which is
the great basis of political power in China. Properly speaking, there was
not, and is not now, a Chinese national army. It is rather a collection of
armies, each giving loyalty to a certain general, and he who secures the
support of the various commanders controls the destiny of China's four
hundred millions of people regardless of his official title.

Yuan was able to bind to himself the majority of the leading generals, and
in 1911, when the Manchu dynasty was overthrown, his plots and intrigues
began to bear fruit. By crafty juggling of the rebels and Manchus he
managed to get himself elected president of the new republic, although he
did not for a moment believe in the republican form of government. He was
always a monarchist at heart but was perfectly willing to declare himself
an ardent republican so long as such a declaration could be used as a
stepping stone to the throne which he kept ever as his ultimate goal.

As president he ruled with a high hand. In 1913 there was a rebellion in
protest against his official acts but he defeated the rebels, won over more
of the older generals, and solidified the army for his own interests,
making himself stronger than ever before.

At this time he might well have made a _coup d'etat_ and proclaimed himself
emperor with hardly a shadow of resistance, but with the hereditary caution
of the Chinese he preferred to wait and plot and scheme. He wanted his
position to be even more secure and to have it appear that he reluctantly
accepted the throne as a patriotic duty at the insistent call of the
people.

Yuan's ways for producing the proper public sentiment were typically
Chinese but entirely effective, and he was making splendid progress, when
in May, 1915, Japan put a spoke in his wheel of fortune by taking advantage
of the European war and presenting the histori