been buried, a Mandate ordering the summary
arrest of all the chief monarchist plotters was issued; but the gang of
corrupt men had already sought safety in ignominious flight; and it was
understood that so long as they remained on soil under foreign
jurisdiction, no attempt would be made even to confiscate their goods
and chattels as would certainly have been done under former governments.
The days of treachery and double-dealing and cowardly revenge were
indeed passing away and the new regime was committed to decency and
fairplay. The task of the new President was no mean one, and in all the
circumstances if he managed to steer a safe middle course and avoid both
Caesarism and complete effacement, that is a tribute to his training.
Born in 1864 in Hupeh, one of the most important mid-Yangtsze provinces,
President Li Yuan-hung was now fifty-two years old, and in the prime of
life; but although he had been accustomed to a military atmosphere from
his earliest youth his policy had never been militaristic. His father
having been in command of a force in North China for many years, rising
from the ranks to the post of _Tsan Chiang_ (Lieutenant-Colonel), had
been constrained to give him the advantage of a thoroughly modern
training. At the age of 20 he had entered the Naval School at Tientsin;
whence six years later he had graduated, seeing service in the navy as
an engineer officer during the Chino-Japanese war of 1894. After that
campaign he had been invited by Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, then one of the
most distinguished of the older viceroys, to join his staff at Nanking,
and had been entrusted with the supervision of the construction of the
modern forts at the old Southern capital, which played such a notable
part in the Revolution. When Chang Chih-tung was transferred to the
Wuchang viceroyalty, General Li Yuan-hung had accompanied him, actively
participating in the training of the new Hupeh army, and being assisted
in that work by German instructors. In 1897 he had gone to Japan to
study educational, military and administrative methods, returning to
China after a short stay, but again proceeding to Tokio in 1897 as an
officer attached to the Imperial Guards. In the autumn of the following
year he had returned to Wuchang and been appointed Commander of the
Cavalry. Yet another visit was paid by him to Japan in 1902 to attend
the grand military manoeuvres, these journeys giving him a good working
knowledge of Japanese, in