On February 13, 1912, Sun Yat-sen, the first provisional president of the Republic of China, submitted his resignation to the Nanjing Senate and recommended Yuan Shikai to succeed him, saying that "Yuan Jun is rich in experience, the republic is unified, and relies on the talent of construction, so he dares to pay tribute to your court with his private opinion." ”
Yuan Shikai was inaugurated as the provisional president
On February 14, Yuan Shikai was unanimously elected as the second provisional president of the Republic of China, one more than sun Yat-sen when he was elected first president.
Yuan Shikai
In a telegram to Yuan Shikai, the Nanjing Senate said: "Looking up world history, electing a great president, and the unanimous, only Washington is alone." Goodbye. The same people are deeply fortunate to be the second Washington in the world, the first great cause of the Republic of China, and the happiness of the republic. ”
At this time, not only the Senate composed of southern revolutionaries, but even Sun Yat-sen praised his "talent for construction", but soon after, Yuan Shikai embarked on the road of restoration, openly overthrew the republic, and implemented a constitutional monarchy, and many later generations believed that his eldest son Yuan Keding instigated his father to become emperor in order to become a prince, but in fact, the biggest promoter behind Yuan Shikai's claim to be emperor was the German emperor at that time and also the scourge of the First World War, Wilhelm II.
William II
In 1912, shortly after Yuan Shikai became president, Wilhelm II sent a secret envoy to China. Before his departure, Wilhelm II entrusted the Minister of the Republic of China to The Republic of China in Berlin to send a secret telegram to Yuan Shikai, saying that Germany was willing to do everything in its power and material resources to sponsor the construction of the Republic of China, and also instructed Yuan not to tell the British and Japanese ministers about this matter.
Soon, German envoys came to China, and the German minister in Beijing forwarded to Yuan Shikai a handwritten letter from the German Emperor Wilhelm II, and urged Yuan Shikai to send the most important cronies to Germany secretly to discuss with Wilhelm II a policy to help China build.
At that time, Germany was a world power, and Yuan Shikai was very happy, so he sent his eldest son Yuan Keding, who went to Germany to treat foot diseases, to meet Wilhelm II, who knew that the help plan given by Wilhelm II was to encourage Yuan Shikai to become emperor.
Yuan Keding
In the palace, Wilhelm II had a secret conversation with Yuan Keding and strongly suggested that China's non-imperial system could not be strong.
William II said:
"China's eastern neighbor, Japan, is the god of the emperor, and to the west, Britain and Russia are also constitutional monarchies. China, with its vast population, between Japan, Great Britain, and Russia, can it learn from the distant United States of America? The United States cannot survive the ocean and provide a strong support for the Republic of China. Moreover, at the beginning of the Republic of China, the ruling officials were all old people of the imperial era, revolutionaries, and extremely weak forces. The transformation of the Republic of China into an imperial emperor under the authority of the Great President is also what Britain, Japan, and Russia expect. I, Germany, swear to sponsor your father with the power to run this matter, the financial equipment, all provided unconditionally by Germany, and China should trust me to fulfill its promise. ”
William II also wrote a secret letter himself, asking Yuan Keding to bring it back, and the letter was also as stated in the secret talk.
Yuan Shikai once presented this letter to his close associate Cai Tinggan, and Cai Tinggan relayed it to his friend Wu Guangjian, so this secret letter did exist, but it is difficult to determine whether William II really wrote this letter or Yuan Keding made up this letter.
Because, in 1915, in order to make Yuan Shikai make up his mind to claim the title of emperor, Yuan Keding also forged the "Shuntian Times" and submitted fake newspapers to Yuan Shikai every day, creating an atmosphere of Japanese support for Yuan Shikai's claim to the emperor, which made Yuan Shikai mistakenly think that there was support from foreign forces and finally moved against the times. Of course, after Yuan became emperor, neither Germany nor Japan nor Britain "provided" him with "unconditional" all help.
Silver dollar engraved with Yuan Shikai's head
Yuan Shikai has long believed in this matter, and he originally regarded Germany as the world's first power, believing that "looking at the world's advanced military system, only Germany is worth learning." Japan's military strength is also due to Germany."
A Prussian silver coin engraved with the head of Wilhelm II
Since the time of training troops at the small station, Yuan Shikai has hired German instructors at great expense, fully adopted the German army system, and when training troops, the footwork in the army uses the footwork of the German Royal Forest Army; when promoting officers, it is of great use to the students of the army who stay in Germany, such as Duan Qirui, who studied artillery in Germany, and as soon as he returned to China, he was appointed as the commander of the third battalion of the left-wing artillery, and also acted as the chief instructor of the artillery officer of the battalion armed equipment academy.
Officers of Yuan Shikai's new army
In addition to learning to use German weapons, military exercises, and tactics, all the non-commissioned officers of Yuan's new army also had to learn German, and later Zhang Zhidong, Rong Lu, and others also learned from Yuan Shikai's request for German instructors, bought German-style equipment, and learned German-style military law, and built new armies such as the "Self-Strengthening Army" and the "Armed Guard Army", which were eventually incorporated by Yuan Shikai.
In order to fully emulate the German system, Yuan Shikai's study of Germany has almost reached the level of following the trend and imitating cloning. He taught his sons German, wore the army uniform of the Prince of Germany, and read the biography of Emperor Wilhelm II once a day. He also specially grew the same eight-horn beard as William II and wore an army uniform similar to William II. And the civil and military officials under Yuan Shikai also threw themselves into their favor, and all of them were equipped with William II-style horn beards.
This horn beard is an upgraded version of the "Van Dyck style", shaving off the lower lip part and the beard of the cheek part, the ends of the beard are fixed with grease, deliberately raised high, created by Wilhelm II, popular in the German army, with a high chin, appearing extremely arrogant.
Perhaps, it was precisely because Yuan Shikai admired William II so much that Yuan Keding made up a lie that "William II instigated Yuan Shikai to become emperor".
Later, when Yuan Shikai's claim to the throne caused the people of the whole country to denounce and the southern provinces broke out to rebel against Yuan, William II was busy fighting in Europe and did not send a soldier or a pawn, a gun and a weapon to support Yuan Shikai.
In the end, Yuan Shikai became the finger of a thousand husbands, and died in 1916, he deeply hated Yuan Keding for "deceiving his father and misleading the country", behind Yuan Shikai, Wang Shizhen and Zhang Zhenfang opened the will of succession in the "Golden Stone House", only to see that the three names written by Yuan Shikai himself: "Li Yuanhong, Duan Qirui, Xu Shichang" were written, and there was no son Yuan Keding.
On November 9, 1918, in order to achieve political unification, German Chancellor Max von Baden announced the abolition of Wilhelm II's titles of German Emperor and King of Prussia, following in the footsteps of Yuan Shikai and Tsar Nicholas II, and the dream of Emperor Wilhelm II was shattered.