In 1911, the "Xinhai Revolution" broke out, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the last emperor in the history of China's feudal dynasty, Ai Xin jueluo Puyi, was also forced to announce his abdication in February of the following year (Empress Longyu announced the abdication on behalf of the little emperor Puyi), the feudal dynasty ended, and China began to enter the republican Republic of China period.
However, what people did not expect was that although the revolutionaries launched a rebellion and ended the feudal monarchy, the Republic of China entered the dictatorship of Yuan Shikai.
At the beginning, Yuan Shikai used the "Wuchang Uprising" launched by the revolutionaries to force the Qing dynasty to agree to abdicate, and on the other hand, he used the Qing chamber to negotiate with the revolutionaries and obtained the greatest benefits: dr. Sun Yat-sen agreed to his dismissal of the provisional president and recommended Yuan Shikai as the first president of the Republic of China.
In order to allow the Qing dynasty to smoothly announce his abdication, Yuan Shikai put forward the conditions for preferential treatment of the Qing dynasty, according to which the Qing Emperor could still maintain a certain degree of honor after abdication, the general content of which included:
After the abdication of the Qing Emperor, he still maintained the honorific title of emperor, and the Government of the Republic of China treated the gifts of foreign monarchs; the Qing Emperor still temporarily resided in the Imperial Palace and later moved to the Summer Palace; the Government of the Republic of China paid the Qing Emperor 4 million yuan per year; the original Janissaries were still the same, the princes and princes were still the same, the imperial public power was equal to that of the people; and the private property of the imperial family was all protected.
In the days of Yuan Shikai's dictatorship, he always recognized the terms of preferential treatment of the Qing Dynasty, and also declared that "its validity will never be changed."
On December 12, 1915, Yuan Shikai became emperor. At this time, the royal family was most worried about the change of preferential treatment clauses, but Yuan Shikai replied that although the political system has changed, the preferential clauses will not change.
However, the imperial family also realized that since Yuan Shikai had already claimed the title of emperor, the deadline for them to leave the Forbidden City was also approaching.
However, before the imperial family left the Forbidden City, Yuan Shikai's plan to become emperor collapsed in a wave of opposition. In March 1916, Yuan Shikai hurriedly ordered the restoration of the republic, and less than three months later, Yuan Shikai died of illness.
Yuan Shikai's death deprived the imperial family of its greatest protective umbrella. However, Yuan Shikai's successor, Li Yuanhong, as well as Feng Guozhang, Xu Shichang and others, still acquiesced in the royal family's continued stay in the Forbidden City.
In June 1917, Zhang Xun took advantage of the contradiction between President Li Yuanhong and Premier Duan Qirui in the "dispute between the government and the courtyard", and under the pretext of going to Beijing to mediate, led 10 battalions of 5,000 "braided troops" into Beijing. On July 1, Zhang Xun moved Puyi, who had abdicated for five years, out of the restoration.
Unfortunately, Zhang Xun's restoration lasted only 12 days, but this farce swept Puyi into it, so many people strongly demanded that the preferential treatment clause of the clearance be abolished.
During Zhang Xun's restoration, the 60 members of Parliament who were exiled by Zhang Xun to Tianjin proposed nine reform measures, one of which was to cancel the Qing Emperor's abdication agreement.
The parliamentarians believed that the preferential treatment was the special kindness of the Republic of China government to the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and no other emperor who had been ousted in history could enjoy such preferential treatment. Since the abdicated emperor supported restoration and opposed the government of the Republic of China, these preferential conditions should be abolished; if they were to remain, they would be tantamount to rewarding the rebels.
However, those who held real power in the Republic of China government still did not have the intention of abolishing the preferential treatment clause of the Qing Dynasty, because they were originally feudal vassals of the Qing Dynasty, and the conditions for preferential treatment of the Qing Dynasty were originally formulated by them, so the imperial family continued to live in the Forbidden City.
On December 1, 1922, Puyi also held a big wedding ceremony in the Forbidden City, on the same day, Puyi welcomed Empress Wanrong into the palace, and under the escort of a large number of military and police guards and military music of the Republic of China, the Forbidden City marched majestically to the palace, and the wedding of the last emperor was also a major landscape of Beijing at that time.
In 1924, the Second Zhifeng War broke out, and on October 22, Feng Yuxiang, commander-in-chief of the Third Army of the Zhi Army, suddenly defected to Beijing and put cao Kun under house arrest, which directly led to the defeat of Wu Peifu, who was fighting Against Zhang Zuolin on the front line.
Seven years ago, after Zhang Xun's restoration was crushed, Feng Yuxiang led a group of northern generals to strongly demand that the preferential treatment of the Qing Dynasty be revoked, Puyi's throne removed, and he was demoted to a commoner.
Now, Feng Yuxiang led his troops to control the city of Beijing, and naturally the ideal of that year was about to be realized.
On November 5, Feng Yuxiang sent his subordinate Lu Zhonglin to forcibly break into the Forbidden City with his troops, and issued an ultimatum to Puyi, asking him to leave the Forbidden City within 3 hours.
Feng Yuxiang also imposed a revised set of preferential terms on Puyi, and the revised regulations required the "Xuantong Emperor" to give up the title of emperor forever and reduce the allowance from 4 million yuan to 500,000 yuan.
Puyi, who had no choice but to leave the Forbidden City, first moved into Beifu (the residence of his father Zaifeng) and then fled to the Japanese legation in China on November 29. The next day, Japanese Minister Yoshiyoshi Yoshizawa announced to the outside world that puyi would be "accommodated." History calls this incident a "Beijing coup."
Puyi's expulsion from the Forbidden City marked the end of the Republic of China's preferential treatment of the Qing dynasty royal family, and the Manchu nobles of the Qing Dynasty officially left the stage of China's history.
This article is referenced from: "Looking at History", "Great Reference for War in the Republic of China Period"