Chapter 5 5. The Strange Battle for the Capital and the Beijing Mutiny

After the Qing emperor announced his abdication, Sun Yat-sen resigned as the interim president of the Republic of China according to the agreement, but at the same time he also put forward three prerequisites, that is: the interim government must be located in Nanjing; the new interim president must go to Nanjing to take office and abide by the interim The Senate enacts and enacts all laws and regulations. The reason why Sun Yat-sen insisted on establishing the capital in Nanjing and asked Yuan Shikai to take office in Nanjing was to restrict Yuan Shikai, because Yuan Shikai's influence was mainly in the north.But Yuan Shikai has been up and down for more than 30 years, what kind of person he is, how could he fail to see Sun Yat-sen's intentions?How can there be any reason to go south alone and become a puppet of the Southern Revolutionary Party?The proposal to establish Nanjing as the capital is a bit naive, and it is not for the wise to know.

Sure enough, Yuan Shikai then replied to the Nanjing Provisional Government, claiming that he was "poor in virtue and capable of freshness" and did not dare to assume the post of president; , it is not as good as Shikai retreating." Yunyun.Yuan Shikai used this tactic of "advancing through retreat" to be both high-sounding and impeccable. Not only did he win a good reputation for being humble and self-restraining, but he also really took over the army of the Southern Revolutionary Party. As soon as Yuan Shikai's telegram was released, public opinion from all sides expressed opposition to the establishment of Nanjing as the capital. For example, eight associations including the Civil Society and the National Association issued a joint statement, claiming that "the establishment of Beijing as the capital is the key to the domestic and foreign affairs of the Republic of China. Zhang Jian, the leader of the constitutionalists in the late Qing Dynasty, also disagreed with the idea of ​​moving the capital. He believed that "the establishment of the capital in Beijing, whichever is closer to Mongolia and Tibet, will benefit governance"; February 24 The "Declaration" in the book is even more titled "Qu Zhengping", attacking Sun Yat-sen and others as "Yang entrusted the resolution of the Senate, while Yin used the selfishness of coercion and disregarded Manchurian Huizang".

At that time, Zhang Taiyan, a veteran revolutionary comrade who was in the limelight, jumped out and sang against the tune. In his "Letter to the Nanjing Council on the Establishment of the Capital", he declared that Nanjing was biased and had "five evils": first, its power could not reach outside the Great Wall; The northern people turned into Mongols; the third was that Japan and Russia invaded the three eastern provinces, and the Central Plains was like a lost town, and there must be fear of collapse; the fourth was that the Qing emperor, the Zongshe Party, and the Mongolian kings might cause chaos, resulting in the division of the country; the fifth was the cost of moving the capital. Huge amount of money, difficult to plan.

Under the instigation of public opinion, the governors of various provinces and representatives of gentry and merchants also called the Nanjing Provisional Government to express their objections to the establishment of Nanjing as the capital.Even Li Yuanhong, who had always advocated the establishment of Wuchang as the capital, changed his tune to support Beijing's establishment of the capital at this time, "so as not to cause serious trouble."Many generals in the Southern Revolutionary Army, such as Zhu Rui, commander of the Zhejiang Army, Yao Yuping, commander of the Guangdong Army, and Bai Wenwei, commander of the First Army, also issued telegrams, advocating that the provisional government should be established in Beijing.

After Sun Yat-sen received the telegram, he was more than happy for Yuan Shikai to resign, but he could not make up his own mind, so he handed over Yuan Shikai's telegram to the Provisional Senate for discussion.Members of the Provisional Senate were not very determined about establishing the capital of Nanjing. Perhaps they believed that Sun Yat-sen’s idea was too naive, or they were eager to maintain the hard-won peace. As a result, they could not decide on the establishment of the capital for a long time, and finally had to vote to decide. The result of the vote was unexpected. The Senate rejected Sun Yat-sen's proposal with an overwhelming majority of 20 votes (20 votes in Beijing, 5 votes in Nanjing, 2 votes in Wuchang, and 1 vote in Tianjin).Sun Yat-sen was very angry when he learned of this result. According to "Hu Hanmin's Autobiography", "Mr. (referring to Sun) called Keqiang (Huang Xing) to the presidential palace and let him. Keqiang also said that there should be no objections in the party. So Mr. Huang Fusheng, Li Boxhen, Deng Jiayan and others in the court were summoned to comment on their gains and losses. They are all the only ones. According to the law of the Senate, the government must submit it to the Senate before the original case can be overturned. Deng, Huang and others so please. Ke Qiang said suddenly He said: "The government will never go through this grievous procedure, and the House will automatically overturn the verdict until today; otherwise, I will be sent to the court with military police and bind all the members of the Tongmenghui." Said that he was ill and couldn't do it, but submitted the cursive document in the government to the court for further discussion; Mr. Feibai on the one hand."

After Huang Xing claimed that he would lead the gendarmerie into the Senate to tie up all members of the alliance membership, and under the dredging of veteran member Wu Yuzhang and others, the provisional Senate voted again, and finally passed the Nanjing by 19 votes to 17 votes. Decision as the location of the provisional government.However, it can be seen from this incident that the opinions within the Revolutionary Party are not very unified. On the same day (February 13) when Sun Yat-sen proposed that the three conditions of establishing the capital Nanjing must be realized (February 13), the Revolutionary Party's own "Minli Daily" published the editorial "Private Discussion on Establishing the Capital", putting forward eight reasons to prove that the capital should be built in Beijing.When talking about moving the capital, Ma Junwu, a member of the Guangxi League, suspected that Song Jiaoren had turned to Yuan Shikai and betrayed the revolution, so he "verbally attacked Song Jiaoren". During the dispute, Song Jiaoren slapped Ma Junwu in anger, and Ma Junwu fought back , seriously injured Song Jiaoren's left eye, which can be regarded as a history of revolution. (Hu Hanmin said in his "Autobiography": "Song used the horse as a pawn, and urgently criticized his left cheek. The horse fought back, hurting Song's eyes. Song was admitted to the hospital and healed within ten days.")

The threat of Yuan Shikai's "returning to the countryside" did not shake Sun Yat-sen's determination to ask Yuan Shikai to go south to take office. The special mission went to Beijing to welcome Yuan Shikai to the south.After the special envoy arrived in Beijing, Yuan Shikai gave him a warm reception, but he was ambiguous about going south to take office, and only prevaricated by saying "do our best and go south as soon as possible". Unexpectedly, on the second night (February 29) when the special envoy arrived in Beijing, several cannon shots were heard suddenly in the north of the city, followed by people screaming, fires blazing, and groups of soldiers suddenly appeared on the streets.This group of people shouted and drank along the way, set fire to looting along the way, and some rebels rushed to the residence of the special envoys, scaring Cai Yuanpei and others to flee to the Liuguo Hotel in a panic.

The next day, it was found out that the mutiny took place in Beiyang No. 3 Town under the control of Cao Kun. They were originally stationed outside the city of Beijing. The cinder alley where the special mission lived was messing around.In the second half of the night, the mutiny continued to expand, and riots broke out in the west city and the north city. Local bandits took advantage of the news and took advantage of the fire to loot, and some policemen also joined the ranks of robberies.By early morning, thousands of shops, banks, and residential houses had been smashed and robbed, and hundreds of houses had been burned, as if to cover up the traces of the looting.

Whether this mutiny was directed by Yuan Shikai, there is still no conclusive evidence.However, there is a rumor in the market that Yuan Shikai's eldest son, Yuan Keding, had discussed with several generals of the Beiyang Army, saying that if my father went south to take office, someone else would take over the governor of Zhili, and the Beiyang Army might be abolished by then. , It is very detrimental to everyone; if you want to prevent my father from going south, the first thing to do is to drive away the southern special mission.After Cao Kun and others heard this, they were very annoyed, and said, "This matter is not difficult, as long as we let the brothers surround the residence of the special envoy at night and shoot twice to scare them away." Yuan Keding said: "As long as you make trouble, even if the special mission does not run away, the diplomatic mission in Dongjiaominxiang will come out to protest, and then my father will not be able to leave."

Others said that on the second morning of the mutiny, when Tang Shaoyi was reporting the situation to Yuan Shikai, Cao Kun suddenly pushed in and reported to Yuan Shikai: "Yesterday, according to the secret order of the President, the mutiny has been completed!" Yuan Shikai Seeing that Cao Kun had slipped his mouth, he got up and cursed: "Nonsense, get out!" Most of the current history books refer to this mutiny as Yuan Shikai's premeditation, but they are vague and lack direct historical evidence to prove it.Therefore, some historians objected to the theory that this mutiny was "planned by Yuan Shikai". Those who use Yang Du's calculations. However, if we discuss it today, it will be ridiculed by prejudice. It is not the historical truth to say that all the evils in the world are attributed to Yuan."

The strange thing is that although the scale of the mutiny was large, it seemed that it was aimed at rich places, especially the banks in the city. was also robbed.According to later statistics, the rioters stole at least 3 million taels of silver during the riot that night.What is even more strange is that during the mutiny that night, Yuan Shikai's cronies in charge of Beijing's public security did nothing. All involved in the robbery. Feng Yuxiang, who was in charge of preparing for the military belt at the Fifth Gyeonggi Road and witnessed the event, said in his memoirs, "The mutiny on this day first broke out from the Presidential Palace in Dongcheng Iron Lion Alley, and the mutiny was the entire third town. They surrounded the presidential palace, crashed into it and fired a row of random guns, and then looted all the more precious things in the palace, and even destroyed the windows and everything. Yuan Shikai's bedroom was also smashed into a corner. After a while, they were still angry, and they set fire on a large scale, and then the two cities in the north and the south also caught fire one after another." Feng Yuxiang believed that saying that the mastermind of the mutiny in Beijing was Yuan Shikai obviously overestimated his strength, because Yuan Shikai had lost the ability to control the third town after returning to his hometown for several years, not to mention the military discipline of the third town. Bad.According to Feng, the direct cause of this mutiny was "Duan Zhigui's reduction of pay", because according to the previous practice, each soldier's salary was increased by one tael before the army was dispatched, "now Duan Zhigui deducted this tael out of thin air. A tael of silver seems to be nothing, but in the eyes of the soldiers, it is very important. Because what they look forward to every day is the payment. After the payment, after deducting the food expenses, how much is left, and all their plans and hopes are placed on it Now it’s more serious to lose one or two taels of silver for nothing. As soon as the news of the salary reduction came out, the soldiers were all furious and kept cursing. ". However, Feng Yuxiang also believes that "this mutiny was triggered by the fact that the payment was cut." However, the essence and political structure of the whole society have not changed. The general people still have an idol of the emperor firmly in their minds. Especially in the army, the political education that soldiers usually receive is only to be loyal to the emperor. The royal family regards revolution as rebellion. Yuan Shikai and his associates were still educating the soldiers in this way not long ago, suppressing the revolution everywhere, and hunting down the revolutionary party. Suddenly, one day, he transformed himself into the president and became the head of the revolutionary country.  … ...In this way, how to maintain the morale of the army? When Lao Yuan became the president, I often saw and heard many officials and guards swearing at him behind his back, saying that he was a traitor who usurped the throne, and his anger reached the extreme. Second, third The troops in the town have been stationed in Changchun, and their military discipline has been extremely corrupt. After they arrived in Beijing, the depravity became even worse. The officials watched the soldiers openly gathered to gamble, indulge in drinking and whoring, and did everything. Training and education were completely abolished....Third The town is like this, and the rest of the garrisons in the Gyeonggi area are like this. The leader of the army is absurd, and the soldiers follow the example, and the commander does nothing. It seems that they think that the emperor has fallen, the world has changed, and everything can be mischievous, and there is no need to be restrained. " It is rare for dynasties to change without chaos.Coincidentally, Xu Yongchang, who later served as Minister of Military Command of the Nanjing Nationalist Government (who was also in the Beijing Army at the time), also stated in his memoirs, "The mutiny in Beijing on the 12th day of the first lunar month in the third town was not initiated by Yuan Shikai at first. Yuan Shikai’s instigation to protest against the southern representative’s request to move the capital to Nanjing was actually a false accusation. However, Yuan Shikai used the mutiny to refuse to move the capital at his meeting, or there may be some. Because the soldiers returned to Beijing after the third town fought against the revolutionary army in Hankou, and they still did not forget to go abroad. Irregular living habits during the combat period, and the leaders of the troops did not pay attention to restraining the soldiers' out-of-rule actions during the war, and they neglected to rectify and prevent them after the war, so it led to a mutiny. Yi army's mutiny, will it be said that there is someone in charge?" It turned out that on the second night after the mutiny in the third town, Jiang Guiti's Yi army also mutinied in Xicheng.Then, mutinies occurred one after another in Tianjin and Baoding.Most of these mutinies were for the purpose of robbing the people's wealth, especially after "intercepting the mutiny in the third town, they got unexpected gains, and the morale of the army fluctuated, and they often wanted to make a fortune." In custody or execution, the items were returned to the public, and many of the money and ornaments were put into the pockets of the interceptors.... After one or two days of interception and mutiny, the brothers seemed like cats used to eating wild food, so it is true that they were sent Go out, if you don’t send them, you will go out automatically.... When there is no mutiny, they will steal the residents outside the city by the way..." ("Memoirs of Xu Yongchang") Yuan Shikai may not have thought that he left the Beiyang New Army In two or three years, the troops he personally trained have become like this. After the mutiny in Beijing, the foreign missions in Dongjiaomin Lane really responded quickly. They protested strongly to Yuan Shikai on the grounds that foreigners were being robbed. Patrol alert.Not only that, the envoys also threatened that if China did not immediately form a republican government and restore good order, they would mobilize more troops to enter Beijing, which was likely to repeat the posture of the "Eight-Power Allied Forces" invading China. As a result, the opposition to the establishment of Nanjing as the capital further increased. On March 5, Shenbao published a comment titled "Concepts on the Mutiny in the North", asking the Nanjing Provisional Government, "Can President Yuan come to the south to take office?" "Can the provisional government build Nanjing?" The Jiangsu Provincial Council also sent a telegram on March 7 to accuse the Nanjing provisional government of forcing Yuan Nan to leave. ; "Most of the country today has a provisional government set up in Beijing. Seeing the same thing, they should work together to achieve public opinion. How can we let those who use their personal opinions to fight for sentiments ruin the overall situation?" And on the same day, Li Yuanhong issued an urgent telegram: "I heard that the rebellious parties in Beijing and Tianjin are fighting each other. Enthusiastic, a certain country is secretly planning to send troops to Beijing to assist", "the disaster of partition is now."Like Li Yuanhong, the governors and generals of other provinces, such as Yan Xishan, Tan Yankai, Ma Yubao, Sun Daoren, Jiang Zungui, Cai E, Lan Tianwei, Zhu Rui, Jiang Yanxing, etc., also expressed their views and advocated the establishment of Beijing as their capital. In fact, Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others fell into a passive position on this issue from the very beginning and had to relax. For example, Sun Yat-sen said in the "Fu Zhang Tai Yan Letter" that the establishment of the capital "can be decided by the National Assembly in the future." .Huang Xing also said in "Book of Fu Zhuang Yunkuan and Li Shucheng" that "the issue of the national capital should be resolved by the Congress, and the interim government is the organ of interim governing power."Judging from the above statements, although Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing backed down and said that the resolution should be resolved by the National Assembly, they still attempted to establish the fact that Nanjing was the capital first. After the "mutiny", Yuan Shikai no longer met with the special envoys, but sent people from time to time to send telegrams about the incidents in various places, and his intentions were self-evident.Under the pressure of strong public opinion, Cai Yuanpei and others also felt pessimistic about the situation. They sent a telegram to Nanjing, saying: "Since internal changes have begun, outsiders' interference has appeared, and the state of anarchy will not last forever." " Pei et al. met several times, and all unanimously stated that we must sacrifice our purpose of coming here to ensure the overall situation is at stake." The so-called "superior moves, superiors stand out", in terms of political power and experience, the Southern Revolutionary Party was far less sophisticated than Yuan Shikai at that time; and in terms of political, economic, and military resources, they were far inferior to the Beiyang forces. Under the oppression of the situation, Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others could only accept the suggestion of the special envoy, even if they were unwilling, they gave up the original idea of ​​establishing the capital in Nanjing and insisted that Yuan Shikai came to Nanjing to take office. On March 10, 1912, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as the interim president of the Republic of China in the Diplomatic Building in Beijing (formerly the Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty) in a tuxedo.On that day, the old bureaucrats of the former Qing Dynasty also lined up to congratulate the new president according to the practice of the former dynasty. Even Cai Yuanpei and others had to be among them, bowing and celebrating.Such an ending is like a folk song circulating at that time said: "Consult horizontally, discuss vertically, and others will taste the fruits of the pluck; let it be today, and let it be tomorrow, and the man-eating old ape will be the king!" But having said that, the general trend is the general trend, so what if we don't let it go?