Chapter 76 The Provisional Government: Shaking the Cradle of the Republic of China Government

Anyone who knows a bit of history knows that the provisional government established by the Revolution of 1911 was organized by the representative conferences of the uprising provinces.Sun Yat-sen, the interim president, was also elected by this representative meeting.In the history of China, perhaps a small number of people always decided the fate of the country.The monarchy became a republic, and the earth was turned upside down, and it turned out to be the same.Dozens of representatives from the provincial representative conferences finalized the framework of the Chinese republic and gave birth to the founding father of the Republic of China.

However, speaking of it, it is difficult to say that the representatives of this conference, which has always been regarded as representatives of public opinion and was later transformed into provisional senators, represent public opinion.Some people were sent by the governors of the provinces, and some were not, because provinces like Henan, Zhili, and Fengtian, which had not yet become independent, also sent representatives.Some representatives couldn't tell which province they represented, such as Zhang Binglin, Cai Yuanpei, Gu Zhongchen, Zhao Zhujun and others, and Song Jiaoren also appointed a representative to participate, but according to the rules, Song Jiaoren was just a representative.After Fujian representative Lin Changmin attended the meeting, because of the grievances with Lin Sen, he was shot by a bum for no reason. Although he was not injured, he was forced to withdraw.Even if the representatives sent by the governors of various provinces are just the will of the governors, they have not been elected, let alone elected.But in general, these representatives were well-known figures at the time, including famous revolutionaries such as Song Jiaoren, Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Binglin, and Lin Sen, and famous constitutionalists such as Lei Fen, Lin Changmin, Tang Erhe, and Wu Jinglian Characters, both sides are a group of new characters who want to establish Western representation.When the provinces became independent, the country was defeated, and whoever had the strength would be the governor. However, to prepare for the establishment of a central government, everyone still had to play a game of voting.In this way, on November 12, 1911 (September 22 of the Xinhai Year of the Lunar Calendar), representatives of the Dudufu in Jiangsu and Zhejiang sent telegrams to the provinces, asking them to send representatives to Shanghai to discuss the formation of the Central Provisional Government.Subsequently, it was moved to Hankou, Nanjing was restored, and the meeting was moved to Nanjing.

The election of the interim central government has been full of twists and turns.When the war in Wuhan was stalemate, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren and others were all in Wuhan, and the representatives from each province were divided into two, some stayed in Shanghai, and some moved to Hankou for the meeting.Due to the motion of the representative of Hubei, it is said that the British consul mediated the truce between the North and the South. It is hoped that Li Yuanhong can represent the independent provinces so that he can speak.Therefore, the meeting elected Li Yuanhong as the governor, and the Hubei military government as the central military government.However, the revolutionaries were worried about such a loss of power, coupled with the defeat of the war in Wuhan, and the frequent news of success in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so the representatives who stayed in Shanghai re-elected, turning the central military government into a generalissimo system.Huang Xing was elected as the Grand Marshal and Li Yuanhong as the Deputy Marshal.Originally, a person who had nothing to do with the revolution was forced to become a governor by the soldiers of the uprising. After turning around, he actually became the governor of the post-revolutionary central government. How could it be possible for these old revolutionaries to convinced.However, who said that during the Wuchang Uprising, the revolutionary party had no leader?Li Yuanhong was so lucky that he became the governor by accident.Although Li Bodhisattva, who was silent from the beginning, was forced to become Li Dudu, who had to do whatever he wanted, but the position has already been taken.When Huang Xing, the leader of the Revolutionary Party, came, he had no choice but to accept Li Yuanhong's appointment, condescending to be the commander-in-chief of the front line.Therefore, with such a change, Wuchang was not happy. Li Yuanhong called Chen Qimei, the governor of the Shanghai Army, asking him to cancel the election of the representative to stay in Shanghai.However, Chen Qimei was behind the behavior of the representative staying in Shanghai.At this time, due to the tight situation in Wuhan and the recovery of Nanjing, the representatives moved again and went to Nanjing to continue the meeting.After arriving in Nanjing, the reorganization behavior of the representatives who stayed in Shanghai was approved by most representatives.However, Zhang Binglin came out to stir things up and sent a telegram saying that the general of the defeated army could not be a marshal, and Huang Xing himself disagreed.Huang Xing was a person who didn't care much about fame and fortune in the Revolutionary Party. For the sake of the overall situation, he had accepted Li Yuanhong's appointment before, but it was obviously inappropriate to reverse it now, and it was not conducive to winning over those Constitutionalists.Therefore, under Huang Xing's proposal, the representatives voted again, switching the positions of Huang Xing and Li Yuanhong.And Li Yuanhong also showed grace, saying that he would not take office in Nanjing, and entrusted Deputy Marshal Huang Xing with full authority to organize the government.

Just when Huang Xing reluctantly agreed to form a government, Sun Yat-sen arrived in Hong Kong from the United States on December 21, 1911.Huang Xing immediately changed his mind and asked the representatives to change the government from a military government to an interim government and elect an interim president, with the intention of letting Sun Yat-sen take over.However, before Sun Yat-sen arrived, the representatives were not interested in him, and more people still wanted Li Yuanhong and Huang Xing to do it.Miraculously, on December 25, Sun Yat-sen arrived in Shanghai.Things changed immediately, and this change may be due to Sun Yat-sen's personal charm.In short, his arrival completely changed the situation.The originally divided revolutionary party was suddenly twisted into one strand, and everyone agreed with him.This is common in the history of revolutionary parties.Every time Sun Yat-sen had something to say, everyone got into a mess and thought that Sun Yat-sen's opinion was wrong, as long as Sun Yat-sen came out and talked about it, he was convinced.Although some people would feel different after coming out from him, but it was already too late.With the strong support of the Revolutionary Party, the representatives also turned. On December 29, when the provincial representatives elected the provisional president, each province had one vote, Sun Yat-sen got sixteen votes, and only one vote went to Huang Xing.When the vice president was elected, Li Yuanhong won unanimous votes.Not only that, the representative meeting also agreed with Sun Yat-sen's opinion that the new government was based on the law and adopted the so-called most advanced American presidential system.

We have seen that such a conference composed of leading figures from all provinces has no consensus on the important matter of organizing the government.Jiangsu representative Lei Fen, when he was in the Zizhengyuan, was very vocal. In the newspapers at the time, it was said that he "speaks when Lei Nai is in a meeting, and stops when the meeting is adjourned." But by this time, Lei Gong has also become dumb. , the meeting was largely swayed by a few visible hands behind.Although everyone believed that the revolutionaries were the most qualified to be the masters of the country, the revolutionaries themselves were also torn apart during the meeting. Those in Jiangsu and Zhejiang were at odds with those in the two lakes, and on the Jiangsu and Zhejiang side, Chen Qimei was also at odds with Cai Yuanpei and Tao Chengzhang.People with armed forces, Chen Qimei, Song Jiaoren, Cheng Dequan, Tang Shouqian, Li Yuanhong, and Huang Xing, were all manipulating the meeting, making the meeting sway from side to side, sometimes this way, sometimes that way.In the end, the arrival of Sun Yat-sen temporarily ended the split of the revolutionary party, so the provisional government was established by the hands of the representatives according to the will of Sun Yat-sen who had just returned to China.This cradle was rocked by many hands, without rules and rules, which made people feel very chaotic, but in the end, a republican baby was shaken out.