Zhang Hanqing's words were reported to the desk of Yuan Shikai in the presidential palace in Beijing not long after. It's not that his words are beautiful, but they are in line with President Yuan's heart---- in this turbulent era, it is really rare for a general and a feudal official like Zhang Zuolin to educate his son to be so "loyal".

"Keding, what do you think?" He asked the eldest son, who was by his side.

"Father, this Zhang Xueliang doesn't look at his young age, but he is very insightful! The best way to solve the current political situation in China is to concentrate the hearts and minds of the people, and the military regime will make China a constitutional monarchy. When my son was in Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II said to me: 'The republican system that China is now engaged in is not suitable for China's national conditions. If China wants to be developed, it must learn from Germany, and it cannot be developed without an imperial system. He told me that when I returned to China, I would tell my father that if China wanted to restore the imperial system, Germany would do its best to help. I guess you must have read the Kaiser's letter very carefully, right? ”

It was President Yuan's eldest son, Yuan Keding, who spoke.

If Yuan Shikai is the most enthusiastic about advocating the imperial system, it is none other than him. Because of his foot disease, he went to Germany for medical treatment and was hospitably treated by Germany. During his time in Germany, Yuan Keding was amazed by Germany's achievements and became convinced of the efficacy of the German monarchy. In 1914, the 36-year-old Yuan Gongzi did not recover from a foot injury in Germany, but returned to China with a dream of an emperor. As a result, Yuan Keding blew a "German whirlwind" at home, and he ordered a set of majestic German princely school uniforms for himself and his younger brothers, and faintly regarded himself as a "prince".

But where did the prince come from without an emperor? As the eldest son who has been following Yuan Shikai, Yuan Keding is clear about his father's thoughts: he wants to be a and a son, and he wants to set up an archway, and he is ambitious but suffers from gains and losses. He didn't understand, the world was already in his hands, what was his father afraid of?

When it comes to the history of the Republic of China, it is impossible not to mention Yuan Shikai, who is being worshiped by all parties at this time. It was he who single-handedly created the Beiyang system, forced the Qing Emperor to abdicate by strength, established the Republic of China, and used the alliance to run Sun Yat-sen in exchange for the position of president.

On the second anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution, 53-year-old Yuan Shikai was officially inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of China, reaching the peak of his life's power and career. Then, in order to avoid being controlled by others, he used tricks to make his soldiers mutiny, so as to coerce and achieve the goal of refusing to go south to Nanjing to take office. His purpose, which anyone with a discerning eye can see, has been achieved very simply.

Because of this, he saw through the essence of the Kuomintang's lust and inwardness. Although he admired the West, he looked down on the revolutionaries who wore suits. He had a ridiculous attitude towards the Kuomintang. After more than a year of retreat and observance, he thought that he had understood the details of these revolutionaries: impetuous, naïve, anxious to achieve success, and incapable of anything but rhetoric and "troublemaking"; What they borrowed from the West will not work in Chinese society at all. In China, things must be done the Chinese way.

At this time, he had good reason to be ambitious. The need for basic administrative unity in the country was the consensus of all parties except the Kuomintang at that time. It is worth mentioning that although Cai Ye was later known for his "anti-Yuan", he was Yuan's collaborator in the Second Revolution. The idea of great unification formed by China's thousand-year-old feudal society has its own necessity and soil for existence.

His idea was to first restore the strong control of the administrative power in China, and then rely on the strong administrative power to open up the people's wisdom from the top down and "step by step" to implement the constitution step by step. Everything must be under control, in the plan, in the overall planning, "weighing the priorities, planning as a whole, and those who are difficult to do so are more important than gradual and not trying to manipulate them." Only in this way can we avoid chaos and move toward prosperity and strength in stability.

This politician, who was born in Henan Province, the province with the deepest history in China, is confident that he knows the mysteries of Chinese politics better than anyone else. People's impression of him is that he is first capable, and the second is sophisticated. With these two items, Yuan Shikai's kung fu of entrapping people and fiddling with people can be described as perfect. In Chinese society, such a person is destined to have a bright future, and Yuan Shikai is also extremely confident in his social experience. In his opinion, the army and money are invincible in China.

And this has been proven time and time again.

The situation in the second year of the Republic of China looked very unfavorable to him. When the Kuomintang led by Soong Jiaoren won a resounding victory in the congressional elections, and when it looked like it was about to push Yuan into a corner, Yuan did not waste his energy in the campaign, he was busy borrowing money from foreign countries. He borrowed money at any cost, and with money as a backing, he murdered Song Jiaoren, and then the well-paid Beiyang Army easily suppressed the "Second Revolution". Then, at a cost of 10,000 yuan per person, the majority of the Kuomintang parliamentarians announced their resignation from the Kuomintang.

His Chinese experience was invincible, and the Western-minded ideas of Sun Yat-sen and Song Jiaoren who used elections to gain power were vulnerable to Yuan Shikai's Chinese methods. Soon, he was freed from the siege of the provincial self-government, the parliament, and the covenant, and seized real power.

Liang Qichao used his consistently sharp pen to describe the political atmosphere under Yuan Shikai's rule: "Yuan himself did not know what the reason why people were different from beasts, thinking that all human beings were universal, only the white blade trembled, and the gold was worshipped. Over the past four years, the Beijing government has not had the so-called politics, but the soul of these two things has only hovered and scorched in people's minds. ”

Therefore, even after the assassination of Song Jiaoren and Sun Yat-sen's "second revolution", the main political forces of the whole country still supported him, and still pinned their hopes on this strongman to lead China out of the throes of revolution and toward independence, prosperity and strength. A politician should perhaps not be judged solely by means. In any case, for the first time after the Xinhai Revolution, China achieved basic administrative unity.

China in 1913 had high hopes for Yuan's iron fist. And Yuan Shikai is also confident that he can live up to this expectation. The man who rules China must understand China, and he thinks he has a more brilliant view of how China can be transformed.

In order to restore the power of the state, he began to centralize power. It's a familiar thing for him. He was rampant, coercive and enticing, and replaced all the provinces with people who listened to him. He took back the power to appoint officials in the provinces and kept the localities firmly in his hands. In order to renew the ranks of the bureaucracy, he organized civil service examinations in 1914 and 1915 to select civilian officials at the level of county magistrates. He set up a special court for judges (Heishoin) to punish corruption. He hoped that the discipline and strength of the bureaucracy would be restored through the above measures.

Once he had seized power, he turned to the Parliament, the Covenant Law, and the local self-government. He abolished the Covenant Law, dissolved the parliament, and abolished the self-governing institutions he had advocated since the late Qing Dynasty. In order to suppress discontent voices in society, he intensified censorship. The post office sent mail to the police station for surveillance, thousands of plainclothes and intelligence officers searched for dissidents, railway passengers were carefully questioned on suspicion of treason, and their luggage was scrutinized. It seems that he is completely betraying the Xinhai Revolution and even his own political ideals, and the evidence is conclusive that he is moving towards "reaction" step by step.

Of course, his original intention was not to turn China into a police state, but to have a constitutional process, a legal process, civil rights, a representative parliament, all of which he wanted. The problem is that he thinks that the current way of parliament, the law, and the way of self-government is wrong. They come from the wrong way, go crazy, are used by bad people, completely deformed, lack of success, and have more than enough failures. Therefore, he is to abolish them all and rebuild them according to his own model.

Yuan Shikai is convinced of his unique analysis of Chinese society. He believes that in China, where the people's wisdom has not yet been enlightened, orders and commands are the most useful methods. When the quality of the people does not reach a certain level, the election will not achieve its own goals and will only be used by people with ulterior motives.

Therefore, in January 1914, he dissolved the National Assembly, tore up the "Covenant Law", and swept away all traces of cooking politics. However, all these reactionary acts that stifled the vitality of the nation were accomplished under the cover of the beautiful slogans of "reunifying the country," "saving the country and the people," and "defending the republic." Later, Yuan believed that "the people abused their freedom of cooking and the people's political understanding was still in their infancy", abolished the provisional constitution of the Republic of China, and introduced a new "Republic of China Constitution" in May, changing the cabinet system to the presidential system. Although these centralizing measures are a manifestation of dictatorship, they have also earned the reputation of "the first Washington of the Republic of China." Later, the Presidential Election Act was amended so that the president could be re-elected indefinitely, and the new president would be appointed by the incumbent president.

Around 1915, Yuan Shikai's centralization of power reached its peak. He had unlimited power equivalent to that of the emperor, he straightened out the bureaucratic order, and restored the central government's finances. But, contrary to his assumptions, China has become weaker rather than stronger. Society has quieted down, but it has become dead. The dignity of the government and the alienation of the government from ordinary citizens have reappeared. The opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate in politics have all disappeared, and the propertied classes have pericariously silenced under political coercion. China looks more like a plate of loose sand than it used to be.

What made Yuan Shikai even more humiliating was that all the diplomatic crises since 1913 ended with China's retreat. He was forced to recognize the autonomy of Tibet and Inner Mongolia, making foreign independence a fact. And the "Twenty-one Articles" of 1915 finally proved to the whole country that his centralization of power did not come in exchange for defense in the face of the great powers. On the contrary, in order to centralize power, he had to do so at the expense of the national interest.

Yuan Shikai was annoyed and angry. Why did the united country not appear as he hoped for? He made a unique diagnosis, the cause of which was the people's alienation and disapproval of the Republic of China. Since everyone in the Republic of China does not recognize it, except for the country, there is only one way to restore the imperial system. Also, don't you see that Japan, Germany, and Britain are all living very well, and they are still one of the few big and powerful countries in the world?

The fatigue of the state apparatus caused by repressive rule, the fear of national discontent, and the humiliation of diplomatic failures led Yuan Shikai to see the imperial system as a lifesaver. The train of totalitarianism has finally entered the abyss of imperialism. His series of mistakes since 1913 have thus received an indefensible summary mark.

For many years, few people were willing to make the slightest necessary explanation for Yuan Shikai's imperial system: the name "Hongxian" means "to promote constitutionalism"!