Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/82

 in touch with political life were assured that since Yuan Shih-kai had rejected the Japanese protectorate which Mr. Hioki, the Japanese plenipotentiary, had offered him at the time of the Twenty-one Demands (18th January, 1915), Japan would certainly defeat his plan by hook or crook. Consequently, the outbreak of the so-called Third Revolution on Christmas Day, 1915, this time not on the Yangtsze but in the inaccessible province of Yunnan, foreshadowed his fall, since even the Northern generals refused to support him generally.

On the 6th June, 1916, Yuan Shih-kai died a broken-hearted man. The South once more was jubilant, declaring that at last it had won. But in 1916 as in 1912 it was not really a victory for the Southern party: it was a qualified victory for certain Southern military leaders in certain Southern provinces, Tsai-ao, the brilliant young Yunnan leader, who had done all the fighting, dying before he could consolidate his gains and make his weight really felt. Vice-President Li Yuan-hung, who now assumed office as President, although a thoroughly honest man, was a mere hostage in Peking without a single soldier from his native province of Hupeh to support him. It required the revolt of the whole navy to force