CHAPTER II
THE ENIGMA OF YUAN SHIH-KAI
THE HISTORY OF THE MAN FROM THE OPENING OF HIS CAREER IN KOREA, IN
1882 TO THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 12TH FEBRUARY, 1912
Yuan Shih-kai's career falls into two clear-cut parts, almost as
if it had been specially arranged for the biographer; there is the
probationary period in Korea, and the executive in North China.
The first is important only because of the moulding-power which
early influences exerted on the man's character; but it is
interesting in another way since it affords glimpses of the sort
of things which affected this leader's imagination throughout his
life and finally brought him to irretrievable ruin. The second
period is choke-full of action; and over every chapter one can see
the ominous point of interrogation which was finally answered in
his tragic political and physical collapse.
Yuan Shih-kai's origin, without being precisely obscure, is
unimportant. He came of a Honanese family who were nothing more
distinguished than farmers possessing a certain amount of land,
but not too much of the world's possessions. The boy probably ran
wild in the field at an age when the sons of high officials and
literati were already pale and anaemic from overmuch study. To
some such cause the man undoubtedly owed his powerful physique,
his remarkable appetite, his general roughness. Native biographers
state that as a youth he failed to pass his hsiu-tsai
examinations--the lowest civil service degree--because he had
spent too much time in riding and boxing and fencing.
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