There is reason to
believe that provided he had been made de facto Regent, Yuan Shih-
kai would have supported to the end a Manchu Monarchy. But the
surprising swiftness of the Revolutionary Party's action in
proclaiming the Republic at Nanking on the 1st January, 1912, and
the support which foreign opinion gave that venture confused him.
He had already consented to peace negotiations with the
revolutionary South in the middle of December, 1911, and once he
was drawn into those negotiations his policy wavered, the
armistice in the field being constantly extended because he saw
that the Foreign Powers, and particularly England, were averse
from further civil war. Having dispatched a former lieutenant,
Tong Shao-yi, to Shanghai as his Plenipotentiary, he soon found
himself committed to a course of action different from what he had
originally contemplated. South China and Central China insisted so
vehemently that the only solution that was acceptable to them was
the permanent and absolute elimination of the Manchu Dynasty, that
he himself was half-convinced, the last argument necessary being
the secret promise that he should become the first President of
the united Republic. In the circumstances, had he been really
loyal, it was his duty either to resume his warfare or resign his
appointment as Prime Minister and go into retirement. He did
neither. In a thoroughly characteristic manner he sought a middle
course, after having vaguely advocated a national convention to
settle the matter.
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