By specious misrepresentation the widow of the
Emperor Kwang Hsu--the Dowager Empress Lung Yu who had succeeded
the Prince Regent Ch'un in her care of the interests of the child
Emperor Hsuan Tung--was induced to believe that ceremonial
retirement was the only course open to the Dynasty if the country
was to be saved from disruption and partition. There is reason to
believe that the Memorial of all the Northern Generals which was
telegraphed to Peking on the 28th January, 1912, and which advised
abdication, was inspired by him. In any case it was certainly Yuan
Shih-kai, who drew up the so-called Articles of Favourable
Treatment for the Manchu House and caused them to be telegraphed
to the South, whence they were telegraphed back to him as the
maximum the Revolutionary Party was prepared to concede: and by a
curious chance the attempt made to assassinate him outside the
Palace Gates actually occurred on the very day he had submitted an
outline of these terms on his bended knees to the Empress Dowager
and secured their qualified acceptance. The pathetic attempt to
confer on him as late as the 26th January the title of Marquess,
the highest rank of nobility which could be given a Chinese, an
attempt which was four times renewed, was the last despairing
gesture of a moribund power. Within very few days the Throne
reluctantly decreed its own abdication in three extremely curious
Edicts which are worthy of study in the appendix.
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