The one man who
could have produced that result in the way Yuan Shih-kai desired
to see it, the brilliant reformer Liang Chi-chao, famous ever
since 1898, however, obstinately refused to lend himself to such
work; and, sooner than be involved in any way in the plot, threw
up his post of Minister of Justice and retired to the neighbouring
city of Tientsin from which centre he was destined to play a
notable part.
This hitch occasioned a delay in the public propaganda, though not
for long. Forced to turn to a man of secondary ability, Yuan Shih-
kai now invoked the services of a scholar who had been known to be
his secret agent in the Old Imperial Senate under the Manchus--a
certain Yang Tu--whose constant appeals in that chamber had indeed
been the means of forcing the Manchus to summon Yuan Shih-kai back
to office to their rescue on the outbreak of the Wuchang rebellion
in 1911. After very little discussion everything was arranged. In
the person of this ex-Senator, whose whole appearance was
curiously Machiavellian and decadent, the neo-imperialists at last
found their champion.
Events now moved quickly enough. In the Eastern way, very few
weeks after the Japanese Ultimatum, a society was founded called
the Society for the Preservation of Peace (Chou An Hut) and
hundreds of affiliations opened in the provinces. Money was spent
like water to secure adherents, and when the time was deemed ripe
the now famous pamphlet of Yang Tu was published broadcast, being
in everybody's hands during the idle summer month of August.
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