The provincial response to the action taken on the 13th June
became what every one had expected: the Southwestern group of
provinces, with their military headquarters at Canton, began
openly concerting measures to resist not the authority of the
President, who was recognized as a just man surrounded by evil-
minded persons who never hesitated to betray him, but to destroy
the usurping generals and the corrupt camarilla behind them;
whilst the Yangtsze provinces, with their headquarters at Nanking,
which had hitherto been pledged to "neutrality," began secretly
exchanging views with the genuinely Republican South. The group of
Tientsin generals and "politicals," confused by these
developments, remained inactive; and this was no doubt responsible
for the mad coup attempted by the semi-illiterate General Chang
Hsun. In the small hours of July 1st General Chang Hsun, relying
on the disorganization in the capital which we have dealt with in
our preceding account, entered the Imperial City with his troops
by prearrangement with the Imperial Family and at 4 o'clock on the
morning of the 1st July the Manchu boy-emperor Hsuan Tung, who
lost the Throne on the 12th February, 1912, was enthroned before a
small assembly of Manchu nobles, courtiers and sycophantic
Chinese. The capital woke up to find military patrols everywhere
and to hear incredulously that the old order had returned.
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