After Sun Yat-sen’s resignation, the Nanjing Provisional Senate elected Yuan Shikai as the Republic of China’s new provisional president, setting up a shift of political power toward Beijing and Yuan’s Beiyang military network.
Yuan Shikai took the oath of office and assumed duties as provisional president, consolidating the new republic’s executive authority under his leadership in Beijing.
The Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China was promulgated as the new supreme law, defining republican institutions and (on paper) limiting presidential power during the early republic.
Kuomintang leader Song Jiaoren—expected to shape a parliamentary cabinet system after the first National Assembly elections—was shot at Shanghai railway station, a political crisis widely seen as strengthening Yuan’s drive against parliamentary constraints.
Amid escalating conflict with Yuan’s government, Li Liejun declared Jiangxi’s independence, triggering a broader anti-Yuan uprising known as the Second Revolution (also called the “Third Revolution” in some framings), which Yuan’s Beiyang forces quickly suppressed.
Beiyang forces captured Nanjing, a decisive blow to the anti-Yuan coalition; the revolt soon ended, leaving Yuan far less constrained by revolutionary and parliamentary opposition.
China’s National Assembly elected Yuan Shikai as the first formal president of the Republic of China, transforming his position from provisional head of state into a constitutionally elected presidency under the early republican framework.
Yuan moved against parliamentary opposition by expelling Kuomintang members from the National Assembly, crippling the legislature’s ability to function and accelerating the collapse of representative politics under the early republic.
With parliamentary representation effectively neutralized, Yuan dissolved the National Assembly, removing a key institutional check and paving the way for rule by decree and later constitutional reengineering.
Following a mandate to create a new constitutional framework, a Constitutional Compact Conference convened, part of Yuan’s effort to replace the 1912 provisional constitutional order with arrangements more favorable to strong presidential authority.
Japan presented the Twenty-One Demands to Yuan Shikai’s government, seeking expanded privileges and influence in China during World War I; the demands and negotiations intensified anti-Japanese sentiment and exposed the republic’s vulnerability to external pressure.
After Japan issued an ultimatum, Yuan’s government accepted and signed a set of Sino-Japanese agreements tied to the Twenty-One Demands, a major political setback that further undermined the regime’s legitimacy.
Yuan Shikai proclaimed a new monarchy—commonly called the Empire of China—and positioned himself as emperor (Hongxian era), turning the republic into an attempted dynastic restoration.
Yunnan leaders (including Cai E and Tang Jiyao) declared independence and launched the National Protection War against Yuan’s monarchy, catalyzing a wider provincial break with Beijing and rapidly weakening the restoration.
Facing expanding provincial opposition and military-political isolation, Yuan formally abdicated the throne and restored the republic, ending the short-lived imperial restoration attempt.
Yuan Shikai died shortly after abandoning the monarchy, leaving a power vacuum that intensified factionalism within the Beiyang leadership and helped accelerate the fragmentation associated with the ensuing warlord era.
Yuan Shikai's Presidency and Imperial Restoration Attempt (1912–1916)
