Part 2 The Republican Era

∵ 272 Part 2

The New Setting: Political Thinking after 1912

When regent Zaifeng1 (1883–1951, regency 1908–1912) proved incapable of continuing political reforms after the death of the Cixi (1835–1908, regency 1861–1908), the Chinese reformers finally gave up hope that the Qing Empire could become a constitutional . Instead, they joined the revolutionaries in their struggle to end the . In late 1911, the processes that brought this end culminated. The Xinhai Revolution began in October. On December 29, Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) was elected Provisional President of the RoC in . On January 1, 1912, the founding of the RoC was officially declared. On February 12, Empress Dowager Longyu (1868–1913, regency 1908–1912) signed the abdication treaty for the infant (1906–1967, r. 1908–1912). The ended and a new era began. In this chapter, I analyse the discourse on the periodisation of ’s history among Chinese thinkers—some of them can already be called historians—­ around 1920. In this analysis I include the discussion of late models from Japanese and Chinese histories and history textbooks, which experienced a rediscovery around 1920. The political situation in the non-Chinese regions, which were officially incorporated into the RoC, provides the background for this discourse. The non-Chinese regions’ instability and separation were an important precondition for these thinkers’ understanding of Chinese history’s periodisation and Chinese history in general. Until the late 1910s, no influential texts were written on the topic analysed here. The thinkers, whose texts had been analysed in Part I, became involved in the political life of the young RoC to a varying extent. Zhang Taiyan founded the Tongyi dang (1912), was a member of the first parliament (1912), an adviser of Shikai (1912–1913), was under house arrest2 (1914–1916), became min- ister of Sun Yat-sen’s new parliament (1917–1919), and then engaged in the Liansheng zizhi (Confederation of self-governing provinces) movement, espe- cially against the separatist . Liu Shipei retreated from politics (1911), came back and became a high- ranking adviser in Shanxi (1913–1914), supported ’s emperorship (1914–1916), withdrew from politics again and became a professor at (1917–1919) until his premature death in 1919.

1 Zaifeng (also ) acted as regent for his son, the underage Xuantong Emperor Puyi (1906–1967, r. 1908–1912). Officially, he held this post together with Empress Dowager Longyu, the wife of his brother, the late (1871–1908, r. 1875–1908). 2 He used this time to revise earlier works. (Wong, Y. 1989, 112–115.)