Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 120

When these students and merchant sailors were forced into the Second Pacific Fleet, an even bigger rumor spread: Japanese warships had infiltrated the North Sea under British cover and would lay mines to intercept Russian warships, which was how Makarov was killed by the Japanese.

This rumor quickly caused panic in the fleet, so during nighttime navigation in the North Sea, Russian warships fired on vessels suspected to be destroyers. It was later discovered that the ships shelled by the Russian ships were a German merchant ship and a Swedish coal carrier. However, at the time, the Russian fleet flagship actually believed the report that the lead warship had driven away the enemy torpedo boats.

An hour later, near Dogger Sandbar, the Russian forces encountered a British fishing convoy and mistook it for the Anglo-Japanese fleet. When the convoy fired green rockets (signals for casting nets), the Russian warship "Suvorov" believed it was ambushed and reported to the flagship. Rozhestvensky ordered a return fire, but the Russian officers quickly realized something was wrong, and Rozhestvensky had to order a ceasefire. Unfortunately, much of the Russian fire landed on another of its own squadrons, resulting in several Russian and British deaths and the sinking of a trawler.

However, what drew the most criticism was that Rozhestvensky did not order the rescue of the fishing boats, but instead quickly led the fleet away from the scene of the conflict. London public opinion was furious, but the British government was in a dilemma. By the time they received the report, the Russian fleet had already passed through the Channel, meaning that unless they immediately went to war with the Russians, they had few means to punish them.

Chapter 425 Liaoyang and Vladivostok

London did indeed have its difficulties. After the Russian fleet escaped the Channel, the British Home Fleet was anchored in Cromery, the Channel Fleet in Gibraltar, and the main force of the Mediterranean Fleet in Venice. When London received the news, all it could do was block the Russian fleet from entering the Mediterranean. However, to confront the Russian fleet, which had already taken refuge in a French port, in the Atlantic would mean a deterioration in Anglo-French relations.

At this point, France certainly needed Britain, but Britain could not abandon France either. After all, Britain had already chosen its adversary, and pushing France away would mean returning Britain to the isolated state it was in during the Boer War, which was clearly unacceptable to London. Therefore, London could only put on a show of force, on the one hand, following public opinion to investigate Russia's actions and assembling warships in Gibraltar; on the other hand, it accepted the French suggestion to establish an international tribunal for inquiry.

The British issued an order prohibiting the Russian fleet from leaving European waters, and the French refused to refuel the Russian fleet. Admiral Rozhestvensky then led his main fleet to the Spanish port of Bigo to refuel. The establishment of the international tribunal eased tensions between Britain and Russia. Admiral Rozhestvensky believed that since the tribunal was established, this shelling incident, caused by a misunderstanding, had naturally become a diplomatic issue, and his fleet was no longer required to obey the British ban.

Rozhestvensky then led his fleet away from Bighorn and south to Tangier. The Russian ships' actions reignited the growing public outcry in Britain, prompting London to order the British fleet at Gibraltar to refuse the Russian fleet entry into the Mediterranean. St. Petersburg was forced to send a telegram to Rozhestvensky, demanding that he remain stationary in Tangier.

On December 15, the St. Petersburg and British ministers reached a draft agreement on compensation for the fishing boats, and the agreement was formally signed on the 16th. Rozhestvensky then led his capital ships away from Tangier to the Cape of Good Hope. With the departure of the Russian capital ships, the tension in front of the Strait of Gibraltar finally eased, and the remaining Russian auxiliary fleet was granted permission to enter the Mediterranean.

However, the French refused to provide coal and water services to the Russian fleet using their colonies, because the French believed that the Russian fleet should not leave until the investigation results were available. In fact, France did not want Russia to continue to expand the war in the Far East.

From Paris's perspective, since Russia failed to capture Beijing and force its surrender in a short time, and instead gave Japan an opportunity to join the war, Russia's pre-war plan had completely failed. Russia's pre-war plan was to force China to cede Manchuria, but with the war having progressed to this point, the Chinese would certainly not accept such humiliating terms. Therefore, Russia should propose withdrawing from Manchuria to end the war, at least preserving some of its interests in Manchuria.

But St. Petersburg's current actions resemble those of a desperate gambler who keeps betting even when their luck is clearly bad—an irrational act. It could even drag France into a war with no hope of victory, hence the French attempt to cripple the Russians logistically.

St. Petersburg was initially under the control of the French. There were no Russian colonies along the west coast of Africa to the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. If there had been such a maritime colony, the Russians would not have been in such a hurry to swallow Port Arthur. Moreover, the Russians' own logistics fleet was unable to complete such long-distance resupply. Armaments were passable, but coal was obviously not supplied in a timely manner.

However, at this critical moment, Wilhelm II lent a helping hand to his cousin, assigning a German merchant fleet to resolve the logistical problems of the Second Pacific Fleet. For Wilhelm II, the farther the Baltic Fleet was from Europe, the safer the Prussian coastline would be. But just as St. Petersburg had resolved a series of troubles concerning the Second Pacific Fleet, more bad news arrived from the Far East.

On December 3, approximately 120,000 Japanese First and Third Armies launched an attack on 150,000 Russian troops entrenched in Liaoyang. Following a series of battles at Jinzhou, Deli Temple, and Shuangchengzi, the Russian army's attitude shifted from underestimating the Japanese to taking them extremely seriously; to put it bluntly, some Russian officers and soldiers developed mild Japanese phobia.

Of course, this cannot be blamed on the fact that these Russian officers and soldiers were too timid. At the beginning, the adults in St. Petersburg, including Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin, were advocating that one Russian soldier was worth three Japanese soldiers. They instilled in the minds of the Russian troops in Manchuria the idea that they could easily defeat China and Japan, and compared the war in the Far East to a hunting game.

However, after the war began, the Russian soldiers realized that the war was not as easy as the generals had said. In fact, they had not even been able to capture many Chinese positions, and had lost several well-known generals. After the Japanese joined the battlefield, the war became even more bloody.

When fighting the Chinese, Russian soldiers were mainly afraid of machine guns and grenades, as well as the fortifications built by the Chinese. In actual face-to-face hand-to-hand combat, the two sides basically didn't fight much, because every time they entered the hand-to-hand combat phase, the Chinese liked to throw grenades and showed no martial ethics at all.

Therefore, when Russians fought the Chinese, they didn't feel they were outmatched, but rather that they couldn't defeat them. If the Chinese were willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat, the Russian soldiers felt they would still have the upper hand.

However, fighting the Japanese was different. The Japanese had a much stronger fighting spirit than the Chinese. Although they did not have close-combat weapons such as grenades, the Japanese were very keen on bayonet fighting. It can be said that this was the first time the Russians had encountered an army on the battlefield that was even more fond of bayonet fighting than themselves, and it was an army composed of people from the East.

For the young active-duty Russian soldiers, engaging the Japanese in bayonet combat held a certain advantage, as they were taller and more courageous. However, for the re-enlisted Russian soldiers, these reservists in their thirties and forties had long forgotten how to fight hand-to-hand, and they were unwilling to die on the battlefield. Faced with rows of shorter soldiers charging with bayonets, many Russian reservists quickly scattered.

Therefore, Kuropatkin switched to a defensive posture starting in November, abandoning his initial plan to drive the Japanese forces in Jinzhou back into the sea and reopen the route to Port Arthur. Of course, Kuropatkin wanted to stabilize the situation in southern Manchuria first, and then concentrate his efforts on opening up the Shuangchengzi line to relieve the siege of Vladivostok.

However, the Japanese offensive towards Liaoyang forced him to refocus his attention on the Liaoyang region. At this time, the Russian forces in the Liaoyang-Fengtian area still outnumbered the Japanese forces, but according to Russian operational regulations, half of their troops had to be reserved as reserves. In other words, although the Russian forces in the Liaoyang area reached 150,000, due to their dispersed defenses and the retention of reserves, the Russian forces directly confronting the Japanese were actually less than 60,000.

The Japanese were different. Although the Battle of Liaoyang was regarded by the army as a covering operation, Kuroki, who commanded the First Army, and Nogi, who commanded the Third Army, used almost all available forces for the attack, with nearly 80,000 men being committed to the frontal assault.

The Battle of Liaoyang was a cover operation because General Nozu Michikatsu's 4th Army of 26,000 men had joined forces with General Oku Yasuyuki's 2nd Army, and the Uemura Fleet had blockaded Vladivostok Port. By the end of November, the Japanese army had captured Artyom, at the base of the peninsula, opening the land gateway to Vladivostok.

On December 5th, Nozu Michitsuna commanded the Fourth Army to advance into the First River Valley. The Japanese army was flanked by the Sedanka Mountains on their left, the sea on their right, and the hilly coastal area in front. The main Russian defense was located in the hilly area in front, where a complete fortress had been built, with several artillery positions on the coast behind it for support.

However, the fortifications on the Sedanka Mountains were incomplete, and only artillery batteries facing the sea were located near the eastern Ussuri Bay. This meant that the key to capturing Vladivostok lay in the unfinished fortifications on the Sedanka Mountains, namely Fortresses No. 2 and No. 3, as designated by the Russians. Once the high ground of Mount Varjina in the Sedanka Mountains was captured, the Japanese army could attack Fortress No. 1 below from above, or capture the coastal batteries of the Ussuri Bay from land.

Commander-in-Chief of the capture of Mount Vargina was Tamura Iyozo. He first spent three days probing the mountain's firepower, and then on December 10th, he committed an entire regiment to the attack from the north and northeast. After suffering nearly a third of its men as casualties, the Japanese army captured Mount Vargina at 12 p.m.

Although the fortress on Vargina Hill was not yet completed, Division Commander Kawamura Kageaki was very surprised that his side was able to capture this key point on the first attack. Under the guidance of his subordinates, he led the division headquarters personnel to climb Vargina Hill and quickly found Tamura Iyozo, who was observing the Russian army positions below the hill.

He immediately stepped forward to congratulate him, saying, "Chief of Staff Tamura truly lives up to his reputation as Shingen. Only you in all of Japan could have breached this mountain in a single day. In the Battle of Nanzan in Kinshu, Nogi even lost his eldest son at the foot of that mountain."

Tamura turned to Kawamura and shook his head, saying, "This place cannot be compared to Nanzan. The Russians did not set up a complete defensive line here, otherwise we could not have broken through so easily. Besides, I was not the one who first attacked and captured this place; I was just following someone else's old trick."

Kawamura was immediately confused. He looked at Tamura and asked, "Old wisdom? Whose old wisdom? I haven't heard of anyone in the army discussing tactics for attacking fortresses."

Tamura pulled a booklet from his pocket and handed it to Kawamura, saying, "It's definitely not the Army's idea, it's the Navy's idea..."

Kawamura took the booklet, flipped through it, and stared blankly for a while before saying, "The Marine Corps School is researching tactics for attacking fortresses? What exactly are they trying to do? Are they trying to steal our army's jobs? If they're so capable, why did they hand over Port Arthur and Vladivostok to our army..."

After a moment of silence, Tamura said, "The person who compiled this booklet is not in Japan, but I believe that if he were in command, he could still take this place. At least his idea of ​​grouping the attacking forces and having them carry different equipment and perform different tasks is correct. The mortars developed by the Marine Corps School are indeed effective against those unprotected machine gun positions... I haven't made any major changes to the tactics described above."

Kawamura fell silent. Tamura's words meant that the Marine Corps School's discussions on land warfare tactics were actually ahead of the Army's, which was a real joke.

Chapter 426 The Battle and Yuan Shikai

Although Kawamura Kageaki was dissatisfied with the Marine Corps School's research on army tactics, he still put the booklet that Tamura had taken out into his pocket. Tamura did not ask him for it. This booklet was part of the tactics course at the Marine Corps School and was not a rare item.

Compared to the Army Officer School, which was established by strictly following the models of French and German military academies, the Marine Corps School had no template or tradition to follow. This was because the Navy viewed the Marine Corps as a small-scale military operation to solve land-based problems. Therefore, the Marine Corps School focused more on how to solve problems than on the Marine Corps completing all combat missions.

Therefore, the academic atmosphere at the Naval Landing School was much freer than that at the Naval Academy. Discussions on certain tactical issues did not have to take into account the opinions of the senior naval officers. After all, the achievements of the senior naval officers on land did not count, and the Japanese Navy itself had grown up through trial and error. Naturally, it did not feel that such discussions violated any sacred principles.

In fact, the naval atmosphere tended to be conservative after the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese navy, which had won the naval battle, seemed to have some honor that it could not give up. In addition, the implementation of the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Soldiers issued by the army in naval academies raised the level of obedience in naval academies to an unparalleled level. This made the school spirit of naval academies increasingly conservative, and the scene of free discussion of naval tactics that existed in the early days of the navy disappeared.

Although Tamura had some criticisms of the Army Academy's discipline, he could only remain silent because of Marshal Yamagata's influence. After all, the Satsuma Rebellion had a truly detrimental impact on the army, causing the Imperial Family and civilian officials to lose trust in it. The Army's education on respecting the Emperor was also intended to cleanse the lingering problems from the Satsuma Rebellion.

What Tamura hadn't anticipated was that his investigation into the Togo issue uncovered the true nature of the Marine Corps School. The Army initially didn't want the Navy to establish a Marine Corps School; according to the Navy, the Army should then establish a Naval Corps School – wouldn't that create chaos?

However, considering the navy's need for amphibious operations and in order to gain the navy's support in the war against Russia, the army eventually relented. When the navy established its land warfare school, it didn't make a big show of inviting European officers to serve as instructors; instead, it hired some technical experts and Boer generals known for their guerrilla warfare in the Boer War. This made the army less wary of the navy's intentions.

However, Tamura's investigation revealed that the Marine Corps School was not so simple. The so-called training of a land force to cooperate with the navy was not actually based on the educational philosophy of the school. Instead, it advocated how to solve land problems with its own strength and make the navy its backup force. The priorities had been reversed.

Tamura was quite shocked that the Navy could tolerate such a radical teaching philosophy, something unimaginable in the Army. However, it's undeniable that the school produced many novel ideas and combined the evolution of Army tactics with the continuous development of weaponry. If compared to Army schools, this Marine Corps School was actually more suited to the role of an Army university.

The Army Academy is now far behind the Marine Corps School in tactical discussions and research on the impact of new weapons on tactics. The only area where it surpasses the Marine Corps School is its systematic study of military history. Therefore, Tamura agrees with Kawamura Kageaki's skepticism about the Navy's intentions; the Academy's teaching philosophy has exceeded the Navy's needs.

Faced with the fact that they had captured Mount Vargina using tactics developed at the Naval Landing School, both Tamura and Kawamura lost their joy. Of course, this did not prevent the cheers of the lower-ranking Japanese officers and soldiers and the frustration of the Russian garrison in Vladivostok.

The fall of Mount Vargina effectively tore apart the defenses of Vladivostok to the north and northeast, especially since the Japanese occupation of the mountain severed the connection between the eastern and western coastlines. While there was a fortress in the western hills that could provide cover for the coastal artillery, the coastal artillery along Ussuri Bay was caught in a pincer movement between Japanese land and sea attacks.

The Japanese army began to capture the coastal forts one by one along the north side of Ussuri Bay. Although they encountered fierce resistance from the Russian army, the defensive capabilities of these isolated forts were quite insufficient without the support of the high ground in the central mountains. The defeat of the Russian army in Vladivostok became a clear fact.

When the Japanese army gained the upper hand in Vladivostok, the first phase of the Liaoyang Campaign was also coming to an end. The Russian Second and Fourth Armies of East Siberia, which were stationed at Dashiqiao, had to abandon their positions and retreat to Haicheng under the fierce attack of the Japanese Fifth and Eighth Divisions.

In this battle, the Russians utilized the concealed artillery positions they had learned from the Chinese, inflicting a profound lesson on the Japanese artillery, who had not yet mastered this technique. Meanwhile, the Japanese 5th Division demonstrated the results of their night raid training, with large groups of soldiers infiltrating Russian positions at night before launching a surprise attack, driving the Russians away from their lines.

On December 15th, Kuroki Tamemoto's First Army occupied the area from the northern watershed through Motianling to the vicinity of Bapanling; the Independent 14th Division occupied the watershed on the Xiuyan-Ximucheng highway; and Nogi Maresuke's Third Army occupied Dashiqiao. The Russian positions surrounding Liaoyang were completely wiped out by the Japanese army, and the Russians withdrew their forces to the vicinity of Liaoyang, marking the beginning of the second phase of the battle.

On December 20, the Japanese First Army launched an attack on the Russian forward positions with 38 battalions and 96 artillery pieces, thus beginning the second phase of the Liaoyang campaign. In fact, the Russian army had already established a stronghold in Liaoyang; Kuropatkin was treating it as a fortified area. Coupled with the cold weather in Manchuria, the initial battles were not going smoothly for the Japanese.

However, on December 22, the Chinese troops in the Shanhaiguan direction finally joined the counterattack. The newly appointed Chairman of the State Council, Yuan Shikai, attempted to consolidate his position through a victory and halt the National Assembly's historical reckoning with the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, after receiving a batch of ammunition aid from Japan, he decided to order Feng Guozhang to launch an attack on the Russian forces in front of him, with the aim of capturing Jinzhou.

There were also dissenting opinions within the Beiyang Army regarding Yuan Shikai's order. Some Beiyang generals did not actually want to fight. They had finally managed to draw the Russians' attention away from the Japanese, so wouldn't it be better to sit back and watch the two sides fight? The Hubei army at the Shanhaiguan front and the Wuhan army reacted in the opposite way. The Hubei army at the front was eager to fight, wanting to use the Japanese army's involvement in the war to completely defeat the Russian army and reclaim Manchuria. On the other hand, the Wuhan army strongly advocated for caution and that they should not easily launch an attack on Russia.

Yuan Shikai felt he could understand the feelings of those people in Wuhan. Just as he had previously advocated avoiding war and preserving strength, Wuhan did not want to use its forces against the Russian army, naturally in order to preserve its strength and suppress him. These troops from Wuhan were stationed in the north, and he was the one who felt the most threatened, which made him, as the Chairman of the State Council, subject to constraints at every turn.

Before becoming chairman, Yuan Shikai thought the position was similar to that of the former chief military councilor, but without any superiors. The overthrow of the ruling party in Wuhan and the clear declaration that they would not support the monarchy were a source of secret joy for Yuan Shikai. It meant he had the most support, because those Manchu and Han nobles who only wanted to protect their own wealth now had no choice but to support him. Why would they support the Workers' Party, which advocated dividing their assets?

Therefore, although Yuan Shikai did not agree with some of Wuhan's policies, in order to gain Wuhan's support for his chairmanship of the newly established State Council, he still supported Wuhan behind the scenes and assisted in purging the influence of the Houthi rebels. After finally becoming chairman of the State Council, he felt that his time to shine had finally come, because he could now rightfully take control of the government.

However, Yuan Shikai soon discovered that reality was somewhat different from what he had imagined. Although from the perspective of the common interests of all parties, choosing him was the best choice for all parties, whether it was the constitutionalists, the imperial party, the disgraced Empress Dowager party, or even the revolutionaries who opposed radicalism, choosing him was better than choosing Wuhan.

However, people still disliked him. The constitutionalists didn't support him, but demanded that he support them; the imperial faction believed that upholding imperial power was his duty, but that couldn't erase his past betrayal of the emperor; the empress dowager's faction hated him even more, even though he had tried his best to protect their personal property, these people still accused him of being a living Cao Cao, and even fabricated a story about a toad spirit from the Western Mountains to humiliate him.

Although the radicals treated him fairly well, Sun Yat-sen wrote to him, arguing that he should simply overthrow the emperor and become the father of the republic... Yuan Shikai felt that he didn't seem stupid in his daily life, so why did Sun Yat-sen treat him like a fool?

Besides these internal worries, the external situation was not good for Yuan Shikai either. He pushed those returned students to the forefront. Although he himself came from a traditional education background, Yuan Shikai knew that traditional education could not cope with the current world. This was why he and Zhang Zhidong jointly petitioned to abolish the imperial examination system.

Now that he had become Chairman of the State Council, it was even less likely that he would reinstate the imperial examination system. Instead, he promoted those returned overseas students, believing they would be grateful and loyal to him. However, he soon realized that his thinking was flawed. Civil officials and military officers were clearly different. The officers of the Beiyang Army who were sent abroad to study would still be loyal to him upon their return, but these returned students, once they took charge of their respective departments, demanded Western-style decentralization and, apart from asking for money, were unwilling to have him interfere in their affairs.

So he assumed these were fellow countrymen studying abroad, but in reality, they viewed him as a third-party force, believing that military personnel like them shouldn't interfere in politics and that the entire country's system should be reformed according to the Western systems they had seen. Wasn't this tantamount to forcing Wuhan and the Beiyang government to relinquish power and then letting a group of intellectuals manage the country?

Yuan Shikai thought these students were a joke. Without the military strength of Wuhan and Beiyang, their orders couldn't even leave Beijing. They hadn't even climbed the wall before they started dismantling the ladders. What kind of politics could they possibly have?

However, the biggest threat to Yuan Shikai was still the National Assembly. He originally thought that after the establishment of the State Council, the National Assembly would only have the task of constitutional legislation and would no longer be able to interfere in administration. But the National Assembly's budget review and special investigations effectively strangled the State Council. This "mother-in-law" was even more powerful than the Empress Dowager.

Chapter 427 Yuan Shikai's Worries

In mid-November, the National Assembly issued an investigation conclusion on the Wuxu Coup, concluding that the coup was a rebellion driven by the selfish desires of a few individuals. The National Assembly denied that the Empress Dowager had the power to command the army to interfere in state affairs, nor did it recognize her illegally obtained power of tutelage.

The National Assembly determined that Ronglu and Prince Qing Yikuang were the masterminds, with Huaitabu, Lishan, and others among the participants. It proposed stripping Ronglu of all his privileges and confiscating all his property; demoting Yikuang to commoner status; stripping the Qing lineage of its titles; and stripping all participants of their titles and positions. Those who survived were ordered to leave Beijing within three days and never return. Subsequently, the National Assembly proposed a bill to abolish Empress Dowager Cixi's title as punishment for her initiation of the Hundred Days' Reform.

Qin Lishan's move to exonerate the Six Gentlemen of the Hundred Days' Reform did not encounter much protest. This was because, under several previous special cases, not only the Empress Dowager Cixi's faction but also the Manchu forces in Beijing had been almost completely wiped out. This time, the judgment that the Hundred Days' Reform was a rebellion was actually just a final judgment on the Empress Dowager Cixi's faction. The important thing was not to hold the Empress Dowager Cixi's faction accountable. These people had already been removed from their positions, and this was just the final nail being driven into their coffins.

However, Qin Lishan's proposal to abolish Empress Dowager Cixi's title still met with resistance from some conservative forces. The provisional parliament had approximately 400 seats, with about 200 appointed by the imperial court, 50-60 recommended by Wuhan, and 150-160 selected from local areas. Of the 200 appointed by the court, 98 were members of the imperial family, including princes and nobles, hereditary princes and nobles from outer vassal states, Manchu and Han nobles, members of the imperial family, officials from various ministries and departments, learned scholars, and members who paid substantial taxes.

Although fifty or sixty noble councilors had been removed from their councilor status through a special project, there were still more than a hundred conservative councilors loyal to the court. However, since Wuhan had previously used the emperor's name to purge the Empress Dowager's faction, these people did not dare to step forward, because the Empress Dowager's faction's reputation was completely ruined, and standing with them would only be sending their heads to Wuhan.

However, after Qin Lishan turned his attention to Empress Dowager Cixi, these conservatives finally couldn't sit still. They used filial piety, one of the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues, as a weapon to resist the purge of Cixi by the Wuhan authorities.

The conservatives wanted to preserve Cixi's title because they knew very well that purging Cixi was not the real goal of Wuhan. Once Cixi's banner fell, those who were promoted by Cixi or those who did not oppose her during her regency would become morally reprehensible traitors.

With such a moral high ground in hand, Wuhan, which was already inclined to severely crack down on the propertied class, essentially seized the moral high ground. They couldn't even use the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues to justify their actions. Even the constitutionalists, who had always been at odds with the conservatives, were quite cautious about whether to abolish the title of Empress Dowager Cixi.

Yuan Shikai remained silent on this issue. He had betrayed both the emperor and the empress dowager. Stepping forward to stop Wuhan from purging the empress dowager would only increase Emperor Guangxu's dislike of him and would not gain Cixi's forgiveness. Would Cixi spare him after she regained power? Wuhan's intervention was actually to remove his worries.

In fact, Yuan Shikai had prepared for the possibility of Empress Dowager Cixi's sudden death. After all, with the palace having undergone such a major purge by the National Assembly, no one would complain if Cixi died under mysterious circumstances. However, it seems that Yuan Shikai wanted to kill Cixi politically rather than physically.

Yuan Shikai's indifference ultimately led to Qin Lishan's victory. On November 27, the National Assembly passed the bill to abolish Empress Dowager Cixi's title by a narrow margin. The bill was sent to Emperor Guangxu and signed and sent out in less than an hour.

It is said that Liang Qichao once wanted to prevent Emperor Guangxu from signing the bill, because he believed that the mother-son relationship between Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi was unchangeable, and that it would be unseemly in historical records if the son was not considered the mother. However, Kang Youwei, who was standing nearby, disagreed, saying, "Things have come to this point, what mother and son are there anymore? The Emperor inherited the throne from Emperor Wenzong, the Empress Dowager is merely a concubine, and Empress Xiaozhenxian is the legitimate mother..."

Emperor Guangxu himself supported abolishing the title of Empress Dowager. He was more afraid than anyone of the Empress Dowager regaining power, and the presence or absence of this title made a significant difference to the Empress Dowager's prestige. Moreover, he was now complying with the decision of the National Assembly, and he felt that he did not need to bear much responsibility.

After Emperor Guangxu signed the bill to abolish the title of Empress Dowager, Qin Lishan immediately proposed a bill to reorganize the National Assembly. He argued that some members of the current National Assembly could neither represent the Emperor nor the people, and were merely Manchu lackeys who had betrayed the interests of the Han people. Therefore, they should not stand here to represent the people.

This reorganization was not a dissolution followed by a new election. Instead, it followed the vote to abolish the Empress Dowager's title, removing all dissenting members from the parliament before holding by-elections. These by-elections were not based on geographical regions, but rather allocated a certain number of seats to various political factions, allowing them to nominate their own representatives for parliament.

These various forces were actually the Wuhan faction, the Beiyang faction, the Jiangsu-Zhejiang constitutionalists, the revolutionaries, and the local governors-general; Manchus and Mongols were excluded. The Beiyang faction and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang constitutionalists expressed their support for the reorganization plan of the National Assembly. Although the revolutionaries and local governors-general expressed their dissatisfaction with the allocation of seats, they ultimately chose to accept it. Only the Manchu and Mongol nobles in the capital protested loudly, but to no avail.

In November, the Manchu generals from all over the country gathered in Beijing. Under pressure from the National Assembly, these Manchu generals had no choice but to accept the demands to dismantle the Manchu city walls in order to eliminate the differences between Manchus and Han people in the region and to reorganize the banner system.

The Chengdu Manchu city was required to be demolished as a pilot project, and the Manchus in Chengdu were asked to find their own employment. After receiving certain subsidies, the state stopped providing any banner allowances to the Chengdu Manchu city.

Although the news spread and Manchus across the country took to the streets to express their discontent, their protests did not garner sympathy from the Han Chinese; instead, they inspired celebrations. Faced with this scene, the Manchus in various regions finally felt fear and dispersed to their homes. Meanwhile, the Manchu intellectuals, especially those studying in Tokyo, began to publish their own newspapers to promote national unity.

For example, the *Datong Bao*, published by Manchus in Tokyo, began to actively support the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in China, convene a parliament to "integrate the Manchus and Han Chinese," and advocate for the "assimilation of Mongols and Hui people." Of course, they did not support constitutional monarchy because it was considered advanced, nor did they advocate for the unification of all ethnic groups because they believed that the Manchus, Han Chinese, Mongols, and Hui people were originally one. These Manchus simply saw that the power of the Han Chinese was growing stronger and that the Manchus had no chance of rising again, so they wanted to escape the fate of being purged as much as possible.

For example, in response to this situation, Manchu nobles organized the Zongshe Party, attempting to gain external support to suppress Han Chinese forces, restore Manchu rule, or at the very least, establish a new Manchukuo by carving out the Northwest. Why the Northwest and not the Northeast? Because the Zongshe Party lacked the courage to contend with the Russians and Japanese for sovereignty over Manchuria; they didn't even dare to demand sovereignty over Outer Mongolia. Instead, they felt entitled to claim the Northwest as their own property.

The abolition of Empress Dowager Cixi's title not only led to the complete collapse of her faction, but also represented the disintegration of the joint rule of Manchu and Han governors-general that had existed since the Tongzhi Restoration. Although the name of the Qing Dynasty remained, the Qing system had essentially gone bankrupt, and the imperial power represented by Emperor Guangxu could no longer exert any influence on military and political groups like the Wuhan and Beiyang cliques.

The first to realize this was actually Liang Qichao. When Manchu nobles were secretly forming the Zongshe Party and advocating for a separatist regime in the Northwest, he suddenly realized that the Manchus could no longer support Emperor Guangxu's rule because the Manchus and Han Chinese could no longer trust each other. The Zongshe Party's proposition was essentially to force the Han Chinese to completely abandon the Manchus, because separatism did not conform to the Han Chinese concept of a unified empire. For the Han Chinese, remaining in a corner of the country was a slow death, because no unified dynasty could accept the establishment of a small state next door.

The reason why the Tongzhi Restoration was able to occur was that the Manchus never abandoned the concept of a unified dynasty. Therefore, the Han and Manchus could coexist under this concept. If the Manchus had established a Manchu-style Manchukuo during the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing Dynasty would have collapsed long ago.

Last year, Liang Qichao engaged in a debate with the revolutionaries and the labor party in the newspapers, ultimately shifting from enlightened despotism to constitutional monarchy. At that time, he realized that it was difficult for the emperor to personally govern and promote reforms to occur again, because the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform had led Han intellectuals to turn to a more radical path of violent revolution.

While veteran revolutionaries like Sun Yat-sen advocated for the violent revolution to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, they at least expressed a willingness to protect the interests of the propertied class. New revolutionaries like Tian Junyi and Qin Lishan, however, had already linked China's backwardness and ignorance with the landlord class; they not only wanted to overthrow the Qing Dynasty but also to eliminate the landlord class as well.

Under such circumstances, discussing enlightened despotism would obviously not arouse much interest among the people, as they preferred the radical propositions of the revolutionaries. Therefore, after the public debate, Liang Qichao quickly shifted from the path of enlightened despotism to a constitutional monarchy, but still maintained that "in my estimation, a constitutional monarchy cannot be implemented for at least ten or even twenty years."

When Liang Qichao made these remarks, Empress Dowager Cixi's position was still secure. He genuinely hadn't anticipated that the outbreak of the Sino-Russian War would cause Cixi to lose her rule so quickly, allowing Emperor Guangxu to finally break free from house arrest. Therefore, after meeting with Guangxu, he presented him with a "Memorial on the Study of Constitutionalism," totaling "two hundred thousand words," hoping that Guangxu would proactively propose constitutional reforms and thus truly grasp power in China.

However, after abolishing Cixi's title in Wuhan and completely severing the political ties between the Manchus and Han Chinese, he changed his mind and suggested to Emperor Guangxu that "a constitution should be established as soon as possible to secure the nation's stability."

The increasing pressure from Wuhan on imperial power was felt not only by Liang Qichao but also by Yuan Shikai. After the National Assembly abolished Empress Dowager Cixi's title, the prestige of imperial power plummeted, while the image of the National Assembly as a representative of the people began to take root in people's hearts. Even those constitutionalists who disliked the Labor Party did not oppose Wuhan's actions to strip the Empress Dowager of her title, believing that the National Assembly still had that power.

This made Yuan Shikai feel as if a sword of Damocles was hanging over his head. If the National Assembly could even strip the Empress Dowager of her title, did it not have the power to remove him as Chairman of the State Council?

Chapter 428 Xiliang Resigns

By mid-November, the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway had reached Zizhong, less than 200 kilometers from Chengdu. If the construction rights for this railway had not been in Wuhan's hands, then Xiliang, the Governor-General of Sichuan, would have been overjoyed. This was because the railway was not only built by the Chinese themselves, but the materials used for construction were also mainly local Sichuan stone and timber. Chongqing even established a small steel rolling mill to roll steel rails for the railway.

In the past, China almost always had to purchase building materials from abroad to build railways because foreigners said that Chinese timber could not be used as rail timber, and each rail timber cost a dollar, which was a considerable financial burden for China's railway construction. Therefore, China could only continuously reduce the price of labor.

Therefore, although railway construction is beneficial to regional transportation, it does not actually benefit local finances. In addition, the contracts signed by foreigners to build railways generally stipulate that the right to develop resources along the railway line belongs to the railway company. As a result, even after the railway is opened to traffic, the local revenue is reduced significantly.

Therefore, before the Beijing-Hankou Railway was built, the imperial court valued railways for their political and military benefits. The completion of the Beijing-Hankou Railway brought substantial railway profits, which made the imperial court realize the economic benefits of railways. However, by this time, the imperial court had lost control over local areas, and even the Beijing-Hankou Railway was taken over by Wuhan for management. The imperial court could only receive some dividends.

Xi Liang's view on the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway was that it was intended to address the Tibet issue. For China, the difficulty of traveling to Tibet lay not only in the transportation between Sichuan and Tibet, but also in the difficulty of transportation into Sichuan. Therefore, the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, or the Sichuan-Hankou Railway originally envisioned, was intended to strengthen the central government's control over Sichuan.

In other words, Xiliang had already considered that after the loss of Tibet, he must use Sichuan as a base to control the Kham region, and not allow the British to use Tibetan religious beliefs to seize Kham and thus threaten western Sichuan. However, the situation developed even better than he had best expected. The Hubei New Army not only preserved Tibet, but also advanced into India, shifting the border between China and India back to the Himalayas.

Despite his grievances against Wuhan, Xiliang had to admit that without the intervention of the Hubei New Army, Tibet would have been difficult to save. The Hubei New Army's repeated victories in Tibet and India had made the lamas of Kham, located between Sichuan and Tibet, much more subdued. The British invasion of Tibet and Sichuan's inability to provide aid had fueled considerable resentment among the Kham lamas towards the imperial court, who believed that Tibet would no longer belong to China and therefore they would no longer be required to perform heavy corvée labor for the government.

However, after the Hubei New Army defeated the British army in Tibet and took the opportunity to reclaim Sikkim and Bhutan, Lhasa began to strengthen its control over the monasteries in Kham. Some lamas who refused to cooperate with the court were transferred back to Lhasa, thus easing the conflict between the Kham monasteries and Sichuan over administrative power. Even the issue of Zhandui was resolved, with Lhasa voluntarily relinquishing control of Zhandui, allowing Sichuan to have complete administrative control over Kham.

Lhasa's constant concessions were not out of loyalty to the imperial court, but rather because the Tibetan Military and Political Council had completely taken control of Lhasa's politics, and the Tibetan government's subservience far exceeded that of the Resident Minister's Office. The central government's influence over Tibet and the Shannan region had further increased.

If this Hubei New Army had remained loyal to the imperial court, Xi Liang would have lavished praise upon them and advised the court to grant them the greatest favors, as such territorial expansion was the best proof that the dynasty could continue to rule. However, the Hubei New Army was not loyal to the imperial court; they were only loyal to the Wuhan Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Committee, which put considerable pressure on Xi Liang.

Hubei now has a proven track record of safeguarding its territory externally, and internally it possesses the capacity for disaster relief and construction. The construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway is a demonstration of Wuhan's governing capabilities. Before this railway was built, Sichuanese people still held prejudices against Hubei, and even the Sichuan revolutionaries did not welcome Hubei troops entering Sichuan to carry out their revolution.

In Xiliang's view, the so-called revolutionaries were nothing but a disorganized mess. Although the upper echelons of the revolutionaries came from good families and shouted lofty slogans, claiming that they were only fighting for the sake of saving the country, the lower echelons of the revolutionaries were just idle, petty scoundrels. Whether they shouted "overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming" or "revolution to save the country," they didn't believe it at all. They just wanted to get ahead in the rebellion and then prey on the local people.

Xi Liang's view wasn't entirely wrong. After the Boxer Rebellion, Sichuan experienced a series of peasant and urban uprisings, but the largest of these only resulted in the removal of local officials and the subsequent secession of power; they never truly intended to liberate the entire province. While the revolutionary leadership did consider capturing Chengdu, they couldn't mobilize a large enough force. Trying to conquer the Sichuan capital of 300,000 people with just a few dozen to a couple hundred, including 30,000 to 40,000 Manchus, was simply wishful thinking.

However, with the commencement of the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway construction in Wuhan, the previously fragmented Sichuan revolutionaries gradually rallied under one banner. Wherever the railway reached, revolutionaries and government officials alike immediately turned to Wuhan, because the local populace had already sided with Wuhan before they had.

At this time, the people of Sichuan had only two wishes: to have enough to eat and to maintain order. Although Sichuan was known as the richest province in Southwest China, this wealth had little to do with ordinary people. In rural Sichuan, mud houses built with bamboo and mud were everywhere. Although these houses were well-ventilated in the summer, they were not warm in the winter. The fact that the poor could only build such houses indicated that their living standards were very low.

In Chongqing and Chengdu, beggars in tattered clothes were everywhere on the streets, while in Sichuan, the most common people were laborers. On the country roads, you could see thin laborers carrying goods heavier than themselves. They could not sit down to rest on the road, but could only lean against a wooden crutch behind them for a short while, because once they unloaded the goods on the road, it would be difficult to load them back on by their own strength.

These two examples clearly demonstrate that Sichuan's surplus rural labor force had nowhere to go. By the late Qing Dynasty, the so-called "Land of Abundance" was actually unable to support its own population. In this dire situation, the rise of opium cultivation further damaged Sichuan's grain and cotton production, jeopardizing the basic needs of the Sichuanese people, while enriching only a small number of landlords.

Since ordinary people at the bottom of society could not find a way to survive, it was only natural for them to join secret societies in order to survive. However, although secret societies were initially a way for the poor to band together for warmth, as they developed, the upper echelons of secret societies only enriched themselves and could not provide the lower-level members with a life of plenty, because the secret societies simply did not have a solution.

This explains why secret societies initially called for overthrowing the Qing dynasty and restoring the Ming, but then quickly aligned themselves with the revolutionaries. They understood the basic principle that overthrowing the court and becoming emperors themselves would allow for the redistribution of wealth. This also explains why secret societies were reluctant to allow outsiders into their territory, fearing they would take away local wealth.