In 1910 the first risings directed actually against the regency took place, in the province of Hunan.  In 1911 the “railway disturbances” broke out in western China as a reply of the railway shareholders in the province of Szechwan to the government decree of nationalization of all the railways.  The modernist students, most of whom were sons of merchants who owned railway shares, supported the movement, and the government was unable to control them.  At the same time a great anti-Manchu revolution began in Wuch’ang, one of the cities of which Wuhan, on the Yangtze, now consists.  The revolution was the result of government action against a group of terrorists.  Its leader was an officer named Li Yuean-hung.  The Manchus soon had some success in this quarter, but the other provincial governors now rose in rapid succession, repudiated the Manchus, and declared themselves independent.  Most of the Manchu garrisons in the provinces were murdered.  The governors remained at the head of their troops in their provinces, and for the moment made common cause with the revolutionaries, from whom they meant to break free at the first opportunity.  The Manchus themselves failed at first to realize the gravity of the revolutionary movement; they then fell into panic-stricken desperation.  As a last resource, Yuean Shih-k’ai was recalled (November 10th, 1911) and made prime minister.

Yuean’s excellent troops were loyal to his person, and he could have made use of them in fighting on behalf of the dynasty.  But a victory would have brought no personal gain to him; for his personal plans he considered that the anti-Manchu side provided the springboard he needed.  The revolutionaries, for their part, had no choice but to win over Yuean Shih-k’ai for the sake of his troops, since they were not themselves strong enough to get rid of the Manchus, or even to wrest concessions from them, so long as the Manchus were defended by Yuean’s army.  Thus Yuean and the revolutionaries were forced into each other’s arms.  He then began negotiations with them, explaining to the imperial house that the dynasty could only be saved by concessions.  The revolutionaries—­apart from their desire to neutralize the prime minister and general, if not to bring him over to their side—­were also readier than ever to negotiate, because they were short of money and unable to obtain loans from abroad, and because they could not themselves gain control of the individual governors.  The negotiations, which had been carried on at Shanghai, were broken off on December 18th, 1911, because the revolutionaries demanded a republic, but the imperial house was only ready to grant a constitutional monarchy.

Meanwhile the revolutionaries set up a provisional government at Nanking (December 29th, 1911), with Sun Yat-sen as president and Li Yuean-hung as vice-president.  Yuean Shih-k’ai now declared to the imperial house that the monarchy could no longer be defended, as his troops were too unreliable, and he induced the Manchu government to issue an edict on February 12th, 1912, in which they renounced the throne of China and declared the Republic to be the constitutional form of state.  The young emperor of the Hsuean-t’ung period, after the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1931, was installed there.  He was, however, entirely without power during the melancholy years of his nominal rule, which lasted until 1945.