The financial wreckage left by the mad monarchy adventure was, however, appalling.  Not only was there no money in the capital but hardly any food as well; for since the suspension of specie payments country supplies had ceased entering the city as farmers refused to accept inconvertible paper in payment for their produce.  It became necessary for the government to sell at a nominal price the enormous quantities of grain which had been accumulated for the army and the punitive expedition against the South; and for many days a familiar sight was the endless blue-coated queues waiting patiently to receive as in war-time their stipulated pittance.

Meanwhile, although the troops remained loyal to the new regime, not so the monarchist politicians.  Seeing that their hour of obliteration had come, they spared no effort to sow secret dissensions and prevent the provinces from uniting again with Peking.  It would be wearisome to give in full detail the innumerable schemes which were now hourly formulated, to secure that the control of the country should not be exercised in a lawful way.  Finding that it was impossible to conquer the general detestation felt for them, the monarchists, led by Liang Shih-yi, changed their tactics and exhausted themselves in attempting to secure the issue of a general amnesty decree.  But in spite of every argument President Li Yuan-hung remained unmoved and refused absolutely to consider their pardon.  A just and merciful man, it was his intention to allow the nation to speak its mind before issuing orders on the subject; but to show that he was no advocate of the terrorist methods practised by his predecessor, he now issued a Mandate summarily abolishing the infamous Chih Fa Chu, or Military Court, which Yuan Shih-kai had turned into an engine of judicial assassination, and within whose gloomy precincts many thousands of unfortunate men had perished practically untried in the period 1911-1916.

Meanwhile the general situation throughout the country only slowly ameliorated.  The Northern Military party, determined to prevent political power from passing solely into the hands of the Southern Radicals, bitterly opposed the revival of the Nanking Provisional Constitution, and denounced the re-convocation of the old Parliament of 1913, which had already assembled in Shanghai, preparatory to coming up to the capital.  It needed a sharp manoeuvre to bring them to their senses.  The Chinese Navy, assembled in the waters near Shanghai, took action; and in an ultimatum communicated to Peking by their Admiral, declared that so long as the government in the hands of General Tuan Chi-jui refused to conform to popular wishes by reviving the Nanking Provisional Constitution and resummoning the old Parliament, so long would the Navy refuse to recognize the authority of the Central Government.  With the fleet in the hands of the Southern Confederacy, which had not yet been formally dissolved, the Peking Government was powerless in the whole region of the