A great sensation was caused throughout China by this sudden departure, consternation prevailing among the officers and men of the Hupeh (Wuchang) army when the newspapers began to hint that their beloved chief had been virtually abducted.  Although cordially received by Yuan Shih-kai and given as his personal residence the.  Island Palace where the unfortunate Emperor Kwanghsu had been so long imprisoned by the Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi after her coup d’etat of 1898, it did not take long for General Li Yuan-hung to understand that his presence was a source of embarrassment to the man who would be king.  Being, however, gifted with an astounding fund of patience, he prepared to sit down and allow the great game which he knew would now unroll to be played to its normal ending.  What General Li Yuan-hung desired above all was to be forgotten completely and absolutely—­springing to life when the hour of deliverance finally arrived.  His policy was shown to be not only psychologically accurate, but masterly in a political sense.  The greatest ally of honesty in China has always been time, the inherent decency of the race finally discrediting scoundrelism in every period of Chinese history.

The year 1914 dawned with so many obstacles removed that Yuan Shih-kai became more and more peremptory in his methods.  In February the young Empress Lun Yi, widow of the Emperor Kwanghsu, who two years previously in her character of guardian of the boy-Emperor Hsuan Tung, had been cajoled into sanctioning the Abdication Edicts, unexpectedly expired, her death creating profound emotion because it snapped the last link with the past.  Yuan Shih-kai’s position was considerably strengthened by this auspicious event which secretly greatly delighted him; and by his order for three days the defunct Empress lay in State in the Grand Hall of the Winter Palace and received the obeisance of countless multitudes who appeared strangely moved by this hitherto unknown procedure.  There was now only a nine-year old boy between the Dictator and his highest ambitions.  Two final problems still remained to be dealt with:  to give a legal form to a purely autocratic rule, and to find money to govern the country.  The second matter was vastly more important than the first to a man who did not hesitate to base his whole polity on the teachings of Machiavelli, legality being looked upon as only so much political window-dressing to placate foreign opinion and prevent intervention, whilst without money even the semblance of the rights of eminent domain could not be preserved.  Everything indeed hinged on the question of finding money.