elections. [Footnote:  According to the official lists published subsequent to the coup d’etat, 98 Senators and 252 Members of the House of Representatives had their Parliamentary Certificates impounded by the police as a result of the Mandates of the 4th November, and were ordered to leave the Capital.  In addition 34 Senators and 54 Members of the Lower House fled from Peking before their Certificates could be seized.  Therefore the total number affected by the proscription was 132 Senators and 306 Representatives.  As the quorums in the case of both Houses are half the total membership, any further sittings were thus made impossible.] The Metropolitan Police rigorously carried out the order and although no brutality was shown, it was made clear that if any of the indicted men remained in Peking their lives would be at stake.  Having made it impossible for Parliament to sit owing to the lack of quorums, Yuan Shih-kai was able to proceed with his work of reorganization in the way that best suited him; and the novel spectacle was offered of a truly Mexican situation created in the Far East by and with the assent of the Powers.  It is significant that the day succeeding this coup d’etat of the 4th November the agreement conceding autonomy to Outer Mongolia was signed with Russia, China simply retaining the right to station a diplomatic representative at Urga. [Footnote:  A full copy of this agreement will be found in the appendix.]

In spite of his undisputed power, matters however did not improve.  The police-control, judiciously mingled with assassinations, which was now put in full vigour was hardly the administration to make room for which the Manchus had been expelled; and the country secretly chafed and cursed.  But the disillusionment of the people was complete.  Revolt had been tried in vain; and as the support which the Powers were affording to this regime was well understood there was nothing to do but to wait, safe in the knowledge that such a situation possessed no elements of permanency.

CHAPTER IV

THE DICTATOR AT WORK

(From the coup d’etat of the 4th November, 1913, to the outbreak of the world-war 1st august, 1914)

With the Parliament of China effectively destroyed, and the turbulent Yangtsze Valley dragooned into sullen submission, Yuan Shih-kai’s task had become so vastly simplified that he held the moment to have arrived when he could openly turn his hand to the problem of making himself absolutely supreme, de jure as well as de facto.  But there was one remaining thing to be done.  To drive the last nail into the coffin of the Republic it was necessary to discredit and virtually imprison the man who was Vice-President.

It is highly characteristic that although he had received from the hero of the Wuchang Rising the most loyal co-operation—­a co-operation of a very arduous character since the Commander of the Middle Yangtsze had had to resist the most desperate attempts to force him over to the side of the rebellion in July, 1913, nevertheless, Yuan Shih-kai was determined to bring this man to Peking as a prisoner of state.