It was just the fact that General Li Yuan-hung was a national hero which impelled the Dictator to action.  In the election which had been carried out in October, 1913, by the National Assembly sitting as a National Convention, in spite of every effort to destroy his influence, the personal popularity of the Vice-President had been such that he had received a large number of votes for the office of full President—­which had necessitated not one but three ballots being taken, making most people declare that had there been no bribery or intimidation he would have probably been elected to the supreme office in the land, and ousted the ambitious usurper.  In such circumstances his complete elimination was deemed an elementary necessity.  To secure that end Yuan Shih-kai suddenly dispatched to Wuchang—­where the Vice-President had resided without break since 1911—­the Minister of War, General Tuan Chi-jui, with implicit instructions to deal with the problem in any way he deemed satisfactory, stopping short of nothing should his victim prove recalcitrant.

Fortunately General Tuan Chi-jui did not belong to the ugly breed of men Yuan Shih-kai loved to surround himself with; and although he was a loyal and efficient officer the politics of the assassin were unknown to him.  He was therefore able to convince the Vice-President after a brief discussion that the easiest way out of the ring of intriguers and plotters in which Yuan Shih-kai was rapidly surrounding him in Wuchang was to go voluntarily to the capital.  There at least he would be in daily touch with developments and able to fight his own battles without fear of being stabbed in the back; since under the eye of the foreign Legations even Yuan Shih-kai was exhibiting a certain timidity.  Indeed after the outcry which General Chang Cheng-wu’s judicial murder had aroused he had reserved his ugliest deeds for the provinces, only small men being done to death in Peking.  Accordingly, General Li Yuan-hung packed a bag and accompanied only by an aide-de-camp left abruptly for the capital where he arrived on the 11th December, 1913.

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 Kwang Hsu 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.