世凱

The sobering fact that we have to face was, unfortunately, the Xinhai Revolution was finally successful not because of Sun Yat-Sen, or Li Yuanhong, or anyone I discussed in the past nine days.

It was Yuan Shikai (袁世凱).

I shall not touch on the controversial subject of Yuan's political career, or his deal with the Japanese. Nonetheless, it is certain enough that he forced the Xuantong (宣統) Emperor to step down.

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I would end this little series here.

It is, of course, not a complete account of the history - my blog is never intended to be so. Nonetheless, my humble ambition is to introduce a few notable figures during that era, whose importance may be obscured in a history written by the winners. After all, as demonstrated by Sima Qian (司馬遷), history is most interesting when we tried to understand the life of each individual person, rather than memorizing a series of events.