Background
The son of a scholar-elite family from Honan province (Xiangzheng xian), Yuan Shikai was a man of action, not a scholar.
The son of a scholar-elite family from Honan province (Xiangzheng xian), Yuan Shikai was a man of action, not a scholar.
Although he never received a high degree and bureaucratic rank, he became a top Qing official who surrounded himself with scholars and practical men as advisers.
He first rose to prominence as a military attache to Li Hongzhang when he was trying to handle the precarious situation in Korea between 1885 and 1894. In the wake of the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, while his patron was in disgrace, Yuan pioneered military reforms in creating a small model army in the suburbs of Beijing under the eye of the Empress Dowager Cixi and her consort, Ronglu. Yuan was also in touch with the more radical reform movement led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. During the One Hundred Day crisis of the summer of 1898, Yuan was forced to choose sides. Ever the practical politician, he chose to support the Empress Dowager and Ronglu, thus dooming Kang-Liang and Emperor Guangxu. As a reward Yuan was made governor of the important province of Shandong and his career as a high level official was launched.
The next political crisis from which Yuan derived further political benefit was the Boxer Rebellion of 1900-1901. He played a critical role as governor of the province where the peasant rebellion originated. Boxers were butchering foreign missionaries. Under pressure from the German colonialists at Qingdao and elsewhere, Yuan suppressed the rebellion locally and drove the Boxers into neighboring Zhili province where they ultimately, with the support of Ronglu and others, laid seige to the legations in Beijing. The powers reacted with the allied expedition and the Empress Dowager was driven into internal exile to the northwest until 1902. Yuan now emerged as the strong man of the last decade of the dynasty. As governor general of Zhili province and a major figure at court, he wielded more power than any other Chinese official had during the Qing dynasty. Surrounding himself with the most able scholar-officials of the period, like Xu Shichang or Duan Qirui, he led a broad reform movement at both the central government and the provincial level. His most lasting achievements included the creation of the Beiyang army of 60,000 well-trained and equipped soldiers as well as educational reform measures that resulted in the establishment of most of China's major institutions of higher education, as well as womens education, sending of students abroad on a massive scale, and abolition (in 1905) of the examination system. His New Policy or Xinzheng reforms are receiving increased attention today as scholars trace the origins of modern police, prison, health care, legal and constitutional reforms.
As the Bismarck of his era, Yuan wielded considerable power domestically and handled most of the delicate negotiations with foreign powers internationally. He was popular with the foreign community in Shanghai and Beijing, in part because he hired a whole retinue of foreign advisers. The jealousies of the Manchu princes brought about his temporary downfall after the death of the Empress Dowager in late 1908. At this point, Yuan shrewdly waited out developments, which included increasing pressure on the dynasty from provincial assemblies as well as avowed revolutionaries like Sun Yat-sen. When the dynasty failed to quell a mutiny-rebellion in late 1911, Yuan Shikai dictated the terms for his return to politics and use of the Beiyang army. As the dynasty's last prime minister, he negotiated its bloodless pensioning off as well as his own elevation to the presidency of a new Republic of China with its capital Beijing.
Yuan Shikai's presidency of the Republic should have crowned his career and empowered him to push an institutional modernization agenda forward. Instead it was the most unsatisfying period of his life, ending in tragedy and ridicule. Today to most Chinese, Yuan Shikai is remembered as the petty dictator and proto-warlord who betrayed the Republic of China and the democratic ideals of Sun Yat-sen in order to make himself the emperor-founder of a new dynasty. At the time in the West he was hailed as a reformer and strong man whom China needed to implement economic and social reforms as well as to meet international commitments financial and otherwise. Reality lies somewhere in between. Yuan tried to centralize and modernize through the exercise of state power. At the same time he had little interest in fostering democracy, going out of his way in 1913-1914 to suppress the press and subvert the fledgling parliament. In the end he was undone by the pressure of the Japanese Twenty-One demands and a growing domestic resistance by elites to his heavy-handed attempts at the exercise of greater centralized controls. By 1916, Yuan had lost power, deserted by his own Beiyang army commanders under the leadership of Duan Qirui and Cai E, and forced out of office.
Yuan died in disgrace in June 1916, with his reputation in tatters. For the rest of the century he has been remembered as the infamous dictator and father of warlords who sold out the 1911 revolution. Only recently has there been renewed interest by Chinese and foreign historians in Yuan’s broad-ranging institutional reform record as scholars begin to see in him the origins of later figures, like Deng Xiaoping.
Paternal grandfather
Yuan Shusan
Father
Yuan Baozhong (1823–1874), courtesy name Shouchen
Uncle
Yuan Baoqing (1825–1873), courtesy name Duchen, pseudonym Yanzhi, Yuan Baozhong's younger brother
Wife
Yu Yishang, daughter of Yu Ao, a wealthy man from Shenqiu County, Henan; married Yuan Shikai in 1876; mother of Yuan Keding
Concubines
Lady Shen, previously a courtesan from Suzhou
Lady Lee, of Korean origin; mother of Yuan Bozhen, Yuan Kequan, Yuan Keqi, Yuan Kejian, and Yuan Kedu
Lady Kim, of Korean origin; mother of Yuan Kewen, Yuan Keliang, Yuan Shuzhen, Yuan Huanzhen, and Yuan Sizhen
Lady O, of Korean origin; mother of Yuan Keduan, Yuan Zhongzhen, Yuan Cizhen, and Yuan Fuzhen
Lady Yang, mother of Yuan Kehuan, Yuan Kezhen, Yuan Kejiu, Yuan Ke'an, Yuan Jizhen, and Yuan Lingzhen
Lady Ye, previously a prostitute in Nanjing; mother of Yuan Kejie, Yuan Keyou, Yuan Fuzhen, Yuan Qizhen, and Yuan Ruizhen
Lady Zhang, originally from Henan
Lady Guo, originally a prostitute from Suzhou; mother of Yuan Kexiang, Yuan Kehe, and Yuan Huzhen
Lady Liu, originally a maid to Yuan Shikai's fifth concubine Lady Yang; mother of Yuan Kefan and Yuan Yizhen
17 sons
Yuan Keding (1878–1958), courtesy name Yuntai
Yuan Kewen (1889–1931), courtesy name Baocen
Yuan Keliang, married a daughter of Zhang Baixi
Yuan Keduan, married He Shenji (daughter of He Zhongjing)
Yuan Kequan (1898–1941), courtesy name Gui'an, pseudonym Baina, married a daughter of Toteke Duanfang
Yuan Kehuan, married Chen Zheng (daughter of Chen Qitai)
Yuan Keqi, married a daughter of Sun Baoqi
Yuan Kezhen, married Zhou Ruizhu (daughter of Zhou Fu)
Yuan Kejiu, married Li Shaofang (29 December 1906 – 15 April 1945, second daughter of Li Yuanhong) in 1934
Yuan Kejian, married a daughter of Lu Jianzhang
Yuan Ke'an, married Li Baohui (daughter of Li Shiming)
Yuan Kedu, married a daughter of the wealthy Luo Yunzhang
Yuan Kexiang, married firstly Zhang Shoufang (granddaughter of Na Tong, married secondly Chen Sixing (daughter of Chen Bingkun)
Yuan Kejie, married Lady Wang
Yuan Kehe, married a daughter of Zhang Diaochen
Yuan Kefan , died young
Yuan Keyou, married a daughter of Yu Yunpeng