faithful to the Republic. The Delegates had been charged specifically to
demand on behalf of the seceding provinces that Yuan Shih-kai should
proceed with them to Nanking to take that oath, a course of action which
would have been held tantamount by the nation to surrender on his part
to those who had been unable to vanquish him in the field. It must also
not be forgotten that from the very beginning a sharp and dangerous
cleavage of opinion existed as to the manner in which the powers of the
new government had been derived. South and Central China claimed, and
claimed rightly, that the Nanking Provincial Constitution was the
Instrument on which the Republic was based: Yuan Shih-kai declared that
the Abdication Edicts, and not the Nanking Instrument had established
the Republic, and that therefore it lay within his competence to
organize the new government in the way which he considered most fit.

The discussion which raged was suddenly terminated on the night of the
29th February (1912) when without any warning there occurred the
extraordinary revolt of the 3rd Division, a picked Northern corps who
for forty-eight hours plundered and burnt portions of the capital
without any attempts at interference, there being little doubt to-day
that this manoeuvre was deliberately arranged as a means of intimidation
by Yuan Shih-kai himself. Although the disorders assumed such dimensions
that foreign intervention was narrowly escaped, the upshot was that the
Nanking Delegates were completely cowed and willing to forget all about
forcing the despot of Peking to proceed to the Southern capital. Yuan
Shih-kai as the man of the hour was enabled on the 10th March, 1912, to
take his oath in Peking as he had wished thus securing full freedom of
action during the succeeding years.[6]

[Illustration: An Encampment of "The Punitive Expedition" of 1910 on the
Upper Yangtsze.