The Xinhai revolution: the end of empire in China
A rising at Wuhan brings down the Qing dynasty, and more than two thousand years of imperial rule in China end in a republic.
On 10 October 1911 soldiers rise at Wuhan, and within two months most of the provinces fall away from the dynasty. On 1 January 1912 a republic is proclaimed at Nanjing, with Sun Yat-sen as president, and on 12 February an abdication is announced in the name of the six-year-old emperor Puyi. Not only the Qing end: imperial rule ends, which had stood in China since 221 BCE, longer than any other on earth. The republic comes out weak: power soon passes to the general Yuan Shikai, and after his death the country is divided among military governors. Out of this turmoil, a quarter-century on, two forces will emerge—the Kuomintang and the communists—and their war will decide the fate of China.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the abdication edict of 12 February 1912 — the end of the Qing dynasty
Scholarship
- studies of twentieth-century China — the course of the revolution and the fate of the republic
Basis: documents and evidence.