Editing Yuan Shikai (section)

=== Abdication of child emperor ===
[[File:Yuan Shikai sworn in as Provisional President - 10 March 1912.jpg|thumb|Yuan Shikai sworn in as Provisional President of the Republic of China, in Beijing, 10 March 1912]]

[[File:Ztysk (2).jpg|thumb|Yuan Shikai pictured with ambassadors from foreign countries on 10 October 1913]]

The revolutionaries had elected [[Sun Yat-sen]] as the first Provisional [[President of the Republic of China]], but they were in a weak position militarily, so they negotiated with the Qing, using Yuan as an intermediary. Yuan arranged for the abdication of the child emperor [[Puyi]] in return for being granted the position of President of the Republic of China.<ref name=Busky /> Puyi recalled in his autobiography the meeting between Longyu and Yuan:

{{blockquote|[[Empress Dowager Longyu|The Dowager Empress]] was sitting on a kang [platform] in a side room of the Mind Nature Palace, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief as a fat old man [Yuan] knelt before her on a red cushion, tears streaming down his face. I was sitting to the right of the widow and wondering why both adults were crying. There was no one in the room other than the three of us and everything was very quiet; the fat man snorted as he spoke and I couldn't understand what he was saying&nbsp;... This was the time when Yuan directly raised the question of abdication.<ref>Behr, 1987 p. 69</ref>}}

Sun agreed to Yuan's presidency after some internal bickering, but asked that the capital be situated in [[Nanjing]]. Yuan, however, wanted the geographic advantage of having the nation's capital close to his base of military power. Many theorized that [[Cao Kun]], one of his trusted subordinate Beiyang military commanders, fabricated a coup d'état in Beijing and Tianjin, apparently under Yuan's orders, to provide an excuse for Yuan not to leave his [[sphere of influence]] in Zhili (present-day [[Hebei]] province). However, the claim that the coup was organized by Yuan has been challenged by others.<ref>Joseph W.; Wei, C.X. George (2013). ''China: How the Empire Fell''. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 239–241. {{ISBN|978-0-415-83101-7}}</ref> The revolutionaries compromised again, and the capital of the new republic was established in Beijing. Yuan Shikai was elected Provisional President of the Republic of China by the Nanjing Provisional Senate on 14 February 1912, and sworn in on 10 March of that year.<ref name=Zhengyuan>Zhengyuan Fu. (1994) ''Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics'', [[Cambridge University]] Press. pp. 153–154. {{ISBN|0-521-44228-1}}.</ref><ref>Spence, 1999 pp. 277–278.</ref>