In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the imperial system and on January 1, 1912, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China was proclaimed in Nanjing with Sun Yat-sen as the Provisional President. After the peace talks between the North and the South, the Provisional Government moved to Beijing, and Yuan Shikai, who had military power in his hands and strength in the North, was elected as the second Provisional President in February, and was formally sworn in in March.
In 1913, Song Jiaoren, who was about to become the cabinet premier, was assassinated, which was suspected to be related to Yuan Shikai. Immediately afterwards, Sun Yat-sen launched the “Second Revolution”, but it ended in failure. Afterwards, Yuan Shikai was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the Republic of China, and a draft constitution was passed to adopt a cabinet system to restrain Yuan’s power. In order not to be restricted by the Diet, in March 1914, Yuan Shikai ordered the National Assembly to amend the Provisional Treaty of 1912 and changed the cabinet system to the presidential system. in December 1915, Yuan Shikai restored the imperial system and changed the name of the country to the Republic of China. This move was denounced by the whole country, and Yunnan General Cai E and others started the “Protect the Nation Movement”. Amidst the opposition, Yuan Shikai announced in March 1916 that he would abolish the imperial system in order to seek a second term as president, but was rejected by the Protectorate.
When Yuan Shikai was inaugurated as president, his vice president was Li Yuanhong. In 1922, he resumed the presidency with the support of the direct warlords, and on June 3, 1928, Li Yuanhong died of cerebral hemorrhage in Tianjin.
The scholar Yan Fu said about Li Yuanhong, “The morality of Li Gong is believed by the world. However, to save the country and survive, such morality cannot be effective. Why? The reason is softness and darkness! Reading through the history of the West and the East, I think the most dangerous person in the world is no more than a good and dark coward. If you are the head of a Family, you will not be able to protect your family; if you are the head of a country, you will not be able to protect your country.” The main idea is that Li Yuanhong’s moral standard is obvious to the world, but he is too soft in politics.
As for Yuan Shikai, there are mixed reviews. Since it is not the focus of this article, I will not elaborate on it.
Yuan Shikai’s descendants’ bad luck in the Cultural Revolution
Yuan Shikai had a total of nine concubines and 17 sons and 15 daughters. 17 sons gave birth to 22 grandsons and 25 granddaughters for Yuan Shikai, totaling 79 children and grandchildren. After Yuan Shikai’s death, the whole family left Zhongnanhai and divided the family in accordance with Yuan Shikai’s will. Each son was given 150,000 yuan (including silver yuan, Gold and stocks), each daughter 10,000 silver yuan, and each Mrs. Ru (i.e. aunt) was given a building. Most of Yuan Shikai’s descendants chose to live overseas, the most famous being Yuan Shikai’s grandson, physicist Yuan Jiaqi.
Yuan Jiayi was the third son of Yuan Shikai’s second son, Yuan Kewen. His birth mother, Xue Liqing, was a famous actress in a small class in the south, and she left Home after a few years in Yuan’s house because she could not be restrained, so Yuan Jiayi was always under the care of another house. At the age of 13, he entered Nankai High School in Tianjin and received his master’s degree from Yanjing University before going to the United States for further study.
His wife, Wu Jianxiong, was also a well-known physicist. The four sons of the Republic of China, Yuan Kewen, were also the head of the youth gang and had four sons and three daughters. He had four sons and three daughters. In addition to Yuen Ka-man, he had sons Yuen Ka-long, Ka-cheung and Ka-ji, and daughters Ka-wah, Ka-yi and Ka-wai. Yuen Ka Cheung also studied in the United States and became an American citizen.
Yuan Jiaji is the youngest son of Yuan Kewen. After the end of the war, he served on a warship of the National Government and then went to Taiwan with the National Government. When the Chinese Communist Party launched a “counter-revolutionary suppression campaign” in 1950, Yuan was arrested and imprisoned for three years, followed by more than 20 years of labor and rehabilitation in factories and farms. After the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, Yuan was imprisoned again, and his wife Liu Aifang was criticized several times. During the criticism, the Red Guards always questioned her why she had married Yuan Shih-Kai’s grandson and why she hadn’t divorced yet. And their children, Yuan Jing and Yuan Hongyu, were discriminated against at school.
Yuan’s third sister, Yuan Jiazhi, married Duan Zhaoyan, the son of Duan Zhigui, but because her husband died early, she lived alone with her four children and had no formal job, relying on casual work and working as a laundress to support her family. After the Cultural Revolution began, her ramshackle house was raided countless times, and she was tortured by the endless criticism, shaking at the sound of slogans.
When Yuan returned to China in 1973, someone from the government came to Yuan’s house to inform her and gave her several disciplines: she was not allowed to discuss current affairs and politics, she was not allowed to bring Yuan into the ramshackle house, the whole family had to wear new clothes when she was picked up at the station, and she was not allowed to cry when she met him, she had to smile, and so on.
The first of these is the one that is the most important. Yang had four boys and two girls, two daughters died early and her sons were Yuan Kehwan, Yuan Keshi, Yuan Kegu and Yuan K’an in that order. They all grew up in a privileged environment with a good foundation in Chinese language and later studied in England and the United States, where they were exposed to Western Culture. They also all married the daughters of famous families, including the daughters of old Qing Dynasty officials, the daughter of Li Yuanhong and the daughter of a major Tianjin salt merchant. The most prominent performer among these was Yuan Kehwan.
According to the mainland media, after Yuan Shih-k’ai’s death, Yuan Kehuan received shares of Kailuan Coal Mine, Qixin Foreign Grey Company, Jiangnan Cement and other well-known national industries, and from these shares, he began to move into industry, becoming the general manager of Qixin and the Chinese chairman of Kailuan Coal Mine. During the war, Yuan Kehwan supported the Dane Sindberg (then employed by Jiangnan Cement) and turned Jiangnan Cement into the largest mobile refugee camp in Nanjing, hosting over 30,000 Nanjing citizens for three and a half years. Yuan Kehwan also refused to provide industrial materials to The Japanese army by stalling, and his eldest son, Yuan Jiachen, was once imprisoned by the Japanese military police.
After the victory of the war, Yuan Kehwan focused his business on Nanjing Jiangnan Cement Factory and Shanghai Yaohua Glass Company. However, the Communist civil war soon broke out and his industrial development struggled, but he refused to go abroad and instead made the decision to keep his family at home. This decision sealed the fate of his family from then on.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, Yuan Keh-huan actively cooperated with the “Three Anti’s and Five Anti’s” and the “Public-Private Partnership” launched by the Chinese Communist Party against entrepreneurs, and took the initiative to sell his garden to a high ranking official at a low price in order to support the Chinese Communist Party in the war in Korea.
Yuan Kehwan, who died in 1956, did not suffer from the Cultural Revolution, but his descendants were not spared. During the Cultural Revolution, all five of Yuan’s daughters were raided, criticized, and had their heads shaved, without exception.
The fate of Yuan’s family changed after Yuan returned to China. The Chinese Communist Party improved the lives of Yuan’s family members who remained on the mainland for the sake of the united front. For example, Yuan Jiaji gained his freedom and later worked in an automobile repair factory under the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Transportation, and also became a member of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. However, the evil done by the CCP cannot be erased by such improvements.
The pain of the Cultural Revolution of Li Yuanhong’s descendants
Li Yuanhong had only one wife and one concubine, namely, his wife Wu Jingjun and his wife Gui Wenxiu. Li Yuanhong and Wu Jingjun raised two sons and two daughters: the eldest daughter, Li Shaofen, the eldest son, Li Shaoji, the second daughter, Li Shaofang, and the second son, Li Shaoye. Because of such expectations, he attached great importance to the Education of his children. He invited a teacher to set up a school at his home, and his children studied both ancient poetry and literature, as well as mathematics, science and chemistry, with special emphasis on English.
Among the four children of Lai Yuen-hung, Lai Shao-fang and Lai Shao-ye did not attend university due to their frailty and illness, while Lai Shao-fen and Lai Shao-ki had the experience of attending university and studying abroad. Lai Shaofen was the first student of Nankai University founded in 1919 and was in the same class with Zhou Enlai; after graduating from university in 1923, she went to study in the United States with the support of Lai Yuanhong. She often wrote to her father about what she had seen in the United States.
Four years later, Lai Shaofen obtained a master’s degree in education from Columbia University and departed for China. Upon her return, Li Yuanhong, who was deeply honored, held a grand welcome party for her and lifted the rule that for many years did not allow his daughter to speak with male guests.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, Lai joined the “Democratic Revolution” and did a lot of united front work for the Chinese Communist Party. However, with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, she, with her many overseas connections, became a target of criticism and died of a heart attack on December 8, 1966, at the age of 65, the same age as her father, Li Yuanhong.
Born in 1903, Li Yuanhong’s eldest son, Li Shaoji, had high expectations from his father; in 1920, Li Shaoji was sent to Japan to study at an aristocratic school, and in 1923, he returned to China to study at the Nankai Political Science Department. When the coal mine was later occupied by the Japanese, he took refuge in Shanghai and refused to cooperate with the Japanese. After the victory of the war, while reviving the coal mine, he vigorously developed the subsidiary shipping company. Afterwards, he temporarily lived in Hong Kong.
After the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, Lai Shaoji was invited to Beijing by the Chinese Communist Party. At the banquet, he met Zhou Enlai and, impressed by the deceitful words of the Chinese Communist Party, chose to return to the mainland to develop his industry, while sailing back to the mainland the twenty-odd ships moored in Hong Kong. After that, he applied for the public-private partnership of Zhongxing Coal Mine together with other directors, which was approved, and the business of the shipping company, which was included within the planning of the Shanghai Shipping Bureau.
Like his sister Lai Shaofen, Lai Shaoji did not escape persecution during the Cultural Revolution. His home was raided, his bank deposits and remittances from his children abroad were frozen, and his monthly living expenses were so meager that he had no choice but to seek refuge with his brother, Lai Shao Ye, in Tianjin, where he died in 1983 after a long illness.
Li Yuanhong’s second daughter, Li Shaofang, married Yuan Shih-k’ai’s ninth son, Yuan Kejiu, who died in 1945 at the age of 38 due to ill health and dissatisfaction with her Marriage.
Lai Shao-yeh, the youngest son of Lai Yuen-hung, had an introverted personality and loved ancient literature, history, guqin, calligraphy and was fascinated by Buddhism. After the death of his Parents, he tried to convert to Buddhism, but was discouraged by his family, and later assisted his elder brother in running his business. During the Cultural Revolution, he was also under attack because of his family background. His oldest son, Lai Changjun, was persecuted to death in the second year of the Cultural Revolution. His daughter, Lai Changruo, was sent to labor in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and was transferred back to Tianjin in 1977, where she died shortly afterwards. Li Shaoye died in 1996 at the age of 84.
Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong could not live in peace after his death
Not only were the children and grandchildren of Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party, but they also did not live in peace after their deaths. During the Cultural Revolution, the ancestral home of the Yuan family in Yuanzhai, Xiangcheng, Henan Province, was greatly damaged, with only 50 houses left, many of which were in danger. Yuan Shikai’s tomb was also hit and some of the buildings were damaged. The tomb of Li Yuanhong was blown up and excavated with explosives by the Red Guards, and some of the burial objects were collected by the provincial museum, which was reported in detail by the mainland media in 2012.
According to the archival materials discovered by chance by Mr. Yu Changting, a private collector in Wuhan, Li Yuanhong’s tomb was “raided” as a grave of the “Four Olds” and was the result of the so-called “revolutionary masses” and “Red Guards” at the Time. It was an organized act of the so-called “revolutionary masses” and “Red Guards” at that time, not a sudden excavation by two factions of Red Guards as previously believed; the time of the excavation was also confirmed for the first time in archival texts: June 5, 1967; the “unit of seizure” was the then The time of the excavation was also confirmed for the first time in archival texts: June 5, 1967; the “unit of seizure” was the “Revolutionary Mass Organization of the Comprehensive Survey and Design Brigade of the Hubei Forestry Department”. The most valuable archival material is a page of “list of materials handed over”, which clearly records that after the excavation of Li’s tomb, only some of the burial objects were handed over to the provincial museum for collection, and a number of burial objects were “retained” and the value of 80.02 yuan was offset by the “tomb bombing expenses “.
Conclusion
It is obvious that the tragedy that happened to Yuan Shikai and Li Yuanhong is just a microcosm of many tragedies of that era, and every time I turn out the truth of history, I feel a burst of sadness in my heart, but I realize more deeply that: unless the Chinese Communist Party is removed, its harmful acts to the country and the people will not stop.
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