China — Warlords to Revolution

The Qing dynasty did not die in a dramatic last stand. It wheezed, stumbled, and expired on a train platform. On October 10, 1911, a group of soldiers in the city of Wuchang, deep in central China, mutinied after a bomb accidentally detonated in their barracks revealed a revolutionary conspiracy. The conspirators had planned a careful uprising. The bomb forced their hand. They seized the city that night, and within two months, province after province declared independence from Beijing.

The Qing court, which had ruled China since 1644, tried to hold things together by recalling Yuan Shikai, a retired general who commanded the most modern army in the country. Yuan was supposed to crush the rebellion. Instead, he negotiated with both sides, positioning himself as the indispensable man. On February 12, 1912, the six-year-old Emperor Puyi abdicated. The edict was signed by his mother, the Empress Dowager Longyu, in his name. Two thousand years of imperial rule ended with the stroke of a regent's brush.

The Republic of China was proclaimed. Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionary leader who had spent years fundraising and organizing from exile in Japan, Hawaii, and London, briefly served as provisional president before ceding the position to Yuan Shikai. The logic was simple: Sun had the ideology, but Yuan had the guns. In the calculus of Chinese politics in 1912, guns won.