Li Yuan-hung And The Political Situation In The Begining Period Of The Republic Of China

Li Yuan-hung is a historical personage with significant influence from the Revolution of 1911 to the beginning period of the Republic of China. With the initial success of Wuchang first-uprising, he broke away from the hopeless camp of Qing Dynasty, joined in and successfully led the armed revolutionary struggle which aimed at overthrowing the camp of Qing Dynasty. Thereafter he also participated in founding the Republic of China and significantly influenced the evolution of the political situation of the Republic of China by waving flags and shouting battle cries and winning some political wars at the conference table, which went through ups and downs. For a long time in academic circles, most of the researches on some primary leaders who were during the time of the Revolution of 1911 was rather careful and thorough, especially on Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Yuan Shih-kai and some other personages, and with innumerable writings, the research on them had fruitful efforts. But the research on Li Yuan-hung, one of the four most influential personages in the beginning period of the Republic of China, was unfortunately rather poor and even not as much as a small evident part of the other three ones'. In view of this, we can study on the topic to give prominence to his important position in the politics of the Republic of China and analyze his role on historical progress, to improve the current situation of study on Li Yuan-hung to continuously promote the profound research on the history of the Revolution of 1911 and the history of the Republic of China, and to remold his historical image, avoiding hypercriticism over time and class towards this historical personage who was in a particular time and altering the partial apprehension of Li Yuan-hung in the public even academic circles for a long time. Therefore, the research on Li Yuan-hung and political situation in the beginning period of the Republic of China can contribute to realizing the feature and law of political social evolution in modern China, especially in the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning period of the Republic of China, and has significant realistic meaning in providing useful revelation for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.The study is on the basis of collecting some first-hand information of valuable letters and telegrams,records,reports and historical files and so on,takes in the essence of existing reference; guided by historical materialism;accorded by time and events and other people in his age; adhered to linking theory with practice and attached the same importance to the theory and the historical data;combined the whole inspection with the specific case analysis together;applied the rule of history judgement and value judgement.Meanwhile,it restores a real Li and exploring the truth of politics in the beginning of Republic of China through dissecting some argued historical figures and events,offering author's objective comments according to historical datas.The thesis includes introduction,text and epilogue.The introduction preparing for the text,introduces the motivation of the study,the academic circle's present study situation to Li,the breakthrough and new ideas in the study. The main body of the thesis can be divided into five chapters. The first chapter is to briefly introduce Li's historical activities around the Wuchang first-uprising and to analyze the forming base of his early thoughts. Prominence has been given to his early thoughts and its causes, and experiences in this chapter, from which we have a glimpse of Li's important status in the new model army and the great reverence among common soldiers and masses during early period, especially the period of his running the army in Hubei province. Therefore, a conclusion has been drawn that Li was an old-styled and open-minded officer who was patriotic in some degree and with budding thought of democratic revolution. Discussions based on this conclusion then follow about how Li successfully converse the role from an old-styled officer to a chief commander in the first uprising, about his military and administrative measures on taking office, particularly about the cooperation and struggle with revolutionary party,constitutionalists, and Qing Dynasty represented by Yuan Shih-kai. In the second chapter, analysis in the first 12 years of Republic of China and the period of Li's retiring in Tianjin from the political stage, shows how he stated his views, declared his position, used his influence, enhanced political reform to promote social development. The third chapter is from a diplomatic and political angle, dissecting how Li and his government dealt with the diplomatic relations with Germany, Japan, Russia and America, and how he tackled the diplomatic crisis in Lincheng. In the increasingly westernised China, internal and external affairs are complementary and indispensable to each other. The previous chapter analyses how to handle internal affairs, therefore the latter chapter to be joined is about diplomatic politics. The fourth chapter is to sort out Li's political thought in the ideological area from five prominent ideology levels, namely nation, governing country, political party, constitutionalism, and republic. Raised from the discussion of historical activities to ideological analysis, the thesis can make the three-dimensio-nality of time and the plump profile of the historical figure more prominent. Here he got his vision of utopia for the beginning of the Republic of China, and he put his ideas into practice. Here, the political and social reality was vividly reflected in his mind, and he struggled for improving the political situation. A technique of comparative analysis has been taken in the fifth chapter with a piece of research into the important and contemporary military and political figures such as Yuan Shih-kai, Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Zhang Tai-yan, Tuan Chi-jui, with whom Li had close association and who was representative. As a result, the fact that Li was active in the political stage was supported by threads of human relationships.The Epilogue has expounded Li's political life in his later years in life and the reasons why he dropped politics for a new career as a businessman, why he was absorbed in saving the nation by industry, and why he had advice for his children not participating in politic matters. Furthermore, I made judgment of merits and demerits of all his life, especially the role he played in China's social development particularly in the political transformation.Through the study to Li Yuan-hung and the political situation in beginning period of the Republic of China,we know his role and influence in the evolution process at the beginning of Republic of China, pioneeringly discusses Li's diplomatic activities and his political ideas, tentatively conducts the comparative study between him and important political figures at that time. According to the analysis, the praises for Li Yuan-hung such as "one of the four most influential personages in the beginning period of Republic of China", "the first great person of Republic of China" so and so forth are definitely true. The study also fundamentally changed and uplifted the historical image of Li Yuan-hung and corrected the misunderstanding of him. From this historical analysis and logical reasoning, we can see Li should be the "hero" of Republic of China rather than the "sinner" criticized by some scholars. Moreover, just because of the" maneuvers" or "tacts" of Li Yuan-hung and others, the infant Republic of China could survive and develop. Therefore, it's Li Yuan-hung who brought up the Republic of China and made it grow. That's the reason why Li took office of president twice and vice-president three times.