Early Republican General Government Study

Since the modern times, along with the tension of the situation at home and abroad, the rise of Xiang Army and Huai Army, the new army of late Qing Dynasty trained, the power of the local civil and military governors greatly increased, the power of Central Government was began to weaken, which broke the local civil and military was rentraint each other,the balance of the military and political system since the early Qing Dynasty. After explosion of Wuchang Uprising, independence was declared by various provinces. Military and politics didn’t distinguished in the established military government. Faced with this situation, The Nanjing Provisional Government couldn’t solve, but Yuan Shikai was ready to take measures to solve the problem. On June30,1914, Yuan Shikai removed the local governor name, established the general office(jiangjun fu) in Beijing, which belonged to the president, consisting of the provincial military generals and the others who worked in Beijing.Military affairs of the local general office was controlled by the president, War Department and General staff. During the period of Yuan Shikai’s ruling, the central general office did make to run around in military training, participate in the Defense Conference, formulated military draft and so on, which partly reflects its nature as a military advisory organ. And the granted general name of different grades according to the different military position, fully embodied the one’s military and social status. This measure has become the symbols of controlling local military. After the death of Yuan Shikai, Li Yuanhong changed General into Tuchun. Accompanied by the local military situation again chaos, General house gradually lost its sense as a military advisory organ. As a result, in1925, the mansion, Duan Qirui ordered to abolish general house, but general name continued to exist till1928and vanished with the end of the Peking government rule. Started from Yuan Shikai setting up general house and general, all sections of society inlcuding the general paid attention to this reform. Although people realized that the government was trying to achieve the purpose of the realization of military and civilian partition by taking this measure. but based on the changing times, the world was for general office and the general evaluation of the overall fell more than praise, especially after1916, the general because of too much political interference, subjected to the contempt of the world. Combined with the social development of the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, through combing evolvement of the general office and general activity, this paper gets the Yuan Shikai’s reform measure has its historical rationality, The measure shows the government to strengthen the local control, the realization of military and civilian divided power balance and the centralized spirit, also reflects the traditional factors in the social transition of how in early to be applied to the central system change, and to achieve the smooth transformation of the state system.