Yuan made a virtue of necessity, and on March 12 took the oath of office as president. Nevertheless he continued to uphold the principles which he had publicly proclaimed in justification of his defence of the monarchy, and to insist upon maintenance of the continuity of the classical tradition of government and the preservation of the Confucian system. He was willing for a time to pay lip-service to the republican formulas, but his actions proved clearly that he had no sympathy with Canton.
In the summer of 1913, a "war to punish Yuan" was started in the south by Sun Yat-Sen, Huang Hsing and other malcon tents, but Yuan, having by this time secured a foreign loan and the moral support of the Powers, had no difficulty in retaining the venal "loyalty" of the chief military commanders in the provinces ; the Cantonese insurrection came, therefore, to a swift and inglorious end. But Yuan dissolved and proscribed the Kuo min tang, and with it made an end of its farce of parliamentary government and representative institutions.
The movement for the restoration of the throne organized by Yuan's adherents, began to take shape in the autumn of 1915. The leaders of the movement failed especially to perceive the danger created by Japan's 21 demands (May 1915), and to realize that the active opposition of the Japanese Government would in all probability be fatal to Yuan's ambitions. In October
the State council referred the question of the monarchy to the provinces. The result (a foregone conclusion) was a practically unanimous vote in favour of Yuan's accession. Meanwhile, how ever, the Japanese minister at Peking, supported by his British and Russian colleagues, had made friendly representations to the Chinese Foreign Office, deprecating the restoration of the mon archical system at this juncture. But on Dec. 12 the monarchy was proclaimed and the enthronement ceremony fixed for Feb. 9, 1916. A week after this announcement, an insurrection, led by one of Yuan's own nominees, broke out in Yunnan. The move ment spread rapidly, one province after another declaring its independence. On Jan. 2 2 Yuan announced the postponement and the establishment of the monarchy. Towards the end of April he consented, while retaining the presidency, to surrender all civil authority to the cabinet, under the premiership of Tuan Chi-jui. He died on June 6, 1916. With him passed the last of the great viceroys of the old regime.