Yuan Shih-kai before his death wrote a declaration to the effect that in the event of his disability the Presidency should devolve on General Li Yuan-hung. The accession of the Vice-President was announced immediately. The members of the cabinet, as well as Prince Pu-Lun, as chairman of the State Council, waited on President Li on the 7th of June; with a simple ceremonial, including three deferential bows, the cabinet expressed its allegiance to the new President. He was accepted peaceably and with unanimity by all the provinces.
General Tuan Chi-jui and Mr. Liang Shih-yi coöperated in arranging for the transfer of authority to the new President. That this was done so quietly and in so orderly a fashion caused the foreigners to regard Chinese republicanism with much higher respect.
The body of Yuan was not transferred from Peking to his Honan home until June 28th, when the mausoleum on the ancestral estate was ready. As part of the Imperial movement, Yuan Shih-kai had previously begun the construction of this large tomb. The commemorative ceremony took place on the 26th in Peking. The great hall of the Presidential palace, where we had often witnessed New Year receptions and other festivities, was used. There were gathered the foreign representatives with their staffs and the high officials of the Chinese Republic. It was a strange mingling of old and new. The President's body lay on a high catafalque, in the very place where he had so often received us. In front of the entrance to the inner apartments stood rows of tables bearing the usual funeral offerings as well as the weapons, clothes, and other objects of personal use of the departed. Here were gorgeous Mandarin coats of the old régime, including the famous Yellow Jacket, and generals' uniforms of the new, and innumerable decorations sent by all the countries bestowing such honours; also tall riding boots, soft Chinese slippers, long native pipes and foreign smoking sets, swords, and pistols.
The service was a litany conducted by Lama priests from temples in Peking and Mongolia. Some of the priests wore a huge headdress resembling a dragoon's helmet; others, a large round hat not unlike that of a cardinal. As they intoned the ritual their deep voices rolled as if they issued from an underground cavern. The music accompanying the singing was Chinese, supplied by flutes and stringed instruments; but at the beginning the President's band had played a Western funeral march. The second part of the service consisted of the burning of incense in memory of the departed. First, the sons of Yuan, wearing the white garments of mourners, came forth from an inner apartment and took their station before the catafalque. They prostrated themselves, struck their foreheads heavily against the floor, and wailed with loud voices. Yuan Ko-ting, as chief mourner, offered sacrifice. Meanwhile, the women of the Presidential household peered through the windows of the apartments which opened into the central hall.
When the sons of Yuan had withdrawn, the singing of the priests was taken up again, now in a different key and accompanied by the tinkling of many bells clear as silver, but some of them as deep as the sea. Buddhist prayers were intoned in voices sonorous and deep as the grave. The new President next offered sacrifice at the bier of his predecessor.
What contrasts of character and aims, what mingling of old and new forces, what a rush of incongruous ideas and practices were typified in this ceremony, with all its accompaniments! And these were embodied, too, in the personality of the dead leader and in his successor!
The foreign representatives next paid their respect to the memory of Yuan. We rose and each in turn deposited before the catafalque a huge wreath, and returned after making the customary three bows of high ceremony. Following the diplomats came the Secretary of State and high Chinese officials, as well as the foreign advisers.
The procession to the railway station, on June 28th, testified to the genius of the Chinese for pageantry. They had preserved some of the colour and brilliance of an Imperial procession, and what was remarkable, had so arranged the parade that the modern elements—troops in modern uniform, brass bands, officials in evening dress, and diplomats in their varied uniforms—myself alone wearing ordinary civilian dress—did not impart to the pageant a jarring note. In fact, throughout the ceremony at the palace and the subsequent procession, there was a gratifying absence of dissonance, notwithstanding the multifariousness of the elements included.
The huge catafalque upon which the body of Yuan lay was borne by a hundred men by means of a complicated arrangement of poles. It was covered with crimson silk embroidered in gold; its imperial splendour accentuated the tragedy of the occasion. Old Chinese funeral customs, such as the throwing into the air of paper resembling money, were observed. Heading the procession rode twenty heralds, then followed in succession three large detachments of infantry, bearing their arms reversed. Between each two detachments marched a band. After the infantry came Chinese musicians, playing weirdly plaintive strains on their flutes. Then came the beautiful and fascinating part of the cortège—a large squadron of riders in old Chinese costume, carrying huge banners, long triangular pennants, and fretted streamers of many colours, which, as they floated gracefully in the air, made a charming picture. The Chinese have a genius for using banners with dazzling effect. Then followed lancers escorting an empty state carriage; Buddhist monks beating drums and cymbals; the President's band; long lines of bearers with sacrificial vessels preceding the sedan chair in which was set the soul tablet of Yuan; then still other lines of men bearing the food offerings, the mementoes of Yuan's personal life, and the wreaths, all from the funeral ceremony of two days before. High officials came next, on foot, in military uniform or civilian full dress, and here indeed the frock coats and top hats did seem somewhat out of keeping. A throng of white-clad mourners preceded the catafalque; the sons of Yuan walked under a white canopy. Yuan Ko-ting in the midst of it all seemed a pathetic figure.
The vast throngs that lined the route behind lines of troops looked on in respectful silence. There was no sign of grief, rather mute indifference. Yuan had not won the heart of the people, who regarded him as a masterful individual dwelling in remote seclusion whose contact with them came through taxes and executions. I believe a Chinese crowd is incapable of the enthusiastic hero-worship which great political leaders in the Occident receive. The people have not yet come to look upon such men as their leaders. The Peking population, imbued still with traditions of imperial splendour and the remoteness and semi-divinity of their rulers, are as yet only onlookers at the pageant of history.