Retreat and Return
The Empress Dowager and the Guangxu Emperor died within a day of each other in November 1908. and sources indicate that the will of the Emperor specifically ordered Yuan be executed. Nonetheless avoiding a death sentence, in January 1909 Yuan Shikai was relieved of all his posts by the regent, Prince Chun. The public reason for Yuan's resignation was that he was returning to his home in the village of Huanshang (洹上村), now the prefecture-level city of Anyang, due to a foot disease.
During his three years of effective exile, Yuan kept contact with his close allies, including Duan Qirui, who reported to him regularly about army proceedings. The loyalty of the Beiyang Army was still undoubtedly behind him. Having this strategic military support, Yuan held the balance of power between various revolutionaries (like Sun Yat-sen) and the Qing Court. Both wanted Yuan on their side.
Read more about this topic: Yuan Shikai
Famous quotes containing the words retreat and, retreat and/or return:
“Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we are old.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“When we retreat to the country, we are hiding not from people, but from our pride, which, in the city and among people, operates unfairly and immoderately.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don’t always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our manoeuvres in our emergencies and longings.”
—Harold Brodkey (b. 1930)