Politics12 February 1912

Abdication of the Xuantong Emperor

Also called: Fall of the Qing, Abdication of Puyi

On 12 February 1912 Empress Dowager Longyu issued the abdication edict in the name of the six-year-old Xuantong Emperor, Puyi, ending the 268-year Qing dynasty and more than 2,000 years of imperial rule. The next day Sun Yat-sen stepped down and Yuan Shikai became provisional president.

The abdication edict of the Xuantong Emperor, 12 February 1912
清遜帝 · Public domain · Source

Sun Yat-sen had taken office as provisional president of the Republic of China in Nanjing on 1 January 1912, but Beijing still held an emperor and the Beiyang Army. Sun promised Yuan Shikai the presidency if he brought about the emperor’s abdication. Yuan had the Beiyang generals wire demands for a republic, and won over Empress Dowager Longyu with generous terms for the imperial house.

The edict came on 12 February. Puyi was to keep the title of emperor, receive 4 million taels a year and live for the time being in the Forbidden City. Sun resigned on 13 February, and on 10 March Yuan was sworn in as provisional president in Beijing. The next day the Senate in Nanjing promulgated a Provisional Constitution with cabinet government, meant to rein in the president.

Outer Mongolia and Tibet broke away, holding that they had owed allegiance to the Qing emperor, not to the Republic.

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States and rulers at the time: Qing · fell — Xuantong Emperor (Puyi)
Republic of China · successor state
Places: Forbidden City

People

Puyi1906 – 1967
monarch · Last emperor of the Qing as the Xuantong Emperor (r. 1908–1912), later installed by Japan as chief executive (1932) and emperor (1934–1945) of Manchukuo
Yuan Shikai1859 – 1916
key figure · Late-Qing master of the Beiyang Army who meddled in Joseon affairs after the 1882 Imo Incident; in the 1911 Revolution he secured the emperor’s abdication and became president of the Republic, but his bid to make himself emperor failed
Sun Yat-sen1866 – 1925
related figure · Leader of the Chinese revolution who led the Tongmenghui under the Three Principles of the People and became provisional president of the Republic of China after the Xinhai Revolution

Before and after

Earlier: 1911 Battle of Yangxia

Themes that include this event

The 1911 Revolution1894 – 1916
From the Revive China Society to the death of Yuan Shikai — twenty-two years in which, amid debt and failed reform, revolutionaries and the New Army brought down the Qing and founded Asia’s first republic, which passed through dictatorship and a short-lived monarchy into the age of the warlords