Whether you are familiar with Qing history or not, you must have heard of the magnificent "Hundred Days Restoration". It was a history led by Kang Youwei and other reformers, who were determined to save the Qing Dynasty and were determined to promote reform. However, this vigorous reform only lasted for 100 days, and finally ended gloomily in the Empress Dowager Cixi's "discipline" again, declaring the reform a failure. There are different opinions about the reasons for this failure, and some of them point the finger at Yuan Shikai's betrayal. But what is the truth? Today, let's explore the causes and consequences of this history.
The cause of this incident stems from the defeat of the Qing Dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War. Li Hongzhang's beloved three pillars, the well-equipped Huai Army, the Beiyang Naval Division, known as the first naval division in the Far East, and Port Arthur, known as the first military port in the Far East, all suffered serious losses in this campaign. Surprisingly, at that time, the Huai Army, the Beiyang Naval Division and the Lushun Military Port were equipped with the best equipment than the Japanese army in terms of quality.
After the defeat, many people realized the essence of the problem, that is, the system of the entire imperial court, not the quality of the equipment. As a result, people of insight in the government and the opposition began to seek reform. Among them, Yuan Shikai, Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen are representatives of reform. Unlike the other two, Sun Yat-sen relied on the power of the people from below to push for institutional reform through armed uprisings. Since his reforms are not directly related to the reform reforms, we will not elaborate on them here.
Now, let's focus on Yuan Shikai and Kang Youwei's ideas for "in-system" reform.
After the defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Westernization faction, was forced to bear the responsibility for the defeat and left the imperial court in disgrace. With Li Hongzhang's loss of power, his subordinate Yuan Shikai wanted to implement reforms, but found that the road was blocked. In order to achieve his goal, Yuan Shikai had to present the reform plan to Li Hongzhang's counterpart, Weng Tongyong, the leader of the Qing school. However, Weng did not transfer Yuan Shikai's letter to the Guangxu Emperor because it involved complex factional disputes.
This article is known for"B is not stated", which is sprinkled with 1More than 30,000 words, in simple terms, he explained in simple terms many fields such as education, economy, military and diplomacy, and elaborated on his unique views and solutions to the problems faced by China at that time. Through this statement, we can get a glimpse of Yuan's ambition: he advocated learning from Japan's valuable experience and actively learning from the advanced systems and technologies of the West, with a view to promoting China's transformation and prosperity.
Kang Youwei relied on the bus to write a book, expressed his opinions directly, and made a speech to Emperor Guangxu. He was keen to learn from the West, advocated science and culture, advocated the reform of politics and education systems, and advocated the development of agriculture, industry and commerce. His lectures cover a wide range of fields, including politics, economics, education, the military, and socio-cultural.
Although both Yuan Shikai and Kang Youwei are passionate about reform, their ideas share three major differences in nature. First of all, regarding the characteristics required for reform, Yuan Shikai tends to select stable and old people, such as Zhang Zhidong, and gradually promote reform in a steady way. Kang Youwei, on the other hand, advocated swift and decisive reforms, showing his determination to make bold moves. Secondly, Yuan Shikai, as the second grade of the imperial court, is well aware of the operation of power and the balance of power. His reform plan focused on reaching a consensus with the elite class of the time to jointly promote reform. However, Kang Youwei regarded the elite class as an obstacle to reform, and even advocated "killing one or two."
The first and second class obstruction of the change of the law, no one dares to oppose the change of the law." 
Moreover, Yuan Shikai's reform philosophy is more pragmatic than his experience of rising from the grassroots. As a scholar, Kang Youwei's ideas are more idealistic, and the reform plan proposed is more theoretical. Because the whole set of law change plans contained nearly 200 contents, the Qing Dynasty at that time was confused and could not clarify the operation method. To sum up, although Yuan Shikai and Kang Youwei are both reformers, their essential differences are obvious. Yuan Shikai did not agree with Kang Youwei's reform ideas, and the two were incompatible. This shows that they are not fellow travelers, and Yuan Shikai will not support Kang Youwei's change. Later, as Yuan Shikai had predicted, the reform was hindered like never before, and the court fell into chaos. Only four days after the reform was implemented, Weng Tongyong, who supported the reform and reform, was dismissed from his post and returned to his hometown. Losing the support of Weng Tongyong, the reformers immediately fell into a difficult situation. In order to get out of the predicament, the reformers led by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao decided to take extreme measures and tried to assassinate Cixi, which is known in history as "the siege of the garden and the killing of the queen".
On the night of September 18, Tan Sitong of the Restorationist faction quietly visited Fahua Temple and had a secret conversation with Yuan Shikai. According to Tan Sitong and Kang Youwei's records, Yuan Shikai complied with their request and agreed to send troops to surround the Summer Palace and assassinate Rong Lu. Kang Youwei's description is particularly vivid, he depicts Yuan Shikai patting his chest and vowing to "kill Ronglu is like killing a dog". They were all convinced that Yuan Shikai would participate in the operation. 
However, Yuan's record presents a different picture. He mentioned that Tan Sitong showed an almost crazy excitement and showed a so-called "edict with clothes", but there was no name on the edict, which made Yuan Shikai question its authenticity. In order to appease Tan Sitong's emotions, Yuan Shikai said that unless he received clear instructions from Emperor Guangxu, he could not easily attack Rong Lu. This is undoubtedly a euphemistic refusal of Tan Sitong's request. In addition, Yuan Shikai also pointed out two dilemmas that they must face. First of all, although he controls the small station training of 7,000 people, their ** and ammunition are strictly controlled by Rong Lu. Secondly, Cixi had already mobilized 170,000 troops to defend the Beijing-Tianjin region during the reform period, and once it was unfavorable to Cixi, the consequences would be unimaginable.
This record fully shows that Yuan Shikai politely rejected Tan Sitong's request.
Compared with the other two records, Yuan Shikai's record is more credible. After all, Yuan and Kang were not fellow travelers, and even Yuan Shikai was opposed to Kang Youwei's reforms. Under these circumstances, why did Yuan Shikai risk his life to assist the Restoration Party? It's really puzzling.
Next, we will delve into whether Yuan Shikai really betrayed the Restoration Party, which is a perplexing question. In fact, the truth is always shrouded in fog, but we can still find answers from some clues.
Let's start with Cixi. On the night of the 18th, after Tan Sitong secretly visited Yuan Shikai, Cixi withdrew from the Summer Palace early on the 19th and returned to the Forbidden City. Immediately afterwards, the Guangxu Emperor was also moved to Yingtai from that day.
On the afternoon of the 20th, when Emperor Guangxu met with former Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi, Cixi quietly hid behind the screen. Therefore, we can infer that on the 19th, Cixi had already conceived the idea of returning to power. If we go back further, as early as when Weng Tongyi was vacant, Cixi had already hatched this plan in her heart. In other words, whether or not there was a plan to "besiege the garden and kill the queen", Cixi's return to power was destined to happen.
So let's look at Yuan Shikai's aspect. Yuan Shikai wants to tell the truth, the first problem is that he has no evidence, Guangxu summoned Yuan Shikai for the third time on the 20th, and he didn't mention the "edict of clothes and belts" at all. A person who has been rolling in officialdom for many years, going to the whistleblower without substantiation will undoubtedly make people doubt his intentions?
Secondly, Yuan Shikai did not have the conditions to whistleblow. Although his official position seemed prominent, in fact, in the eyes of Cixi, he was not enough to attract her attention. Yuan Shikai could not meet Cixi directly, and similarly, Cixi had no reason to take the initiative to summon Yuan Shikai. More crucially, Qing historical documents do not record any meeting between Cixi and Yuan Shikai during this time.
And in hindsight, Cixi's "post-party" was very wary of Yuan Shikai. On the 20th, Yuan Shikai returned to Tianjin to see Rong Lu, and Rong Lu gave him the position of "Acting Governor of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang", but he was not allowed to return to the small station. seems to be promoted, but in fact, it strips him of his military power.
On the evening of the 20th, Rong Lu returned to Beijing and reported to Cixi that Emperor Guangxu wanted to put Cixi under house arrest.
On the 21st, Cixi coup d'état, and the reform failed. Three days later, acting as the governor of Zhili, the minister of Beiyang was taken over by Rong Lu. Ten days later, Yuan Shikai returned to the small station and found that the small station was sandwiched between two armies including the Jiangxi army, obviously guarding against Yuan Shikai's change. The intermediate reason is very likely that Rong Lu knew about Tan Sitong's secret visit to Yuan Shikai.
Judging from the results, if Yuan Shikai had leaked secrets to Cixi, he would probably be classified as a "post-party" faction, but in fact, Yuan Shikai has always been on guard, and even almost ruined his career. Therefore, we can reasonably infer that the possibility of Yuan Shikai tipping is very small. On the other hand, Kang Youwei accused Yuan Shikai of betraying the Restoration Party, but the self-consistency of this statement is debatable. This is full of doubts and is difficult to convince.
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