The Qing dynasty was overthrown in the
Xinhai Revolution of 1911 but the capital of the newly founded
Republic of China remained in Beijing as former Qing general
Yuan Shikai took control of the new government from revolutionaries in the south. Yuan and successors from his
Beiyang Army ruled the Republic from Beijing until 1928 when
Chinese Nationalists reunified the country through the
Northern Expedition and moved the capital to Nanjing. Beijing was renamed Beiping. In 1937,
a clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beiping triggered the outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese occupiers created a
collaborationist government in northern China and reverted the city's name to Beijing to serve as capital for the puppet regime. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the city returned to Chinese rule and was again renamed Beiping. During the subsequent
civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, the city was peacefully transferred to Communist control in 1949 and renamed Beijing to become the capital of the People's Republic of China.
Xinhai Revolution When the
Wuchang Uprising erupted in October 1911, the Qing court summoned Yuan Shikai and his powerful
Beiyang Army to suppress the insurrection. As he
fought revolutionaries in the south, Yuan also negotiated with them. On January 1, 1912, Dr.
Sun Yat-sen, who returned from exile, founded the Republic of China in Nanjing and was elected
provisional president. The
new government was not recognized by any foreign powers, and Sun agreed to cede leadership to Yuan Shikai in exchange for the latter's assistance in ending the Qing dynasty. On February 12, Yuan compelled the Qing court, under the
regency of
Prince Chun, to abdicate.
Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication agreement on behalf of the five-year-old Last Emperor,
Puyi. The following day Sun resigned from the provisional presidency and recommended Yuan for the position. Under the terms of the imperial abdication, the Puyi would retain his dignitary title and staff and receive an annual stipend of 4 million Mexican silver dollars from the Republic. He was permitted to continue to reside in the Forbidden City for a time but was required to eventually move to the Summer Palace. His tomb and rituals were to be maintained at the expense of the Republic. The abdication ended the Qing dynasty and averted further bloodshed in the revolution. As a condition for ceding leadership to Yuan, Sun insisted that the provisional government remain in Nanjing. On February 14, the Provisional Senate initially voted 20–5 in favor of making Beijing the capital over Nanjing, with two votes going for Wuhan and one for Tianjin. The Senate majority wanted to secure the peace agreement by taking power in Beijing. The next day, the Provisional Senate voted again, this time, 19–6 in favor of Nanjing with two votes for Wuhan. Yuan welcomed the delegation and agreed to accompany the delegates back to the south. Then on the evening of February 29,
riots and fires broke out in all over the city. Yuan based the executive office and residence in
Zhongnanhai, next to the Forbidden City. On April 5, the Provisional Senate in Nanjing voted to make Beijing the capital of the Republic and convened in Beijing at the end of the month. In August, Sun Yat-sen traveled to Beijing where he was welcomed by Yuan Shikai and a crowd of thousands. At the
Huguang Guild Hall, the
Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) led by Sun, Huang Xing and
Song Jiaoren joined several smaller parties to form the
Kuomintang. The
first national assembly elections were held from December 1912 to January 1913. Adult males over the age of 21 who were educated or owned property and paid taxes and who could prove two-year residency in a particular county could vote. An estimated 4–6% of China's population were registered for the election. The Nationalist Party won a majority in both houses of the National Assembly, which convened in Beijing in April 1913. Yuan's agents assassinated Nationalist leader Song Jiaoren in Shanghai. In response, Sun Yat-sen launched a
Second Revolution in July 1913, which failed and forced him into exile. Yuan then forced the National Assembly to elect him as the president and expel Nationalist members. In early 1914, he dissolved the National Assembly and abolished the provisional constitution in May. On December 23, 1915, Yuan declared himself emperor, and his regime, the
Empire of China (1915–1916). This declaration provoked the
National Protection War as provinces in the south rebelled. Yuan was forced to step down from emperor to president in March 1916. He died in Beijing in June 1916, leaving military men from the Beiyang Army vying for control of the government. Over the next 12 years, the Beiyang Government in Beijing had no fewer than
eight presidents, five parliaments,
24 cabinets, at least four constitutions and one brief
restoration of the Manchu Monarchy. Unlike prior dynastic changes, the end of Qing rule in Beijing did not cause a substantial decline in the city's population, which was 785,442 in 1910, 670,000 in 1913 and 811,566 in 1917. The population of the surrounding region grew from 1.7 to 2.9 million over the same period. In 1917, Beijing was the fourth largest city in China after Guangzhou, Shanghai and
Hankou, and the seventh largest capital city in the world.
World War I and the May 4th Movement . After Yuan's death, Li Yuanhong became president and
Duan Qirui, the prime minister, and the National Assembly was reconvened. The government soon faced a crisis over whether to enter
World War I on the side of the
Allied Powers or remain neutral. Li dismissed Duan, who favored entry into the war, and invited warlord
Zhang Xun to the capital to mediate. Zhang and his
pigtailed loyalist army marched into Beijing, dissolved the National Assembly and
restored Puyi as Qing emperor on July 1. Li fled to the Japanese Embassy in the Legation. The imperial restoration lasted just 12 days as Duan Qirui's army reclaimed the capital, and sent Zhang seeking refuge in the Dutch Embassy. Under Duan's command, China declared war on the
Central Powers and sent 140,000
Chinese laborers to work on the
Western Front. With
financial backing from Japan, Duan then engineered the
election of a new parliament in 1918 that was stacked his supporters from the
Anhui clique. The so-called Anfu Parliament was named after Anfu Hutong, near Zhongnanhai where Duan's Anhui-based supporters congregated. In the spring of 1919, the Republic of China, as a victor nation sent a delegation to the
Paris Peace Conference seeking the return of
German concession in
Shandong Province to China. Instead, the
Treaty of Versailles gave those possessions to Japan. News of the treaty sparked outrage in the Chinese capital. On May 4, 3,000 students from 13 universities in Beijing gathered in
Tiananmen Square to protest the betrayal of China by the other Western powers and the corruption of the Anfu government by Japanese financial support. They marched toward the foreign legation but were blocked and proceeded to the home of deputy foreign minister
Cao Rulin, who had attended the Peace Conference and was known to be friendly to Japanese interests. They razed Cao's residence and beat up Zhang Zongxiang, another pro-Japanese diplomat. The police arrested 32 students, which provoked further protests and arrests. Within weeks, the movement had spread to 200 cities and towns in 22 provinces. Workers in Shanghai struck and merchants closed shops in support of the protests. By late June, the government pledged not to sign the treaty, removed Cao and Zhang from office and released students from jail. The
May Fourth Movement began a tradition of student activism in Beijing and had a profound political and cultural impact on modern China. Leading intellectuals including
Cai Yuanpei and
Hu Shih at
Peking University, encouraged
the development of new culture to replace the traditional order. The movement also heightened the appeal of
Marxism-Leninism as
Chen Duxiu and
Li Dazhao, prominent May 4 figures, became early leaders of the
Chinese Communist Party. Among the many youth who flocked to the Chinese capital during this period was a student from Hunan named
Mao Zedong who worked as a library assistant under Li Dazhao at Peking University. Mao left the city for Shanghai in 1920 where he helped found the
Chinese Communist Party in 1921. He did not return to Beijing until almost 30 years later.
Beiyang regime In the 1920s, military strongmen of the Beiyang Army split into cliques and vied for control of the Republican government and its capital. In July 1920, Duan's government, weakened by the May 4 Protests, was driven out of Beijing by
Wu Peifu and
Cao Kun of the
Zhili clique in the
Zhili–Anhui War. Two years later, the Zhili Clique fought off a challenge by
Zhang Zuolin and his Manchuria-based
Fengtian clique in the
First Zhili–Fengtian War. When the two sides squared off again in
Second Zhili–Fengtian War in 1924, one of Wu's officers
Feng Yuxiang launched the
Beijing Coup. On October 23, 1924, Feng seized the capital, imprisoned President Cao Kun, restored Duan Qirui as the head of state and invited
Sun Yat-sen to Beijing for peace talks. At that time, Sun was building a Nationalist regime in Guangzhou with the assistance of the Soviet
Comintern and support of the
Chinese Communist Party. Sun was stricken with cancer when he arrived in Beijing in early 1925 for one last effort to heal the north–south divide. He was welcomed by hundreds of civic organizations and called on Duan to include broad segments of civil society in reconstructing a united government. He died in Beijing on March 12, 1925, and was entombed at the
Temple of Azure Clouds. Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu joined forces against Feng Yuxiang, who relied on support from the Soviet Union. Feng took a generally accommodating stance toward the Nationalist and Communist parties which were active in spreading influence in the city. During this period, Beijing was a hotbed of student activism. In the
May 30th Movement of 1925, 12,000 students from 90 schools marched through
Wangfujing to Tiananmen in support of protesters in Shanghai. With the opening of private colleges such as
Yenching University in 1919 and the
Catholic University of Peking in 1925, the student population in Beijing grew substantially in the early 1920s. In November, Li Dazhao organized the "Capital Revolution" a protest by students and workers demanding Duan's resignation. The protest was more violent, burning down a major newspaper office, but was disbanded. Though the Nationalists, under Sun's leadership, had allied with the Communists in the struggle against warlords, this alliance was not without tension. In November 1925, a group of right-wing Nationalist leaders met in the
Western Hills and called for the expulsion of Communists from the Nationalist Party and severance of ties with the Comintern including advisor
Mikhail Borodin. This manifesto was denounced by the Nationalists' party center in Guangzhou led by
Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, and
Hu Hanmin, and members of the so-called "Western Hills Group" were either expelled or left out of the party leadership. They moved to Shanghai and regained power during the
rupture between the Nationalists and Communists in April 1927. On March 17, 1926, Feng Yuxiang's
Guominjun troops at
Dagu Fort near Tianjin exchanged fire with Japanese warships carrying Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian troops. Japan accused the Chinese government of violating the
Boxer Protocol and, with the other seven Boxer Powers, issued an ultimatum demanding the removal of all defenses between Beijing and the sea as set forth under the Protocols. The ultimatum provoked student protests in Beijing that were jointly organized by the left-wing Nationalists and Communists. Two thousand students marched on Duan Qirui's executive office and called for the abrogation of the
unequal treaties. The government issued warrants for the arrest of Nationalists and Communists including Li Dazhao, who fled to the Soviet Embassy in the Legation quarters. Within weeks, Feng Yuxiang was defeated by Zhang Zuolin and Duan's government fell. After Zhang took power, both the Nationalists and Communists were driven underground. A year later, Zhang Zuolin raided the Soviet Embassy in the Legation and seized Li Dazhao. Li and 19 others Communist and Nationalist activists were executed in Beijing on April 25, 1927. Zhang Zuolin controlled the Beiyang Government until June 1928 when the Nationalists on the
Northern Expedition led by Chiang Kai-shek and allies
Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang jointly advanced on Beijing. Zhang left the city for Manchuria and
was assassinated en route by the
Japanese Kwantung Army. Beijing was
handed over peacefully to the victorious Nationalists who moved the capital and
Sun Yat-sen's tomb to Nanjing. For the first time since 1421, Beijing was renamed
Beiping 北平 (
Wade–Giles: '''Peip'ing'
), or "Northern Peace". Following the Northern Expedition, Beijing was under the de facto'' control of
Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan who had allied himself with Nationalists. On 2 March 1929, the city was the place of a
violent mutiny of soldiers who formerly belonged to the army of warlord
Zhang Zongchang, a subordinate of Zhang Zuolin. Though the mutineers managed to seize the
Yonghe Temple and spread terror in Beijing, their revolt was quickly suppressed. The city was made the provincial capital of
Hebei Province, but lost that status to Tianjin in 1930. During the
Central Plains War in 1930, Yan Xishan briefly tried to establish a rival national government in Beijing but lost the city to
Zhang Xueliang, the son of Zhang Zuolin who was allied with Chiang Kai-shek. The municipal government reconfigured city walls and gates, paved and widened streets, installed
tram service and introduced urban planning and zoning rules. The authorities also built modern water utilities, improved urban sanitation, educated the public about the proper handling of food and waste and monitored outbreaks of infectious diseases. With these public health measures, infant mortality and life expectancy of the general population improved. Urban development also reflected changes in political attitudes as the republican form of government prevailed over the monarchy and attempts to reintroduce imperial rule. One example of the newfound emphasis on civic rights over imperial tradition was the development of city parks in Beijing. The idea of the public park as a place where common people could relax in a pastoral setting came to China from the West via Japan. Public parks in Beijing were almost all converted from imperial gardens and temples, which had previously been off-limits to most commoners. The Beijing municipal government, local gentry and merchants all promoted the development of public parks to provide wholesome entertainment and reduce alcoholism, gambling, and prostitution. After the Beijing Coup of 1924, Feng Yuxiang evicted Puyi from the
Forbidden City, which was opened to the public as the
Palace Museum. Parks also provided places for commercial activities and the open exchange of political and social ideas for the middle and upper classes. The demotion of Beijing from national capital to a mere provincial city greatly constrained urban planners' initiatives to modernize the city. Along with political stature, Beiping also lost government revenue, jobs and jurisdiction. In 1921, large banks headquartered in Beijing accounted for 51.9% of bank capital held by the 23 most important banks in China. That proportion fell to just 2.8% in 1928 and 0% in 1935, as wealth followed political power out of the city. Even the power plant for the city's
trolley system in
Tong County fell outside the city's jurisdiction. Appeals to Nanjing for the recovery of towns like
Wanping and
Daxing were denied. The city, anchored by its historical relics and universities, remained a center for tourism and higher education and became known as "China's Boston." In 1935, the city's population stood at 1.11 million, with another 3.485 million in the surrounding region.
Second Sino-Japanese War calling on the Nationalist Chinese government to resist Japanese expansion into northern China. After Japan seized Manchuria through the
Mukden Incident in 1931, Beiping was threatened by steady
Japanese encroachment into northern China. The
Tanggu Truce of 1933 gave control of the Great Wall to the Japanese and imposed a 100-km demilitarized zone south of the wall. This deprived Beiping of its northern defenses. The secret
He-Umezu Agreement of May 1935 required the Chinese government to remove
Central Army units from Hebei Province and suppress anti-Japanese activities by the Chinese public. The
Qin-Doihara Agreement of June 1935 compelled the Nationalist 29th Army, a former unit of
Feng Yuxiang's
Guominjun that fought the Japanese
in defense of the Great Wall, to evacuate from
Chahar Province. This army was relocated and confined to an area south of the Beiping near Nanyuan. In November 1935, the Japanese created a puppet regime based in
Tongzhou called the
East Hebei Autonomous Council, which declared its independence from the Republic of China and controlled 22 counties east of Beiping, including Tongzhou and Pinggu in modern-day Beijing Municipality. In response to the growing threat, the
Palace Museum's art collection was removed to Nanjing in 1934 and air defense shelters were built in Zhongnanhai. The influx of refugees from Manchuria and presence of university campuses made Beiping a hotbed for anti-Japanese sentiment. On December 9, 1935, the university students in Beiping launched the
December 9th Movement to protest the creation
Hebei–Chahar Political Council, a semi-autonomous authority to administer the remainder of Hebei and Chahar not yet under direct Japanese control. {{multiple image On July 7, 1937, the 29th Army and the
Japanese army in China exchanged fire at the
Marco Polo Bridge near the
Wanping Fortress southwest of the city. The
Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the
Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II as it is known in China. After
continued clashes and failed cease-fire talks, Japanese reinforcements with air support launched a full-scale
offensive against Beiping and Tianjin in late July. In fighting south of the city, deputy commander of the 29th Army
Tong Lin'ge and division commander
Zhao Dengyu were both killed in action. They along with
Zhang Zizhong, another 29th Army commander who died later in the war, are the only three modern personages after whom city streets are named in Beijing. The city itself was spared of urban fighting and destruction that many other Chinese cities suffered in the war. The Japanese created another puppet regime, the
Provisional Government of the Republic of China, to manage occupied territories in northern China and designated Beiping, renamed Beijing, as its capital. This government later merged with
Wang Jingwei's
Reorganized National Government of China, a collaborationist government based in Nanjing, though effective control remained with the Japanese military. In 1938, the Japanese military secretly created North China
Unit 1855, a
biological warfare unit based in Beijing, which operated laboratories next to the Temple of Heaven, Beihai and in the Union Hospital. Like
Unit 731, its more notorious counterpart, Unit 1855 devised virulent strains of bacteria and conducted lethal
experiments on
prisoners of war. Strains of infectious diseases developed by Unit 1855 were used about 70 times during the war, killing over 100,000 civilians in northern China. In 1943, a strain of
cholera released by the unit in southern Beijing to test its virulence killed 1,872 residents. Biological warfare was banned by the
Geneva Protocol of 1925. On August 15, 1945, immediately following the Japanese Emperor's
announcement of surrender, Unit 1855 began removing or destroying evidence of its existence and departed the city ten days later leaving few traces of its activities. The unit evaded the
Japanese war crimes tribunals and remained largely unknown until later research by historians. On October 10, 1945, Japanese occupation of Beiping ended with surrender to Chinese Nationalist forces at a ceremony in the Forbidden City. With the end of World War II, the city reverted to Chinese Nationalist control and was renamed back to Beiping.
Chinese Civil War {{multiple image The Nationalists and
Chinese Communists were allies during the Sino-Japanese War, but their domestic rivalry resumed after the defeat of Japan. To prevent the resumption of
civil war, the U.S. government sent
George C. Marshall to China to mediate. The
Marshall Mission was headquartered in Beiping where a truce was brokered on January 10, 1946, and a three-person committee, consisting of a Nationalist, a Communist and an American representative, was created to investigate breaches in the ceasefire in North China and Manchuria. The truce began to unravel in June 1946 and the Marshall Mission ultimately failed to create a coalition government. The
rape of Peking University student Shen Chong by two U.S. Marines in Dongdan on Christmas Eve 1946 sparked student demonstrations against the U.S. military presence in China. After Marshall's departure in February 1947, full-scale civil war erupted. Beiping was the headquarters of the Nationalists' North China military operations led by
Fu Zuoyi who commanded 550,000 troops. The city in 1948 had 1.5 million residents and another 4.1 million in the surrounding region. On April 23, the PLA resumed the offensive across the Yangtze and captured the Nanjing on the following day. As the PLA continued to gain control over the rest of the country, Communist leaders,
friendly Nationalists and
third party supporters convened the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at Zhongnanhai in Beiping on September 21. In preparation for establishment of a
new regime, they agreed to a new name,
flag,
emblem,
anthem and
capital for the nation. ==People's Republic of China==