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East Asia · Empire, war and the modern states

Empire of China

Yuan Shikai, 1915–1916

The Empire of China (1915–1916) was the abortive monarchy of Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic of China, who declared himself the Hongxian Emperor (enthronement planned for 1 January 1916). The move provoked the National Protection War (led by Cai E in Yunnan) and widespread revolt; abandoned even by his own supporters, Yuan renounced the monarchy in March 1916 after 83 days and died in June 1916, leaving China to descend into the Warlord Era.

Existed
Yuan Shikai, 1915–1916
Shown on the map
1916
Peak area
8.4M km²
Region
East Asia

Overview

The Empire of China (1915–1916) was the abortive monarchy of Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic of China, who declared himself the Hongxian Emperor (enthronement planned for 1 January 1916). The move provoked the National Protection War (led by Cai E in Yunnan) and widespread revolt; abandoned even by his own supporters, Yuan renounced the monarchy in March 1916 after 83 days and died in June 1916, leaving China to descend into the Warlord Era.

Common questions

What was the Empire of China?
The Empire of China (1915–1916) was the abortive monarchy of Yuan Shikai, the first President of the Republic of China, who declared himself the Hongxian Emperor (enthronement planned for 1 January 1916). The move provoked the National Protection War (led by Cai E in Yunnan) and widespread revolt; abandoned even by his own supporters, Yuan renounced the monarchy in March 1916 after 83 days and died in June 1916, leaving China to descend into the Warlord Era.
When did the Empire of China exist?
The Empire of China existed Yuan Shikai, 1915–1916. On this map it is drawn 1916.
How large was the Empire of China?
At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Empire of China covered about 8.4 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.

Sources

This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia article for each polity as the basis of these profiles, supplemented by Encyclopaedia Britannica, chinaknowledge.de, the World History Encyclopedia, museum and university sources, and the academic works it lists. The article this entry is anchored on:

This entry was last updated .

This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made

Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.

Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).

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