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袁世凱(1859年—1916年)，字慰亭，號(hào)容庵，漢族，中國(guó)河南項(xiàng)城人，中國(guó)近代史上的政治家、軍事家，北洋新軍的首腦。早年在朝鮮駐軍，擊敗日軍。歸國(guó)后在天津小站督練新軍。清末新政期間推動(dòng)近代化改革。辛亥革命期間逼清帝退位，以和平的方式推翻滿清，統(tǒng)一國(guó)家，并成為中華民國(guó)臨時(shí)大總統(tǒng)，后當(dāng)選為中華民國(guó)首任大總統(tǒng)。中華民國(guó)的成立并沒(méi)有給中國(guó)帶來(lái)政治和社會(huì)的穩(wěn)定，袁世凱后來(lái)效仿同一時(shí)期部分世界列強(qiáng)的政治體制，于1916年洪憲稱帝，自立為皇帝，建立了君主立憲政體，但終歸失敗。
China's first president for life
中國(guó)第一位終身總統(tǒng)
Present at the miscreation
反常的表現(xiàn)
A HUNDRED years ago today, a young man stood surrounded by friends on a railway platform in Shanghai. Song Jiaoren was heading to Beijing to form a new government. He was to lead the largest electoral block in the new national Assembly.
一百年前的今天，在上?；疖?chē)站的月臺(tái)上，一個(gè)年輕人被朋友圍著。宋教仁要去北京組建新政府。新國(guó)會(huì)里面最大的選舉集團(tuán)將歸他領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。
Song never made it. Shortly before 11 o’clock on the night of March 20th 1913, an assassin slipped behind him and fired two shots at close range. Two days later Song, the man who would have become the first democratically elected premier of China, had died in a Shanghai hospital at the age of 30.
宋教仁沒(méi)能完成這些使命。1913年3月20日接近晚上11點(diǎn)的時(shí)候，一個(gè)刺客竄到他后面，近距離朝他開(kāi)了兩槍。兩天之后，宋教仁去世，這位即將成為中國(guó)第一位民選總理的男兒，死在上海醫(yī)院，年僅三十歲。
All evidence pointed to a conspiracy orchestrated by Yuan Shikai (pictured), a powerful and ambitious general-turned-politician who was then president of the fledgling Chinese republic. Coincidentally, this week marks an important milestone in Yuan’s career as well. On March 26th 1916, three years (almost to the day) after Song succumbed to his wounds, Yuan was forced admit defeat for his own plan—which had been to subvert the republic and declare himself the emperor of a new dynasty.
所有的證據(jù)都表明這是一場(chǎng)由袁世凱策劃的陰謀(如圖)，此時(shí)民國(guó)初立，這個(gè)從將軍轉(zhuǎn)而來(lái)的強(qiáng)勢(shì)政治家雄心勃勃，他當(dāng)時(shí)擔(dān)任大總統(tǒng)之職。巧合的是，這個(gè)星期也是袁世凱事業(yè)當(dāng)中的一個(gè)重要里程碑。宋教仁受傷不治三年之后也就是1916年3月26日(日期幾乎重合)，袁世凱被迫承認(rèn)自己的計(jì)劃失敗 ——他企圖改變共和政體，建立新王朝并登上皇帝的寶座。
For nearly 30 years Yuan had played the Forrest Gump of bad decisions in modern Chinese history. He began his career in the 1880s as the imperial resident in Seoul, representing the Qing dynasty’s imperial interests in Korea. It was a prestigious position which Yuan enjoyed immensely (of the nine official concubines he would take during his lifetime, three of them were Korean). But it went awry when his meddling in Korean court politics gave a pretext for Japan to extend its influence over the peninsula; this became the grounds for the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-1895.
在中國(guó)現(xiàn)代歷史上，袁世凱做過(guò)一些錯(cuò)誤決定，他扮演阿甘的一樣角色近30年。他的事業(yè)起于19世紀(jì)80年代，當(dāng)時(shí)他在漢城，代表清廷在朝鮮的利益。，袁世凱非常喜歡這個(gè)很有聲望的職位(他共有九個(gè)小妾，三個(gè)是在朝鮮納的)。他干涉朝鮮的宮廷政治，給日本在半島擴(kuò)大影響力提供了借口，為1894至 1895的中日戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)埋下了禍根。
China’s embarrassing defeat in that war triggered a crisis of confidence among the nation’s intellectuals. In 1898 a cohort of young reformers gained influence in the court of the equally youthful Guangxu emperor. For 100 days that summer they put forward a startling series of policies meant to prepare China to enter the 20th century. When the reformers began to fear that the emperor’s aunt, the powerful Empress-Dowager Cixi, might try to depose the emperor, they approached Yuan Shikai, now a rising star in the Qing military establishment, to support a counter-coup against her. Yuan agreed to their terms. But then he wasted little time in making an overture to Cixi’s cronies, to see if they would offer him a better deal. Forewarned, Cixi came out of retirement and fulfilled the would-be reformers’ fears by forcing them into exile and placing their emperor under house arrest.
中國(guó)敗得很尷尬，這在該國(guó)知識(shí)分子之間引發(fā)了在信任危機(jī)。1889年一群年輕的改革家影響了宮廷里面同樣年輕的光緒皇帝。夏季的100多天里，他們頒布了一系列令人震驚的政策，要為中國(guó)進(jìn)入20世紀(jì)做好準(zhǔn)備。維新派擔(dān)心光緒帝的伯母，有權(quán)勢(shì)的慈禧太后可能罷黜皇帝，他們就接近作為清朝軍事力量后起之的秀袁世凱，支持他發(fā)動(dòng)反政變來(lái)對(duì)抗慈禧。他答應(yīng)了維新派的條件。但他立即向慈禧的親信示好，看與他們能否做一樁更好的買(mǎi)賣(mài)。事先得到警報(bào)的慈禧再次復(fù)出，維新派的擔(dān)憂變成了現(xiàn)實(shí)，她流放了將維新派，并將皇帝軟禁起來(lái)。
For his ersatz loyalty to Cixi, Yuan was named the governor of Shandong province, a region rife with restive groups of anti-foreign militia. Cixi ordered her officials to support these “Boxers” in their crusade, but Yuan wanted nothing to do with this violent rabble. Instead he began a campaign of suppression that forced many of them north, towards Tianjin and Beijing. By 1900 the Boxers had entered the capital and were carrying out attacks against foreigners and the Chinese whom they regarded as tainted by association.
因?yàn)閷?duì)慈禧假惺惺的忠誠(chéng)，袁世凱被任命為山東的巡撫，那里有很多排外的民兵組織。慈禧命令她的官員支持這些“拳民”的活動(dòng)，但是袁世凱不想喝這類暴虐的烏合之眾有任何瓜葛。相反，他開(kāi)始鎮(zhèn)壓義和團(tuán)，很多拳民被迫北上，來(lái)到天津和北京。1900年拳民進(jìn)入首都，成群結(jié)隊(duì)地攻擊外國(guó)人和那些他們認(rèn)為已經(jīng)墮落的中國(guó)人。
All the same, Yuan’s career flourished. The death of his mentor, a great Qing official named Li Hongzhang, left Yuan in control of the largest and best-trained army in northern China. Over the next decade he consolidated his position as the empire’s most powerful and influential military leader. He dodged a bullet (perhaps an actual one) when the Guangxu emperor died young, beating the Empress-Dowager to the grave by a single day. One imagines that had the Guangxu emperor escaped house arrest and returned to power, Yuan’s treachery of 1898 would have been remembered. As it was, the regents of the new child-emperor, Puyi, feared Yuan’s growing clout and suggested that he retire—to rest his aching feet, they said.
和上次一樣，袁世凱的事業(yè)發(fā)達(dá)了。他的導(dǎo)師大清官員李鴻章去世，中國(guó)北方規(guī)模最大訓(xùn)練最好的軍隊(duì)權(quán)就留給袁世凱控制了。他用此后的十多年時(shí)間鞏固自己的位子，成為帝國(guó)最有權(quán)勢(shì)和影響力的軍事領(lǐng)袖。光緒帝英年早逝，第二天慈禧歸西，他逃過(guò)一劫(對(duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)可能真是劫難)。有人認(rèn)為如果光緒帝脫離軟禁，重新掌權(quán)，1898年袁世凱的背叛行為會(huì)被清算。新任兒童皇帝溥儀的攝政王害怕袁世凱的影響力上升，就建議他退休——調(diào)養(yǎng)他的足疾。
Two years later, in 1911, revolutionaries took the city of Wuchang and plunged the empire into a state of open rebellion. The Qing court felt forced to turn to Yuan and beg him back to active duty to quell the revolution. At first Yuan demurred, telling the court that his feet still hurt, and bid his time. Though he managed to exact staggering concessions from the court, such as would have given him unprecedented control over the empire’s civil and military affairs, he could see that the empire was doomed. So Yuan asked the revolutionaries to give him their best offer.
兩年之后也就是1911年，革命者占領(lǐng)武昌城并把帝國(guó)推進(jìn)公開(kāi)叛變的混亂狀態(tài)。清廷認(rèn)為必須起用袁世凱，求他擔(dān)當(dāng)平定革命的重任。起初袁世凱沒(méi)有答應(yīng)，他告訴朝廷自己腳傷未愈，并等待時(shí)機(jī)。盡管他使朝廷做出巨大讓步，比如在內(nèi)政和軍事方面給了他空前的權(quán)力，他認(rèn)為帝國(guó)的氣數(shù)已經(jīng)盡了。所以袁世凱要革命黨把他們最好的職位讓給他。
Sun Yat-sen was the leader of the new government and poised to become the first president of China. He offered Yuan the office in exchange for his support. So it was that on February 13th 1912, the day after the Qing dynasty officially ended, Yuan was sworn in as the president of the Republic of China. As part of his deal with Sun, he had agreed that elections for a national assembly would be carried out later that year. Placing his faith in the electoral process, Sun transformed his “Revolutionary Alliance” into a political party, the Kuomintang, and named his sometimes-protg, sometimes-rival—Song Jiaoren—in charge of its electoral campaign.
孫中山是新政府的領(lǐng)袖，即將成為中華民國(guó)的第一任大總統(tǒng)。為了換取袁世凱的支持，他將這個(gè)職務(wù)轉(zhuǎn)讓給了袁世凱。1912年2月13日，清朝正式結(jié)束后的第一天，袁世凱宣誓就任中華民國(guó)大總統(tǒng)。他同意來(lái)年舉行國(guó)會(huì)選舉，這是他和孫中山達(dá)成的一項(xiàng)交易。孫中山將自己的信念寄托在這次選舉之中，他把 “同盟會(huì)”改組為國(guó)民黨并且讓宋教仁(他的門(mén)徒，也可以說(shuō)是他的對(duì)手)來(lái)負(fù)責(zé)這次選戰(zhàn)。
With the murder of Song, on that Shanghai platform, a last obstacle to Yuan’s bid for absolute power was cleared. Within a year Yuan was able to order that all members of Song’s Kuomintang be expelled from the national assembly. The following spring a new assembly, packed with delegates who would bend to Yuan’s will, approved a constitutional compact giving Yuan virtually unlimited powers.
宋教仁在上海的月臺(tái)上遭到暗殺，袁世凱追求絕對(duì)權(quán)力的最后一個(gè)障礙被清除了。不到一年，袁世凱可以下令驅(qū)逐國(guó)會(huì)里所有的國(guó)民黨黨員。次年春，新國(guó)會(huì)秉承袁世凱的意志，批準(zhǔn)了一部憲法，授予袁世凱幾乎不受限制的權(quán)力。
Even with those powers Yuan was not satisfied. In the summer of 1915 rumours began circulating that he might try declaring himself emperor. Frank Goodnow, an American political science professor and adviser to Yuan, suggested to him that the Chinese people were not yet ready for democracy; what China needed, he counselled, was a strong authoritarian leader. It might be easy in hindsight to mock Goodnow for his naive support of a ruthless dictator, but he was hardly alone. Lebbeus Willfley, who served as America’s attorney-general to the Philippines and as the judge of the American court in China, had told the New York Times that
有了這樣的權(quán)力袁世凱還不滿足。1915年夏開(kāi)始有謠言說(shuō)他可能自立為帝。袁世凱的顧問(wèn)，美國(guó)政治學(xué)教授弗蘭克·古德諾給他提議中國(guó)人民還沒(méi)有為民主政治做好準(zhǔn)備，中國(guó)需要一位強(qiáng)勢(shì)的專制領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。事后嘲笑古德諾天真地支持一個(gè)殘忍的獨(dú)裁者也許很容易，但不只他一個(gè)人這樣做。美國(guó)駐菲律賓的司法部長(zhǎng)，也是美國(guó)駐中國(guó)法庭的法官Lebbeus Willfley對(duì)紐約時(shí)報(bào)說(shuō)：
anyone familiar with the situation can see at a glance that it would take a long time to develop the Chinese people to the point where they could put in operation a representative government according to Anglo-Saxon standards.
凡是熟悉情況的人一眼就能看出，中國(guó)人民要按照盎格魯-撒克遜的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)搞代議制政府還需要很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間。
Messrs Goodnow and Willfely would not be the last foreigners to argue that the “efficiency and stability” of autocratic rule bests such niceties such as “liberty and popular government”.
古德諾和Willfely不是最后認(rèn)同專制統(tǒng)治的“效率和穩(wěn)定”勝過(guò)“自由的民選政府”這類好詞的外國(guó)人。
Whether the republic would have survived were it not for Song’s assassination and Yuan’s feverish grasping is a difficult question. The tumultuous events of 1913 have since become Exhibit A for the historians who argue that electoral democracy is somehow incompatible with the Chinese experience.
很難回答共和制的存活是否在于宋教仁遭到暗殺和袁世凱狂熱的權(quán)欲。1913年的動(dòng)蕩事件自那時(shí)其就為歷史學(xué)家爭(zhēng)論中國(guó)的經(jīng)驗(yàn)是否適合選舉民主提供了重要證據(jù)。
This past week China’s current legislature, the National People’s Congress, inked up its rubber stamp to approve the next generation of Chinese leaders. It was a display of unanimity that would have made Yuan proud. The NPC voted to confirm Xi Jinping as the next president of China by a tally of 2,952 to 1. But even this leaves Yuan the opportunity to claim bragging rights. After all, someone voted against Xi Jinping. Whereas in 1915 a “representative assembly” hastily convened by Yuan’s partisans managed to vote unanimously, 1,993-to-none, to make Yuan Shikai the emperor.
上周,中國(guó)現(xiàn)在的立法機(jī)構(gòu)人民代表大會(huì)為下一代中國(guó)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的任命蓋上了橡皮圖章。這場(chǎng)全體一致的演出會(huì)讓袁世凱感到自豪。全國(guó)人大以2592比 1的記分選舉習(xí)近平為下一屆國(guó)家主席。然而即使這樣也給了袁世凱炫耀自己的機(jī)會(huì)。畢竟還有人沒(méi)有選習(xí)近平。然而在1915年袁世凱的黨羽倉(cāng)促召開(kāi)的“國(guó)民大會(huì)”使投票全體一致，1993比0，讓袁世凱當(dāng)上了皇帝。
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