“The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.”
Thus begin the famous opening lines of The Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guan Zhong, summarizing the cyclical nature of dynasties in China under the doctrine of Tian Xin, the Mandate of Heaven.
So why did the fall of the Qing in 1911 fail to result in a new dynasty?
President Yuan Shi Kai tried to symbolise the start of a new dynasty when, in the winter solstice of 1914, he went to the Temple of Heaven and presided over sacrificial rites to Tian (Heaven) in the name of the nation. He failed to rally the people and the elites to support him as the new emperor.
Why did the Qing intellectuals, the merchant class, and the elites abandon 2000 years of political thought and stop believing in the emperor as the head of state?
Who were the Chinese intellectuals at the forefront of this new political development?
This is the subject of this study, After Empire by Peter Zarrow, published in 2012.