Hsü Shih-ch'ang 徐世昌 T. Chü-jen 菊人 H. Tung-hai 東海 Hsü Shih-ch'ang (23 October 1855-6 June 1939), protege of Yuan Shih-k'ai who in 1918 became the only man of civilian background to hold the presidency at Peking. After his retirement in June 1922, he devoted himself to literary and cultural pursuits.

Little is known of Hsü Shih-ch'ang's origins or early life. His forebears had been registered as natives of Tientsin, but for generations they had served as minor officials in Honan province, where Hsü probably was born and where he spent much of his youth. Although his family was poor, he received a traditional education. For a time, he made his living as a tutor in the family of a district magistrate in Honan. It was during this period that he made the aquaintance of Yuan Shih-k'ai; the two men became life-long friends. Financial assistance from Yuan enabled Hsü to go to Peking and take the imperial examinations. He became a chü-jen in 1882, a chin-shih in 1886, and a compiler in the Hanlin Academy in 1889.

After a decade of routine service in the metropolitan bureaucracy, Hsü returned to Honan in 1896 when his mother died. At that time Yuan Shih-k'ai was in charge of training the Hsin-chien lu-chün [newly created army] at Hsiaochan, Chihli (Hopei). Hsü Shih-ch'ang, despite his civilian background, became chief of staff in Yuan's new military organization, thus beginning his long and intimate association with the Peiyang military clique. In 1901, after Yuan was appointed governor general of Chihli province, he established a military training center at Paoting and made Hsü the head of its staff organization. Two years later, when the imperial government established a commission for army reorganization [(see Yuan Shih-k'ai), Hsü was appointed its senior administrative officer, with the rank of lieutenant general. In 1904 he was promoted to vice president of the Board of War, and early in 1905 he was made probationary grand councillor and acting president of the Board of War. In July 1905 Hsü was appointed to a five-man special commission, which also included Tuanfang (1861-1911; ECCP, II, 780-82), Tsai-tse, Shao-ying, and Tai Hung-tzu (1853-1910; T. Kuang-ju; H. Shao-huai, I-an), to study systems of government in the West. On 20 September, the group assembled at the Peking railroad station to embark on their mission. A bomb carried by the revolutionary assassin Wu Yueh exploded in the station, killing Wu and wounding two members of the commission. The trip was postponed, and Hsü was reassigned to new duties. He became president of the newly established Board of Police and, by the end of the year, a full member of the Grand Council. In December 1906 Hsü Shih-ch'ang was sent on a special mission to Manchuria. The Ch'ing court viewed the presence of Russian military units in Manchuria after the Boxer Uprising and of Japanese troops during and after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 as possible threats to China. The purpose of Hsü's mission was to survey the situation and to propose measures that would strengthen the influence of China in that region. Hsü proposed reorganizing the civil and military administration and instituting other far-reaching reforms in the Northeast. He also proposed various means by which Japanese and Russian influence in Manchuria might be checked : official encouragement of Chinese settlement in areas that had formerly been the exclusive preserve of the Manchus; the construction of railroads and other Chineseowned enterprises to compete with Russian and Japanese interests in the region; and the opening of Manchuria to foreign investment by nations other than Russia and Japan. An imperial edict of 20 April 1907 effected a comprehensive reorganization in Manchuria. The military governors, or chiang-chün, were abolished, and civil governors, or hsun-fu, were appointed in the provinces of Fengtien, Kirin, and Heilungkiang. All were under a governor general, or tsung-tu, of the Three Eastern Provinces. Hsu Shih-ch'ang became governor general, with T'ango Sha-yi (q.v.) as governor of Fengtien, Chu Chia-pao (d. 1923; T. Ching-t'ien) as governor of Kirin, and Ch'eng Te-ch'üan (d. 1930; T. Hsueh-lou) as governor of Heilungkiang.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang proceeded to carry out many of the measures he had proposed in his report. A detailed record of his administration, published in 1911 as the Tung-san-sheng cheng-lueh contained his official papers and reports on a number of subjects that engaged his attention: frontier affairs, Mongolian affairs, foreign relations, military affairs, civil administration, finance, education, the judicial system, agriculture, industry, commerce, and resolutions of the provincial assemblies in Manchuria. Hsü was assisted by several civilian proteges who were to become prominent in the republican period: Ch'ien Neng-hsün (1870-1924; T. Kan-ch'en), who later served in Peking as minister of interior (1913, 1917-19) and premier (1918-19); Chou Shu-mou (18651925; T. Shao-p'u), who became governor of Heilungkiang in 1909 and later served as president of the p'ing-cheng-yuan [administrative court] under Yuan Shih-k'ai; and Chu Ch'i-chien (b. 1872; T. Kuei-hsin), who later served as minister of communications (1912) and minister of interior (1914-16) in Yuan's government.

After the accession to the throne of the Hsuan-t'ung emperor, P'u-yi (q.v.), and the dismissal of Yuan Shih-k'ai early in 1909, Hsü Shih-ch'ang was replaced as governor general by the Mongol Hsi-liang and was recalled to Peking. Although he had been closely associated with Yuan for many years, Hsü continued to enjoy the favor of the court. In the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty, when members of the imperial clan were seeking to reassert direct control over all branches of the imperial administration, he held several top positions in the metropolitan bureaucracy. In 1909 he was appointed president of the Board of Posts and Communications and director of the Tientsin- Pukow railway. In the following year he was promoted to the office of grand secretary and to renewed membership on the Grand Council. In May 1911, as a result of growing pressure from the newly convened Parliament in Peking, the imperial court announced the formation of a cabinet to replace the Grand Council. The cabinet, headed by Prince Ch'ing, was dominated by Manchu princes and nobles. Hsü, as one of two associate premiers, was the ranking Chinese member.

Throughout this period, Hsü Shih-ch'ang continued to associate with his colleagues in the Peiyang group and to correspond with Yuan Shih-k'ai. After the outbreak of the revolt at Wuchang in October 1911, Hsü was instrumental in persuading the Manchu regent. Prince Ch'un, to recall Yuan from his enforced retirement; and it was also through Hsü that Yuan presented the six conditions on which he would consent to resume office. However, after helping Yuan to establish himself as the de facto ruler at Peking and to complete the arrangements for the abdication of the Manchus, Hsü resigned from office as a gesture of loyalty to the dynasty. He withdrew from public life to live in Tsingtao. With the help of a group of his former assistants in the government, he compiled a volume of his official papers (memorials, official correspondence, and official telegrams) for the years from 1904 to 1911 and published it in 1914 as the T'ui-keng-t'ang cheng-shu.

In 1914 Yuan Shih-k'ai finally induced Hsü to accept a position in his government at Peking. By that time, Yuan had dissolved the National Assembly and had reorganized the cabinet as the Cheng-shih-t'ang [office of government affairs]. To head this body, Yuan created the office of Kuo-wu-ch'ing [secretary of state] ; it was this post which he persuaded his old friend to accept (1 May 1914). Hsü Shih-ch'ang enjoyed the prestige of being Yuan's first minister, but he wielded no real power. In 1915, when Yuan's monarchical plans became known, Hsü withdrew to his estate at Shui-chuts'un in Honan. In making preparations to ascend the throne late in 1915, Yuan accorded Hsü the distinction of being one of the Sung-shan ssu-yu [four friends of Sung-shan] — the others being Chang Chien, Chao Erh-sun (qq.v), and Li Ching-hsi — a group given the special privilege of treating Yuan as their personal friend rather than as their monarch. Despite this and other inducements, Hsü remained in retirement until Yuan, because of the revolt of the southwestern provinces, agreed in March 1916 to abolish the monarchy. Hsü then resumed office as Kuo-wu-ch'ing. Because he failed to bring about a reconciliation between Yuan and the southern leaders, he resigned in favor of Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.) after only a month in office and returned to Honan. On 5 June 1916, the day before Yuan's death, Hsü was summoned to Peking for a final conference, and, as Yuan's oldest friend, he was entrusted with the management of Yuan's family affairs. In November 1916 Hsü went to Peking to bring about a reconciliation between Tuan Ch'i-jui, the premier, and Li Yuan-hung (q.v.), the president. During the attempt to restore the Manchu dynasty in the summer of 1917 (see Chang Hsün) and the ensuing rivalry between Tuan Ch'i-jui and Feng Kuo-chang (q.v.), Hsü refused to take sides. Because of his reputation as a mediator and his neutral position in politics, he had come to be regarded as an impartial elder statesman. When Feng and Tuan resigned from their positions as president and premier in 1918, many people hoped that Hsü would become president, for they believed that he would be able to resolve the differences between the Peiyang factions and between the northern and southern governments. The pro- Tuan Anhwei faction urged Hsü's election to the presidency, believing it to be a convenient means of neutralizing Feng Kuo-chang's power without impairing its own control of political affairs. Accordingly, on 4 September 1918 the National Assembly elected Hsü to succeed Feng Kuo-chang as president. He assumed office on 10 October 1918.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang was able to wield a certain degree of influence within the Peking government through several former proteges, including Ch'ien Neng-hsün, the new premier; Ts'ao Ju-lin (q.v.), the minister of communications; and Wang I-t'ang (q.v.), the titular head of the pro-Tuan Anfu Club. However, Hsü soon found that he was powerless to implement his policies of conciliation between north and south and that he was, in fact, little more than a puppet of Tuan Ch'i-jui and his supporters. His efforts to achieve a settlement at a peace conference held in Shanghai early in 1919 were thwarted by the refusal of Tuan and his followers to consider the southern government's demands that the "old National Assembly" be restored in Peking. Hsü's position as mediator was further undermined because his election to office was not recognized by the southern leaders, who contested the legitimacy of the "new National Assembly," which had elected him president.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang soon was confronted by popular reaction to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which awarded former German concessions in Shantung to Japan. Hsü believed that China should sign the treaty; and following the May Fourth demonstrations in 1919 he issued orders for the arrest of the students involved in the attacks made on Ts'ao Ju-lin and other pro-Japanese officials, and publicly praised these officials for their service to the nation. It was only with great reluctance that he sent belated instructions to Paris in June 1919 to cancel his orders to sign the treaty and that he accepted the resignations of Ts'ao Ju-lin and his colleagues. Because of these actions, Hsü aroused the anger of the Canton government and of students and young intellectuals throughout China. The steady encroachment upon his already limited authority by his powerful military colleagues in the Peiyang group left Hsü little scope for the exercise of authority. To improve his political position, he resorted to a tactic formerly employed to advantage by Yuan Shih-k'ai — playing one faction against another. Thus, when Tuan Ch'i-jui and the Anhwei faction were in power, he sought to counter the influence of Tuan's right-hand man, Hsü Shu-cheng (q.v.), by supporting another of Tuan's lieutenants. Chin Yun-p'eng, for the position of premier. At the same time, he secretly intrigued with Chang Tso-lin (q.v.) and the leaders of the Chihli clique in an attempt to break the Anhwei clique's monopoly of power in Peking. After Tuan Ch'i-jui was defeated in the Chihli-Anhwei war of 1920, Hsü sought to extract maximum political advantage from the rift between Chang Tso-lin and the Chihli leaders, Ts'ao K'un and Wu P'ei-fu (qq.v.). Despite his deftness in the art of political manipulation, Hsü was unable to diminish the power of the militarists. After the defeat of Chang Tso-lin in the first Chihli-Fengtien war of 1922 he became an obstacle to the ambitions of the victorious Chihli leaders, who demanded his resignation. On 2 June 1922 Hsü stepped down from the presidency, to be succeeded a few days later by Li Yuan-hung, the candidate of the Chihli faction. Hsü Shih-ch'ang left Peking for Tientsin, where he lived quietly. After the Japanese seized the Northeast in 1931, Hsü was among the members of the Peiyang group who were approached by Japanese agents who tried to persuade them to participate in the puppet regime of Manchoukuo. He refused their offer. From 1931 until his death in June 1939 he continued to resist the Japanese, who made several attempts to win his cooperation. Hsü Shih-ch'ang maintained a strong interest in Chinese cultural traditions throughout his life, and he became an important patron and entrepreneur in the field of Chinese letters. Although he had spent most of his early life in Honan, he considered himself a native of Chihli. Moved, perhaps, by the traditionally strong feeling among Chinese for their ancestral locality, he sought to publicize the cultural heritage of his native province by compiling a number of works by and about earlier scholars of the area. In 1915 he published the Ta-Ch'ing Chi-fu shu-cheng, which was a bibliography of works by Chihli authors of the Ch'ing period. He developed a particular interest in two pragmatist philosophers of the early Ch'ing period. Yen Yuan (1635-1704; ECCP, H, 912-15) and Li Kung (1659-1733; ECCP, I, 475-79). Among Hsü's works concerning these men were the Yen Li i-shu, a collection of their writings, and the Yen Li yü-yao, a selection of important passages from their works. His biographies of these scholars and their disciples were published under the title Yen Li shih-ch'eng chi. In 1919 Hsü issued a presidential order adding Yen and Li to the sages honored in the Temple of Confucius. In 1920 a society, the Ssu-ts'un hsueh-hui, was formed to promote interest in their teachings and in the reissuing of their works.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang sponsored the compilation of other works on the philosophy and literature of the Ch'ing period, the most significant of which was the Ch'ing-ju hsueh-an (which was not published until 1940), containing biographies of some 1,690 Ch'ing scholars. This work emulated the Sung Yuan hsueh-an and the Ming-ju hsueh-an, compiled early in the Ch'ing dynasty by Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-95; ECCP, I, 351-54). With complete disregard for the vernacular literature movement, Hsü set up within the presidential palace the Wan-ch'ing-i shih-she (Wan-ch'ing-i being Hsü's studio name during his presidency), a literary society devoted to the study and writing of poetry in the traditional style. An important product of this society was a compilation of Ch'ing poetry, the Wan-ch'ing-i shih-hui, which was published at Tientsin in 1929.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang's poems and essays appeared in a number of collections, the earliest of which, the T'ui-keng-fang chi, was published at Tientsin in 1914. The Shui-chu-ts'un-jen shih-chi appeared in 1920, and the Shui-chu-ts'un-jen chi in 1928. The Kuei-yun-lou t'i-hua shih appeared in the fortnightly magazine Yi Lin Shuen Kan between 1928 and 1929 and later was published as a book. Several issues of this periodical contained reproductions of Hsü's paintings, most of which were landscapes.

Despite his political involvements, Hsü was a serious student of Taoism, and it was largely because of his financial backing that the socalled White Cloud edition of the complete Taoist canon (Tao-tsang), the first new edition to appear since the Ming dynasty, was published by the Commercial Press from 1923 to 1926. A survey of economic and educational conditions in China after the European war entitled Ou-chan-hou chih Chung-kuo ching-chi yü chiao-yü (translated into French and published in Paris in 1922 as La Chine apres la guerre) appeared in Hsü's name in 1920. A rather mild exposition of China's postwar aspirations, this work, as a declaration of policy, lacked both force and precision. It later became known that Huang Fu (q.v.) had written it for Hsü. Before then, Hsü was awarded an honorary D.Litt. degree by the University of Paris.

Hsü Shih-ch'ang married twice, and both of his wives were daughters of officials in Honan. He had one daughter; because he had no son, he adopted as his heir Hsü Hsü-chih, one of the sons of his younger brother, Hsü Shih-kuang (d. 1924; T. Yu-mei, H. Shao-ch'ing). Hsü Shih-kuang had served as prefect of Tsinan when Yuan Shih-k'ai was governor of that province. Another brother, Hsü Shih-chang (b. 1888; T. Tuan-fu), had been managing director of the Tientsin-Pukow railway, vice minister of communications (1920-22), and director general of the currency bureau (1922).