ABSTRACT
Further, in many areas, old elites who had been active in politics in the self-government movement or other public bodies took the political plums. Thus, though the revolutionaries came out on top in overthrowing the monarch, a more accurate answer to the question of who won would be Yuan Shikai and the ensconced elites. By the summer, an open revolt of pro-Guomindang forces began against Yuan's regime. This so-called second revolution ended in the military rout of the revolutionaries and the flight of Sun and others to Japan. The revolution had taken the shape of individual provinces declaring their independence from the Qing dynasty. When the Republic was established, a strong sense of loyalty to the province continued. Indeed, the flexing of capitalist muscles during the early Republic puts the economic expansion of China in the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century into important historical perspective.
