Abstracts
Through an examination of the career of Liang Shih-i (1869–1933) and the “Communications” clique of railway and financial administrators, the intention is to illuminate the nonmilitary side of the late Ch'ing to early Republic transition. Although Liang and such associates as Yeh Kung-cho and Kuan Keng-lin dealt with modernization of communications and financial institutions, the patterns of their careers fit a more traditional mold. Liang held a chin-shih degree; the others also had scholarly gentry backgrounds. Unlike their well known contemporary, Sheng Hsuan-huai, they were not entrepreneurs as well as bureaucrats. Crucial to the rise of these men first to bureaucratic and then, during the Republican period, to political power were their ties to Yuan Shih-k'ai. Between 1906 and 1911, Yuan helped nurtured Liang and his clique to control of the Ministry of Posts and Communications (Yu-ch'uan pu); during and after the revolution of 1911–12 Yuan depended on them and their communications and financial network of influence for support of his presidency of the Republic. Thus Liang and the Communications Clique represented the non-military side of Yuan Shih-k'ai's power during the late Ch'ing and early Republican periods.
