Shih-kai as Emperor of the Chinese Empire."

(3) The telegrams investing the Administrative Council with general
powers to act on behalf of the General Convention of the Citizens'
Representatives should be dispatched in the name of the General
Convention of the Citizens of the Provinces.

The drafts of the dispatches under the above-mentioned three heads
will be wired to you beforehand. As soon as the votes are cast,
these are to be shown to the representatives, who will sign them
after perusal. Peking should be immediately informed by telegram.

As for the telegrams to be sent by the commercial, military, and
political bodies, they should bear as many signatures as possible,
and be wired to the Central Government within three days after the
voting.

When the enthronement is promulgated by edict, letters of
congratulation from the General Convention of the Citizens'
Representatives, as well as from the commercial, military, and
political bodies, will also have to be sent in. You are therefore
requested to draw up these letters in advance.

This is specially wired for your information beforehand. The details
will be communicated by letter.

In ordinary circumstances it would have been thought that sufficiently
implicit instructions had already been given to permit leaving the
matter in the hands of the provincial authorities. Great anxiety,
however, was beginning to reign in Peking owing to continual rumours
that dangerous opposition, both internal and external, was developing.
It was therefore held necessary to clinch the matter in such a way that
no possible questions should be raised later. Accordingly, before the
end of October--and only two days before the "advice" was tendered by
Japan and her Allies,--the following additional instructions were
telegraphed wholesale to the provinces, being purposely designed to make
it absolutely impossible for any slip to occur between cup and lip. The
careful student will not fail to notice in these remarkable messages
that as the game develops, all disguise is thrown to the four winds, and
the central and only important point, namely the prompt election and
enthronement of Yuan Shih-kai as Emperor, insisted on with almost
indecent directness, every possible precaution being taken to secure
that end:

CODE TELEGRAM DATED OCTOBER 26, 1915, FROM CHU CHI-CHUN, MINISTER OF
THE INTERIOR, ET AL