Abstract: For a time during the Hundred Days’Reform, Yuan Shikai kaned forward the reformers, maintaining Confact through Xu Shichang. At the crucial moment, though, he shrank from the dangerous steps of executing Rongly, besieging the Summer palace, and seizing the Empress Dowager Cixi. Yuan had still not disclosed the consptiacy when be return to Tianjin on September 20, but on learning of the coup from Yang Chongyi the next evening, he believed that the secret was out. To salve himself, he revealed the entire plot, with the result that a great many reformers were arrested or dismissed from office.