Hail the Qing

Hail the Qing is a timeline in which the Guangxu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty organizes a counter-coup against the conservative faction of the Empress Dowager Cixi, in 1898. As a result, he is able to go on in implementing his reforms unimpeded by reactionaries, and modernizes the Qing Empire similarly to the way Emperor Meiji did in Japan.

Point of divergence
In September 1898, some of the reformers heard of the Empress Dowager's plot to stop them. The Guangxu Emperor secured the cooperation of Yuan Shikai by promising to make him Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet in his new government. Yuan's Beiyang Army rounded up and arrested many of the suspected conspirators throughout Beijing, while keeping the pro-conservative warlords outside the capital at bay.

The Guangxu Emperor began his reforms.