The uprising probably would have been quelled, like many had before, except this time the army joined the rebellion because they wanted to become more modern. The Qing emperor abdicated and the rebels chose a general, Yuan Shikai, as leader, while Sun Yat-sen was declared president of a provisional republic on January 1st, 1912. A new government was created, with a senate and a lower house, and it was supposed to write a new constitution. And after the first election, Sun Yat-sen's party, the Guomindang, were the largest, but they weren't the majority. So Sun Yat-sen deferred to Yuan, which turned out to be a huge mistake, because he then outlawed the Guomindang party and ruled as dictator. But then when Yuan Shikai died in 1916, China's first non-dynastic government in over 3,000 years completely fell apart. Localism reasserted itself, with large-scale landlords, with small-scale armies ruling all the parts of China that weren't controlled by foreigners.