AH Challenge: Chinese Imperial Restoration

Can Zhang Xun push rival warlords out of Beijing & retain control in the city & surrounding area (enough land to be more-or-less self sustained)?
Merely controlling parts of Hebei is not good enough. That area is at the northern edge of a vast plain and is at the foothills of the Taihang Mountains which has had strategic value for millennia. The city really isn't easy to defend, and an "Emperor" who only rules over the capital city will not be seen as legitimate even by the population of Beijing (especially if he's a ten year old who was already overthrown once). And besides, rival warlords will just have to cut off the Grand Canal to disrupt the flow of rice from the Yangtze Delta and starve the city into submission. Game over. And anyways, it doesn't meet the OP's condition.

What if the Japanese decide that Empire of Manchukuo is enough (at least for the time being)?
First it doesn't meet the OP's condition. Second, given the unreliability of the Manchukuo security forces the regime could only last as long as Japan was willing and able to commit to policing a vast area. Korea and Taiwan were small and isolated enough to pacify. Manchukuo is a whole other matter.

Any other ideas then? What powers could benefit from having China on their side during WW1 and the years that came immediately after?
It depends on what "China" means, especially after Yuan Shicai proclaimed himself Emperor and precipitated the collapse of the unified government. There was little the Beiyang Government could do anyway, since it had more pressing uses for its army. And I really don't think they would side with the Central Powers; that would invite Japan to extend its sphere of influence further into China.

It's possible that the KMT is destroyed and discredited by infighting before 1915, with Sun Yat Sen disgraced and forced to permanently flee to Japan. Yuan Shikai plays off the foreign powers and outmanoevers Japan so that the list of demands is never publicly made. He then joins World War 1 on the Allies' side and secretly conspires with Japan to jointly destroy German interests in Shandong. The Central Power concessions in Tianjin are re-integrated into Chinese administration. All German interests are reverted to China, though by unwritten agreement Japanese investment in Shandong is made easier.

This becomes a massive propaganda coup, for it becomes apparent that only Yuan Shikai could reverse the decades-long trend of humiliation (of course, the truth is a bit different). From then the path to a new dynasty seems easier.
 
Top