AHC: Li Hongzhang, Emperor of China

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make Li Hongzhang (Li Hung Chang) the most dominant figure in China, either to the extent that he fully eclipses others like the Dowager Empress... or as the head of a new Imperial dynasty himself.


Your POD can be no earlier than 1839.
 

RousseauX

Donor
So basically he pull a Yuan Shi Kai 30 years earlier.

I don't think it's quite possible yet, Yuan Shi Kai had an institution (the new army) which backed him and hence how he overthrew the dynasty (yes, he really did).

I think he might have being able to do it if China wins the Sino-Japanese war though, OTL the failure of -his- navy meant he lost a lot of influence and prestige. I guess if China won that war he might be viewed as the savior of the dynasty and sideline everyone else.

But then again maybe not because that would have paradoxically strengthened the Qing dynasty.
 
Hmm... how about a Taiping/Nian Rebellion that successfully ousts the Qing but then falls apart due to the alienation of provincial elites?
 
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