The death of Yuan Shih-k'ai in June 1916 ushered in the era of the warlords and yet throughout the ensuing decade of militarism, the Peking government remained the symbol of China's national sovereignty and hoped-for unity. Constitutionalism served the interests of ex-bureaucrats and professionals because it offered them legitimate political roles without opening the political arena to the groups below them. The popular support it could command would provide the key to wealth and power for China. The institutional facade of the Peking government was constitutional: legislative, executive and judicial functions parcelled out by law, policy decisions made by institutional procedures. The reality was factional: personal followings, cutting across the boundaries of official institutions, each faction centred on a particular leader. Constitutionalism could not restrain the brutal forces. The tide of change washed the wealthy and fortunate ashore in the foreign concessions of treaty ports. The constitutional system exhausted its own vitality through its members' absorption in factional struggles.