As the old saying goes, take eight steps.

After Yuan Shikai's death, the legend of "Ten Vicissitudes of Xishan" was circulated among the people in Beijing. Crime is criminal and violent. There are 10 mobs in Xishan, Beijing. The legend goes like this: in the West Hill of Beijing, there are 10 elves who have practiced for thousands of years, learned about human nature, reincarnated, and harmed the world. These ten spirits are: bear, badger, stork, wolf, donkey, pig, python, monkey, fox and toad. This 10 beast was supported by Dourgen, Hong Chengchou, Wu Sangui, He Kun, Hailancha, Nian Gengyao, Zeng Guofan, Zhang Zhidong, Western Empress Dowager and Yuan Shikai respectively. It is said that Zeng Guofan is a python reincarnation, because he suffers from skin diseases and constantly peels like a python; Zhang Zhidong was reincarnated as a monkey, so he slept very little every day. Yuan Shikai walks in eight steps, with a short neck and thick legs, and looks like a toad. As mentioned above, when Yuan Shikai was at the climax, the toad in Taoranting screamed loudly. It was Shen Yuan who came to Taoranting that caused the toad there to "make a pit"-probably because of the heavy rain that year. Toads in Taoranting were really loud in those days, and people associated toad noisy pits with Yuan Shikai's climax. This legend was once popular, but the superstitious northern warlords hardly believed that Yuan was the reincarnation of the Golden Dragon, and they all thought that he was born of a toad.