While traveling with a group of colleagues to the Parliament in Beijing, Song Jiaoren was shot twice at close range at the Shanghai Railway Station by a lone gunman, Wu Shiying who had been contracted by Ying Guixin, a Shanghai underworld figure closely associated with the Yuan Shikai regime. Song died two days later in hospital. The trail of evidence led to the secretary of the cabinet and the provisional premier of Yuan Shikai's government, Zhao Bingjun. Although Yuan was considered by contemporary Chinese media sources the man most likely behind the assassination, the main conspirators investigated by authorities were themselves assassinated or disappeared mysteriously. Because of the lack of evidence, Yuan was never officially implicated. After an investigation revealed telegraphs implicating Ying Guixin in Song's assassination, Ying attempted to flee north, where Yuan could protect him, but was killed by two swordsmen while riding in a first-class train carriage. Zhao Bingjun was poisoned in 1914.