Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan, was a native of Xiangcheng, Henan, and was a cousin of Yuan Shikai. Unlike Yuan Shikai, who did not get fame, Zhang Zhenfang was admitted to the school in the tenth year of Guangxu (1884), and the following year was Bagong, and the first person to be raised in Qiuqiu Township (Xie Yuan), and Guangxu Renchen (1892) was raised to Jinshi, at the age of 29, and he was able to become an official.

Because he came from an old bureaucratic family, his family education was quite strict. So this person is also quite conservative ideologically, when Cixi fled during the Gengzi Incident, the Beijing officials scattered, Zhang Zhenfang did not catch up with Cixi and his party at first, so he ran back to his hometown to prepare to entangle, so he continued to catch up. He went through hardships day and night, and it was not until Tongguan that he chased Luan, and was appointed as the Shaanxi Division to serve the two palaces. This can be regarded as being appreciated by Cixi and becoming the last governor of Zhili in the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

In the 33rd year of Guangxu (1907), Yuan Shikai, as the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang, also controlled the new army of the six towns, and the power leaned towards the government and the opposition. The Qing court made Ming Sheng Yuan the Minister of Military Aircraft and the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and secretly seized Yuan's military power. The Governor of Zhili was represented by Zhang Zhenfang (from Yipin).

After Yuan Shikai seized power, he sent his cousin Zhang Zhenfang to Henan as the governor of Henan. Zhang Zhenfang is not a big corrupt official, but he opposes the revolution and is extremely jealous of the People's Party. Among the intelligence collected by the People's Party's intelligence department, Zhang Zhenfang was evaluated as "a pity to be killed." From a military point of view, Zhou Zhentao did not have a high opinion of Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan. Within the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, it was believed that "20,000 men could annihilate the Henan Beiyang Army." ”

The provincial capital of Henan in 1912 was Kaifeng, and Zhengzhou had not yet reached the time when it could suppress Kaifeng Luoyang and become the new provincial capital of Henan by itself. The provincial capital of Kaifeng is less than 100 miles from the area actually controlled by the People's Party. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army once formulated a military plan for a surprise attack on Kaifeng. Riding all the way, Zhou Zhentao observed the situation along the road, and couldn't help but think about the feasibility of this plan in his heart.

Seeing that Zhou Zhentao was silent, the accompanying officers of the Beiyang Army were also silent. It wasn't until the second time when he was temporarily resting in the roadside shop that Zhou Zhentao felt that this person was not annoying, so he asked, "May I ask your surname." ”

"Don't let your surname He, your name is He Tong." The officer laughed.

"Where is Mr. Ho?" Zhou Zhentao greeted him.

"A native of Zheng County." He Tong said proudly.

Zhou Zhentao didn't quite understand where He Tong's pride came from, and he also smiled, "Zheng County, it seems to be Chairman Chen's hometown." ”

Chen Ke calls himself a native of Zhengzhou, which is well known. Zhengzhou was now called Zheng County, and Chen's self-proclaimed name was met with suspicion because it did not correspond to the situation at the time.

Hearing Zhou Zhentao say this, He Tong's proud expression immediately disappeared without a trace, and he hurriedly waved his hand and said, "I don't dare to climb Chairman Chen Ke." ”

Zhou Zhentao also understood a little at this time, and he smiled: "Then Mr. He thought that he had already defected to Beiyang for Yuan Shikai...... The Great President Served? ”

He Tong regained some of his vigor at this time, "I joined the army four years ago and served under the president." ”

At this stage, the Beiyang Army is still an army mainly based in Shandong and Hebei Zhili, and the soldiers selected by Yuan Shikai are all local propertied households, or at least good sons of self-cultivated farmers. It is very different from the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, which was originally assembled into a unit by revolutionary youths from all over the world, and later implemented a universal military service system, and the troops came from the entire four provinces of the base areas.

Zhou Zhentao found that he couldn't help but compare what he saw and heard with the base area, and thinking that he had chosen to leave the base area, Zhou Zhentao felt a sense of melancholy in his heart. The interest in speaking that had just been mentioned also faded. After a few sips of tea, Zhou Zhentao offered to continue on his way.

In the evening, the group finally entered the ancient city of Kaifeng. The architectural style of Kaifeng City and Xuzhou is very different, but it makes Zhou Zhentao quite interested. Bao Longtu sat in Kaifeng Mansion, this sentence is the same regardless of Shaanxi or Xuzhou. Although he couldn't see the appearance of Kaifeng Mansion in the night, Zhou Zhentao still had some interest. It's just that it's getting late, He Tong has arranged Zhou Zhentao's residence, and the plan to go to Kaifeng Mansion to see it can only be the next day.

The next day, Zhang Zhenfang personally met with Zhou Zhentao. Zhang Zhenfang is exactly one year old and 50 years old this year, and her appearance is quite clear, revealing the kind of self-control that she was born in an official eunuch family. Even though Zhou Zhentao was used to shaking hands when he saw Zhang Zhenfang, Zhang Zhenfang only frowned slightly, but did not show the slightest anger.

For Zhou Zhentao, Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan, is nothing remarkable. The general view among the top echelons of the BJP on the surrounding forces is "fight now, or fight later." "In short, if you want to fight, then there is nothing to maintain too hypocritical etiquette.

After the guests were seated, Zhang Zhenfang said: "Master Zhou, we heard that you are not in the People's Party, are you going back to your hometown this trip?" ”

The people of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs are rubbish! Zhou Zhentao thought to himself, even such a news could be leaked. After secretly scolding the People's Internal Affairs Committee, Zhou Zhentao replied: "I was kicked out, so I can only go back to my hometown to farm." ”

Zhang Zhenfang said with a smile: "Master Zhou, the People's Party is now famous, and it all depends on the talents of Master Zhou. Since Master Zhou is not in the People's Party, wouldn't it be buried when he returned to his hometown to farm. Our Henan temple is small, and it can't accommodate a big material like Master Zhou. However, I would like to make a recommendation and recommend Master Zhou to take up a post in Beijing. I don't know what Master Zhou wants? ”

Zhou Zhentao pondered for a moment, and then replied: "Thank you Zhang Dudu for your kindness." It's just that I left home at the age of eighteen to study, and it's been nine years now. Although he didn't make a name for himself, his parents haven't seen him for many years and he misses it very much. Now that I am finally unofficial and light, I really want to go back to serve my father and mother and do my filial piety. ”

Seeing Zhou Zhentao's refusal so decisively, Zhang Zhenfang was not surprised, "Senior Commander Zhou, Shaanxi is in chaos now. Clashes between the KMT and the local governors continued. If Master Zhou returns to Shaanxi, he is afraid that the trees will be quiet and the wind will not stop. Why should you bother yourself? Young and promising people like you will definitely be able to be reused when you arrive in Beijing, and when the time comes, the old people will be happy when they take their parents to Beijing. ”

"Hehe" Zhou Zhentao smiled helplessly, "Zhang Dudu, I have heard that you are a Jinshi and a governor of Zhili, so you should be able to understand the affairs of the world." When the People's Party raised its troops, I also helped. If I say something insincere, you can see through it. So I'll tell you the truth. Both the Beiyang and the People's Party want to dominate the world, and this has nothing to do with the good and evil that they advocate. There are no two days in the sky, and there are no two kings in the country. You asked me to vote for Beiyang, but Beiyang must be able to withstand it. Now compared with the two, Beiyang has no advantage. This year, the People's Party has conscripted 200,000 troops, and it will have 600,000 troops as soon as the supply of soldiers arrives. These 600,000 people are all formally trained, all their weapons are self-made, and there is no problem with food and salary. At present, Beiyang has less than 120,000 newly formed miscellaneous troops in various places, and weapons and ammunition have to be imported. Equipment, training, and logistical supplies are all inferior to those of the People's Party. Quantitatively speaking, the People's Party's army can fight one out of five against Shangbeiyang. Although he no longer follows the People's Party, he also wants to save his life to serve his parents. I also hope that Governor Zhang can understand. ”

Even if Zhang Zhenfang is very self-contained, his face can't help but look difficult at this time. Some of what Zhou Zhentao said he had not heard of, but he knew most of it. Beiyang was defeated when it surpassed the People's Party in numbers, and now the People's Party has surpassed the Beiyang Army in numbers, and it has even beaten the Germans in Qingdao. Hearing Zhou Zhentao list these figures, Zhang Zhenfang was frightened. Henan directly faced the People's Party Huaihai Province, and finally had the second town of Beiyang, and the other troops were less than 30,000 people. There are 100,000 people in the Huaihai Military District. In the face of the Huai Naval Region, any wind and grass scared Zhang Zhenfang enough.

After a pause, Zhang Zhenfang asked, "Could it be that the People's Party wants to march into Henan?" ”

Zhou Zhentao held back a smile, but he was not rude. Holding back his smile, Zhou Zhentao said: "Governor Zhang, thanks to you for sending someone to pick me up, I am not working under the People's Party now, so I will answer the truth." If you put Henan's tax revenue like this now, the people below will immediately have no way to live, and the whole village in the area bordering the People's Party will defect to the People's Party, and the people will not ask for anything else but not to pay taxes to the Henan government. If it weren't for the fact that the premise of defecting to the People's Party was that land reform and land should be divided, I am afraid that even the people outside Kaifeng City would have defected to the past. If you use force against the People's Party, the People's Party will be overjoyed, and the People's Party will be charged with sabotaging peace if Henan takes the first action, and the People's Party will be able to fight it. The principle of the BJP forces is that they will never fire the first shot, but they will not give the enemy a chance to fire the second shot. ”

After listening to Zhou Zhentao's words, Zhang Zhenfang could no longer maintain a calm appearance at all, and his face was a little pale. Finally suppressing the emotions in his heart, Zhang Zhenfang said: "May I ask Master Zhou, if the People's Party wants to make a move against Henan, when will it be?" ”

Zhou Zhentao held his breath in the People's Party, seeing that Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan, was scared like this, he couldn't hold back a kind of happiness in his heart, and he replied: "It depends on Zhang Dudu. You don't dare to fight directly now. If you take the path of political settlement, the People's Party will not listen to the Beiyang government. The problem in Henan is that the taxes are too heavy, and in the current situation, the people will not be able to survive, so they will defect to the People's Party. The total tax amount in Henan remains the same, and there are fewer and fewer places where you can collect taxes, so you can only increase taxes in other parts of Henan. As soon as taxes are raised in other parts of Henan, the people will be even more unable to live, and the speed of defecting to the People's Party will be even faster. As long as this tax is not reduced, there will be fewer and fewer places that the Henan government can manage. Zhang Dudu, when the People's Party talks about you, they have always said that you are the best friend of the People's Party in Henan, and you are propagating revolutionary principles to the common people, but the common people do not understand it, and second, they are not interested. But Zhang Dudu has such a tax collection law, the People's Party has a word, the agrarian revolution, and everyone is full. The people could understand it, so they naturally defected to the People's Party. ”

Saying this, Zhou Zhentao suddenly had a doubt, these are all what Chen Ke usually tells his comrades, Zhou Zhentao always thinks that he doesn't believe in this, at least he doesn't want to care about it. So why did he seem to say these words smoothly now, and Zhou Zhentao firmly believed that these words were correct. By acknowledging these words, isn't it acknowledging the ideas that Chen Ke used to instill in his comrades in different ways? Since all the undertakings of the People's Party are built on the foundation of the people, what reason does Zhou Zhentao have to think that "revolutionary heroes" deserve more privileges?

If revolutionary heroes should have privileges, then what privileges should Chen Ke have? Since Zhou Zhentao thinks that he should have privileges, shouldn't Chen Ke, the greatest hero, have the privilege of letting all the People's Party comrades accept the will of Chen Ke?

If Zhang Zhenfang hadn't been frightened by what Zhou Zhentao said, with his usual rigor and seriousness, Zhang Zhenfang would have been able to see the doubts in Zhou Zhentao's heart. However, Zhang Zhenfang has been completely messed up. The content of Zhou Zhentao's narration completely frightened Zhang Zhenfang.

What Zhou Zhentao said, or Zhou Zhentao's exposition of the People's Party's understanding of Zhang Zhenfang, hit the core point. Zhang Zhenfang must collect enough taxes. Zhang Zhenfang is not a corrupt official, at least Zhang Zhenfang himself thinks that he is a relatively honest person, and Zhang Zhenfang has never run taxes for his own selfish interests. If Zhang Zhenfang had heard Chen say that "there are individuals who betray the class, but there is no class that betrays interests", Zhang Zhenfang may have the feeling of finding a confidant.

Zhang Zhenfang can not forcibly increase or deduct taxes for himself, but Zhang Zhenfang has to collect enough taxes in Henan for the Beiyang Group. Yuan Shikai, who is far away in Beijing, can ignore it for the time being, and the 12,000 officers and soldiers in Beiyang Second Town must pay an average of 100 taxes a year. That's 1.2 million taels of real money. A soldier of the Beiyang Army has at least 30 catties of grain a month, and 4.32 million catties of grain must be given every year. The food and salary of the troops in other places must also be levied in full, which means that in order to support this gang of "Qiu Ba", Zhang Zhenfang needs to find ways to collect more than 2 million taels of real money and silver, as well as 8 million catties of grain. The total number of officials in Henan is about 100,000, and for Henan, which has a population of more than 50 million, this idea is only 1 in 500, and this group of people has to eat and drink. If all their expenditures were to be borne by the Henan provincial government, it would be more than three times more than less than 30,000 troops. Even if it is the same salary as these "Eight Masters of Qiu", Zhou Zhentao, the governor of Henan, will spend 10 million taels of silver and 40 million catties of grain every year.

You must know that the annual income of the Qing court is only 100 million taels, and most of it is still customs taxes. Henan, a province with underdeveloped trade, got 10 million taels of silver for the expenditure of the army and the salaries of officials. As for the army, Henan Province gritted its teeth and had to find ways to make up for it. The income of the magistrates can only be left to their own ideas.

Zhang Zhenfang doesn't know the ferocity of local exploitation, but he is just a person, and he doesn't know the spell of gold, urine and silver, where does the money come from? Don't say that the local officials are the people around Zhang Zhenfang himself, which one is not an official position, a promotion, and all kinds of officialdom benefits. Who really wants to do it for the good of the people? Even if there are people with such ideals, this ideal has been smashed by reality early.

The People's Party ridiculed Zhang Zhenfang as "the best friend of the People's Party in Henan", Zhang Zhenfang felt very aggrieved, and if he wanted to say who was the best friend of the People's Party in Henan, it would be better to say that the current system in Henan was the best friend of the People's Party. As long as this system is still there, even if Zhang Zhenfang is like a fairy, he can persuade Yuan Shikai to waive Henan's money and grain for a few years, and those people in the local area will not charge less to the people. The only way to stop this tax is for these people to know that if they continue to collect it like this, they will surely die without a place to bury. If these tax-collecting officials had been given this understanding, the result would not have been that they had shared the same hatred and hatred for the BJP. The result must be that these people abandoned the Beiyang government, abandoned Zhang Zhenfang, and fled like rats. Only Zhang Zhenfang was left alone to face an irresistible end of destruction.

As a scholar, Zhang Zhenfang has said the word "people's heart" countless times, but Zhang Zhenfang found how far this bureaucracy is from the word "people's heart". "The hustle and bustle of the world is all for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit." Zhang Zhenfang sent a large number of spies to Huaihai and Anhui provinces to listen to information. The news that the spies transferred back was no different from what Zhou Zhentao said. Compared with the People's Party, which is close at hand, Zhang Zhenfang has to admit that the Beiyang he represents is definitely not representative of the people's will.

When his heart was pinched tightly by fear, making Zhang Zhenfang feel that he couldn't breathe, he suddenly remembered something. Since the People's Party is so popular with the people, why did Zhou Zhentao, a high-ranking soldier, choose to leave the People's Party?

As if grasping a life-saving straw, Zhang Zhenfang felt as relaxed as being liberated, and even the breath that he couldn't breathe for anything was evened out. "Master Zhou, then why did you leave the People's Party?" Zhang Zhenfang asked. Although not long ago, Zhang Zhenfang knew that he should not take the initiative to ask this sentence anyway.

Zhou Zhentao did not answer immediately, because Zhou Zhentao was also doubting why he wanted to leave the People's Party. Originally, he happily told Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan, about some of the basic actions of the People's Party. and the theoretical support behind these basic actions. Zhou Zhentao once harbored some kind of malice, perhaps to add a little trouble to the People's Party's seizure of Henan? Maybe I just want to find someone with a relative status to bully me to dissipate the resentment in my heart. But after really scaring Zhang Zhenfang, the governor of Henan, Zhou Zhentao did not vent the pleasure after venting, and even did not take revenge on the pleasure of the People's Party. Zhou Zhentao just fell into a deep doubt, why did he leave the People's Party?

Now Zhou Zhentao is no longer the division commander of the People's Party, but just an ordinary person who has nothing to do with the People's Party. But just by relying on the knowledge he learned from the People's Party, he was able to frighten the governor of Henan to speak with a trilling voice. This is the power of the People's Party, and this is the power of the organization that Zhou Zhentao abandoned.

Zhou Zhentao had to take seriously a fact that he had been unwilling to face during this time, maybe he really made a wrong choice.