Chapter 385: Railways and Infrastructure
readx; In fact, after Tang Shaoyi and Yuan Shikai turned their faces and absconded in Shanghai, Chen Jingyun invited him to join the National Army, but Tang Shaoyi politely declined Chen Jingyun's invitation, and then Chen Jingyun set up the Southeast Xuanfu Envoy for the second time, or was politely refused, when the Generalissimo's Office was established in July this year, Chen Jingyun once again sent him a handwritten letter, and sent Shi Zhaoji, the chief minister of the Ministry of Communications, to personally send the letter over, inviting him to serve as the president of the Government Council, which can be said to be enough face, but this was still refused, This made Chen Jingyun a little embarrassed. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
Chen Jingyun invited him again and again, naturally valued his previous fame, and hoped that he would announce an important fact to the world after he took up his post in the political axe, that is, even an old man from Beiyang like Tang Shaoyi betrayed him Yuan Shikai, so will Yuan Shikai be far from falling? To be honest, Chen Jingyun invited him not because of Tang Shaoyi's ability, but because of his influence.
But even if Chen Jingyun values him again, but as time slowly passes, Tang Shaoyi's reputation gradually fades, and he has no fame and no fame, what does Chen Jingyun want him to do, is it possible that he really values his ability to govern the country?
Besides, there are only three things, he Tang Shaoyi is not Zhuge Liang, and he is not Liu Bei, Chen Jingyun will not put down his son to do anything about the thatched house, since he didn't even invite Chen Jingyun to dispel this idea, so when the political axe was officially formed, he did not invite Tang Shaoyi but directly appointed Zheng Zuyin as the president of the Government Council. As for Tang Shaoyi, why do you want to go!
And Chen Jingyun's move also surprised Shi Zhaoji, Shi Zhaoji is Tang Shaoyi's niece and son-in-law, he naturally wants Tang Shaoyi to be the president of the Government Council, originally he thought that Tang Shaoyi had not agreed before, on the one hand, he was afraid of being scolded as a traitor, and he had just resigned from Beiyang to take refuge in Chen Jingyun, on the other hand, he also disliked that the original national army pattern was too small, as for the Generalissimo's Mansion in July, when Shi Zhaoji went to Shanghai to invite him on Chen Jingyun's order, he basically guessed that Tang Shaoyi was already moved, It's just that they are reserved or want to wait until the official formation of the political axe, but what they didn't expect is that when Chen Jingyun formed the formal political axe this time, he didn't take Tang Shaoyi into account at all, and directly appointed Zheng Zuyin as the president of the Government Council, so that Zheng Zuyin, a gentry who was only a member of the Fujian Advisory Bureau, became the president of the Government Council equivalent to the prime minister of the cabinet in just two years.
Obviously, Tang Shaoyi was also surprised by Chen Jingyun's decision, and even sent a telegram to Shi Zhaoji to inquire about relevant matters, and Shi Zhaoji also took advantage of the situation to invite Tang Shaoyi to Nanjing under the pretext of buying insurance.
The post of president of the Government Council is out of reach, and the candidates for the various ministries under the Government Council have also been decided, but there is still a high-level position in the Government Council that is vacant, that is, the vice president of the Government Council, and this position is the second highest-level official after the president of the Government Council according to the structure of the Government Council.
According to Shi Zhaoji's meaning, it is not the time to dislike the deputy position, and now if the republican political axe is squeezed in at this time, it is only a matter of time before he becomes the president of the government affairs in the future, but if he doesn't come in now, there will be no chance in the future, when the republican political axe really defeats Beiyang to unify China, who will care that there was a Tang Shaoyi at that time, and it is impossible for Tang Shaoyi to ascend to a high position in one fell swoop now. You don't see so many famous and important ministers in the former Qing Dynasty, but after two years, in addition to the group of people who are really active in the officialdom, there is only one Cen Chunxuan who serves as the head of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in the Republican Political Axe, and most of the others have been forgotten by the world.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, he was like a movie star in later generations, the acting skills of actors or the ability of officials are not the most important, the most important thing is fame, of course, it can also be said to be fame!
According to Shi Zhaoji's intentions, he naturally hopes that Tang Shaoyi will return to officialdom before being forgotten by the world! So he borrowed the name to invite Tang Shaoyi to Nanjing, planning to explore Tang Shaoyi's tone first, if Tang Shaoyi really still has this intention, then he will make another effort to see if Tang Shaoyi and Chen Jingyun can meet directly.
However, Shi Zhaoji thought that no one knew about this, how could this Ye Gongqiu know, and he learned about it from others. You must know that Chen Jingyun's invitation to Tang Shaoyi to serve has always been secretly contacted through Shi Zhaoji before, and because the matter was not confirmed, he did not reveal anything before.
Shi Zhaoji glanced at Ye Gongqiu and said: "You and I have been friends for many years, and I am not satisfied with you, I did invite Tang Gong to come over, but what I did was only for business affairs, and I also came to see my pregnant inner son!" ”
Ye Gongqi saw that Shi Zhaoji refused to say it clearly, and it was not good to continue to ask, so he had to turn the topic to other aspects with Shi Zhaoji's words, and the two chatted for a long time after Ye Gongqiu said: "I'll go back to the office first, and then find a few people to review the plan of the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway again, so as not to have loopholes at that time!" ”
Zhejiang-Jiangxi railway plan, in fact, some people began to put forward very early, but because the distance is too long, and the construction of difficult factors did not come to fruition, originally Chen Jingyun did not plan to build the Zhejiang-Jiangxi railway so early, according to his consistent idea is to build railways, bridges, urban planning and other large-scale infrastructure and universal education, these are all required to make a big determination, spend a lot of resources to complete. And this kind of great cost and resources are what the current republican axe lacks.
Today's republican government has only one purpose, and that is to unify China. Other developments in industry, infrastructure, and education will need to be discussed after the unification of China. Anyway, he didn't plan to live in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces to bury his head in construction, and then wait for decades to compete for hegemony in China.
But as time passed, his mind slowly changed!
It has been more than two years since Xinhai, and although the Nationalist Army has developed rapidly, it is not something that can be done in a short period of time to unify China, and even if it follows the smoothest plan given by the General Staff, it will at most take Anhui and Jiangbei in the second half of this year. Then the Nationalist Army had to rest, replenish its forces, restockpile ammunition, and not be able to relaunch the war against Beiyang until next spring. According to the smoothest plan, it will take at least three months to take Shandong and Zhili, which can be regarded as generally defeating Beiyang and controlling the central power, but this cannot be said to unify China, because at that time, the northeast region, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang Province and Tibetan Province were still free, and there were two so-called allies in the south, Gui Jun and Tang Jiyao, and the other Sichuan region was also a trouble.
Therefore, defeating the main force of Beiyang is only the beginning of the unification of the whole country! What Chen Jingyun has to do next is to do the same thing as Yuan Shikai did before, to actually unify China, whether by political or military means.
This process is simply impossible to complete in three or five years!
Even if we don't talk about this, it will take several years just to clean up the many bandits and small warlords in the country, so even if the Nationalist Army is lucky enough to complete all the strategic plans as smoothly as the General Staff planned, it will take at least several years to actually unify China.
Naturally, Chen Jingyun can't wait for such a long time, if he does nothing before the actual reunification of China, and only thinks about fighting, this republican political axe he has come up with will not take three or four years to collapse, not to mention other large and small social problems, even the finances will collapse.
The current republican government is based on a large amount of borrowing, and a considerable part of the current military spending of the national army is spent on the money from the second round of Sino-US aid treaties, just like the loans given by Yuan Shikai in the five countries, both of which are now using foreign loans to maintain the army. And this money is also limited, neither the five banks nor the United States can continue to provide a large number of loans without restraint, that is to say, if they cannot find other financial sources, and the war drags on for more than two or three years, then they will have no money to support such a large army.
Therefore, whether it is the Beiyang Army or the National Army, their strategic planning is short-term, hoping to completely defeat the other side within half a year to win the decisive victory, which is also one of the reasons why the two sides have so tacitly invested heavy troops in Anhui and Jiangsu, because they both want to settle the situation in one battle.
The Nationalist Army has a plan to take Anhui and Jiangsu within half a year, but Chen Jingyun has led the Nationalist Army to fight for so long, and he has long known that the plan is dead and the people are alive. You must know that the original plan of the staff was to take Wuhu within six days and Hefei within a month. But it took more than half a month in Chaohu at the beginning, and now more than a month has passed, and the main force of the Second Army of the National Army is still outside Hefei!
It can be seen that these plans can only be used for reference, and they should not be taken seriously!
As the head of the national army, Chen Jingyun had to think further, in case the war dragged on for a long time, if he fought with Beiyang for more than three or four years, then he must be prepared for a protracted war, and if he wants to fight a protracted war, he must have enough military funds and enough ordnance. Of course, for the sake of the whole country, he also needs to cultivate talents in advance.
And in this way, he had to think about industrial construction and the popularization of basic and educational education in times of war. Among the three, education can make use of local finances and the power of local businessmen and gentry to vigorously develop non-governmental education. In fact, there are not many private educational institutions in the southern provinces of China, Hangzhou Industrial and Commercial College is one of them, and there is also a private middle school in Nanjing, Yulin Public School, which was originally a free public school founded by the Englishman Els, but then the number of students gradually increased, in order to alleviate the financial pressure and was forced to accept the admission of rich children, although nominally free admission, but in some students' parents had to donate a large amount of money to the school.
By the time of the Xinhai year, there were already dozens of students, and because of the use of Western-style education and expensive tuition fees, many high-ranking officials and nobles sent their children inside, Chen Jingyun led many military and political dignitaries to Nanjing, Nanjing once again became the political center, and these military and political dignitaries also have many school-age children to study, and generally choose Yulin Public School.
Although there are fewer private schools for higher education and secondary education, there are more private primary schools, and there are basically as many as two or three in Nanjing.