Although he had a good night's sleep at the Beijing Inn and rested for a while at his home in Tianjin, Song Jiaoren still felt that his legs were unusually heavy, and when he got off the carriage at the Yamen, the governor of Zhili, Duan Zhigui, who accompanied him, only felt like a fish out of water.

"Ah, the beginning, come, come, sit, sit." Yuan Shikai was already waiting inside, and when he saw Song Jiaoren, who was blue-faced, he immediately stepped forward to support him, and carefully let him sit on the chair, he regretted letting him come over in such a hurry.

"Yuan... Yuan Gong ...... "Song Jiaoren was weak after he opened his mouth, and the most important thing was that his voice was completely hoarse, if it wasn't for Yuan Shikai and him face to face, he would have thought that this person was not Song Jiaoren."

"Retreat, say slowly, speak slowly! Take a sip of tea first, take a sip of tea. Yuan Shikai stood on the side, looking at him a little unbearable.

"Yuan Gong...... Cough...... The situation on the other side of the two lakes is not optimistic! Song Jiaoren took a long sip of tea, but he still didn't know how to describe the one he saw in the two lakes, and after a while, he said, "Duke Yuan, the revival will meet them...... They have completely mobilized the peasants, and their speeches are like rushing to the market, and we have no chance of winning such a campaign. ”

"Are you saying that the peasant association is also directly subordinate, isn't it just a society that teaches farmers to farm, didn't we discuss countermeasures before, the candidates for each constituency in this election are carefully selected, and there is no ......" Song Jiaoren's words only made Yuan Shikai's heart sink suddenly, and he began to nag and repeat what Song Jiaoren had said to him before, only to see that Song Jiaoren had been shaking his head. In the end, he simply said: "At the beginning of the year, you can just say, can we compete for the Revival Society in this election." If you can win, you can tell me what to do, as long as I can do it. ”

"That's right! At the beginning of the retreat, Dashuai was thinking about the election years ago, and we didn't spend less money on this, but we can't give up halfway now. As soon as the Lantern Festival is over, voting begins in February. We still have more than a month to figure it out, so let's say what you can do. Yang Shiqi said, he saw that Song Jiaoren had no fighting spirit. I had to speak out.

"Gong Yuan, Brother Xingcheng, on the other side of the two lakes, no, no, it's the people of the whole world who are crazy!" Song Jiaoren had palpitations. Helplessly looking at places that others can't see. "The peasants were all in large groups, like an army, under the command of the Renaissance Society, but fortunately the Renaissance Society did not let them kill people but just gathered them together to give speeches. The theme of the campaign was very clear: for tenant households, it was 'rent reduction, interest rate reduction, and grain price reduction,' and for peasants with landed families, it was 'abolition of contributions, taxation and burden reduction'.

Before, I wanted to talk to the people about democracy. It is better to talk about democracy than sweet potatoes and freedom as old scalpers, and what the people want is something real. But we can't give them anything tangible, and now the revival will hand over the landlords' things to the peasants, promising that after the general election, the rent will be reduced within three years, and the agricultural tax will be nailed to 12 taxes and 1, and there will be no additional increase, and there will be other messy donations from patrol police, school donations, pickle donations, chicken donations, duck donations, and ...... will be abolished."

Hearing that the slogan of the Revival Society's campaign was rent reduction and interest reduction, Yang Shiqi said, "Didn't someone on the Provisional Congress mention the state-owned agricultural land, how did it become a rent reduction and interest reduction, the Provisional Constitution stipulates that private property cannot be infringed upon, isn't the Revival Association afraid of violating the Constitution?"

Seeing that Yang Shiqi also said that it was unconstitutional, Song Jiaoren smiled bitterly, "Brother Xingcheng, the constitution is determined by the revival association, and they know very well whether it is unconstitutional. Taking land rent as an example, they cited land rents in European countries, the highest being Germany, where 20 years of land rent could buy back arable land, and the lower one, such as England, needed 30 years of land rent to return to the original [Note: Comparison of Agricultural Taxes between China and Foreign Countries p112 Chinese Modern Agricultural Historical Materials Volume 2, number jù from Mullen and Dai Erren, Survey of China's Rural Economy], and Japan, which is adjacent to China, also needs 23 years of land rent to buy back arable land, As for China's land rent, according to the Fuxing Society's survey, the highest land rent, such as Kunshan, Chongming, etc., can be repaid in seven to ten years, while the lower one will not exceed 15 years, so they have come to the conclusion that the land rent of Chinese farmers is the highest among farmers in the world.

The land rent is high, the interest rate in the countryside is also high, ordinary loans, the monthly interest rate of three or four cents is countless, many peasant households are borrowed in the spring and summer to borrow one or two or four or five pieces of silver, and in the winter they have to repay one or two or four or five dollars of silver, and at the beginning the silver lent is poor, and the silver repaid is of high quality, and this Galli is often doubled.

And then there is the price of grain, every year when it is time to collect grain, the people have to sell grain at a low price, but the price of grain at this time is extremely low, and when it comes to winter, the hoarders ......."

Song Jiaoren said a lot of things in one breath, Yuan Shikai, who only listened, shook his head, and after a long time, he finally interrupted, "At the beginning of the retreat, this land rent interest has been like this for thousands of years, and this revival will be so noisy now, aren't you afraid that those who have industries in the countryside will make them opposed?" No matter how revolutionary this country is, it still has to be a decent person in charge, Yang Jingcheng and these people stirred up those mud legs, is he going to oppose the world?! ”

"Yuan Gong, this is the revolution of the Renaissance Society!" Song Jiaoren sighed, "In the past, when the Revival Society and the Alliance Association argued, they said that the Revival Society was surrounded by the countryside and the city, but now when I see it, it is true. In the past, the imperial court sent officials to the county, and then the county order pulled the gentry in the county to govern the county affairs together; Now the Renaissance Society completely discarded the gentry and went directly down to the countryside to build peasant associations, setting up the foundation of its rule in the townships, towns, and villages.

Yang Jingcheng is not afraid of opposing the world, what he wants is to break up the world and draw the peasants and merchants to the same position as the gentry, which is why the Provisional Congress discussed the qualifications of electors only on the basis of taxation and not on the basis of knowledge. I remember that in the past, when the railway was state-owned, the gentry had a falling out, and the Sichuan Railway Company was so badly deficient that Sheng Xuanhuai refused to make up for those losses, and there was a civil unrest over there, but now the shareholders of the railway companies in Sichuan who instigated the civil unrest, such as Pu Dianjun and Luo Lun, have been arrested, and Zhang Lan, vice chairman of the shareholders' association, wants to escape. Halfway, he was recognized by several porters and knocked over to the ground. The Revival Society was the establishment of a peasant association, so there was no need for the gentry. ”

Song Jiaoren said that Yuan Shikai in front of him still wanted to refute. But when he talked about people like the Sichuan Railway Company, he raised his hand and put it down again, the railway was state-owned, and Sichuan was the biggest trouble, hundreds of thousands of people besieged the official office, but now the peasants have knocked over the leaders who led the troubles and sent them to the officials, such a comparison only made Yuan Shikai speechless. He is not a person who falls into the Three Principles and Five Constants and cannot get out. The perception of power is unmatched by others.

When he was silent, Yang Shiqi said, "Escape at the beginning." Do those tenants have the right to vote, and don't they pay rent? ”

"Brother Xingcheng, they will hand it over at the end of autumn all year round. At that time, as long as it was a county controlled by the Fuxing Society, the separation of taxes and taxes was implemented. That's what Revival is planning today. Song Jiaoren said.

"That's right!" Yang Shiqi grabbed his beard. Then he said, "This revival will pull the peasants and merchants over like this, they really want to ignore morality and forbid the world." ”

"They themselves say it's vintage." Song Jiaoren said, many people from the Alliance have joined the Renaissance Association, this time back to Hunan, Song Jiaoren met many familiar but already members of the Renaissance Association, "It is said that he wants to return to the appearance of the rule of three generations." They said that at that time, there was no rule that the common people could not discuss politics, and the gentry were no different from the ordinary people. ”

"Three generations?" Yang Shiqi couldn't help but laugh when he heard this. "Even the rule of three generations also pays attention to etiquette and morality, and now the revival will pull the mud legs to the Lord's Congress, what else is there to respect the elders and the young?"

"Brother Xingcheng," Song Jiaoren shook his head, "The Revival Society has received a lot of oracle bone inscriptions several years ago, and Zhang Taiyan and others found out from those armor tablets that the etiquette and religion are all things after the Zhou Dynasty, not to mention the three generations, it is the Xia and Shang dynasties, and it is not to rule the world with etiquette." The Revival Society is only propagating this thing internally, and I am afraid that in a few years, these things will be written into school textbooks, but Confucianism will be abolished. ”

Yang Shiqi seems to attach more importance to the abolition of Confucianism than to campaigning, and when he heard this, he argued, "But aren't all the gentry who are officials?" Those mud-legged people who are illiterate can enter the Congress, can they be officials if they are illiterate? ”

"Aren't they doing some new imperial examination?" Song Jiaoren asked rhetorically, "I have also read the questions of those recruitment examinations, and there is no Confucian classics, but now there are nearly 10,000 people who apply for the examination, and there are nearly 10,000 county officials in the country, I think 1,000 is enough." Brother Xingcheng, we all know very well what the revival will do, but no one can stop them. As the days passed, their roots in the countryside would be deeper, and the end of the scientific expedition would be the day of the opening of the Congress, and no one would be afraid of the revival meeting at that time. ”

Although Song Jiaoren only said that the peasants were crazy, Yuan Shikai still thought that it was just another Boxer, and it was only when they saw with their own eyes that Song Jiaoren said that the peasant association was like an army and listened to the command of the army, and only a few people understood what the situation of this peasant association was.

On the pig cage in the bazaar, a mud leg dressed in a short jacket and covered with patches is giving a speech in the loud Hejian dialect: "Farmers, we are Cangzhou Li Laosan, who used to be a farmer and also farmed, and later worshiped the master and began to walk darts. ”

Speaking of this, Li Laosan suddenly pulled open his torn jacket, and his chest full of scars was exposed, and said: "Let's walk the dart, that is, live on the knife edge, we Li Laosan has been wandering for so many years, and has not lost a deal, and there will be a time outside the mouth, a hundred beards will surround the dart team, and when the brothers say forget it, we will not remove the flag, but protect the dart."

Farmers, Li Laosan is honest in his darts, and he is also sincere in speaking on behalf of everyone as a councilor. Today's election in Hejian Mansion, the brothers want to come out and do some good things for everyone, although this is not a dart, but it is not easier to do than a dart, if we are elected, we will go to the capital to sue the emperor, tell the emperor how bitter the people are today, and ask the emperor to reduce the rent of our big guys, and abolish those donations, so that the big guy can go back to the old days, everyone said okay? ”

Looking at those peasant associations with blue shirts and black pants clinging together, Yuan Shikai only thought in a trance that they were the Oriental soldiers in the First Noon, so that he didn't hear what the mud-legged man said, and only when the 'Oriental soldiers' below applauded in unison, Yuan Shikai came back to his senses: This is not an Oriental soldier, not a Boxer. It's something I've never seen before, this kind of thing has the discipline of an Oriental soldier and the momentum of a boxer. If there is a rebellion, it will definitely be a hundred times more difficult to deal with than the Boxer.

After he looked at it, he asked unceremoniously, "Where are our people?" Dead? ”

His rude words only shocked the people around him, and Duan Zhigui said, "Dashuai, our people should be in the county seat, I'm afraid they didn't come down to this market." ”

The person who heard about himself was in the county seat. Yuan Shikai's heart was dead, and he looked at the peasant association for a while before saying, "Escape at the beginning." Look at this situation, what should we do? ”

"Yuan Gong, I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I want to win this election. In addition to the slogan to be realistic. People must also be real, they can't sit in a sedan chair, they can't wear long robes, they can't 'care about the people', anyway, what the people are, and what the people we push out must be. I think those old men before have to be replaced, replaced by people who are exactly the same as the people. Song Jiaoren said.

I heard that Song Jiaoren was like this. Yang Shiqi and Duan Zhigui were shocked, but Yuan Shikai understood the correctness of his opinion. He asked, "Is it too late to vote in a little more than a month?" ”

"It's too late, Yuan Gong." Song Jiaoren had already thought of a countermeasure. "The people in the countryside can't tell who is who, for example, this Li Laosan, Jinghai is like this, but Qingxian next door can be another appearance, anyway, as long as the name is still Li Laosan, when the time comes, everyone votes for Li Laosan, as long as it's this name, it doesn't matter if it's ...... person."

"At the beginning of the day, you are looking for more than a dozen 'Li Laosan' to give a speech in Hejian Mansion?" Yang Shiqi's eyes lit up, and he was the first to understand what Song Jiaoren meant, and twisted his beard to think.

That's exactly what it means. Now it's too tight for us, and it's impossible to run all of the ten counties and one state in Hejian Province, but if you prepare a few substitutes like singing, then the problem will be solved, as long as they say the same name. Song Jiaoren said, "The difficulty now is to find people like the common people, most of the members of the Kuomintang used to hold meetings, most of them were scholars, not to mention standing on the pig cage, or going down to the market......

"Don't worry about this." Song Jiaoren's difficulty is that Yuan Shikai doesn't seem to be worth mentioning, "Isn't it just looking for someone?" There are many such people in the Beiyang Army, and after a while, I will ask people to go to the army to pick a few who are local and can speak well, and make a dozen or twenty of them in a constituency, and give speeches several times in the bazaars everywhere; They also set up peasant associations, and we also want to form peasant associations, and they say that we can reduce rents and interest rates, and those who donate taxes will also be abolished according to what they say, and the agricultural taxes will only be collected by one in twelve, and no additional ...... will be added."

"Marshal, if we reduce rent and interest like the Revival Society, those gentry ...... That's insulting. Yang Shiqi heard Yuan Shikai's decision, and had to be reminded.

"It's all this time, what is not gentle, the key is to keep our position in Zhili, otherwise the provincial council is full of people from the Revival Association, what should we do if we show our faces?" Yuan Shikai asked rhetorically, "Those gentry and old men, just let them go, I can't take care of them." ”

"Yes, Brother Xingcheng, now is the time when there are more people, if we don't please these mud legs, we will definitely lose the election." Zhang Yilin said the same, as soon as he saw the scene of Li Laosan's speech, he felt that his side was probably going to lose this election, and now he finally thought of a way to use a stand-in, so he should give it a try.

The matter of the Kuomintang Zhili election was so decided, Yuan Shikai had not returned to Zhili, his order was quickly transmitted to Tianjin, and then, the horse team in the towns of Beiyang, overnight according to the constituency, each constituency picked out more than a dozen soldiers who could speak well, once these soldiers were singled out, Song Jiaoren was busy teaching these more than 100 people how to speak, how to be close to the people...... seven or eight days later, these soldiers who took off their military uniforms rode fast horses, wearing short jackets and went straight to the Zhili provinces, and the election after the Kuomintang changed started again.

After the election campaign was over, Yang Shiqi and others began to talk about the affairs of Sun Wen, the honorary premier of the Kuomintang, as Yuan Shikai expected, Song Jiaoren meant to see if Sun Wen would appear in court, if he stayed in Japan and did not return to China to appear in court, then Sun Wen would be expelled from the party, Huang Xing and others would have nothing to say; If he returns to China to appear in court, it depends on how Dali Temple sentences, if he is guilty, it is normal to be expelled from the party, and if he is not guilty, he cannot be expelled. With such a decision, it is uncertain whether Sun Wen will be expelled, but since the Fuxing Association will sue Sun Wen, is it so easy to let him go this time?

The questions that Yuan Shikai, Song Jiaoren and others were thinking about, and Sun Wen and others who were in Japan were also thinking. In Tokyo, where the snow is falling, Inuyang Yi is feasting Sun Wen at the Red Leaf Hall.

After Song Jiaoren destroyed the party and founded the party in China, Sun Wen's influence was decreasing day by day, and the Revival Society was still as unkind as before, and he had nowhere to go so he had to come to Japan again in order to gain support. Sun Wen's plan was completely correct, the army veteran Youpeng in Shanxian County was indeed unwilling to stop the war like this, and the battle of Fengtian was completely superior to his own side in the eyes of the army people, if it were not for the sudden flood of the Taizi River of the Liao River and cut off the logistics, the outcome of the war was still unknown. Although the Mukden Revival Army has a large number of people, it will naturally lack ammunition after a long war, and when the time comes, as long as the navy blockades the port of Andong, it will cut off their source of munitions.

The recklessness of the army did not fit the plan of the new Saionji, as an internationalist, Saionji thought about how to end the war with dignity, and he thought that Katsura Taro had only done a stupid thing to go to war. Manchuria is important, and the market in the Guannai is equally important, and the Renaissance Society has not failed to recognize Japan's interests in Manchuria, and now that Manchuria goes to war, not only will Manchuria's profits be gone, but also the profits of the Kannai market will also be gone, especially if Tianjin is not allowed to go to war and the Yangtze River is not allowed to send troops, even if all Manchuria is occupied, the gains outweigh the losses for Japan.

Of course, if China is anxious about the armistice, then what it does not get on the battlefield can also be obtained at the negotiating table, but it does not want the negotiation to start at the beginning of the negotiations, and the Revival Council will be tough so that the two sides will not be able to step down, and finally the formal negotiations will start under the mediation of the great powers. In the course of a month, 15 negotiations, and the peace talks were completed, but Japan only got back some small profits, and there was not a penny in reparations. But even so, the mainland faction was unable to change this result except for instigating the ronin to make another disturbance, after all, this peace proposal was accepted by Britain under pressure from Japan.

Inu Yangyi still supports Sun Wen as always, which is not based on the change in China's political situation, nor on what doctrine Sun Wen believes in, he just wants Sun Wen to make trouble for the Chinese government authorities. In the banquet hall with a floating dark fragrance and abnormal warmth, Ryohei Uchida clapped his hands, and the dancing geisha all bowed down and retreated, Inu Yangyi put down his chopsticks, and said with a kind smile: "Sun Sang, you have been running for the revolution for 16 years, and today your country's revolution has finally succeeded, but you are now excluded from the government, this result is really chilling for the strong man!" ”

Inu Yangyi was originally a person with sharp words, and Sun Wen's face changed in two sentences, but he didn't want to show his resentment so obviously, Sun Wen said: "You don't have to be self-successful, and you don't have to be famous." At the beginning, Wen was determined to revolution, because he saw that the people were oppressed, and the Manchu government admired foreigners, but now no matter how bad Yang Jingcheng is, he still repels your Japanese army, and even makes you have to withdraw without paying compensation, this is what I admire about him! ”

Sun Wen's counterattack is also sharp, a direct exposure of the sore spots, in addition to the scheming dog Yang Yi laughed to cover up his dissatisfaction, others such as Toushan Man, Uchida Ryohei, Toyama Hikatsu, Wei Yongjie, etc. are all angry, in their opinion, China's national character itself is a servile character, as long as it is tough, then it will definitely compromise, and now the withdrawal of troops from Xiyuan Temple has not asked for a penny of compensation, it is simply a betrayal of the country, a real Japanese national will never accept it.

The atmosphere in the room was not good, and Mrs. Inu Yangyi smiled at the woman next to Sun Wen and said, "Is it cold where Sun Jun lives?" This year's snow is much heavier than usual. ”

"Thank you, Madame, for your concern. It wasn't cold where we lived. The woman peeked at Sun Wen next to her and replied very knowingly.

"Oh. I'm really sorry," Mrs. Inuyang Yi bowed her head and said, "I forgot your name when Mr. Sun introduced me just now......"

"Oh, that's okay." The woman smiled in response, "My surname is Song, and you can call me Ai Ling, madam." I am Mr. Sun's English secretary, please take care of me in the future. (To be continued......)