The remnant sun is like blood, but in the eyes of Yang Du by the Seine, this sunset is as vibrant as the rising sun, and the glow that illuminates the face is red, and it looks extremely warm on this sunny winter day.

"Huizi is really high-spirited!" Looking at Yang Du's expression of enjoyment, Liang Qichao, who was wearing a long suit and braids next to him, was a little envious and a little sighing. Thinking that when he was in Tokyo, when the two were chatting, he was the one who enjoyed the time, and Yang Du was just a poor student who had no revenge.

"It's ...... to think about everything over the years. It's really ......" Yang Du was dazzled by the sunset at this time, so he simply didn't look at Liang Qichao, he just thought about the journey that China has gone through in recent years, and felt that it was not easy, but it was difficult to describe what happened in the past few years just by not being easy, which is not an exaggeration to call it a miracle for a nation that was once worried about the extinction of the country and the extinction of the species.

"What is it?" Liang Qichao is obviously old, his face looks thin, his temples are even grayer, only his eyes are bright, like a glass ball with light in the dark. "You should want to say that Yang Jingcheng is amazing, right?"

"Yes!" Yang Du nodded heavily, "The ancients are immortal, he has at least achieved 'meritorious service' and 'speech', as for whether it is 'virtue', I dare not say, but with these two points, he is already a sage like Confucius!" ”

"Huh...... Haha..."Liang Qichao laughed before Yang Du finished speaking, "Yang Jingcheng is just a speculator, and the sages will not speculate like this." Japan and Russia speculated on Russia, the United States and Germany during the Xinhai period, and Britain and France during the European War. It is clearly speculative of Germany and Russia. Meritorious deeds are just a gamble for him, and it is easy to say that he won the bet. What if I lose the bet? So what? ”

Hearing Liang Qichao's evaluation, Yang Du turned his head and glanced at him silently. "Brother Zhuo Ru hates him so much?"

"I don't hate him." Liang Qichao shook his head, "After all, the Songpo incident still blames him for being arrogant and unable to see the situation at that time. I'm just saying that every time Yang Jingcheng succeeds, it is because he bets on the right situation and uses the right strategy, which is nothing more than his shrewdness in calculation as a strategist. It's just that I'm thinking, what if he misjudged one day? ”

"Now that the world war is over, the peace treaty is about to be signed; Although China and the United States had entanglements last month, they have also reconciled this month. There is no longer any big deal to amend the treaty between the two countries, so what will you gamble on in the future? All that was left to do in the future was to build the country with the money earned during the war. "Yang Du said the word 'construction', and he was a little unaccustomed, this is not a word in Chinese, it is a Japanese word.

"The country? Haha......" This time, under Yang Du's gaze, Liang Qichao laughed for a long time, and after a while, he said: "Huizi, let me ask you, what is it that inherits the territory of the former Qing Dynasty and expands the territory even more?" ”

"Great China?" Yang Du was a little stunned, he looked at Liang Qichao with extremely strange eyes.

"What kind of country is this?" Liang Qichao didn't care about his strangeness. Then he asked.

"That's ......" At this time, Yang Dufang understood that Liang Qichao's question should be asking about the attributes of this country, and he paused slightly and said: "Although I want King Min to ascend the throne, Yang Jingcheng disagreed, and got it to the current ......." Constitutionally. A republic, so to speak. After all, all the power of the country belongs to the people, and King Min is just a decoration, and he really has to wait for the time to come. He's dispensable. ”

"Why didn't Yang agree to King Min's accession to the throne?" Liang Qichao didn't care about Yang Du's other explanations, just staring at this sentence.

"This ......" Yang Du was stunned when he heard this. After he came to Europe, he learned that Liang Qichao was also in France, so he visited him several times. His original intention was still the same as before, thinking that Liang Qichao's talent was no less than his own, and if he really wanted to be used by the country, the two of them might be able to achieve a career together, but relying on him alone could only make Yang Rui's senior staff members in the end. Although he trusted Liang Qichao, the civil servant rules clearly stipulated that he could not disclose state secrets to outsiders. Yang Rui has a negative attitude towards King Min's accession to the throne, many people know, but only a few people know why this is so, although Yang Du is one of the people who know, but this kind of thing is not easy to say.

"If you don't say it, I can guess one or two." Liang Qichao spoke up again, "At the beginning of the new dynasty, the country's righteous mud legs don't understand, but the distinction between Huayi, the way of loyalty to the monarch, and the glory of the ancestors, etc., under thousands of years of domestication, they have to understand. Without an emperor, the people are like headless flies, muddy and terrified; Without the emperor, during the Sino-Japanese War, the peasants and soldiers could not be mobilized so quickly, and it was impossible to fight the Japanese and the Russians with flesh and blood, or even go to France.

Yang Jingcheng is a person, not only can speculate, but also is very good at deceiving people. More than ten years ago, he deceived a group of students to Africa and Liaodong; Later, he lied to the gentry and said that he wanted to establish a constitution, but I thought it was true at the time, there was such a team of hundreds of people fighting bloody battles with Russia in the northeast, and if he really wanted to support the constitution, it was completely different from Yuan Shikai, he was our own team, and the gentry were in the same spirit. Actually, no, he is playing a fake constitution, if it weren't for the death of Cixi and the comeback of Emperor Guangxu, with his means of dealing with the landlords, we who supported him would not know how to die.

This person is actually exactly the same as Sun Wen, that is, for the sake of the end and unscrupulous means. Since it is such a person, it is easy to understand that King Min is not allowed to ascend the throne. As far as the country and the people are concerned, Yang Jingcheng does not want the country to return to the state of empire, so even if he preaches the illusion of the emperor, he does not want him to ascend the throne; As far as the party and self-interest are concerned, the emperor's accession to the throne will only make the revival society lose the opportunity for one-party dominance, and one day, there will be a party that will use the people's allegiance to the emperor to drive the revival society down through elections or coups.

If the emperor is not allowed to ascend the throne, there will be no such possibility. Because when Yang is alive, he will change his tune, no, he has changed his tune now, and the emperor is only for the illiterate mud legs; For the readers, the newspapers and schools controlled by the Revival Society have long stopped taking King Min seriously. It is expected that thirty years later, King Min will only be a king, and he will have little value to the revival society. Liang Qichao shook his head again when he said this, "No, it's not that it has no value to the Han people." It is still valuable to the Mongols, to the Tibetans, and to the Hui. The move of the Rihoin was extremely important. ”

"Hehe...... this is what I asked people to say." Yang Du did not modestly put this credit in his own name. "I've always thought so. If you want to dominate the Mongolians, Tibetans, Hui, and even Manchus outside the Guan, relying on the 12 ministries under the Prime Minister's Office is completely ineffective. The reason why the Manchu Qing Dynasty was able to continue for more than 200 years. It all depends on the Lifanyuan, once the strategy of the Lifanyuan fails, it is equivalent to the failure of the Manchu and Mongolian alliances, and the Manchu rule is also declared a failure, and without the Mongols, he will eventually retreat outside the customs. This is just like the rise of the Hunan army and the Huai army, and the monk Lingqin must die, and the Manchus at this time can no longer rely on the Mongols.

There is no doubt that the Mongols are being treated with Manchu people, but the difference is that we don't need the Mongols to fight for us. We only need them to defend the border for us, as well as the Tibetans and the Hui, all of which are the same reason. They couldn't order them with the resolution of the Inspectorate, and these places could only be ruled according to the old routine by taking advantage of the emperor's majesty and taking the Imperial Court as the center. It can be said that in the eyes of the Mongols, the Inspectorate was something they could not understand, but the emperor was something familiar to them. Many of them don't believe in the Inspectorate. But he believed in the emperor very much. Because only the emperor can crown him as king, and he can rule effectively against his subordinates, once he becomes the king of the Mystery Academy, it will be a joke! ”

When Yang Du was still proud of his own setting. Liang Qichao had already shook his head constantly, and only after he finished speaking did he say: "This is the routine of the empire, but the problem is." If one day, the Mongols, or the Tibetans. Ask the Inspectorate to overthrow the aristocracy, and ask Mongolia and Tibet. If you adopt democratic politics like Kannai, what should you do? ”

"This is the internal affairs and national habits of all ethnic groups, and the Inspectorate cannot and will not participate in it. You see, now the Mongolian and Tibetan parliamentarians have become officials of the Imperial Court, spending money to provide for them, and they no longer have the meaning of being elected by the people. Yang Du said. In fact, these elected members are all nobles of various races, which is not at all democratically elected like Kannai. ”

"Huh. Be. You want the benefits of the empire, such as the Imperial Academy, and the benefits of the Republic, such as the Mystery Academy, so it is no wonder that you dare not explicitly say whether this is a republic or an empire, and can only be said to be a country of Greater China in general terms. Because if you recognize the empire, the Inspectorate will be embarrassed, and if you recognize the republic, the Imperial Court will be embarrassed. Liang Qichao said.

"Haha......" Yang Du laughed, very proud, and said: "Those who know me, Zhuo Ru is also a brother!" For Guannai, the emperor only had appeal at the beginning of the founding of the country, but Guannai will eventually become a republic; It's better to leave the gate as it is, so you still need an emperor. Isn't this worse than the invention of the Chinese nation at the beginning? ”

Yang Du's pride was not seen by Liang Qichao, he had no envy at all, nor was he discouraged, he still shook his head, constantly shaking his head. "Huizi, I have been to Europe for many years, and I have worked hard and lonely, and I am now the one who abandoned yesterday. Everything that was previously recognized, now feels wrong. You really won't be able to play this trick of the Great China for long, just like the set of things of the Chinese nation can't last for many years.

Because if the people really want to be the masters, what does the land of the hidden land and the people of Pingtou have to do? The small people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang saw that the taxes they paid were going to be imported thousands of miles away, and they saw that their children and grandchildren were going to fight in the Western Regions, and they were definitely unwilling. What is a Republic? The power of the republic comes from the people, and the power is entirely vested in the people, and it is not a monarchy like the empire, whether it is the prime minister or the president, they are all elected by the propertied people.

When power comes from the people and not from heaven, the difference between the Mongols, Tibetans, and Han Chinese is extremely important. The placement of some Mongolians in the Inspectorate undoubtedly leaked the secrets of the Han people to the Mongolian people, and in the eyes of the Mongolian people, because we have few people, we have to look at the faces of the Han people in any decision, and this is your Han people bullying us Mongolians. Now the Revival will be able to control the Inspectorate, and it will be able to make the councillors obey him like puppets. After all, one day the Mongols and the Han people will have a quarrel.

If it is not of my race, its heart will be different, this has been said since ancient times. If Yang Jingcheng could not kill all the Mongolians, Tibetans, and Hui people within a few years, and turn the entire Guanwai into the world of the Han people, then this republic would not be established, and these aliens would have to leave sooner or later. But if he wants to keep these aliens, then the Revival Council will have to force the Inspectorate to accommodate them. Since the Revival Society can have the power to compel the Inspectorate, this violates the principle that power comes from the people, because the will of the Revival Society is above the Inspectorate.

If, as the Russian Bolsheviks 'all power is to the Soviets,' all this makes sense. But the problem is that the Kuomintang appears as an opposition party rather than a traitorous party, which makes no sense. The country still retains the Mongolian and Tibetan Hui nobility outside the Guan. It's like an empire, and Kannai. He appears to be a republic, but the real power is only in the Revival Society, not in the representatives of the Inspectorate. Judging from the current situation, the Revival Society will be in power until after Yang Jingcheng's death, and what if the Inspectorate opposes the Lifan Yuan at that time?

The state system has its own advantages and disadvantages, and you can't take the benefits of the empire and live up to the price of the empire, or take the benefits of the republic and live up to the price of the republic. There has never been such a thing as flattering people everywhere. The current situation can be maintained, and it is all up to Yang Jingcheng to succeed in round after round of speculation. He had the money to go to the west to expand his territory, and he had the money to immigrate to the Western Regions and even the river. But when the money ran out, the voters in Jiangsu and Zhejiang asked why our son went to the west to eat sand, and why did we throw the money we paid thousands of miles away, so what should we say? ”

"Is Zhuo Ru so pessimistic?" Liang Qichao's worry was in Yang Du's heart, so he asked.

"Yes, I wasn't very worried before, I just thought that revival would be clever. But now it seems. It's nothing, it's a mess! Liang Qichao said, "This whole is a hybrid empire. Outside the Guan, King Min is respected as the emperor and ruled by the Imperial Court; And Kannai is to respect the revival society as the emperor, relying on the Inspectorate and the presidential palace to rule. But the Kuomintang was introduced. Pretending to be a republic, sooner or later, the Kuomintang will turn Kannai into a real republic. And once Kannai becomes a republic, the Kanwai empire will not be able to sustain itself. It's like you can't light a lamp in a dark room. Once it illuminates the Han people, it naturally illuminates the Mongolians, Tibetans, and Hui people.

In the final analysis, it depends on what Yang Jingcheng and those people in the Revival Association are going to do. But it doesn't matter what they're going to do. It's all extremely unstable. You are either all empires, and King Min ascends the throne; Either it is a republic, the Han people have the Han people's republic, the Mongolian people have the Mongolian republic, and then the alliance or the federation or the federation becomes a whole, and the country may be able to last longer. ”

"Longer?" Yang Du smiled, "Actually, according to what I mean, it is best to build an empire and then implement a constitutional monarchy, and this country will really not be easy for eternity." ”

"Never easy? Haha......" Liang Qichao laughed again, and with the last ray of light, Yang Du saw that he was laughing with tears. "O Huizi, you are really the teacher of the emperor! The real empire that will not be easy for eternity can only be an empire like Japan, Britain, Germany, or other small European countries. The Ottomans and Austria-Hungary were crumbling, relying on external support and the wrestling of various countries to barely maintain themselves, while Persia, Tsarist Russia, and even the Qing Dynasty could never have a constitutional monarchy.

What is a constitutional monarchy, this is only a process of transformation from empire to republic, in order not to make the royal family refuse, so the power is transferred from the emperor to the parliament little by little; Even in the Parliament, there was a nobility first and then a propertied person. In other words, the constitutional monarchy is actually the end of the monarchy and the predecessor of the republic. Except for the rights that belonged to the emperor under the constitution, other powers came from the propertied or taxpayers at the bottom.

The problem is that as long as there are electorates, there are nations, and as long as there are nations, there are aliens. In a country spanning tens of thousands of miles, the difference between the Cantonese and the Lu will be greater than the difference between the French and the Spanish, and the Sichuan and Wu will not be closer than the Saxons and Germans. According to the wishes of the people, the country they imagine will not be much bigger than Japan. This is the end result of the republic, so I say that this country can never be elected, it cannot be democratic, it can only be an autocratic empire.

That is to say, to make the country's territory from the riverside of Central Asia to the shores of the Bohai Sea, from the snowstorms of Siberia to the coconut palms of Hainan Island, it can only be an absolute monarchy, or a Soviet autocracy like the Russian Bolsheviks. If there is any shake in this autocracy, the country will fall apart and be broken into a small piece of a European republic, a constitutional monarchy.

If the Allies had won this world war, such a vast autocratic empire might have existed, but now that democracies have won and US President Wilson has proposed national self-determination, such an empire will eventually collapse. I have been wondering why Europe is a small country divided and China is a unified empire. ”

Liang Qichao said a lot, but only now did Yang Du hear what he meant, that is, if autocracy, the Chinese state system can be maintained for a long time, if democracy or constitutionalism, then the country will be divided after Yang Jingcheng's death. As a Great China ist, Yang Du couldn't accept this, he looked at Liang Qichao and said very suspiciously: "Brother Zhuoru, you won't be a spy for foreigners, right?" ”

"Haha!" Liang Qichao shook his head, "If I were a spy for foreigners, I would definitely not tell you about the loopholes in the national body." The people who came from our old dynasty naturally thought of Le Shiyan and galloping to Tianshan. But the times are different, before the rise of the West, or give us two hundred more years, then there is such a Yang Jingcheng, everything can be reversed. But now, it's too late. The West is better than the East, and foolish people see it as a strong ship and a sharp cannon, and understand that people see it as science and technology politics, only a genius like Yang Jingcheng knows that they are better in culture.

Given Yang Jingcheng two hundred years, and with the right chance, he may be able to bring Huaxia back from the dead with the trick he and Zhang Taiyan have made, and then face off against the Anglo-Saxons on the sea to determine the future pattern of the world. Now, not to mention that the whole world has been determined to be Westerners, even the internal strife has also been settled. The dispute between Britain and Germany was not only a struggle of national interests, not just a struggle of democratic autocracy, but a dispute between Germanic culture and Greek and Hebrew culture. This is why the German Emperor, when he mobilized his army, called 'the golden path of justice, freedom, decency, and morality of the Prussian Germans, and the worship of the Jews and the Anglo-Saxons'.

Although Yang Jingcheng made a lot of money, this kind of behavior was as ridiculous as the enemy's civil strife and our army helped him to exterminate it. The Germans were very dissatisfied with this battle, and many French newspapers said that they would fight again in 20 years, but this did not affect the overall situation. The world pattern is thus determined, no matter how talented Yang Jingcheng is, can he reverse this situation? ”

"Zhuo Ru came to such a conclusion in a few years in Europe?" Hearing Liang Qichao's words, Yang Du was a little unconvinced.

"Yes, it's been a complete realization in the past few years." Liang Qichao said: "The world I see is that it is not only the West that has won, but the Anglo-Saxons who have won, and indeed the English language has won, and it represents the Germanic warrior culture that has suffered a fatal blow." Even if there is another war in 20 years, it will not hurt the overall situation, and the situation of great power disputes is likely to evolve into a world ruled by Britain and the United States. In that case, what else would Yang Jingcheng do to maintain his Revival Empire?

China is located in East Asia, with the Mongolian Plateau in the north, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the west, and the coast in the southeast. Under such a self-contained pattern, China is the center of the world, and the emperor can only be maintained by the day, and now the world is no longer the world recognized by the ancestors, this is the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and the era of hegemony of the countries is coming to an end. Yes, Yang Jingcheng is right, the West is in decline, but what about the East? Except for the life you can see in Japan, where is the life?

Qin Shi Empress, we are refugees except for the people. Zhang Binglin often criticizes Confucianism, when will he be able to criticize a group of Legalists? When did Confucianism decide which dynasties in the past? It was simply an autocracy that appeared to be Confucianism but was essentially Legalism. Confucianism fools the people, but what about the Legalists, what else do they have but to intimidate and slaughter? ”

"What Zhuo Ru means is that I can only be autocratic in China, and if we can't be a republic, we can temporarily maintain the entire empire from splitting, but even if we are determined to pay the price of division, we can't be republican if we want to be republic?" Yang Du said.

Liang Qichao said: "That's what it means!" You look at Europe, the Germans are the most honorable, they are disciplined in fighting and are not afraid of death, but in France, it is worse, they can fight, but there is always a need to pay attention to personal power; And then in Italy, the difference is even more obvious, they are simply a scoundrel. The same is true in China, the old people who are sophisticated and obedient do not know how to fight, and the real reason why they are old and obedient is that the culture is dead, and the rest of the people are only living. Huang Keqiang is right, to the effect that the republic is not something that can be established by slaves and obedient people. (To be continued......)