The sun never sets

"Yan Baichuan, you liar!"

Jiang Zhiqing grabbed Yan Xishan by the collar and shouted frantically: "Give me back my money!"

"Let go, let go!" Yan Xishan first persuaded, then shouted, "Help!"

But it was obvious that neither the diners nor the restaurant staff had any intention of coming forward to help.

"Even if you shout your throat out now..." Jiang Zhiqing was sneering when he saw a few bald men in black suits walking towards him from the corner of the restaurant. He was startled and blurted out, "Axe Gang?" His hands loosened involuntarily.

The Axe Gang had several thousand brothers. When they were fighting for territory with the Green Gang and the Hong Gang in Shanghai, they didn't follow the rules at all and just used pistols and bombs. When the fight was at its most intense, they even dragged cannons over. However, the foreigners in the concession didn't dare to do anything to them. They could only appeal to their emotions and reason with them.

It's not that the foreign devils are easy to talk to, but the Axe Gang is too powerful. It looks scary with only a few thousand people, but in fact there is an evil bald man standing behind the "Axe Gang". There are also hundreds of thousands of troops on the other side of the Yangtze River, ready to fight at any time, eyeing Shanghai covetously. The foreigners in Shanghai are afraid of and hate Marshal Lin.

Jiang Zhiqing knew about the Axe Gang, and fearing that they would pull out a pistol or a bomb to kill him, he had no choice but to loosen his hands. Otherwise, he was afraid that he would strangle Yan Baichuan to death. Yan Xishan was able to catch his breath, he pushed Jiang Zhiqing away, straightened his collar, and shouted: "What kind of savage are you, can't you talk like a civilized person?"

After hearing this, Jiang Zhiqing's anger rose again, "You bastard! Give me back my money!"

"What do you mean by your money?" Yan Xishan said confidently, "The stock market is risky, and you should be cautious when entering the market. Haven't you heard that? I didn't force you to buy stocks with a gun, did I? I didn't see you share the money with me when I made money. I couldn't see you when I made money, and now you come to me to pay back the money after losing money? How can this be possible in the world?

reason?"

"You lost money, and so did I. Don't you know? All the villas on Wangzhi Road have been taken away."

Jiang Zhiqing: “….”

He glanced at the man in the black suit next to him and shouted in pain, "What should I do now? The old man from the Green Gang is looking for me to collect the debt!"

Yan Xishan sighed and said seriously: "Hide for a while, don't stay in Shanghai."

He pointed to the window and said, "Eleven have jumped today..."

"boom!"

There was another round of exclamations from below, and someone shouted, "Mr. Fang jumped off the building!"

This is one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai. There are many spectators below, waiting for the people on the rooftop to jump down. Usually, the business elites are all in a group, always talking about "good fortune" and "small goals". Everyone envy and hate them. Now that the elites are in trouble, everyone is looking forward to them bravely jumping down so that everyone can have some fun.

"So many people have jumped, why don't Mr. Ma and Mr. Xu jump?"

"Huo, do you know anything? Mr. Ma ran away a long time ago. It is said that he went to Iberia."

"Iberia? Where?"

"Europe."

"Where's Mr. Xu? Did he run away too?"

"He ran away a long time ago. Last time he called on us to take over, he ran away himself."

"Damn, what a bunch of bastards! Could it be that the guy named Liu has also run away?"

"Liu? Like Chen Qimei, he went back to be an official."

The crowd watching the scene became indignant, and some even said something sarcastic like "support" or "there is hope", and the people around followed suit. Yan Xishan walked over and closed the window, then turned around and said to Jiang Zhiqing, "This is the twelfth one. If you don't want to be smashed into pieces like those twelve people, leave quickly. Didn't Chen Qimei go back to Guangzhou? You should go there too. No matter how powerful the Green Gang and the Hong Gang are, they can only be powerful in the concessions. They won't be so powerful outside."

"Well, that's all I can do. What about you? What are you going to do?"

"What else can I do?" Yan Xishan spread his hands, "Of course I have to avoid it."

He had to run away. He owed too much money to the bank and many big guys. If he didn't run away, he would be "committed suicide". If he had known the result would be like this, he should have sold the stocks with the people above last month. He could have made a lot of money by selling them at that time, which was much better than being in debt now.

But knowing it earlier is priceless, and there is no medicine for regret in the world.

Yan Xishan's ability to withstand blows is still stronger than that of ordinary people, thanks to the fact that his family had gone bankrupt once. When he ran away to Taiyuan after bankruptcy last time, he ran into Marshal Lin's troops, and the Yan family made a comeback. After working hard for several years, they are now back to the way they were before.

Just go bankrupt and start over again.

Jinling, Presidential Palace.

Li Hongzhang stood up with cold hands and feet, trembling, pointing at his son Li Jingshu, and angrily said: "You actually lost all the money! That's six million taels of silver! It's the government's military expenditure! Yuan Weiting is waiting for this money to pay the military pay!"

Li Jingshu knew that he had made a big mistake, but he still explained: "We were making money before. Who could have thought that the stock market would suddenly crash? It's all the fault of the English. It was London that crashed first!"

He lost not only the military expenses of six million taels of silver, but also the tens of millions of taels of silver that Li Hongzhang had saved from corruption and selling out the country. If Li Hongzhang had not kept a close eye on him, Li Jingshu would have squandered all his wealth. Of course, Li Hongzhang earned more than tens of millions of taels of silver. People all over the world said that "the prime minister makes the world poor", so how could he only have ten million taels of silver?

Li Hongzhang was famous for his love of money. Why did foreigners like to negotiate with him? Because as long as they were paid, Li Hongzhang would dare to sign any traitorous treaty. When signing the treaty with the Russians, Li Hefei was fooled by the Russians. Before signing the treaty, the Russians said that they would pay as long as they signed. Li Hongzhang excitedly signed the treaty to cede land to Tsarist Russia, but the Russians were so greedy that they turned their backs on him and refused to pay.

But the most ridiculous thing is not this, but that Li Hongzhang had the nerve to go to the Russians to ask for money afterwards. This is outrageous.

The "Bismarck of the East" and the "Iron Chancellor" were all used by the Japanese to disgust the Chinese. Li Hongzhang called himself a "paperhanger", but in fact he was not even a "paperhanger". Cixi was the "paperhanger".

Chapter 208: Man is about to die

Li Hongzhang had been seriously ill for a long time. He was shocked by the fact that Li Jingshu had lost a lot of military funds and family property. He sat up in shock from his dying illness. He roared angrily for a few times, and suddenly his hands and feet twitched and he fell to the ground. Although he was supported by a maid and did not really fall, Li Hongzhang never stood up again.

In the following week, Li Hongzhang lay in bed and lost weight rapidly. He was about to die. Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi and other civil and military officials of the National Government came to the President's residence to visit him. Li Hongzhang was about to die, and the leaders came mainly to see their old friend off and to discuss some important matters.

China now has several governments, which will definitely not last long. The pursuit of unity is a Chinese tradition. If a government loses its ambition, its people will quickly defect to the other side. The ruling class of the Nationalist government is still the same people as the previous dynasty, and they will definitely not accept the People's Party's approach.

of.

However, the People's Army in the North seems very fierce, and the military government in the South is also very stubborn. The National Government in Nanjing probably cannot defeat the People's Army, nor can it deal with the military government. What should it do next?

Li Hongzhang was already breathing out more than breathing in. He managed to speak: "The most important thing now is to elect a new president. After I die, Marshal Xiang can take over!"

Xiangshuai is not Chu Liuxiang, but Zhang Zhidong. Zhang Zhidong's courtesy name is "Xiaoda" and his pseudonym is "Xitao". He is called "Zhang Xiangshuai". Because he is from Nanpi, he is also called "Zhang Nanpi". Zhang Zhidong was the leader of the Qingliu faction in his early years, and later became the main representative of the Westernization faction. In terms of education, he founded the Ziqiang School, Hubei Agricultural School, Hubei Wuchang Mengyang Academy, Hubei Industrial School, Ci'en School, Guangya Academy, etc.

In politics, he advocated "Chinese learning as the basis, Western learning for practical use". After he was transferred from Guangzhou to Hubei, he founded Hanyang Iron Works, Daye Iron Mine, Hubei Gun Factory, etc. When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded, Dagu Fort was lost. Zhang Zhidong, together with Liu Kunyi, the Governor-General of Liangjiang, and the consuls of various countries stationed in Shanghai, negotiated the "Southeast Mutual Protection" and suppressed the uprising of the self-reliance army led by the reformists Tang Caichang, Lin Gui, Qin Lishan, etc.

Subsequently, the National Government was established in Nanjing, and Zhang Zhidong became the Prime Minister, and was known as the "Big Three" of the National Government together with Liu Kunyi and Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang was about to die of illness, Liu Kunyi was not in good health, and his reputation and strength were not good enough, so Zhang Zhidong had to be the second president.

Zhang Zhidong took the lead, but he was at a loss as to how to break the situation.

The war between the Nationalist Government and the Military Government had been going on for more than a year, and there was no hope. When the People's Army was fighting the Russians in western Liaoning, the Nationalist Army also went north to the Central Plains and fought a few battles with the Henan People's Army. At the beginning, they had some small advantages, but then they found that the enemies in front of them were getting bigger and bigger. The Nationalist Army was well-equipped, but they were too few in number.

The People's Army follows the route of "people's army". There are 50,000 troops in Henan alone. If the militia, engineers and the like are included, there are probably more than 100,000 people, and this is after a round of disarmament. The overall equipment of the People's Army is a little worse, and the types of guns are a little more diverse, but in general, there are also a lot of guns and artillery. The People's Army in Henan has hundreds of artillery alone. If a real fight breaks out, the National Army will have no advantage at all.

As Henan moved, the people's army in Shaanxi, Jiangsu and other places also moved. The armed forces of the People's Party were everywhere. A rough count showed that there were probably 200,000 or 300,000 people. The National Army was so scared that it quickly withdrew and claimed that they were chasing the bandits across the border and it was not intentional.

The People's Government's main focus was still on the Northeast. It had always claimed internally that it would use negotiations to resolve China's internal problems. Once it had gotten a way out, it simply stepped back and did not fight with the Nationalist Government.

Zhang Zhidong asked Li Hongzhang, "How should China's affairs be handled?"

Li Hongzhang closed his eyes and remained silent for a while. When everyone thought he had left, he opened his eyes again and said vaguely: "Let's talk to Sun Yat-sen. If...if we can unify the south, and then slowly make plans, the world...will be settled!"

Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi were the only two people standing in front of Li Hongzhang's bed. Although the eldest son Li Jingfang and the legitimate son Li Jingshu were Li Hongzhang's blood relatives, they were all blocked outside. This was as it should be. Although Li Hongzhang thought more about his family and less about the country, given the status of Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi, everyone else had to give way to the two big guys.

Zhang Zhidong was not very willing to negotiate with the rebels like Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing. In the Gengzi Year, he suppressed the uprising of the Self-Strengthening Army and killed many uprising leaders. He had a blood feud with Tang Caichang and Huang Xing. But the situation was like this, and Zhang Zhidong had no other choice.

Zhang Nanpi established more universities and built many factories. Although he did not do well in the Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant and was deceived by the Germans on the issue of rifles, he still did a lot of practical work. His achievements in the Westernization Movement were stronger than those of Li Hongzhang's Beiyang. The problem was that Zhang Zhidong himself was not good at fighting, and he did not have talents like Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang under him.

Among the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, only Zuo Zongtang was brave and good at fighting. The others were far behind. If the Hubei New Army could not defeat the guys in the south, wouldn't they have to negotiate? What's the point of running so many industries? If economic and industrial strength cannot be transformed into combat effectiveness, it's just good in appearance.

Zhang Zhidong felt depressed when he thought of this. He sighed and said, "Even if we want to negotiate, we have to win the war."

"Then make use of Yuan Shikai!"

Yuan Shikai was originally Li Hongzhang's man. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, seeing that Li was no longer in power, he switched to Ronglu's camp. According to Lin Yongchang, it was normal to change jobs when the original company failed. However, according to traditional Chinese views, Yuan Shikai's behavior was tantamount to betrayal and was despised by gentlemen.

After Yuan Shikai went south, Li Hongzhang had always been rude to him, but unexpectedly, he recommended Yuan Shikai again at the last minute.

Although it was because the Nanjing National Government had no talented leaders, Zhang Zhidong was still somewhat surprised. He pondered for a moment, then turned to ask Liu Kunyi, "Yanzhuang, what do you think? Can Yuan Shikai be employed?"

Liu Kunyi was also from Hunan. Together with Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, he participated in the war to suppress the Taiping Rebellion. He was a powerful local figure, like a local lord.

He was appointed as the Imperial Commissioner and stationed at Shanhaiguan, commanding more than a hundred army battalions inside and outside the pass, but his entire army was defeated at the Liaohe River.

Although they were defeated, Liu Kunyi still insisted on fighting and opposed peace talks with the Japanese. The Taiping Rebellion was so fierce, and the government army suffered countless defeats, but didn't they win in the end? Winning or losing temporarily doesn't matter, what matters is to keep fighting.

In his memorial to Emperor Guangxu, he said: "The word 'persistence' is the key to controlling the Japanese." It should be said that Liu Kunyi's strategy of persistence was feasible, but neither the peace faction nor the quick victory faction bought into it. Empress Dowager Cixi and those Jurchen nobles had different ideas from Liu Kunyi, and those so-called famous ministers also had different ideas from him. Even Li Hongzhang agreed to pay compensation and cede territory, so there was nothing he could do.

To be honest, Liu Kunyi was a little contemptuous of Li Hongzhang's performance in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. However, his strength was not as good as Li Hongzhang, who controlled the Huai Army and the Beiyang Army. He had no say in the court and could only return to his hometown with the Hunan Army.

In response to Zhang Zhidong's question, Liu Kun nodded and said, "Yuan Shikai is capable."

Zhang Zhidong sighed: "It is difficult for a person with talent to have no virtue and a person with virtue to have no talent!"

Chapter 209 Small Goals

Li Jing stood expressionlessly at the gate, pretending not to hear the whispers around him. He was Li Hongzhang's eldest son, but he was adopted, not his biological son. The situation of their Li family was the same as that of Yuan Shao's family. He was Yuan Shao and Li Jing was Yuan Shu, but Li Hongzhang obviously preferred his biological son and took Li Jingshu with him no matter what he did.

Just two days ago, Li Hongzhang said to the British Minister to China, Sir John Jordan, "My son is not up to the heavy responsibility of mastering traditional Chinese medicine."

Unable to bear the heavy responsibility? Hehe, Li Jing had no expression on his face, and sneered in his heart. No matter how unworthy he was, he didn't lose a third of his family property, and didn't lose all the military pay, right? The old man was really biased!

He had accumulated too much dissatisfaction in his heart, but he could not show it at all. Li Jingfang came to Li Hongzhang's house as a substitute because Li Hongzhang's biological son died young. At that time, Li Hefei was already 40 years old and had no children, so he adopted one. But a few years later, Li Hongzhang's other wife gave birth to Li Jingshu, which made Li Jingfang's position very embarrassing.

According to Confucian legal principles, he was Li Hongzhang's son, and the eldest son, and should have inherited everything in the family, but in reality he was restricted in every way. The old man did not forget to step on him a few times before he died, and it was obvious that he wanted to leave all the family property and political legacy to his biological son. Oh, a biological son who embezzled military funds and caused an uproar among the soldiers on the front line!

Waiting for Li Hongzhang to die outside were not only Li Jingfang and Li Jingshu, but also Li's relatives. These people formed several groups of varying distances according to their blood relationship, status, and relationships. Standing in the front were, of course, the brothers Li Jingfang and Li Jingshu.

Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi had been in there for a long time, and Li Jingfang gradually felt sore in his body, but he remained motionless and maintained his composure, unlike Li Jingshu next to him who was moving around.

"Brother..." Li Jingmai wanted to say something, but Li Jingfang glanced at him and he fell silent again.

Suddenly, Zhang Zhidong's voice came from inside, "Everyone come and see Shaoquan for the last time!"

Filial sons and grandsons rushed in and burst into tears. Li Hongzhang, one of the four famous ministers of the Tongzhi Restoration, the first president of the National Government, and a man with mixed reputations, died just like that. Many people said that he was angered to death by his son, and they said it in a very detailed way, with a cause, a process, and a result. They said that Li Hongzhang's eyes were wide open and he was incontinent. Many people believed it.

Of course, the Nationalist government could not accept this explanation. The official explanation given to President Li was that he was "ill from overwork" and "died of exhaustion at work". However, at this time, there was more than one official in China. Other officials did not say anything bad about the dead Li Hongzhang, but it was obvious that they could not say anything good about him either.

After Li Hongzhang died, his son Li Jingshu suddenly died. It was said that he was too filial and lost his appetite after Li Hongzhang's death, so he died of illness. But there is also a saying that Li Jingshu was beaten by a club by someone from Shanghai. When he was in Shanghai, Li Jingshu borrowed money to buy so many rubber stocks, and finally owed a large sum of money, and the person came to collect the debt.

In any case, Li Jingshu was dead, and Li Jingfang accepted all of the Li family's property and political legacy, and negotiated a trade treaty with the British on behalf of the Nanjing National Government. As for Li Jingshu? He was dead, so naturally no one cared about him. Li Jingfang refused to acknowledge the debts owed by Li Jingshu, and went to collect them from Li Jingshu if he had the guts.

Besides, the second son of the Li family died, and it was good that he did not cause trouble to those people. Do you really think that the Li family is finished without Li Hongzhang? Zhang Zhidong was the first to disagree. They all suffered together and prospered together. Now that Li Hongzhang is gone and the Li family is bullied, Zhang Zhidong and others will also have such a day sooner or later, and there is no guarantee that they will not suffer the same fate.

Protecting the Li family is protecting the Zhang family and the Liu family. To some extent, capitalists are more united than the proletariat. But there is a reason for this. The proletariat's solidarity can easily alert the ruling class. It's not that they don't want to unite, but once there are signs of uniting, they will be hit hard by the government.

The turmoil in the south did not affect the development of the north. When Lin Yongchang heard that Li Hongzhang had died, he did not take the opportunity to send troops to the south.

The People's Government focused its main energy on the "Rectification Movement". Why did it need to be rectified? It was for better development.

Bureaucracy and corruption can never be eradicated, at least not under the current price adjustment, and need to be cleaned up all the time. Only by cleaning up the officials first can we better develop the economy and military. Later generations often come up with some fallacies, such as "corruption is the lubricant of the economy", as if the economy cannot be developed without corruption.

These are all excuses, justifications for their corruption. Lin Yongchang never believed in them. Those who were corrupt were arrested and investigated, and those who deserved to be beheaded were beheaded... Well, the People's Party no longer uses beheadings, and has replaced them with executions. The rest were all sent to the Western Regions Protectorate to guard the border. The intellectuals who spoke out for the issue of corruption were also packed up and sent to the Western Regions.

There are Hui people, Uighurs, British and Russians in the Western Regions, which is sure to leave a deep impression on many people.

If you don't like the Western Regions, you can also go to the Tibetan Plateau. The lamas there are all talented and speak well. You will definitely like it when you go there. President Lin generally did not kill people, but mostly exiled them... Most of the time, the word "exile" was not used, but it was called supporting the construction of the country's border areas.

If a person embezzles money, then the whole family goes to the frontier of the motherland to contribute to the four modernizations. This is reasonable. Of course, before leaving, all the money swallowed must be spit out, and according to the different cases, the degree of embezzlement and bribery is multiplied by a coefficient, and the amount obtained is the fine.

The comrades in the discipline inspection department are very considerate and always let those people travel light without any unnecessary things.

Many people in the south judged others by their own experience, thinking that the People's Army was so strong that it would definitely take advantage of its military advantage to move south and make a living. But they were wrong. After the People's Army fought a battle with the Russians in western Liaoning, it focused its main energy on internal rectification and development.

It's not that Marshal Lin didn't want to go south, but he didn't have the strength. The Russians were not so easy to deal with. In order to fight the Russians, the people's government had already used up all its resources. After the battle in western Liaoning was over, we had to slow down and take a breath. Apart from anything else, it would take a long time to accumulate machine gun bullets and artillery shells.

And he believes that time is on his side. As time goes by, the advantages of the North will become greater and greater. Don't be fooled by the prosperous economy in the South, it's all a bubble, just like the "golden decade" of KMT in another world, it can't be taken seriously.

Zhang Zhidong's Hanyang Iron and Steel Plant has been in a state of dysbiosis, and the steel production has not been increased, which has affected the production of the Hanyang Arsenal and the overall economic development of the National Government. As for Guangzhou, its development in heavy industry is not as good as Zhang Zhidong's.

Not long ago, the stock market crash in Shanghai dealt a heavy blow to the industry and commerce in the South, but the North made a lot of money from it and was able to continue building railways and factories. With this inflow and outflow, the gap in power between the North and the South will only grow.

So Lin Yongchang is not in a hurry. He takes it slow and achieves one small goal at a time.

Chapter 210 Li Yunlong

It was the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, and the weather was already very cold. The mountains and rivers of Shanxi were already covered in snow. Under such circumstances, most farmers stayed in their own kangs to spend the winter. Because the Chinese New Year was coming soon, most of the railway construction work was stopped. The workers received a few pounds of meat, matches, soap, brown sugar and other things distributed and went home to celebrate the New Year. Only the engineering corps continued to work. They were conscripts and had to serve for at least two years. Even during the Chinese New Year, they could not go home.

In order to make everyone feel at ease working on the construction site, the government bought a lot of cattle and sheep from Mongolia to improve their lives. Almost one cow and four sheep were allocated to each company, enough for everyone to have a good year. This was just the engineering corps. There were also a large number of field army troops, militia troops and government departments at all levels. The money that had just been transferred to the finance department quickly flowed out.

Lin Yongchang made a lot of money, but he spent it even faster. The effect of throwing money around was obvious. The food was good, the salary was paid on time, and coupled with the attitude of "fairness, openness, and justice", morale was strong. But this system was really too expensive, so President Lin had to reduce the benefits of senior officials and cut off many middlemen.

He set an example by taking only a level 3 salary of more than 200 yuan per month, so officials at all levels of government were naturally inferior. There were also some who could get a level 2 salary, but they were technical masters or great scientists. The lives of most officials were just OK, and they could forget about becoming rich and powerful.

The bureaucrats were not satisfied with the policies of the People's Party and resisted them to a certain extent, which led to the "Three Antis and Five Antis" and "Rectification Movement". After the officials were cleaned up, the work efficiency of various government departments was significantly improved.

Lin Yongchang stood on the rostrum and gave a report to the representatives of the People's Party and the government departments, mainly summarizing this year's work and focusing on next year's work. ".......This year's rectification movement has achieved very good results. Starting from next year, our work focus will shift to the local level............"

Clean up the officials first, then let the officials clean up the place, this is very...

.....A loving father? Well, he is still not comparable to a loving father. But although a loving father is powerful, he is still not as good as a mentor. The loving father could not control the people left by the mentor, so he had to send them all away with the mentor.

Lin Yongchang read the manuscript that Yang Du had polished, his voice was sonorous and powerful, and very infectious. He only used 50% of his strength to make the report, otherwise, everyone in the conference hall would be stunned by him.

"...This year we have produced 26.7 tons of steel and 22.1 tons of iron...As of the end of last month, we have built 832 miles of new railways and 37 reservoirs...We have made great achievements in our work, but there are still many problems..."