Beiyang reactionaries

"What is the current situation in China? The central government has no authority, the government and military orders are not unified, and the local governments are independent. On the surface, there is a common central government, but in fact it is in a semi-divided state. Local governors and even some local guards Envoys and garrison envoys, they control local finances, hold the army in their hands, and they are princes that no one can control. And because of this, the central government wants to unify China and complete the unification of military orders and government orders. The local power faction is for their own interests It is resistance to unification. There are also constant disputes between various powerful factions in the local area for the sake of interests. As a result, since the Revolution of [-], civil wars have been frequent and there is almost no stable moment.”

"Going deeper into the discussion, regardless of whether it is the Beijing government or local powerful factions, there are Western powers behind it. I count from Beijing. In the early years, President Yuan was most criticized for '21'. At that time, President Yuan wanted to become emperor and needed to increase his own strength, mainly to build and train his own army, and also needed the support of Japan, so there was the infamous '21 Article'. As for Premier Duan, everyone knows Because of his relationship with Japan, he is currently the focus of public opinion bombardment. Feng Hejian (Feng Guozhang) has been in Nanjing for many years, plus the current Jiangsu Governor Li Chun, Jiangxi Governor Chen Guangyuan, Hubei Governor Wang Zhanyuan, etc., because the provinces he controls They are all on the banks of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River Basin has always been the British sphere of influence, so Feng Hejian and the Three Governors of the Yangtze River all accepted the support of the British. Seventy to eighty percent of the weapons currently used by Zhang Zuolin's troops in the Northeast are Japanese weapons , he himself relied on the support of Japan to come to the present. Mr. Zhongshan, since he called for the revolution, he has always accepted the support of Japan.”

"This is just a general aspect. In addition, Mongolia, northern Heilongjiang, and Xinjiang are Russia's sphere of influence, Tibet is controlled by the United Kingdom, and Yunnan is deeply influenced by France. Of course, I don't hide it. Our Sichuan arsenal has been expanded twice, It relies on Japanese machines and Japanese technicians. Our troops also accept Japanese weapons in large quantities. Without Japan’s support, our military factories would not have the current scale, and we would not be able to expand our military.”

"As you can see, this is the current situation in China. Any power in China has the support of the big powers behind it. A power without the support of the big powers cannot last long. And the Western powers definitely do not want China to become a unified country. A country with unified government orders and military orders. Because our China is too big, because our Chinese population is too large, we have been a big and powerful country since ancient times. With the size of our China, once we start to develop, it will affect the interests of Western powers. So these The Western powers are each supporting a side, let us fight each other, and will never be a truly unified country."

"And the various forces in our country, for the benefit of each other, are well aware of these problems, but they also hit it off with these Western powers. That's why China has the current situation of fragmentation. Since the Revolution of [-], China has been in constant disputes. Frequent wars are inseparable from this."

warlord?Great powers?

This is Duan Xun's purpose today.Other so-called land issues, economic issues, and deeper issues are not issues to be discussed with the army.National revolution and nationalism will definitely emerge.

Historically, the May [-]th Movement, and later the Northern Expedition, were the result of nationalist trends of thought.Duan Xun wanted to snatch and lead this trend of thought before others, especially Sun Yat-sen.

That's why we have today's meeting.

"Let me tell you a statistic. Since the outbreak of the Law Protection War, our army has spent 3000 million yuan in less than a year. However, the annual fiscal revenue of our three provinces in Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou is only 5000 million yuan. The Prime Minister received 600 million military pay and a lot of weapons and ammunition, so he spent so much money. And Lu Rongting mobilized so many troops to support the war this time, it is estimated that he spent at least 2000 million or more. Guangdong Although rich, Lu Rongting does not completely control Guangdong, Guangxi is a barren province, where does he get so much military salary?"

"It's not just Lu Rongting, but the warlords in other provinces are the same. They support so many troops. They can't support so many troops just by relying on normal financial income. Where does so much military salary come from? It's just exploiting the people. Raise taxes, apportion to merchants, grow opium, and trade opium. So every time there is a war, it is the people who suffer. They have to pay for the war army, and they have to worry about the war burning to them. And even so, they still Lack of money, at that time they can only borrow money from the Western powers. But if you want to borrow money, you have to sell your national sovereignty to them. But the borrowed money always has to be repaid, but where is the money. So you can only borrow again Money, plug the hole in front, which is a typical demolition of the east wall to make up for the west wall."

"This is an endless loop that can never be broken out. From the beginning of the Manchu government to the later President Yuan Da and Premier Duan, they have not been able to break out of this loop. Now many people criticize the Beijing government for always borrowing from foreign banks. , but if they don’t lend money, they don’t even have money for the normal expenditure of the government. Under such circumstances, they can only keep borrowing money. And China is in this cycle of non-stop borrowing money. They sold their sovereignty to Western powers, and China was further controlled by Western powers. Our railways, our minerals, and our finance are all controlled by them, and we will never be able to get rid of them. China must always listen to them.”

"Now our customs are controlled by the United Kingdom, and we can't even control the customs duties. Western powers have large concessions in our country. After their goods enter China, because the tariffs are very low, and our government cannot collect taxes. Therefore, the prices of their products are low. On the contrary, our own products are heavily taxed by the government, resulting in high prices. The result is that foreign products are dumped in China by virtue of their low prices, making our national industry impossible. Survive, destroy our little bit of national industry. Moreover, foreigners have committed crimes in our China, and we have no right to intervene.”

"What is a national revolution? A national revolution is national independence and national liberation. I use the simplest sentence, that is, the national revolution is China's own business, and we Chinese people must decide for ourselves. When China can achieve this Only then can we say that our national revolution has succeeded. Tell me, did the Revolution of [-] really solve the problem of the national revolution?"

Depressed atmosphere.

Duan Xun is talking about practical issues.Most of the people present here are young people, even the older ones are under 40 years old.Most of them are officers in their 30s, and even the younger ones are less than 30 years old, only in their twenties.

As a soldier, it is a shame to let foreigners run amok in China.

"General, what should we do?"

In the oppressive atmosphere, Xiong Kewu who was sitting next to Duan Xun finally spoke.Duan Xun looked at the generals in the army, and said sonorously: "Down with the warlords, down with the great powers."

161 National Revolution 3

"Down with the warlords, down with the great powers."

Duan Xun finally shouted this slogan.In fact, this slogan was chanted the most loudly during the Northern Expedition after the KMT and the Communist Party cooperated in history.The Northern Expedition is definitely a very great national revolution in Chinese history, and it is worthy of a close-up feature in Chinese history books.During the wave of the Northern Expedition, the strength of the Northern Expeditionary Army was actually not strong.But they relied on this slogan to dare to fight against warlords and great powers.

Before the Northern Expedition swept across China, the status of foreigners in China was very high.Foreigners are big things in China.Even some powerful foreign businessmen can even influence the policies of the Beijing government.

At that time, not to mention the local government, even the Beijing government was submissive to foreigners.

But the Northern Expedition changed things.

That is, during this period of time, many incredible things happened.Many things that neither the Chinese government nor the scholars and ordinary people thought about happened frequently happened.

Just like in Sichuan, Sichuan warlord Yang Sen clashed with British warships.At that time, the British warships were showing off their might, and they didn't pay attention to Yang Sen at all.However, Yang Sen, the Sichuan warlord whom the British looked down upon, even ordered the shelling of British warships after being provoked.Speaking of which, the party representative of Yang Sen's troops was the commander-in-chief, and the general of the Sichuan army who commanded the troops to bombard the British warship was also a member of the CCP.And there were a large number of Kuomintang members in Yang Sen's army at that time.Because Yang Sen at that time also began to accept the appointment of the Guangdong Nationalist Government, preparing to respond to the Northern Expedition and attack Wu Peifu.

In fact, at any time, Yang Sen would not dare to bombard a British warship with ten guts.Yang Sen has been in Sichuan for many years, and even once served as the governor of Sichuan.It's not a day or two for British warships to run rampant in the Yangtze River. Yang Sen has never been stubborn.However, during the Northern Expedition, nationalism in the whole country was on the rise, and Yang Sen dared to bombard it.And with the support of the people of the whole country, the British still have nothing to do with Yang Sen.

Not only in Sichuan, but in many places the Northern Expeditionary Army cooperated with local students, workers, businessmen, and farmers, and even the concessions that had existed for many years were taken back as soon as they were said.The police in the concession opened fire, and the Northern Expedition directly sent troops to attack them.When the national government took back the Hankou and Jiujiang concessions, that kind of wave was definitely the first time in Chinese history.Hundreds of thousands of people besieged the concession, and millions of people marched and demonstrated, forcing the world hegemon Britain to make concessions.

Moreover, it took advantage of the rising nationalism to take back the customs power.

This is the horror when nationalism in a country is high, and the great powers will be afraid of the power they burst out.Especially in a big country like China, once the nationalist sentiment is high, there is no big power that is not afraid.The Northern Expeditionary Army was able to advance triumphantly all the way, and even avoided the great powers such as Britain, France, the United States and Japan in the middle, because they saw this kind of power.

If it weren't for the separation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Jinan tragedy would not have occurred.

This kind of patriotism is very powerful.Duan Xun knew that with the end of the First World War, the independence of the Czech Republic, the emergence of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement, Chinese nationalism would soon reach a new level.

So Duan Xun also needs this power, and even Duan Xun wants to control this power.So start with your own army first.

An army must have a goal, and a group must have a goal.Under the current circumstances, such things as republic, democracy, and freedom are too illusory to gather everyone together.

So what Duan Xun wants is a real slogan and a real goal.The most realistic slogan, the most realistic goal of the current People's Party, and the slogan that can most gather people's hearts and capture the hearts of the army, in Duan Xun's opinion, is this.

"The national revolution, the national revolution, means that we Chinese want to be the masters of our China. If we want to do this, we must drive away the Western powers and overthrow these powers that bully our country. And if we want to drive out the powers and overthrow the powers, we must Down with the agents of the great powers in China, and down with the forces that rely on the power of the great powers to run rampant in the country. These forces include warlords from various places who rely on the power of the great powers to survive, and also those compradors. Especially the warlords from various places. They rely on the money of the great powers, The weapons of the great powers, entrenched in the place, acted as thugs of the Western powers, and acted as a protective umbrella for foreigners. If China wants to unify and drive away the Western powers, the first thing to do is to defeat them."

"General, how do we get rid of the control of the great powers?"

Xiong Kewu continued to question Duan Xun.

In fact, Xiong Kewu was very restrained in asking questions, because there were too many generals in the army today. Although Xiong Kewu has a straightforward personality, he still has to save face for Duan Xun.In fact, Xiong Kewu's meaning is very simple, that is, how you Duan Xun can get rid of the control of the Japanese.

Fundamentally speaking, Duan Xun has a very close relationship with Japan.

First of all, Duan Xun is a general of the Anhui lineage and Duan Qirui's direct descendant.The relationship between Duan Qirui's Anhui branch and Japan was originally unclear, and many media criticized Duan Qirui as Japan's "hunting dog".Because Duan Qirui's relationship with Japan is too deep, he was criticized the most by public opinion.Duan Qirui's reputation for the three previous republics was ruined because of his relationship with Japan.

Duan Qirui is like this, Duan Xun is not much better.

Since Duan Xun entered Sichuan, the cooperation with Japan has not stopped.Purchase a large number of machines from Japan and hire a large number of Japanese technicians to help expand the Sichuan Arsenal.At present, the weapons imitated by Duan Xun's Sichuan Arsenal are basically Japanese weapons.

And economically, we also cooperate a lot with Japanese businessmen.As well as borrowing money from Japan and buying large quantities of arms from Japan.No matter how you look at it, the relationship between Duan Xun and Japan is also ambiguous.

It's just that Duan Xun is in the southwest region after all.

The influence here cannot be compared with Beijing at all.Everyone's eyes are on Duan Qirui. Even if Duan Xun cooperates with Japan, in everyone's eyes, Duan Qirui cooperates with Japan, and it is impossible to criticize Duan Xun alone.Who made Duan Xun belong to Duan Qirui.

So it doesn't have much influence.

To what extent Duan Xun has cooperated with Japan, in fact, many people do not know.

However, as the senior general of Duan Xun's army, Xiong Kewu knew very well how far Duan Xun and Japan had cooperated.Duan Xun expanded the Sichuan Arsenal twice, which would have been impossible without the help of Japan.Duan Xun has expanded the Sichuan arsenal to the point where it can be compared to the Hanyang arsenal without making a sound.

Not only that, more than half of the technical staff at the Sichuan Arsenal are Japanese.Moreover, taking advantage of the opportunity of cooperation, a large number of military workers were sent to Japan for short-term study abroad.

This is just the cooperation of the military factory.

There are also large quantities of Japanese arms.

That's more.

At present, among the weapons of Duan Xun's troops, at least ten brigades or more are equipped with pure Japanese weapons.Duan Xun's cooperation with Japan is too deep. If it weren't for the fact that Sichuan is the territory of the British, Japan's influence would definitely be even more rampant.In Xiong Kewu's view, Japan's power in Sichuan has even surpassed that of Britain.

With such a relationship, Xiong Kewu really wanted to know how Duan Xun would get rid of Japan's control.If you keep saying that others are warlords and agents of great powers, what should you do?

This is Xiong Kewu's character.

If you don't ask clearly, he will not be reconciled.Duan Xun, you can't touch your upper lip and lower lip twice, so we all believe in you and follow you.

"Our country is a big country, but it is also a weak and poor country. Therefore, it is possible and necessary to introduce foreign funds appropriately. But the use of foreign funds is for use, and the right to control cannot be surrendered."

"If our People's Party wants to completely get rid of the control of the foreign powers, there are several points that must be in our own hands. First, our arsenal, which is our lifeblood, must be in our own hands. With the European War In the end, the major powers in the world will definitely disarm, because they simply cannot afford to support so many troops in peacetime. At that time, their investment in the military will inevitably decrease, and many military enterprises that expanded and developed in the war years will inevitably shrink accordingly. The production of weapons. So take advantage of this opportunity to buy some machines from European and American countries, introduce some technical personnel, and continue to expand our arsenal. In a short period of time, our arsenal’s annual output of rifles will exceed [-]. The first step to get rid of foreign powers The first step is that our weapons must be domestically produced and independent. Only when our military weapons are made locally, our military will not be subject to foreign powers. Only in this way can we have the confidence to challenge the big powers."