the world is at stake

Chapter 17 Step by step

When he was arrested, Lu Zhong hurriedly hid in the firewood room in the courtyard of the Fentan, hiding himself in the firewood pile.When the soldier kicked open the firewood shed with a bayonet-mounted rifle, he saw his sleeves sticking out.

The soldiers dragged him out of the firewood pile and asked for his name.In the middle of the road, Yimu was stunned, neither speaking nor resisting, unable to walk on two legs, completely dumbfounded.

Chu Jingfu came to the screening, and seeing his master in such a distressed state, he sighed in his heart—'Yiguandao' started from Shandong, and its disciples spread all over Zhili, and now it has been handed down for seventeen generations.

There are many such "huidao sects" in troubled times, and "yiguandao" is considered to be the most powerful among them, and the people at the bottom feel that they can cover the sky with one hand.Officials also believed in it, and even borrowed their influence.

Those who work in cults always think that they are "powerful and wealthy", and their leaders are also unscrupulous.I didn't expect that once the government was serious, it would be easy to catch him.

Not only Lu Zhongyi was arrested, but his close disciples, branch altar masters, and die-hard believers were all arrested one by one.Five or six hundred men, women and children in the whole village were driven to the open space at the entrance of the village, where they watched officers and soldiers arrest people in the cold wind.

People in the village don't have a deep feeling for the officers and soldiers catching Lu Zhongyi.After all, this Daoist is a foreigner. Although he has a 'noble status', he only temporarily settled down in the branch.

But the arrest of the altar owner in the village caused quite a commotion.

"Yiguandao" set up sub-altars to select local powerful people to be the altar masters.The one being arrested at this moment is the patriarch of the village, and the hardcore believers are also the patriarch's cronies.

On weekdays in the village, farming and building houses, weddings and funerals, and disputes between neighbors, grass-roots public services are provided by the patriarch, and the people can best appreciate his power.

Now this group of people were all bound with their hands behind their backs, and Zhou Qingfeng simply put them together.The authority of the government was immediately revealed, and it was beyond the reach of ordinary people.

The statues, tablets, spiritual flags, and scriptures in the sub-altar were all searched out and burned outside the village.During the search, it was also found that there was a cellar in the sub-altar of the village, which was filled with tributes dedicated to the 'Baiyang First Ancestor' by the surrounding believers.

Chickens and ducks have long been eaten, and most of what can be stored is white flour, which weighs tens of thousands of catties.There are also silver coins collected by the sub-altars, which are three to four thousand oceans-the silver coins minted by the Republic itself, not the kind of Yuan Datou.

Faced with these seizures, Zhou Qingfeng did not easily withdraw his troops and return to the city. Instead, he sent someone to ask the Ministry of Civil Affairs to send several low-level officials.

Before the officials came, he found the registry book for collecting money from the sub-altar, and returned the money and food collected by "Yiguandao" to the villagers one by one according to the names of the people recorded on it.

Some money and food were sent from neighboring villages, and people were also sent to notify them.But no one will come for a while, probably because of fear.

Zhou Qingfeng sat at the desk at the entrance of the village, spread out the gift book, called a person's name, and returned a share of money and food.The first person he called, "Zhao Lao Si."

A trembling old man came out of the crowd at the entrance of the village. After walking a few steps, he knelt down in front of the desk, knocked his head on the ground, and shouted, "Master, what are your orders?"

"Old man, get up." Zhou Qingfeng didn't move behind the desk.He saw many such things in the late Ming Dynasty, and he knew that persuasion could not be done, so he could only give orders.

The old man put his hands on the ground, but he didn't dare to raise his head when he got up, and he didn't dare to face the official master, so he had to stand sideways and stand aside a little, so as not to offend him.

Zhou Qingfeng glanced at the gift book and asked: "Old man, you gave 'Yiguandao' [-] catties of white flour, and you want to ask for safety. What are you asking for?"

The old man was stopped by the question. After a while, he sighed and shook his head, and said in a low voice: "Last year, my daughter-in-law had a difficult labor and didn't give birth to the child in three days. The same thing happened to Wen's wife, and the whole family was in a hurry.

I heard that the head of the "Yiguandao" has magical powers and the eight major disciples have great abilities, so I gave [-] catties of white flour to my daughter-in-law for the safety of mother and child. "

"Did you find peace?" Zhou Qingfeng asked again.

The old man was speechless for a long time, and shook his head again, "The altar owner said that he had prayed for me, and also gave me a talisman water. The daughter-in-law drank the talisman water, but it didn't work. She had a difficult labor for four days and died of pain.

The altar owner said that I was not sincere and could not save my daughter-in-law.I sold five acres of land to make enough dowry for my son to marry a wife, but unfortunately my unborn grandson was stillborn. "

The old man sighed, describing his sorrow.

Zhou Qingfeng remained expressionless, and continued: "Haven't you ever thought of being fooled?" He turned his head and pointed at Lu Zhongyi, who was tied up by Wuhua Da, "This 'Baiyang First Ancestor' is a liar."

In the middle of the road, his head drooped, and more than a dozen altar masters, passers-by, and die-hard believers were all bound firmly behind Zhou Qingfeng.

The old man begging for peace looked up, but burst into tears, "I know, I know. But who can we poor people turn to?

I also heard that there is a hospital run by foreigners in the city that can treat dystocia, but the cost of going there is more than [-] catties of white flour.My whole family didn't even have that money.

There is no other way for us poor people to live cheaply.I was also just in case.What if the Daxian of "Yiguandao" is useful?Other than that, I can't think of anything else. "

This is indeed the truth, and it is difficult for grassroots people to seek medical treatment.Zhou Qingfeng said na na, he couldn't say anything, he could only ask the soldiers to weigh twenty catties of flour, or convert it into silver and return it to the old man.

"Next, Mrs. Zhao Li. Don't kneel, stand up and talk. What do you want to be safe?"

After confirming that the government lord had indeed returned the money and food, the mood of the villagers became much more stable.

The second one to come out was a woman, dressed in tatters and with a dark face.She was accompanied by two children, one big and one small, with cold snot running down their noses, pulling on her mother's trouser legs and never leaving her.

Lishi Zhao lowered her head, and said in a voice like a mosquito: "I didn't ask for anything, I borrowed money. The man in the family died of illness, and he didn't have money to buy a coffin, and he didn't have an underground burial."

"It is written in the gift book that you pay tribute to 'Baiyang First Ancestor' for five silver dollars."

"That's the money I had to pay back at the end of last year. In fact, I only borrowed one dollar and fifty cents."

"Are you still on?"

"I paid back two yuan, but it wasn't enough. The owner of the altar took away the deed from my house. I'm a daughter-in-law from out of town, and now I live in the village as a renter."

With a big stroke of a stroke, Zhou Qingfeng erased Zhao and Li's column on the gift book, "Your account is settled."

He turned his head and ordered to the soldier in charge of the accounts: "Give this woman two yuan, and give her another twenty catties of white flour. Allow her to go to the patriarch's house to retrieve the deed, and pick out some cloth clothes."

Zhao Lishi froze in place until the soldiers stuffed two pieces of ocean and twenty catties of white flour into her hands.Only then did she suddenly realize that she pulled the two children to kneel on the ground and kowtowed.

She wanted to say something, but she only called out 'Master', and cried again, choked up so hard that she couldn't speak.

Zhou Qingfeng only waved his hand indifferently.He has seen too many of these things, firstly, he doesn't need cheap gratitude, and secondly, he doesn't think that returning some property can really change anything.

Busy until late at night, with the help of several company platoon leaders, Xiguan Shicun basically returned the property confiscated by "Yiguandao".More than half of the population in the village got back a small amount of money and food, and some of the people got back their own fields, real estate, furniture and the like.

Once the profit is made, the villagers' emotions can be mobilized, and they will no longer resist this action against the "Guidaomen", and they will become more courageous.

After all, the original vested interest groups have been arrested, and it seems impossible to come back.

Hit local tyrants, eat big families.Except for the crying family members of the local tyrants, the whole village is happy.

When Zhou Qingfeng asked about the affairs of the village, the villagers treated him as Lord Qingtian and were willing to say a few words.

It's just that the local tyrants in this village in Xiguan City are too thin, and they are not at all the big landlords who imagined deep houses and courtyards connected by rice paddies.The patriarch himself controls only a few hundred acres of land.

The next day, the truck sent away the first-class suspects on the road, and brought over a dozen officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, including local officials from Changping County. Hulala, dozens of officials showed up.

The 'Sacred Light' team probably knew that Zhou Qingfeng was going to make trouble, so they allowed it to be a pilot project.He gathered officials at all levels together, and first walked around Xiguan City and Village.

"'Yiguandao' has harmed the village. Now the leader of the Taoism has been arrested by me, and the minions of the sub-altar have also been dealt with. But the neighbors have suffered a lot and cannot be ignored.

I want to carry out land reform in several nearby villages, check all the population, redistribute the land, and establish rural cooperatives to change the labor of single households into teamwork. "

Zhou Qingfeng's idea baffled the officials who came here, wondering why this special envoy of the president went crazy?But no one dared to speak out against it, and no one knew how to implement it.

After all, it only involves a few villages, so it's not a big deal.

Thorough 'land reform' is to liberate the masses themselves, and requires the government to send land reform teams to the countryside to mobilize farmers to eliminate feudal land ownership, rather than simply giving land to farmers under orders from the government.

First of all, mobilize the poor peasants and hired peasants who suffer the most, organize the poor peasant regiment, and make them the leading backbone of the rural struggle—stop... Zhou Qingfeng can't even take this first step.

'Holy Light' did not have many party members with advanced ideas, and could not organize a strong land reform task force.Cai Xuebin, who is in charge of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, did not send any team members to Zhou Qingfeng, but sent all the old officials with heavy feudal and bureaucratic ideas.

Most of these old officials themselves were the landlord class or the spokespersons of its interests, and it was impossible to mobilize the masses to revolutionize by relying on them.If you really want to do this, the central government has to collapse first.

Now that the party organization has just been established, don't expect to train enough qualified political cadres within five years.But sharp social conflicts will not stagnate for five years.

If the 'land reform' cannot be launched from the perspective of class struggle, what about the 'land reform' of the redemption style?

Don't even think about it, the taxes of the provinces can't be collected, the customs are still controlled by the British, and the central government is so poor that the librarian's salary can hardly be paid.

Xiao Jinlang and Qin Qing were worrying about integrating domestic industries and had no money to redeem the land.In this regard, the old master came up with an idea to ask Zhou Qingfeng to come forward and carry out a fault-finding 'land reform'.

Don't talk about any class revolution, and don't mention the topic of overthrowing landlords and equalizing the rich and the poor.

On the pretext of the flood of "Yiguandao" in Xiguanshi Village, the bandit leaders amassed money to fight against the central government, clean up the original grassroots managers, and redistribute the land.

Anyway, there are so many feudal "huidaomen" in the local area, rogue bullies can be seen everywhere, and there are countless people's grievances.Zhou Qingfeng simply finished the job of 'moving the imperial envoy', and first cleaned up the surrounding area of ​​the imperial capital.

This kind of makeshift approach can slightly alleviate land conflicts, and in the process can also train cadres and carry out gradual changes, instead of turning the entire society upside down.

After all, 'Holy Light' is now the ruling party, not the opposition party.The Republic is currently terminally ill, and it is easy to die suddenly if you take strong medicine.

Chapter 18

The village is bleak and gloomy at night.

The cold wind blew past, and the broken doors and windows shook wildly, making strange movements.The animals in the pen were huddled together in the cold and huddled in firewood to keep warm.

The farmers are poor, and they are reluctant to light a vegetable oil lamp.The villagers are used to going to bed early, and they are even more reluctant to move in winter.Unless there is a thief in the house, even the dog is unwilling to bark.

Zhou Qingfeng led a team stationed in Xiguanshi Village, wanting to seriously carry out the pilot project.But the village is so short of fuel that it can't even light a few torches after nightfall.

The old officials from the city made various excuses to leave.Officials in Changping County complained face to face, complaining about the poverty of the place, the cunning of the villagers, and their helplessness.

These guys just don't want to take care of things, they just want to make money.

Zhou Qingfeng stood in front of a low, dilapidated house, where Mrs. Zhao and Li lived with their two children.The room was so small that he had to bend over to get in, and it was difficult to turn around.

The adobe walls are full of holes, and there is no shelter from wind and rain.The kang was connected to the stove, and the bedding was covered with dust, as dirty as rubbish.The kennels of wealthy people are better than this house.

Zhao Li's family has nothing, no rice in the rice jar, no rice in the pot, no firewood under the stove, only a pile of sweet potatoes in the corner is the only ration for the whole family.

But the pile of sweet potatoes couldn't resist eating for a few days. The mother and son were about to run out of food, and they would die.The two silver dollars and twenty catties of flour that Zhou Qingfeng gave saved their lives.

Mrs. Zhao Li stood in the house with her children, feeling very uneasy about showing her family's poverty, as if it stained the master's eyes.She hugged the two children and kept pinching the corners of her clothes.In order to get a thin coffin for the dead man, she has exhausted all her strength.

Zhou Qingfeng inspected the whole village, and seeing the situation of this family, his heart ached.The clerk from the city was muttering about how cold the wind was and how hungry he was. It was boring to come to this poor village, and asked repeatedly when he could leave?

"Let's go?" Zhou Qingfeng turned his head viciously, "You are receiving official salaries and eating imperial rations, you keep saying you want to serve the country, and when you encounter troubles, you put on airs and look down on the common people.

Not only do you not feel sorry for the people who are living so hard, but you also want to leave?Get out if you don't want to be an official.Otherwise, if the affairs of this village are not handled well, no one will leave. "

With the night wind, the menacing voice spread far away, and a large number of officials felt their scalps go numb.Many people were a little scared when they thought of the dozen or twenty tattered corpses at the entrance of the village that had been shot by machine guns.

The county magistrate of Changping came out to smooth things over, "Special Envoy Zhou, it's cold in winter and there is no place to rest in the village. Why don't I wait until tomorrow to transfer some money and food from the county to help the village. It won't be of much benefit to my colleagues here. Why don't you go back first."

This statement won everyone's approval.

"Do you think I'm joking with you?" Zhou Qingfeng poked the county magistrate's chest and shouted viciously: "You bastards will run away as soon as you turn your head. Want to leave? Yes. Fire on the spot and never use .”

The county magistrate seemed to be stabbed in the chest by a steel bar, and the thick cotton coat couldn't stop the force.He took two steps back in a daze, and suddenly cursed angrily: "Zhou, what do you mean by making things difficult for others? Don't be too arrogant.

Offending so many colleagues in the winter, there is no official like you.I will give you steps, if you don't come down, you will be embarrassed.Don't scare me with official positions, I'm really not afraid of you. "

The scolding sound scared everyone present enough, their eyes rolled back and forth, and they were speechless.There are also people who deliberately watch the excitement, hoping to make it bigger.Some even wanted to see if the President's special envoy could suppress the county magistrate of the imperial capital.

"Others like to kill chickens and scare monkeys, but I like to kill monkeys and scare chickens." Zhou Qingfeng snorted coldly, and only shouted to the soldiers who followed him: "Arrest this county magistrate and send him to the Political Security Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs tomorrow to ' The current counter-revolutionary' is being investigated for charges."

"Yes!" Two soldiers with guns on their backs rushed out immediately, knocked down the yelling county magistrate on the spot, twisted his arms, held him up and left.

The county magistrate who was arrested was stunned for a while, and then he was furious and struggled and cursed.

"You surnamed Zhou, are you playing this trick with me? I also have someone behind me, and I have to fight you to the death."

"When I was fighting with Marshal Yuan, you didn't know where to feed yourself. If you dare to fight against Marshal today, you will have nothing to eat tomorrow."

"Duan Zhiquan and Feng Huafu, these two idiots, didn't think of the kindness of the general's promotion, and were coaxed by a young boy. Sooner or later, they will regret it."

No matter how much the county magistrate yelled and struggled, he was dragged away by two soldiers.The other officials sat on the wax immediately, not knowing what to do.

How indecent!

In the officialdom, peace and harmony are emphasized, and there are plots behind the scenes when there is a grudge. How could he drag his colleagues away in person?When things spread, what dignity does an official have?

But to Zhou Qingfeng, what the hell is decent?He glared fiercely at the officials who were still there, "Who else wants to go to the Political Security Bureau?"

Political Security Bureau?

Everyone was shaking their heads, and no one dared to complain anymore—if they became enemies with other officials, at most they would lose their posts.But this one in front of me is killing people!

"Then don't be in a daze. Don't sleep tonight. Light up a torch and go door to door to count household registration, houses, property, and fields. Discuss a way to relieve the poor. Otherwise, you don't even want to go there."

With the county magistrate as a 'model', dozens of bureaucrats complained in their hearts, but they didn't dare to say anything, they could only admit that they were unlucky.Zhou Qingfeng took over the village patriarch's house as an office, and organized logistical work such as cooking, heating hot water, and arranging accommodation.

Zhou Qingfeng has no idea how to carry out an improved 'land reform' without the conditions for a class revolution.He can only test it in practice and find a feasible solution.

The initial idea is to limit the upper limit of land ownership by families and force big families to separate; to crack down on usury and establish rural credit cooperatives; to attract rural people to factory sites by hiring labor to ease land conflicts.

Finally, let's see if we can establish basic medical care and living security to support the poor.But in fact, the vast majority of China's population is extremely poor, and the government does not have enough money and food to support them.

Productivity is not enough, all good wishes are illusory.

A hundred years later, people will resist the anti-intellectual resistance to chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other industrial products, but now Zhou Qingfeng wishes he could immediately have the production capacity of an industrial country, with billions of steel, cement, fertilizers, and pesticides.

The agricultural country is really too bitter!

Without enough industrial products, not much food can be grown in the land.

Dozens of officials make inventory of hundreds of farmers, and they don't rest until late at night.The next day, the unlucky county magistrate was sent to the city, and another truck brought some necessary equipment to Zhou Qingfeng.

Such as lighting fixtures, two-watt electronic tube radios, lead-acid batteries, carbon battery flashlights, and hand generators.

Like X-ray machines, electron tubes have been around since 1904.

The 'Holy Light' team brought a small number of electronic diodes and triodes and quickly assembled them into radio stations of different powers, but the number was less than fifty.

With Duan Qirui and other warlords leaving Beijing, the authority and security of the central government have been greatly enhanced. The 'Holy Light' team began to arrange more than half of its staff to spread across the country, firstly to take over the governments of various regions, and secondly to integrate factories scattered across the country.