Chapter 272 Leave office

The Far East War has had a huge impact on China's economy, especially the redrawing of Sino-French and Sino-Russian trade treaties, as well as the determination of China's rights and interests in Asia, especially in Central Asia.

Under the circumstances that international trade as a whole tends to be conservative, and all countries are constantly relying on high tariffs to protect domestic industries. Especially through the Far East War, China has well protected the stability of the foreign export market of the traditional textile industry. At the same time, it has reliably protected the domestic emerging electrical, chemical and machinery industries.

Since July 1903, China's international trade has begun to grow significantly. On the basis of steadily occupying the largest export of raw materials and textile industries, it has also expanded in shipbuilding, steel, machinery, electrical appliances, chemical industry and other aspects.

In China's domestic market, internal demand is also gradually expanding and gradually developing towards the world's largest market.

While the economy is developing strongly, the domestic education, political system, administrative institutions and military are gradually developing and changing. Especially in terms of politics, national politics has begun to become a political party. Hu Chuyuan's Grand Party is naturally the most important political party.

No other political party in domestic politics can compete with the Dagong Party, but there are four different political propositions and differences within the Dagong Party, namely the royalists, the constitutionalists, the republicanists and the Han imperialists.

The royalists demanded the restoration of Guangxu's pro-government, and the Han imperialists demanded the replacement of a Han emperor. These are all small factions, and the number of people and power are not large.

The key struggle is the constitutional faction and the republican faction. The constitutional faction is basically an administrative official, the republican faction is mainly a military system, and there are also different opinions within the republican faction.

Hu Chuyuan is actually a middle republican. His basic strategy is to maintain the status quo. Emperor Guangxu did not set up a prince when he was there. After his death, he naturally entered the republic.

If there are still people who want to restore at that time, they will use the power of the army to forcibly maintain stability.

Therefore, the key is to stabilize the idea of the army.

Lu Guangquan, Zhang Shiying, Yang Zongli and other Guangdong generals in Guangdong all belong to the Republic, while Duan Qirui, Li Kaiye and Feng Guozhang belong to the middle republican faction that followed Hu Chuyuan.

There are many constitutionalists among the administrative officials, which is where Hu Chuyuan is most concerned. However, he and Qu Hongji can still talk clearly... The republican system is the general trend, and the key is when the transition is the most stable.

There is no doubt that if 50% of the main administrative officials are pro-reconform, it can definitely be changed.

Interests are always the most important thing. Reusing republican officials can change this proportion, so that those who are good at watching the wind can immediately adjust their thoughts. Even if they don't agree in their hearts, it is also important to agree on the surface.

From October 1903, with the help of the adjustment of domestic officials, Hu Chuyuan and Qu Hongji began to promote those republican officials one after another, developing in the direction of monopolizing the governors of the provinces, and at the same time crowding out some powerful figures of the constitutionalists.

People, even those who are good at making wall grass will have a bottom line.

Aware of this change, Zhang Zhidong, who had an extremely keen political sense, made a shrewd choice to be an official. He could not fight with Hu Chuyuan. All military power was controlled in Hu Chuyuan's hands. He took advantage of himself to fight a great victory on the throne of the governor of Northeast China. It was not impossible to accept it when he saw it was good.

As soon as Zhang Zhidong withdrew, Hu Chuyuan erased the setting of the governor of Northeast China, set up only the governors of four provinces, abolished the title of governor throughout the country, changed to the governor system, and intensified efforts to implement the modern political axe system.

In addition to Yungui and Shaanxi Ganning, which still retain the governorship system, Liangjiang, Liangguang, Huguang and Sichuan have not had governors for a long time.

Taking advantage of this adjustment, Hu Chuyuan concentrated the power of the whole country on the central government.

The domestic army began to adjust, retaining 74 divisions, 33 integrated divisions with a regular number of 17,000, and 41 conventional divisions with a regular number of 11,000. Each division has another 3,000 reserve troops in the source of troops, a total of 1.25 million regular soldiers. The provinces have reserved armed guards of no more than 20,000, and the navy has increased. The Coast Guard was set up, the original Yangtze River Fleet was cancelled, and the coastal and river patrol tasks were transferred to the local coast guard.

On the basis of the three major fleets of Beiyang, Nanyang and Pacific, the domestic navy has added a new joint fleet, with four squadrons under which the main force is stationed in the Bohai Bay, and the rest are scattered in the Indian Ocean and Africa.

Navy commander, the total displacement of ships has been reduced to 750,000 tons, 22 10,000-ton battleships have been retained, and the remaining warships have been transferred.

Because the navy retains five marine divisions, the total strength of China's navy and army is maintained at about 1.54 million people, and there are about 550,000 armed police units at the same time.

The total number of personnel is indeed a little large, but under the policy of military service and war subsidies, as long as there is no war, domestic military spending can be fully supported.

After robbing so much land by the Russians, the Russians will retaliate sooner or later. On the one hand, China should actively digest these lands and strive for comprehensive Chineseization. At the same time, they should actively prepare for war and start another war with the Russians at any time.

If you have the guts, just fight again. Anyway, Hu Chuyuan is not afraid, and the Chinese are not afraid.

It's even more not afraid now.

Hu Chuyuan is indeed disarmed, but his army mechanization ratio is also higher. There are 14 mechanized divisions among the 33 integrated divisions, and 10 of them are fully mechanized main divisions.

British, Germans, French, Americans, Russians, including myself, are taking the time to study the armored vehicle system, all plagiarizing China, but China has considered installing the second batch of new armored vehicles, especially the TZA-5 with 230 horsepower and 75mm smoothbore guns, and the T with the same horsepower. ZB-6.

Others plagiarized China, but China secretly developed the air force.

Hu Chuyuan's steps are particularly big. He does have the confidence and capital now. He directly develops the air force as a separate system, mainly helium airships, and secretly makes every effort to develop aircraft.

Hu Chuyuan is convinced that there will still be a larger-scale world war around the world.

The international situation is changing rapidly. Russia has been hit hard, and China has lost its ability to contain Germany. France has been hit hard. At this time, Germany is also brewing a new plan to attack France and seize French forces overseas.

After the End of the Far East War, Germany actively negotiated with China, trying to reach a new naval joint development plan and seeking further joint development of the army.

This makes Hu Chuyuan very difficult. Don't agree. When you fought in the Far East War, Germany made a lot of strength. The military factory fully supplied you, and the Weiyuan class alone sold 8 ships.

Agree... It's not good!

Sino-British cooperation has been very in-depth. At present, the naval departments of China and the United Kingdom have reached a plan to jointly develop the fearless level, including 10 305mm main guns. The maximum speed index is 22 knots, and the defensive armor in key areas is 280mm thick. It uses heavy oil combustion power boilers and radio communication. The heart station system is equipped with a sonar system. The preliminary quotation of the current statistics in China is about 74 million cents, and it is expected to install four ships as the main battleships in the next decade.

After weighing for a long time, Hu Chuyuan finally did not agree to the new plan proposed by Germany. However, for the army's new self-propelled artillery system, he was willing to jointly develop and produce with Germany and sell 750 TZB-2 armored vehicles to Germany.

His decision can basically be agreed by Germany, because Germany is eager to fight France and take the opportunity to rob it once. Now it is too late to study, although Germany absolutely has this strength.

Buy is the fastest.

As long as you pay, Fuguo Mechanical Vehicle Factory and Jiangnan Automobile Factory can produce 750 TZB-2 armored vehicles for you within a month.

Once upon a time, Hu Chuyuan really didn't expect that China would become the world's arms power or sell weapons to Germany... In fact, he didn't want to sell them.

TZB-2 is indeed a very good weapon system with a strong ability to cross mountains. Germany knows that it is a good thing, although its engine uses a poor civilian gasoline engine.

France was very afraid because it could not hold on at all. In March 1904, under pressure from Germany, France signed a new agreement, ceding part of its interests in Africa to Germany.

The actual effort of the Germans was a big contract, giving the Chinese 13 million pounds to buy 750 armored vehicles, but in fact, they bought a Mauritania for 13 million pounds.

Hu Chuyuan was not idle. He did a more immoral thing... He helped Germany and France reconcile, and at the same time bought Gabon from France to offset the debt of 20 million pounds.

The debt of 20 million pounds is not idle. By the way, it has been converted into arms in China, which is basically equivalent to Germany's arms purchase contract, but the price has increased by 7 million pounds for no reason.

People's hearts are not ancient. Once upon a time, Hu Chuyuan also began to be unkind.

He used to be a very kind man in the world, and there was nothing he could do... At that time, China was poor and backward.

Now that he is rich and strong, he doesn't have to be kind anymore.

In mid-April 1904, Hu Chuyuan completed mediation and returned from Paris and began to implement a larger-scale national education reform in China. In July, he finally introduced the new National Education Law.

Unlike countries in Europe and the United States, China's National Education Law places special emphasis on on-the-job education. According to the new regulations, all factories and enterprises with more than 50 people must employ teachers to provide employees with free education for at least one class hour per day, especially to help workers complete the transformation to skilled workers.

Correspondingly, all expenses of enterprises on internal education are tax deductible.

The army still implements the principle that the army is a military school. After three years of service, after passing the internal assessment of the army, primary and junior high school graduates can get the national education certificate of junior high school and senior high school graduation.

The army should provide soldiers with at least three hours of national education every day.

According to the National Education Law, the nine-year compulsory national education has been implemented in China. From primary school to junior high school, secondary vocational education continues to be free. Higher vocational education and university education depends on the situation. The fees of national schools are very low. Of course, they are all large class systems, with a class of 40 to 50 people.

Private schools and colleges are different. It is not allowed to implement the large class system, with a maximum of 20 people in a class.

With the promulgation of the National Education Law, the Hu family mainly turned to university education in education donations.

Among the four major universities in Yanjing, Yanjing and Furen are funded by the Hu family. Zhendan University, Soochow University, Nanyang University (this campus is in Singapore, Fuzhou, Hong Kong, Manila and Kuching each has a branch campus), Southeast University (Fuzhou) is also funded by the Hu family.

These six private universities, together with Tianjin University and Nankai University, which are supported by the aid funds of the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany to China, as well as Sun Yat-sen University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Guangdong, can be regarded as the top ten private universities in China at present, especially the largest scale of Furen and Zhendan, with the strongest faculty. It is known as Beiyou Furen. There is an earthquake in the south.

Among public universities, Yanjing University, Tsinghua University, China Naval University (Fuzhou, former Fuzhou Ship Administration School), Central National University, Capital National University, Shanghai National University, Jiangnan University, Changjiang University, Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Beiyang University (Tianjin), Central University of Political Science and Law, National Defense and Military University Xue, University of Science and Technology of China, Central Normal University, East China Normal University... The Hu family also has a certain scale of donations.

Now, the Hu family basically no longer donates to other parties, concentrating on financial resources to contribute to education. In 1903 alone, the donation reached 173 million yuan.

With the improvement of the domestic higher education system, the National Education Law was promulgated. In 1904, the imperial examination was officially stopped. With the adoption of a new administrative clerk examination system, the middle vocational education or above can apply for the examination.

All the members in the formal examination belong to state officials, and the part controlled by political parties belongs to appointed officials. If the general election system is implemented in the future, the political parties will be rotated, and the appointed officials will be replaced again. State officials are iron rice bowls and should be done.

By the end of 1904, Hu Chuyuan had basically completed the four major institutional reforms of politics, education, military and taxation in China. If he wanted to finish all the things he had planned, it might take ten, twenty years, or even thirty years.

It is just the reform of the civil service system and education reform, which requires the process to be deepened through more than ten years of efforts in the governance process.

By the beginning of 1905, Hu Chuyuan was ready to withdraw from the new political axe. After discussing with Qu Hongji, Lu Guangzheng and others, he basically retained the two positions of chairman of the Dagong Party and the chairman of the State Military Commission, and no longer participated in administrative management.

In peacetime, the position of chairman of the National Military Commission actually has no power, because the right to transfer troops is in the hands of the Prime Minister, and the key is that one right is in the hands of the Chairman, that is, the appointment of generals.

As the chairman of the Grand Duke Party, Hu Chuyuan actually retains another power - he can change the prime minister of the country at any time, because the Grand Duke Party is the absolute majority party in the parliament, and the replacement of the national prime minister is entirely a matter of the party.

The ruling party is the Taiko Party, and it doesn't matter who the prime minister is.

On March 7, 1905, Hu Chuyuan officially stepped down and no longer served as the next prime minister.

This is really a big bomb, and the whole country is shocked.

Chinese people can't imagine a China without Hu Chuyuan now. Fortunately, Hu Chuyuan still retains two positions, the chairman of the Grand Duke Party and the chairman of the State Military Commission. Those who worship him can barely accept it, and those who hate him know that he has not left at all.

In mid-March, Hu Chuyuan's family moved out of Zizhengyuan and Yingtai without any memory and returned to Shanghai by boat.

In Shanghai, China's most luxurious private manor is opening the door to them for a long time.

That... Hu Hansan and so on are back again.

Hu Chuyuan returned to his Shanghai Garden.

(to be continued)