Chapter 16 15. Song Jiaoren's ideal: peaceful campaign!

In October 1912, Huang Xing returned to his hometown of Hunan, where he had been away for many years, and it was his 39th birthday on the way.After seeing the great rivers and mountains of the motherland, Huang Xing recalled the revolutionary career of the past ten years. He couldn't help feeling a lot, and wrote a poem: At this time, Huang Xing was about to reach his forty years. For him, the revolution was a thing of the past.After many years of living in no fixed place and drifting overseas, now that the revolution has succeeded and the Republic of China was established at the beginning of the Republic of China, it is normal for Huang Xing to feel the desire to retire after success and fame.After a long period of movement, it is true that the revolutionaries voluntarily gave up their military power. It is a last resort, but the revolutionaries finally chose a path of peaceful competition. Isn't it the luck of the country and the blessing of the people? !

However, the fierce faction in the Tongmenghui was baffled by the idea of ​​Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others retiring. After Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing went north to talk with Yuan Shikai, the veteran Tan Renfeng expressed emotion, saying: "In the past Someone wrote a poem saying, "When the Duke of Zhou was afraid of rumors, and Wang Mang was courteous to the corporal." These two sentences should be given to Sun and Huang, but after a good deal of money, they fell into Yuan Shikai's trap. Sun Yat-sen also said that he wished Yuan Shikai Even Huang Xing immediately changed his tune because of the nonsense of the ten-year president. Could it be that Yuan Shikai really has magical powers? How could these people be manipulated by him and not realize it? It’s really strange!"

After the abdication of the Qing emperor, there were not a few people like Huang Xing who looked down on the revolution and turned to peaceful and graceful political competition. For example, Zhang Taiyan, a former member of the League and chairman of the Restoration Association, publicly stated that "the revolutionary army rises, and the revolutionary party disappears." It is required to change the original secret revolutionary party organization into a legal organization and carry out open political activities. In fact, Zhang Taiyan's proposal was quite representative in the ideological trend at that time.In the eyes of many people, the Qing emperor has abdicated and the rule of the "foreign race" has ended. From now on, it will be a matter for the Han people. Whether it is Yuan Shikai or Sun Yat-sen, as long as the world is peaceful and there is no war, and development is for the country and the people, Everything is negotiable.

After 1912, amidst the call for "revolutionary parties to disappear," a fervent movement to open up revolutionary organizations and form parties also began to be staged in major cities across the country, reaching a climax before the 1913 congressional elections.Political parties are originally imported from Western countries. In Chinese history, I have only heard of crony parties. What are bullish parties, Li parties, and Qingliu parties have never been good terms. synonymous with. The revolutionaries have always been enamored of Western political civilization and even worship foreign countries so much. They have always abandoned Chinese traditions like shoes, and naturally they will not have the chronic problem of crony rivalry. Therefore, the introduction of Western political party systems is of course a top priority after the success of the revolution.Unsurprisingly, Mr. Zhang who proposed that "the revolutionary army rises and the revolutionary party disappears" became the vanguard of the party formation movement.

On January 3, 1912, Zhang Taiyan and Cheng Dequan, the former governor of Jiangsu and the current governor of Jiangsu, established the Federation of the Republic of China. Zhang Taiyan served as the president and Cheng Dequan was the vice president.Jiangsu was enlightened earlier in the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty, especially in the congressional petition movement and the construction of a constitutional system. The constitutionalists in Jiangsu have formed groups, among which are the "industry champion" Zhang Jian and others.After the establishment of the Federation of the Republic of China, Zhang Jian, Xiong Xiling, Cheng Dequan, Tang Wenzhi and others also became the backbone of the association.

Sadly, just ten days after Zhang Taiyan founded the ROC Federation, Tao Chengzhang, the vice president of the Restoration Association, was assassinated in Shanghai Guangci Hospital.Although assassinations in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China emerged endlessly and were regarded as a means of revolution, it was extremely rare for revolutionaries to kill each other at that time.What makes people sad is that the person who presided over the assassination turned out to be Shanghai Governor Chen Qimei, and the executor was the later famous Chiang Kai-shek. The Restoration Society was originally composed of revolutionaries in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and was merged into the newly established Tongmenghui in 1905. However, due to repeated conflicts between members of the original Restoration Society and Sun Yat-sen and others, they later became independent from the Tongmenghui. faction, but there is a lot of suspicion.As for the assassination tragedy this time, most historians speculate that it was caused by Chen Qimei and Tao Chengzhang's competition for the governor of Zhejiang Province.What's even more deplorable is that after Tao Chengzhang was assassinated, the Restoration Society also disintegrated virtually, and since then it has been in a slump and almost disappeared.

After Tao Chengzhang was stabbed to death, Zhang Taiyan reorganized the Federation of the Republic of China into the United Party on March 2, and even more fiercely accused and reprimanded the Tongmenghui.In his view, the Tongmenghui is an organization with serious violent tendencies. These people disregard the interests of the country and the interests of the nation, and want to continue to make trouble (revolution) after the peace agreement has been reached. If these people are lucky enough to obtain state power, Dissidents must be excluded, and autocracy will undoubtedly be restored.Zhang Taiyan even pointed out bluntly in his conversations and correspondence that he set up other political parties to target the Tongmenghui.For the old comrade Zhang Taiyan's defection, the members of the Tongmenghui also fought back in anger. They scolded Zhang Taiyan in the newspaper as a lunatic, and released rumors that Zhang Taiyan wanted to shoot the Prime Minister Tang Shaoyi with a gun, because he had serious violent tendencies.

Those who were in conflict with the Tongmenghui were also those revolutionaries who led the Wuhan uprising.After the establishment of the Nanjing Provisional Government, several leaders of the Wuchang Uprising who were active in Shanghai at that time, such as Sun Wu and Zhang Zhenwu, did not find positions in the Provisional Government, so they were extremely dissatisfied with the Tongmenghui, especially Huang Xing and others.In the eyes of Sun Wu and others, they are the real heroes of the revolution, and the members of the Tongmenghui are just foreign monks who have taken credit for themselves, but these people did not even reserve the position of deputy army chief for Sun Wu, which made Sun Wu lose face Very difficult.At that time, Zhu Rui, the commander of the Zhejiang Army who led the army to conquer Nanjing, was a member of Guangfu, and he had conflicts with the alliance. Hanyang is defeated."Later, this group of people organized a group in Shanghai called Minshe, and publicly elected Li Yuanhong as its leader. Its members also included Liu Chengyu, a senator from Hubei, and others.After Zhu Rui returned to Zhejiang with his army, the forces of the civil society also took control of the military and political power in Hubei and Zhejiang.

In addition, political parties that were active in the early years of the Republic of China also included the "Republic Construction Discussion Conference" initiated by Sun Hongyi and Tang Hualong (former members of the constitutional group "Xianyouhui" in the late Qing Dynasty), the "Republic of China Gongdang" organized by the former bureaucrat Cen Chunxuan in the late Qing Dynasty, The "United Republican Party" organized by Senators Gu Zhongxiu, Wu Jinglian and others; The "National Convention", the "Kuomintang" organized by Wen Zongyao and others (this KMT was not the Kuomintang reorganized by the later Tongmenghui), etc., there are all kinds of things, and there are dozens of them.

These newly established political parties or semi-party organizations split and combine with each other, one ebbs and another grows, and changes every few months or every few months. The members and even the leaders are not fixed. Today is this party, tomorrow it will be another party, It dazzled the people at that time, and also caused headaches for later researchers. For example, the Republican Party, which later flourished in the Provisional Senate, was formed from the merger of the United Party, the Civil Society, the National Association, the National Convention, and the Kuomintang mentioned above.Speaking of the United Party, it was originally initiated by Zhang Taiyan, but because of his extreme temper, he has always been lonely and difficult to get along with others. In the end, many people in the party could not tolerate him. In the end, Yuan Shikai's confidant Wang Geng (later the traitor Wang Yitang) took control of the United Party, and Zhang Taiyan turned from a vanguard in forming a party to a non-party member. The trouble was just to make wedding clothes for others.

The Republican Party was officially established in Zhangyuan, Shanghai on May 9, 1912. Vice President Li Yuanhong was elected as the chairman, Zhang Jian, Zhang Taiyan, Wu Tingfang, and Na Yantu were the directors, and 54 officers were elected, including well-known figures at the time Xiong Xiling, Fan Yuanlian, Zhang Zongyuan, Jiang Zungui, Zhu Rui, Zhuang Yunkuan, Lu Gongwang, Zhao Weixi, Yang Zengxin, Hu Jingyi, Cheng Dequan and others all joined the circle of the Republican Party.The Republican Party was mostly composed of constitutionalists and old bureaucrats in the late Qing Dynasty. Their political orientation was to maintain a unified republic and support centralism, which happened to coincide with Yuan Shikai's ideas, so he was used by Yuan Shikai to fight against the Tongmenghui. Of course, the Republican Party also has its own ideas. Although they use nationalism to resist the civil rights of the Tongmenghui and oppose the revolutionaries of the Tongmenghui in the Senate, they actually want to use Yuan Shikai's support to develop their own power. Govern independently or share power with Yuan Shikai.After the establishment of the Republican Party, it actively set up branches all over the country, and the number of its party members exceeded 100,000 at one time. Under the situation that the party formation movement is in full swing across the country, the Tongmenghui also feels great pressure.At the beginning, the Tongmenghui held a plenary meeting of its headquarters in Sanpailou, Nanjing on March 3, announcing that the Tongmenghui was officially reorganized into an open political party.After the organization was disclosed to the public, the League took advantage of its revolutionary reputation and developed rapidly in various places. Within a few months, its membership increased to tens of thousands, and its branches spread across 18 provinces, becoming the most powerful in the early years of the Republic of China. political party. After the reelection of the Provisional Senate, which was moved to Beijing, the power of the Republican Party increased greatly due to the merging of parties.Under such circumstances, Song Jiaoren proposed to Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing to reorganize the Tongmenghui, and planned to merge other parties with similar political views into it like the Republican Party.After Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing resigned from public office, they were negative in politics for a time. They neither objected to Song Jiaoren's proposition, but they were not very enthusiastic. This allowed Song Jiaoren to use his hands and feet to carry out a large-scale organizational renewal of the Tongmenghui. In addition to the League and the Republican Party, the United Republican Party, known as the "third party," occupied a certain number of seats in the Senate at that time.This party was also formed by the merger of three political groups, and its main figures include Cai E, Jing Yaoyue, Peng Yunyi, Gu Zhongxiu, Wu Jinglian and others.The United Republican Party was also squeezed out by the Republican Party and Yuan Shikai's forces in the cabinet movement, so it got closer to the League. In the end, both parties came up with the idea of ​​merging to enhance their competitiveness so as to gain an advantage in the upcoming formal congressional elections. But on the issue of reorganization and merger, the United Republicans do not want to directly merge into the Tongmenghui, but put forward three requirements: first, change the name of the Tongmenghui, second, abolish the principle of people's livelihood, and third, improve the internal organization.In fact, the United Republicans did not want to be annexed, so they advocated not using the original name of the League; moreover, they did not agree with the League's overly drastic propositions, such as the equalization of land rights in the principle of people's livelihood. On the side of the League, Song Jiaoren, Hu Ying, Wei Chenzu, Tan Renfeng, Liu Kuiyi and others were the most active at the time, but they were also resisted by many members of the League because they believed that the current situation was unstable and could easily be People took advantage of the situation and disintegrated it, and some members of the League also expressed firm opposition to the change of the name of the League that had been in use for many years. At this time, the Shanghai Kuomintang, headed by Cen Chunxuan, a famous minister in the late Qing Dynasty, also sent representatives to Beijing to participate in the merger negotiations after learning the news that the United Republican Party and the Tongmenghui were to be merged.After deliberation, the Tongmenghui accepted the conditions put forward by the United Republican Party and the KMT. On August 7, the Republican Progressive Association and the National Communist Progressive Association in Beijing also sent representatives to participate in the merger negotiations. On August 13, the five parties issued a joint declaration announcing the establishment of the new Kuomintang.As a result, the name of the Tongmenghui withdrew from the stage of history, and was formally reorganized and renamed the Kuomintang. On August 25, the Kuomintang held its inaugural meeting in the Huguang Guild Hall in Beijing. The scene was unprecedentedly spectacular, with as many as 2,000 people present.When the interim chairman Zhang Ji was reading the report on the drafting of the merger of the five parties and the political platform, a small episode happened suddenly.It turned out that at the request of the Kuomintang, the newly established Kuomintang abolished the provision of equal rights for men and women. Tang Qunying, Shen Peizhen and other well-known female members of the League who participated in the meeting were very angry after hearing this. Song Jiaoren, who happened to be in charge of the merger work, was among these women Next to the hero, without any speculation, a certain strong female member grabbed Song Jiaoren's hair and gave him a few big ear scrapers right and left on the spot, which greatly shocked the male members in the venue. Fortunately, however, feminism was not well developed at that time. During the subsequent discussion on whether to add "equal rights for men and women" to the KMT's platform, Chairman Zhang suggested to vote by show of hands. However, far less than half of the male members raised their hands, so "equality between men and women" has been postponed for the time being. The merged Kuomintang cadre team was unprecedentedly strong. Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren, Wang Chonghui, Wang Renwen, Wang Zhixiang, Wu Jinglian, Zhang Fenghui, and Sanggon Narbu were elected as directors, and Sun Yat-sen was promoted as the chairman.The Kuomintang is divided into five departments: General Affairs, Political Affairs, Communication, Documentary Affairs, and Accounting, and the Political Affairs Research Committee. The General Affairs Department includes Wei Chenzui, Yin Ruli, Ren Hongjun, etc.; the Political Affairs Department includes Gu Zhongxiu, Tang Yi, Zhang Dongsun, Shen Junru, Zhang Yaozeng, etc. Li Zhaofu, Qin Zhen, Gu Weijun in the Ministry of Communication; Yang Guangzhan and others in the Department of Cultural Affairs;In addition, the conference also elected 29 councilors, including Hu Hanmin, Bai Wenwei, Chen Jintao, Li Liejun, Zhang Ji, Jiang Yiwu, Tang Shaoyi, Sun Yuyun, Tan Yankai, Yin Changheng, Yu Youren, Ma Junwu, Tian Tong, etc. After the re-election, Sun Yat-sen came to the venue and delivered a speech, bringing the atmosphere of the venue to a climax.However, at this time, Sun Yat-sen was obsessed with his railway industry plan, because after the Tongmenghui was reorganized into the Kuomintang, he entrusted Song Jiaoren as the acting chairman, and said that he did not ask much about party affairs. In just one year, so many political party organizations and activities have emerged, but through this bizarre political upsurge, the hidden worries behind cannot be ignored.In fact, a large part of these so-called political parties can hardly be called real political parties. In fact, their form is in the same line as cronies in history.Just like a cartoon published in the "Truth Pictorial" at that time, there are a few sentences on it: "What is called the party, what is called the faction, the original group of people also entered into slander to kill him; what is called reform, what is the The son is called Ge, and the exclusion and encroachment are even more serious than before." As early as in the book "History of Political Parties of the Republic of China" published in 1924, the author Xie Bin pointedly pointed out that these political parties in the early years of the Republic of China were not a combination of political opinions, but a combination of feelings, power and even money. It's just that the ancestors used to call it Gentlemen's Party and Little People's Party, but now people use the term of a political party.These so-called parties are all clubs of upper-middle-class scholar-bureaucrats (including the Kuomintang). They have no people as their foundation, and they have no practical party program. It's just a decoration. In addition, the most chaotic thing in the early years of the Republic of China was the cross-party behavior. At that time, some people could cross more than a dozen parties. As the later cabinet premier Zhao Bingjun said: "I don't know what a party is, but many people persuade me To join the party, the United Party also sends some party certificates, the Republican Party also sends some party certificates, and the Tongmenghui can also send them. I have opened it to read it, and I have ignored it.” Speaking of this, I carried 8 in my arms. Zhao Bingjun, who has a party certificate, touched his head, and smiled at the people around him: "I never knew what party came!" After the establishment of the Kuomintang, Zhao Bingjun became the new prime minister of the cabinet. Huang Xing and others actively persuaded all the new cabinet members to join the Kuomintang. Even the president Yuan Shikai became their wooing target.Yuan Shikai didn't take it seriously for the Kuomintang's kind invitation (he also didn't know what the party was or not), and he explained to the Kuomintang councilor Bo Wenwei: "I admire your party program, but all the servants of the countries must be But I don’t think it’s necessary. Imagine that there are many political parties in a country. If you join Party A, Party B will be your enemy; , what are the benefits?" From this point of view, President Yuan does not understand democratic politics, the operation of political parties, and gracious confrontation. This is really a big problem that is neglected. According to the Provisional Constitution, congressional elections should be held within 10 months of its implementation.For the Chinese people at that time, political elections were new, but not the first time.As early as the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the constitution was being prepared, the Qing court and governments at all levels had already done it once, but that election was for the members of the Senior Council and the Provincial Advisory Councils. rehearsal. The "Congress Organization Act" enacted by the Provisional Senate this time takes the United States as a model. The Congress is divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate has 274 seats, and the specific allocation is as follows: 1.10 in each province, elected by the provincial councils; 2.27 from Mongolia, 10 from Tibet, and 3 from Qinghai, each elected by their elections; 3.There are 8 members from the Central Society and 6 representatives from overseas Chinese.This quota distribution not only guarantees the right to speak of each province, but also takes into account the particularities of Mongolia, Tibet, Qinghai, and even the academic circles and overseas Chinese.The number of members of the House of Representatives is proportional to the population, with one member for every 800,000 people, for a total of 596 members, who are elected by provincial organizations. Meals must be eaten bite by bite, and democracy must be implemented step by step.The first parliamentary election in the Republic of China was not a true general election, but had various restrictions, such as an age limit of 21 years and above, and a residence period of more than 2 years in the electoral district.The above are general regulations, the most important restrictions are in terms of property, education and gender, the specific regulations are as follows: All males who have the nationality of the Republic of China and who have one of the following qualifications before the establishment of the list of electors have the right to elect members of the House of Representatives and Provincial Councilors: 1.Annual direct tax payment of more than 2 yuan; 2.Real estate worth more than 500 yuan; 3.Graduated from elementary school or above; 4.Have a qualification equivalent to graduation from elementary school or above. In addition to these two restrictions on property and education, women also have no right to vote or stand for election. As a result, there are more than 40 million registered voters in each province, accounting for about 10% of the total population of the country. It has increased by more than 24 times.Seeking truth from facts, the magnitude of this progress should not be small. According to the plan, the congressional elections began in early December 1912 and ended in March of the following year, and the parties did not dare to neglect this in the slightest.As early as the preparations for the congressional elections, various political parties have already started fighting openly and secretly, creating a scene of "Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their magical powers". In October 1912, Liang Qichao, who had been advocating constitutionalism after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, a well-known royalist and acclaimed constitutionalist enlightenment, finally ended more than ten years of overseas exile and returned to China.The return of Liang Qichao has created a lot of variables for the upcoming congressional elections. As we all know, as early as the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty and the preparatory constitutional period, the royalists headed by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao had fierce debates with the revolutionaries headed by Sun Yat-sen in Japan, Southeast Asia, America and other places, although Liang Qichao was outnumbered and defeated. However, his reformist constitutionalism theory still attracted the attention of many constitutionalist bureaucrats and upper-middle-class gentry, and even became the basic theory guiding constitutionalism experiments in the late Qing Dynasty to a certain extent. Before returning to China, Liang Qichao wrote to Yuan Shikai, analyzing the political situation in the early years of the Republic of China.Liang Qichao pointed out that the domestic political forces at this time were divided into three factions: one was the military and bureaucratic power faction headed by Yuan Shikai, the other was the reformist faction reorganized from the constitutional faction in the late Qing Dynasty (which implicitly respected Liang Qichao as its leader); The revolutionary faction of Sun Yat-sen and others; among them, the first faction does not establish a political party, the second faction forms a political party, and the third faction transforms into a political party.In other words, the first faction holds the actual executive power, and the second faction organizes political parties to compete with the third faction in parliament.To put it more bluntly, the second faction helps the first faction to contain the revolutionaries so that the first faction can govern smoothly. This can also be regarded as a unique party politics with Chinese characteristics. Liang Qichao's thinking actually believed that China was not suitable for immediately implementing Western democratic politics. Instead, he hoped that Yuan Shikai would first implement enlightened autocracy and gradually promote institutional reforms on the road of reformism.For this reason, Liang Qichao also wrote a guiding opinion called "Discussion Book on the Policy of China's National Congress", which later became the guiding principle of the Republic Construction Symposium. The Republic Construction Symposium is a party initiated by Sun Hongyi, Tang Hualong and others, and the constitutionalists and old bureaucrats in the late Qing Dynasty are the main ones. In August 1912, several groups such as the Republic Building Discussion Committee and the National Association merged into the Democratic Party. After Liang Qichao returned to China, the Democratic Party formed a united front with the Republican Party and the United Party split from the Republican Party, preparing to jointly contend in the congressional elections. Great Nationalist Party.Of course, this kind of alliance formed between weak parties is also common in political party struggles. In terms of the power comparison of political parties at that time, even if the Democratic Party united with the Republican Party and the Gael Party, it could not match the power of the Kuomintang.Although the two leaders of the Revolutionary Party, Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing, deliberately faded out of the political arena, Song Jiaoren, acting party affairs, was extremely active. He left Beijing after mid-October and traveled southward to various provinces to organize election matters for the Kuomintang.Thanks to Song Jiaoren's efforts, the Kuomintang's election mobilization meetings in various places were very successful. In particular, Song Jiaoren's speeches were extremely charming and attracted many people to come to listen to the speeches. In addition to Kuomintang members, journalists and ordinary people who came to listen to Song Jiaoren's speech, there were also spies sent by Yuan Shikai.Every time Song Jiaoren finished his speech, Yuan Shikai could always learn about the KMT's movements through various channels.Once Song Jiaoren said in a speech: "Although we do not have military power and political power at this time, in democratic countries in the world, political authority is concentrated in the Congress. Therefore, we must stop all campaigns and focus on elections. Movement. We want to get more than half of the seats in the Congress, and then we can form a one-party responsible cabinet if we are in power; , and also makes it fearful and dare not do nothing.” Song Jiaoren’s words profoundly reveal the true meaning of the supremacy of legislative power and power checks and balances in democratic politics. His idea of ​​trying to lead the Kuomintang to win the parliamentary election and organize a complete party cabinet can also be called a textbook style. classic example.But having said that, there may be many variables in the actual operation. For example, Yuan Shikai was very unhappy after hearing Song Jiaoren's words. He angrily said to the staff around him: "Hey! Do you want to form a political party cabinet? Why are you so forced!" In the final analysis, not only did Yuan Shikai have no concept of what kind of congress, what kind of legislative power, what kind of political party and cabinet, even the supervision of the government was regarded as a deviant thing, which was something that traditional autocratic politics could not understand.It seems that educational leadership was really a big problem that cannot be ignored in the early years of the Republic of China. The big president doesn't know what democracy and elections are, and the people below are not much better.For example, when it comes to election campaigns, political parties rely more on local agencies and administrative means to control elections, in addition to rallies, speeches, and propaganda of political views.For example, in the electoral district of Hunan, the Kuomintang adjusted most county magistrates to members of the Kuomintang before the election, and all the supervision of the electoral district was assigned to members of the Kuomintang. As a result, the Republican Party suffered a disastrous defeat in Hunan. All were elected with a ratio of more than 90%. This is what Hunan did, as did Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Hubei, which are controlled by the Kuomintang.Other parties were not far behind. For example, the United Party used the relationship of Henan governor Zhang Zhenfang to ask Zhang Zhenfang to support the party's election in Henan. No matter what methods were used, the KMT would never win. As a result, various "strange phenomena" and "scandals" appeared in the first congressional elections of the Republic of China, such as canvassing, grabbing votes, destroying votes, and bribes with money, and even violent threats and coercion, etc. No wonder.All in all, all kinds of means are omnipotent, and there are all kinds of surprises. You are not afraid that you cannot do it, but you are afraid that you will not think of it. To put it a little bit honestly, the chaos in the first election is really not news, not to mention that some chaos had already appeared as early as the constitutional period in the late Qing Dynasty.Even now, election scandals continue to emerge in many countries and localities, not to mention China, which first tasted democracy more than a hundred years ago.Ballots are a good thing, and it can only be blamed on it. With the efforts of Song Jiaoren and many Kuomintang members, the Kuomintang won a huge victory in the primaries and re-elections of the Senate and House of Representatives: in the 596 seats in the House of Representatives, the Kuomintang won 269 seats, accounting for 45.1%. And the Democratic Party has 154 seats, accounting for only 25.7%. Among the 274 seats in the Senate, the KMT has 123 seats, accounting for 44.9%. partisans). In this election, although the Kuomintang did not gain an absolute advantage of more than half, the number of seats they occupied has far exceeded that of other political parties. The KMT's victory in the election brought joy to the whole party and made Song Jiaoren very excited.In his opinion, the dawn of victory is in sight, and the dream of forming a cabinet is about to come true, but what he never imagined is that danger is slowly approaching him.Almost a hundred years have passed now, and sometimes I look back and think that the election victory that Song Jiaoren was obsessed with is also obsessed and superstitious by later generations, but in the face of cruel facts, it is just a fantasy, or an illusion . After Tang Shaoyi, the first prime minister of the cabinet, resigned, the Tongmenghui wanted to introduce Song Jiaoren as the prime minister of the cabinet, but the members of the Senate discussed in private: "Too few! Too few!" Song Jiaoren was born in 1882. At that time, he was under 32 years old. If Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing were not politically negative at this time, he would certainly not be able to stand out at his age and qualifications. Outside of the League, Song Jiaoren would naturally not be able to compare with Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing in terms of prestige. . In fact, the electoral politics that Song Jiaoren was passionate about was full of contradictions: on the one hand, he wanted to reconcile with Yuan Shikai, and on the other hand, he wanted to fight for power with Yuan Shikai; How can this be done in an autocratic country that has existed for thousands of years and is backed by force?Song Jiaoren thought that as long as there is a "Convention Law", using the empty name of the "responsible cabinet" stipulated in the "Convention Law", plus a political party with a majority of seats in the National Assembly, it will be enough to deal with Yuan Shikai's military and political power. Isn't it a disregard for tradition? Meeting with a real scholar? You know, all the autocrats in China rely on naked force, and how many of them take the law seriously? Song Jiaoren may have forgotten that during the Revolution of 1911, the main reason why the revolutionaries gave up competing with Yuan Shikai was that they could not compete with Yuan Shikai's military power, so they had to rely on Yuan Shikai's power to force the Qing emperor to fight against Yuan Shikai. abdicate.How could the goals that could not be achieved by force during the revolutionary period be regained by peaceful and electoral means when Yuan Shikai had already taken power?This is too naive and romantic, too unrealistic.