Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen The Tranquility Before the "Fraud Corpse"

At the end of the third year of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai finally concentrated all the power in his own hands. Fortunately, he had no desire to continue to conquer the earth, so he gave up.This is good news for the common people. In the past three years of the Republic of China and the next four years of the Republic of China, although some parts have not settled down, the overall situation has been determined.Therefore, stability overwhelms everything, harmony becomes the mainstream, and the common people finally live a somewhat happy life. President Yuan Da is also very happy.

Firstly, because the government has money—the political situation is stable, the centralization of power, the economy of major regions has been restored, and the central government’s revenue and expenditure are almost balanced.Yuan Shikai took the opportunity to unify the currency system, and the whole country uniformly used the silver dollar with his big head printed on it as legal tender. This is the legendary "Yuan Datou". Secondly, under the condition of limited national power, Yuan Shikai maintained the territorial integrity of the country. Under the combination of his red dates and sticks, Russia instigated the independence of the "Great Mongolia" (Outer Mongolia) with an area of ​​1.7 million square kilometers. The plot went bankrupt.

But President Yuan was not able to be happy for too long, because a disaster was about to come. While the country was relatively peaceful, something happened internationally. In the second half of 1914, the First World War broke out.The Allies and the Entente fought each other.Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria belonged to the Allies, and Britain, France, Russia, and Italy belonged to the Entente. Yuan Shikai originally wanted to take advantage of the good opportunity when Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were gang-beaten in Europe, and actively joined the Allied Powers to declare war on Germany and Austria, so as to become a victorious country, so as to take back the Jiaozhou Bay in Shandong, which Germany had leased from the Qing government, and terminate the relationship between the two countries. The corresponding "Xin Chou Treaty" indemnity.

But this idea was destroyed by unscrupulous Japanese.As soon as Japan came to Japan, it had long taken a fancy to the Jiaozhou Bay occupied by the Germans, and it was impossible for China to take it back smoothly.Second, once China becomes a victorious country and integrates with other Allies, it will affect Japan's control over China.Therefore, the Japanese did not hesitate to use force as a threat to force Yuan Shikai to declare neutrality. Japan did not allow China to join the Allied Powers, but he himself joined the Allied Powers impatiently, and sent a sentence to Yuan Shikai: "Don't be dissatisfied, Britain and I signed the 'Japan-British Alliance Treaty' more than ten years ago, and there is a very good excuse to join the war You set aside the area south of the Yellow River in Shandong Province as a war zone, and I will fight Germany!"

As soon as the words fell, Japan did not wait for Yuan Shikai to reply, and directly landed in Longkou, Shandong, and fought with Germany. I said before that Jiaozhou Bay is a leased territory of Germany.According to the treaty previously signed between the Qing government and Germany, this area is under German management and cannot be touched by Beiyang forces.Therefore, President Yuan had no choice but to swallow his anger and announce: "The area east of Weixian on the Shandong Peninsula is the Japanese-German war zone, the west is the neutral zone, and the south must be managed by China."

Strength determines everything.Japan does not look directly at the government of the Republic of China: the battlefield is changing rapidly, so I don't care about the rules and regulations drawn by you, Yuan Shikai, and I must manage them all. At this time, the British also took action. The British navy landed in Laoshan Bay, Shandong, and Britain and Japan joined forces to beat the Germans on Chinese soil. Next, President Yuan Da sent the Chinese ambassador to Japan, Lu Zongyu, to protest to Japan, demanding that the Japanese army retreat.Japan originally came to Shandong, so how could they pay attention to Lu Zongyu's protest, and pushed Lu Zongyu back in one sentence: "I fought with Germany, robbed German territory, and received German assets. What is your relationship with China?"

Subsequently, the Japanese directly invaded the West by force, occupying the Jiaoji Railway and Jinan Railway Station. The Beijing government of the Republic of China is also unambiguous: Protest!We protest!We strongly protest! Before the protest was over, the Germans had been dealt with, and the Japanese came to them immediately. On January 18, 1915, it was a cold winter day.Yuan Shikai met with Hiki Masaki, the Japanese ambassador to China, in Zhongnanhai. After a fruitless exchange of pleasantries, Hijimasu handed Yuan Shikai a document: "We have drawn up a 'Twenty-One', take a look and don't tell others, this is a matter between our two families."

After a glance, Yuan Shikai stood up abruptly, his face flushed, and his eyes fixed on the Japanese: "What do you mean?" Hiji Masayoshi said calmly: "President, don't get angry. You can think about this matter for a few days first, but please keep it a secret!" Then Shi Shi retreated. Taking advantage of Yuan Shikai's anger, let us take a look at the "Twenty-One" that later caused Yuan Shikai to be scolded to pieces. The "Twenty-One" consists of five items and twenty-one items, and its core content is roughly as follows: 1. Turn Shandong into Japan's sphere of influence.

2. On a total of about 900,000 square kilometers of land in the Northeast and eastern Inner Mongolia, Japan has a priority over other powers - such as giving priority to buying and renting land from the Chinese, and extending the lease period of Lushun and Dalian to nine nineteen years. 3. China and Japan equally share the sovereignty of Hanyeping Company. 4. All coastal harbors and islands in China cannot be leased or transferred to other countries. 5. The central government of the Republic of China must hire Japanese as consultants, and China and Japan jointly run the police. Many matters involving foreign affairs, internal affairs, and military affairs must be discussed with the Japanese.In a word, let China downgrade to a vassal state of Japan.

To find out why the Japanese suddenly proposed such a perverted "21", we have to start with Sun Yat-sen and the Black Dragon Association, a good friend of the Tongmenghui in the past. The Black Dragon Society, a militaristic organization and the stronghold of extreme rightists, was led by Sun Yat-sen's friend Ryohei Uchida during this period. As for the plan of the Black Dragon Society, to put it simply, under the leadership of the so-called "Asia's best race" Yamato, the "Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" will be established to fight against the white race and compete for world hegemony.And eating the Heilongjiang River Basin in China, and then eating the whole of China, is a key part of Uchida Ryohei's plan.

And now is the best time to implement this plan. In the ten years since 1909, the United States has been playing neutrality, while Britain, Germany, France, and Russia are all competing in a magical place called the "Balkan Peninsula".The island is located at the confluence of three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It not only controls the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea, but also controls the route to the Indian Ocean.Not only is the strategic position very important, but the natural resources are also extremely rich, and the countries and nations on the island have a tradition of infighting.Therefore, such a place that is convenient for the interests of fish and meat is really a battleground for the great powers, and it is completely a powder keg. Sure enough, the issue of Morocco on the opposite side of the Balkan Peninsula almost triggered the First World War. The shot in Sarajevo on the Balkan Peninsula finally triggered the First World War. The powder kegs in the Balkans burned so that Europeans completely ignored China. Russia, in particular, not only faced the full-scale attack of Germany, but also suppressed the revolution led by Lenin, which was a headache for the Tsar. From this point of view, as long as the United States is squeezed out, Japan has the opportunity to become the only powerful country that can influence China's political situation. So Ryohei Uchida started planning this matter a year ago. He wrote a plan called the "Memorandum of the Black Dragon Society" and submitted it to Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma.Shigenobu Okuma appreciated the plan, so he took it and polished it, and the result became the "Twenty-one" that Yuan Shikai saw. Yuan Shikai was very angry: "Add three grades to the bastard! It seems that North Korea treats me!" He didn't expect that his luck would be so bad that he would have such a perverted Japanese and such a perverted unequal treaty. As soon as Hijimashi left, Yuan Shikai began to think of a way. Yuan Shikai was well aware of the power gap between China and Japan. As a pragmatic politician rather than a high-spirited gambler, he decided to hold a meeting to solve the problem. He wanted to see if other members of the leadership team could come up with a good solution. On the night of January 18, 1915, the presidential palace in Zhongnanhai was brightly lit. Yuan Shikai, Xu Shichang, Duan Qirui, Liang Shiyi and a group of core leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were meeting to discuss how to solve the "21" proposed by the Japanese. At the meeting, everyone first denied the possibility of using force to solve the problem on the grounds of "insufficient national strength", and then discussed for a whole night before they came up with a helpless solution: negotiation. However, the negotiating table is a place where negotiating parties show their strength rather than reason.Fortunately, Yuan Shikai did not want to reason with Japan. His purpose of negotiating was to procrastinate, and he used various methods to procrastinate. The Chinese negotiators were Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang, Vice Minister Cao Rulin, and Ambassador to Japan Lu Zongyu. These three people thoroughly implemented President Yuan Da's instruction: delay. There are two ways to drag. One way is to reduce the number of negotiations. The representative of the Japanese aggressors said: "We hope to negotiate every day, and the principle is to resolve it as soon as possible." Mr. Lu Zhengxiang bargained: "We talk once a week, and the negotiation can only be held in the afternoon. I have to deal with other official duties in the morning." The final result of bargaining is to talk three times a week, in the afternoon, and talk for two hours each time. The second method is to shorten the negotiation time. Every time there is a meeting, Mr. Lu Zhengxiang tries his best to say a few opening remarks. After finishing the opening remarks, he asks the waiter to serve tea. The tea cup is very big. He waits until the tea is finished before starting the negotiation. However, Mr. Lu’s slow speaking rhythm is comparable to that of a movie. The slow motion decomposition in the movie... In this way, the meeting time slipped through the fingers before the business was discussed. Mr. Lu Zhengxiang endured a lot of hard work. He couldn't make up the opening line, and he drank the tea until he felt sick. Fortunately, things turned around. It turned out that Yuan Shikai had prepared two methods, one bright and one dark.The bright way is naturally "dragging". As for the dark way, it falls on a Japanese. When Lu Zhengxiang was living like a year, Yuan Shikai sent his Japanese adviser Nagao Arigao back to Japan.Ariga Nagao's responsibilities are very clear. He paid a high price for Yuan Shikai to buy Japanese information, analyzed what the Japanese wanted to do, and whether the Japanese would send troops if he refused the "21". In the end, President Yuan spent a lot of money to obtain a crucial piece of information: the "Twenty-One" did not go through the imperial meeting, but a secret action taken by the Okuma Shigenobu cabinet without authorization. This can explain why the Japanese asked Yuan Shikai to keep it a secret, because the "Twenty-One" not only cannot be known by other powers, but also cannot be seen in Japan. Next, Yuan Shikai used his personal connections to disclose information related to the "21" to Britain and the United States. According to research, the British side was handled by Yuan Shikai himself, because the British ambassador Zhu Erdian and the former "The Times" correspondent in China, Morrison, are both his old friends and have a very good relationship.On the American side, it was settled by Gu Weijun (Tang Shaoyi's son-in-law), a rising diplomatic star. Subsequently, Japan forced China to accept the "21" and immediately became the headlines of the media in New York and London.Secret negotiations are no longer possible. The original intention of the Japanese was to take advantage of the great opportunity of "World War I", which even the great powers could not spare, to fish in troubled waters in China to make a profit.Yuan Shikai was sure that the Japanese did not want other powers to make trouble, so he insisted on disclosing this matter. Therefore, the method that Yuan Shikai's old superior Li Hongzhang used in the past appeared on the stage-use barbarians to control barbarians, use interests to control interests, and unite with Britain and the United States to control Japan. On May 7, 1915, the Japanese, under the pressure of the United Kingdom and the United States, finally couldn't wait any longer. They talked about the end of the day, so they issued an ultimatum: "That's it, we will not give up a single step. On May 9 Before six o'clock in the afternoon, if you don't agree to sign, the fight will begin!" Little Japan is not intimidating, they are already making small moves-increasing troops to Shandong and South Manchuria. There is no way, the country is weak and the people are poor.Yuan Shikai's government was forced to admit defeat and agreed to sign. However, what Yuan Shikai signed was not the "Twenty-one Ones", but the "Sino-Japanese Treaty and Exchange of Letters Concluded on May 25th, Fourth Year of the Republic of China" obtained through arduous negotiations, referred to as the "Fourth Treaty of the People's Republic of China". Chinese representatives such as Lu Zhengxiang, Cao Rulin, and Lu Zongyu struggled for four months, fought for four months, and had dozens of rounds of negotiations. They insisted on a principle: if the Japanese have already obtained, they can make concessions; Compare.With a weak posture, the Japanese were forced to make several concessions on the original conditions.In particular, the fifth worst item in the "Twenty-One" - the part that interferes in China's internal affairs has been completely deleted. The humiliating diplomatic negotiations have finally come to an end, but the side effects have just begun. Yuan Shikai originally thought that he could barely account for it by working hard to achieve this goal when the country was in decline, but he found that he was wrong. Since the "Fourth Civil Treaty" contains "China agrees that Japan asks Germany for all its rights and interests in Shandong (the treaty signed between the Qing government and Germany is valid for 99 years and has not yet expired, so Japan must go through the delivery procedures with Germany to be considered The end of the matter), the extension of the Lushun and Dalian leases to 99 years, and the Japanese can emigrate to Manchuria and Mongolia", led to newspapers and public opinion criticizing Yuan Shikai at length, and student movements all over the country came and went. Among the team of the student movement were three of our acquaintances. Zhou Enlai, a 17-year-old talented student from Nankai Middle School who runs back and forth. After the Revolution of 1911, Mao Zedong, a 21-year-old talent from the first division of Hunan Province, retired from the army to study. Zhang Xueliang, a 14-year-old boy who shouted the slogan "Sworn to the death".However, sixteen years later, that is, after the "September 18th" incident, Zhang Xueliang said this: "When Yuan Shikai promised the 'Twenty-One', I was a student, and I was passionate and opposed it to the death. I will be in power in the next year, and I will not be as good as others." ... Is this a republic?Yuan Shikai couldn't help asking such a question.A year later, this and the other thing he did will become the two most criticized crimes in his life. After the signing of the "Four People's Treaties", Yuan Shikai not only designated May 9 as a national humiliation day, but also released a bold statement: "Stay hard, try your best, work hard, and meet Japan ten years later." But for Yuan Shikai's life expectancy, ten years of struggle is obviously too long, relatively speaking, it is relatively quick to destroy.So he planned to support a pawn in the northeast and secretly boycott Japan. Before the candidate audition began, Duan Zhigui, one of Yuan Shikai's fan group - "Kai Zi", recommended Zhang Zuolin, who had given him a favor, to his idol.Zhang Zuolin, who came through the back door, needs to be emphasized. This person is the later "Northeast King" Zhang Dashuai. Zhang Zuolin, courtesy name Yuting, was born in Haicheng, Liaoning in 1875. Like those talented people introduced before, his family is also very poor.In order to survive, he sold steamed stuffed buns, worked as a shopkeeper, studied carpentry, worked as a veterinarian, worked as a horse handler, joined the Qing army, and worked as a bandit.In short, the working experience is rich and complex.It is precisely because of his complicated work background that he combines the cunning of a fox and the ferocity of a wolf. In terms of background and background, Zhang Zuolin is not at the same level as his future opponents, such as Yan Xishan who has been abroad.Fortunately, the hero does not ask the source.In those days, those who couldn't get along were called bandits, and those who could get along were called bosses. Zhang Zuolin's emotional intelligence and methods are quite outstanding among bandits.After being a bandit for a short period of time, he understood that the job of being a bandit had no future, so he left the bandit, and relying on his previous connections, he set up an illegal private armed force of mercenaries—the "insurance team" fee. In the next few years, Zhang Zuolin, a rural resident, not only had his precious son Zhang Xueliang, but also his family income continued to grow steadily, the Engel coefficient dropped sharply, and his quality of life reached a new level.Therefore, Zhang Zuolin, who no longer worried about food and clothing, officially put his personal future on the agenda. At the end of 1902, when the government learned about Zhang Zuolin's deeds, they wanted to destroy him, but considering that Zhang Zuolin's private armed forces had good combat effectiveness and were difficult to deal with, they recruited him.Zhang Zuolin thus became a Qing army cadre at the deputy battalion level.After joining the government establishment, Zhang Zuolin's main job was to take the knife against his former colleagues-suppress bandits. Because he is very familiar with the bandits' work process, he did a good job in suppressing bandits.Zhang Zuolin's official position was also getting higher and higher along with his outstanding work performance, and he climbed to the post of guardian envoy before the Revolution of 1911. In the ensuing Revolution of 1911, he followed Zhao Erxun, then governor of the three eastern provinces, to kill many revolutionaries and successfully suppressed the revolutionary uprising in the three eastern provinces.Of course, they said that their actions were to "protect the environment and the people" - no revolution, no royalism, and a neutral line. Everything started from the overall situation of maintaining local stability, serving the gentry and the people. After Yuan Shikai became the President, Zhang Zuolin was promoted to Lieutenant General and Division Commander with rewards for meritorious service. After the signing of the "Fourth People's Treaty", Yuan Shikai gave Zhang Zuolin a arduous task with sabotage as his core business: "I entrust you with the anti-Japanese mission in the Northeast, and you must do everything possible to prevent the Japanese from buying or renting the Northeast. An inch of land, don't let me down!" At this time, President Yuan was still very authoritative. Zhang Zuolin, a military leader with a bad background, heard the news that President Yuan wanted to use him, and his reaction could not be described as flattered.Zhang Zuolin assured President Yuan Da in this way: "As long as I am here, the Japanese dare not go out of the dependent territory, and even an inch of land in the northeast will not be in the hands of the Japanese!" According to the actual situation later, these words are a bit watery.Not only did Mr. Zhang fail to fulfill his promise, but he also flirted with the Japanese and engaged in some arms business.Fortunately, the cooperation between the two parties has come to an end, and the Japanese's idea of ​​making him a puppet has never been successful, and they both use and guard against each other. Therefore, President Yuan's pawn strategy did not deviate too much from the expected track. In addition to Zhang Zuolin's outstanding ability, he is also very good at flattering.With these two specialties, he became a "Kai Zi".Zhang Zuolin worshiped President Yuan Da as an idol, and Yuan Shikai would not treat him badly.Under the protection and support of President Yuan Da, Zhang Zuolin massively expanded his army and started the road to dominate the Northeast.