Chapter 92 Constitutionalists

Among the people who chanted "constitutional law", the loudest one was Yuan Shikai's old acquaintance, Comrade Zhang Jian. The two had worked together under Wu Changqing for several years. As mentioned earlier, before the Sino-French war, Zhang Jian returned to China to work with his leader Wu Changqing. Soon after returning to China, Wu Changqing died of illness.After seeing off the old leader for the last journey, 31-year-old Zhang Jian retired from the army. He left the army and returned to his hometown in Haimen, Jiangsu, to pursue his dream of imperial examinations, study behind closed doors, and prepare for the exam.

A year later, Zhang Jianzhong ranked second in Juren and got off to a good start.But in the next nine years, the luck was gone, and the trial and error failed.However, Zhang Jian fought repeatedly, with extraordinary perseverance and talent, and a clear political attitude in support of Guangxu, finally conquered the examiner Weng Tonghe, and won the first prize in the examination at the age of 41 in 1894. Great, really great!However, being good at exams is not Zhang Jian's greatest strength!Dare to make choices is what makes Zhang Jian difficult to surpass! Zhang Jian did not start his official career just because he was the number one scholar in high school.

After the Sino-Japanese War ended, Zhang Jian was in agreement with Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others on the idea of ​​"how to save the country": reforms and a constitutional monarchy can strengthen the country. But they also have differences. Kang and Liang are idealists, and they pin all their hopes for the success of the reform on Guangxu; Cixi is still in a good mood to hold a birthday party when the country is in great trouble. So Zhang Jian encouraged himself: I would like to do anything useful, and I don't want to be a shameful official with eight lives and nine lives!I want to walk my own road to save the country!There are enough people who have taken the road of saving the country from the top down. As for the road from the bottom up, let me do it!

The path Zhang Jian chose for himself was to abandon his official position and go into business, and save the country through industry.This meant that he had to give up all the effort, time and money he had put into the imperial examinations!But Zhang Jian has no regrets, because he understands: simple possession is a small cleverness, and temporary giving up is great wisdom. Thirty years of imperial examination dreams come to an end here, let's go! In the years that followed, Zhang Jian, who possessed great wisdom, showed amazing business talent, and he dominated the textile industry market in just a few years.However, Zhang Jian, who had made a lot of money, did not buy a house and hoard land to switch to real estate speculation. He did two practical things with the money he earned.

1. Continue to develop the industry. He successively established more than 20 enterprises, created more employment opportunities, and supported more people. 2. Development of education.Although he is the number one scholar, he did not cling to the stereotyped imperial examinations like Wang Wenshao, but learned from Yuan Shikai and others to run new-style education and educate the people of the country.During the past 20 years, he tried his best to establish more than 370 colleges and universities, including today's Fudan University and Nanjing University, until he went bankrupt! From saving the country to going bankrupt, how many people are there in Qiangu!

This ordinary man who is desperate to save the country through industry and education, this ordinary man who can be called great, has given up too much and sacrificed too much to save the country.But this man who knows how to give up and sacrifice has also gained one thing - extremely high prestige.The southeast admires all, and the national scholars are unparalleled! When Zhang Jian was busy with industry and education, he did not forget his original intention: to save the country. After carefully analyzing the causal relationship between the victory and defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, the Gengzi Incident, and the Russo-Japanese War, Zhang Jian learned from the painful experience and became more firm in his original political ideal: get up from where we fell, and learn from the enemy who defeated us!

Learn from Japan, learn from Britain, learn from Germany, learn from their constitutional monarchy, only political reform can strengthen the country! Zhang Jian is not the only one who holds this view. He has many friends with the same aspirations in the southeast, such as Tang Shouqian, a great industrialist. They have gathered a large circle with a large number of people. Everyone in this circle believes that replacing the past feudal imperial system with a constitutional monarchy system is conducive to the prosperity and prosperity of the country, and is conducive to coping with the dangerous environment surrounded by foreign enemies.

Their views are different from those of Sun Yat-sen and others. They feel that there is no need to overthrow the rule of the Qing Dynasty. They hope that the rulers of the Qing Dynasty can see the international and domestic situation clearly, follow the good, think of change when they are poor, learn from the experience of advanced countries in governing the country, and lead China to a new path. The broad road to democratic governance. People in their circle all have the same identity, which we call gentry. Since the special group of gentry had an unparalleled influence on the historical development of the next few decades, it is necessary to spend some pen and ink to analyze the composition behind this boring term.

When it comes to "gentry", some people may think of the local tyrants and evil gentry who did all kinds of evil. In fact, the local tyrants and evil gentry were the products of the "dividing the land" during the Agrarian Revolution decades later. Objectively speaking, it is difficult to precisely define gentry, but fortunately, this group of people has three obvious signs: 1. Having fame but not being an official.For example, those who have a degree above the Imperial Examination Scholars, like Comrade Fan Jin from Zhongju; Second, they used to be officials. Although they have retreated to the second line now, they still have considerable influence.

3. They do not have a high degree of education and have never been an official, but there are people above them.They don't have political power, but they have power.Most of these people belonged to the propertied classes: landlords or merchants. Of course, if you want to become a local gentry, it is unlikely that you will suddenly emerge.If you want to establish a local network of influence and have huge wealth and influence, you will naturally need the accumulation of several generations.Almost all those who can become a local gentry have lived in the local area for a long time. All in all, the gentry needed knowledge, technology, technology, people, land, and money. They had great energy in activities, were very powerful, and had a fairly high political and economic status.

If the foundation of the empire is the people, then the gentry is the link between the court and the people, they can decide the future and destiny of the country! According to their strength, the gentry can be roughly classified into two categories-the upper class gentry and the middle and lower class gentry. The stronger and more influential upper-class gentry focused on the imperial court. They hoped to use their influence to change the direction of national policy, such as Zhang Jian, Tang Shouqian, Zheng Guanying, and the "duo of royalists"-Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. The middle and lower class gentry focused on the countryside, and they used their influence as a link between the government and the people.On the one hand, they conveyed the orders of the government to the common people, cooperated with the government to collect taxes from the common people, and maintained local law and order; on the other hand, they bargained with the government as the spokesperson of the grassroots people and even representatives of local interests. Therefore, the most basic administrative level in the past dynasties is the county. The emperor's appointment is limited to the county magistrate, and there is no way to extend his hand to the grassroots below the county level. Of course, the gentry, a group that can determine the fate and future of the country, is not monolithic. They have different views, different interests, and conflicts.Although a great man with a beard said: Contradictions are not static, but change and develop.But as far as the present stage is concerned, the state of mind of the gentry is quite regular: Some people seek stability and demand a constitutional monarchy, such as the circle with Zhang Jian as the leader. We call these people the constitutionalists. Some people are radical. Although what they pursue is also democratic constitutionalism, their goal is not the constitutional monarchy of Britain and Japan, but the constitutional democracy of the United States—to overthrow the monarchy, establish a republic, and replace the monarch as the head of state with a democratically elected president. That is, the president replaces the emperor as the chairman of the board, also known as a democratic republic.This kind of people agree with Sun Yat-sen and his ideas, we can call them sympathetic revolutionaries, and some people are even revolutionaries. Of course, there are still some people who will be safe when they get rich. As long as no one comes to break the existing rules, as long as no one comes to harm their interests, then they can do whatever they like, and they can be stable. Well, this is the end of the boring topic about "gentry", and the topic returns to Zhang Jian. It is said that shortly after the Russo-Japanese War started, Zhang Jian couldn’t help but wrote a letter to encourage his old colleagues: You old man wants soldiers, generals, and status. You should seize this opportunity to contribute to the country’s political reform. These things (the public is now recruiting the world's heavy troops, shouldering the world's heavy responsibilities, it is appropriate to have a friendship with the country... It is not as good as the current situation in Japan and Russia, and the political system is not determined first, and it is a detour to rescue and burn, which is beyond the reach of the picture-- Shen Zuxian's "The Disciples of Rong'an")! In fact, Zhang Jian didn't need to encourage Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai had not forgotten the glorious political ideal of "realizing democratic constitutionalism".Now that the overall situation of the Russo-Japanese War has been decided, and the whole country demands a constitution, the opportunity for Yuan Shikai and others has finally come! However, before continuing to tell the story of Zhang Jian and Yuan Shikai fighting side by side again, let us first pay attention to the attitude of the revolutionaries among the gentry towards constitutionalism.