Chapter 113 112. Removal of Duan Duan

The Army Overseers ran amok in Beijing, advocating a declaration of war against Germany for a while, advocating the siege of the Parliament for a while, and finally mentioning the Constitution. , do nothing.Li Yuanhong suddenly thought of him, and Li thought: This old man is against declaring war on Germany, and he is unwilling to support Duan's cabinet. If he can be drawn to his side, wouldn't it be a great reputation and a shame for Duan's faction? .It was Li Jingxi who Li used to contact Zhang Xun. Li was the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou in the former Qing Dynasty, and one of the four friends of Songshan in the Hongxian Dynasty. Cai E and Zhang Xun were both his old subordinates. When the Legion advocated chaos and intervening in politics, this dying old bureaucrat turned from a cold palace into a very popular and important figure.Li recommended Guo Tong, a congressman from Jiangxi, to contact Xuzhou.

At the same time, Duan Qirui also took a fancy to Zhang Xun, and wanted to find out from him a way to survive the desperate situation.Duan estimated that Zhang had two things that could be cited as comrades. First, he hated Congress, and second, he despised the President.So Duan sent Xu Shuzheng to Xuzhou secretly, asking him to deal a fatal blow to Congress by taking advantage of the issue of participating in the war. Zhang Xun has his own plan: the dissolution of the Congress is absolutely in favor, and the expulsion of the president is also okay, but if the purpose of the two is to win, he does not want to waste his efforts; he wants to use the dispute between the government and the court, and the dispute between the Congress and the cabinet , resulting in a chance for restoration.He asked Duan's emissary for a price for cooperation: "If the Prime Minister agrees to the restoration, I, Zhang, will take care of these two important matters."

Zhang Xun estimated the possibility of restoration: first, Duan expressed his attitude that nothing was necessary; second, Feng Guozhang and Lu Rongting could be cited as comrades, and Zhang had already seen through the psychology of the rest of the general warriors, and they were concerned about cabinet issues and participating in the war. It doesn't matter about the problem, the restoration problem, they don't have a central idea, they only take personal power and territory as the premise.Zhang You claimed to have a deep understanding of the psychology of ordinary people, thinking that the frontier officials in the Republic of China were not as respected as the governors of the former Qing Dynasty.This "psychologist" grasped many points and took advantage of the political trend in the north, so he did not hesitate to think that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for restoration.He doesn't have any good feelings for his old boss (Li Jingxi).He praised Guo Tong, Li's secret envoy: "Our president is really a loyal elder. We will never allow others to bully him. If Zhang is useful, can't our subordinates replace him?" He has put in a lot of effort!" After Guo returned to Beijing to report his order, Li thought that Zhang Ben was the most unreasonable person in the warlord, and now he was willing to submit, and he dared to openly rebel!He was also convinced that what Zhang said was true, and he was definitely not a duplicity, so he made the final decision to avoid it.

The Legion of Governors petitioned for the dissolution of the National Assembly. Members of the National Assembly fled to Dongjiaomin Lane and Liuguo Hotel one after another, and wealthy people fled to Tianjin one after another. After May 20, Duan knew that the government's order to reassign the prime minister was about to be released, so he called relevant parties to hold a secret meeting to discuss countermeasures.By this time, even those who were closest to him in the research department advised him to make the necessary retreat in order to accumulate strength and wait for a counterattack.So Duan sent Fan Yuanlian to Tianjin and asked Xu Shichang to come forward to organize a new cabinet. I would like to stay in the new cabinet as the chief of the army.Of course Xu refused to jump into the fire pit at this time. He said that he would never accept the new order of forming a cabinet.

On the 21st, Duan visited Wang Shizhen in person and asked him to act as the Prime Minister of the cabinet.The king also bowed to him and said "Thank you for not being sensitive". On the same day, Duan unexpectedly came to the government to meet Li, expressing his eagerness to get rid of everything.He said: "I have already approached Mr. Xu Ju and Wang Pinqing, but they are not willing to be the prime minister of the cabinet. Please the president quickly find a substitute for me so that I can hand over my responsibility." Li replied that he hadn't found a suitable one yet. candidates.When Duan withdrew from the government office, he ordered the Ministry of the Army to contact the Road Bureau for a special car, claiming to leave Beijing at 9 o'clock that night.

Until then, Duan had not petitioned for resignation, and kept in close contact with the Overseer Corps in an attempt to stay in office.The reason why this set of tricks was performed was to appease Li's order to remove him from his post, so as to buy time to arrange another set of tricks.Before that, his partisans had suggested filling out resigned and departed Cabinet members with a full-fledged staff in order to fight Congress and the president to the end.He did not accept this opinion.At this time, he drew up a new list of supplementary cabinet members: Xia Shoukang was the chief of internal affairs, Rao Hanxiang was the chief of justice, Tang Xiangming was the chief of the navy, Sun Baoqi was the chief of finance, Zhuang Yunkuan was the chief of agriculture and commerce, and Wang Daxie was the chief of transportation.What is intriguing is that almost no one on this list is Duan's private party. The first three are people from Hubei whom Li likes, and the rest are all people whom Li has a good impression of.Obviously, this is what Duan wants to exchange for Lebanon to maintain his position as the prime minister of the cabinet.

On the 22nd, Zhang Guogan, secretary-general of the Duan Ming Academy, brought this list to seek Li's consent.Li Yin was very surprised by Duan Lianzhan. He didn't glance at the list and said coldly: "The list is all from Anhui!" But when he received it, he saw that there were many people on the list When he was from Hubei, his complexion became more and more misty.After Zhang Guogan withdrew, Li immediately called his staff to discuss the list.The aides were very optimistic and said that the old Duan was strong in the outside world and capable in the middle, so he should not be tricked into slowing down the army.At this time, Wu Tingfang had agreed to act as the Prime Minister of the Cabinet, Wang Shizhen had promised to do his best to help the President after Lao Duan resigned, the Dongjiaominxiang diplomatic corps had also been contacted, and the military governor had already left Beijing. Everything was the best time to remove Lao Duan. If you don't start now, when will you wait?Li also believes that this is a great opportunity.

On the 23rd, Zhang Guogan went to the government again to ask for a reply letter, and Li explained to him the final determination of the exemption.Zhang persuaded him to reconsider, and just as he spoke, Jin Yongyan, who was standing next to Li, suddenly pulled out his pistol, shook it at Zhang's chest, and said viciously, "Don't speak! If you open your mouth, I will shoot you to death!" Li waved his hand to tell Jin Yongyan to retreat, apologized to Zhang, and sent guards to escort him out of the palace. Li called out Wu Jisun, the director of the Printing and Casting Bureau, and handed over the order of exemption to him for announcement on the same day.But Wu refused to accept it. He said that the president's orders were always handed over to the bureau by the State Council, and there was no precedent for the president to hand it over directly. He bowed and retreated.

On the same day, the old Dr. Wu, who was old and sick for a long time, unexpectedly went to the Office of the Premier of the State Council and sent three presidential orders to the Bureau of Printing and Casting for publication.The first order was to remove Duan Qirui, the prime minister, and Wu Tingfang, the foreign minister, to act as the prime minister temporarily; the second order was to assign Zhang Shiyu, the undersecretary of the army, to act as the chief of the army; The commander-in-chief of the garrison in the area, and sent Jiang Chaozong and Chen Guangyuan as deputy commanders.Originally, two orders to punish Ni Sichong and admonish the warlord regiment were drawn up, but they were temporarily withdrawn by Li and not published.

On the same day, Li Tong sent a telegram to the provinces to report on the process of dealing with the cabinet issue.Telegram says: "Since Prime Minister Duan took office, he has worked hard and made great contributions. He has relied heavily on his wealth....In recent days, cabinet members have retired one after another, and politics cannot be carried out. It’s difficult. The President of the University specially complied with Article 34 of the “Contract” to remove the Prime Minister from his post, and Wu Tingfang, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, acted as an interim agent. It is reposted. Wang Pingqing is proposed to succeed him as the chief of the army. The deacons and others are loyal to the country, and when they are great, they are still united inside and outside to work together for the sake of the country."

On the same day, Duan drove to Tianjin. Li sent Ding Huai, an adviser to the government, to present Cheng Yi with 10,000 yuan, and sent the military attache, Chang Yinchang, to see him off on behalf of him.Before leaving, Duan issued a Yangdian saying: "...the cabinet system of the republic and the various countries, unless the incumbent prime minister countersigns, the order cannot take effect. The above items (referring to the above three orders), without the countersignature of Qirui, will not be issued by local and national governments in the future. Therefore, Qirui will not be responsible for any impact." This telegram obviously accused the President of illegally removing his Prime Minister, and did not recognize the validity of this order; the end of the telegram was signed "Prime Minister Duan Qirui", apparently still in office The Prime Minister of the State himself. Wu Tingfang also issued a telegram denying that the order was illegal. According to Article 34 of the "Contract Law", he explained that the president has the full power to appoint and dismiss civil and military officials, and cited "Min Yuan Tang (Shao Yi) and Xiong (Xi Ling) dismissed, Lu ( Zhengxiang) and Zhao (Bingjun) were replaced, the precedents exist, and there is no conflict with the "Yuefa".He used the spear of the Beiyang faction to attack the shield of the Beiyang faction, because the order to replace the prime minister was initiated by the founder of the Beiyang faction, Yuan Shikai, without the countersignation of the original prime minister, and it was not considered illegal at the time. The order issued this time cannot be considered illegal.