Chapter 75 Act Nine: The Democratic Melody of the Chinese

China at the beginning of the 20th century was a place of rapid change.In 1900, the whole country was still fanatically xenophobic, rebelling against foreign countries, and admiring the Boxer Rebellion. In a blink of an eye, in 1903, the whole country began to clamor for reforms in accordance with the requirements of the West.The Zongli Yamen, full of Ah Q's atmosphere, became the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in this year. In 1904, before the official system reform, military reform and judicial reform started, the ruling and opposition parties began to talk about constitutionalism.In the first half of 1905, when Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, the excitement of the Chinese was probably second only to that of the Japanese.In their view, Japan, a country of the yellow race, was able to defeat a European power, all because of their system-they have a constitution.Therefore, if China wants to stand up, the only way is to learn from Japan and create a constitution.

This kind of understanding is not only the appeal of the newspapers, but also the consensus of the new intellectual circles. Powerful gentry in the field, such as Zhang Jian and Tang Shouqian, ministers in the court, such as Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai, and even some princes and relatives , Pu Lun, Zai Ze, and even Yikuang and Tie Liang who were in power thought the same way.To a certain extent, this is thanks to Yan Fu and the Boxers. They injected the evolutionary ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest into the brains of these big men from both positive and negative aspects.If it is said that studying Japan during the Reform Movement of 1898 was just a prelude that was cut off at the beginning, then studying Japan during the New Deal period of the Qing court was really a boom.Not only did tens of thousands of people flock to Japan to study in a short period of time, but Japanese experts, from military instructors to kindergarten teachers, also came to China in batches.At that time, the constitutional appeals of the ruling and opposition parties were also compared to Japan.In fact, according to the classification of system history, Japan’s system back then was not a constitutional monarchy, but a dual monarchy. Although there was a constitution, the power of the monarchy was still higher than that of the people.In the world at that time, the typical countries that practiced dual monarchy included Japan and Germany, and Japan actually learned from Germany.At this time, China's constitutional law has been talking about Japan and Germany, but everyone cares more about Japan.It's just that people in China's ruling and opposition parties who love constitutionalism are originally in the same bed with different dreams.Some people use Japan to talk about things, but they are ambiguous on purpose, and they use Japan to cover up their positions, and finally they really engage in constitutionalism.Some sincerely transplanted the Japanese system, and what they saw was the supremacy of Japan's monarchy.More people, in fact, don't know what a constitution is, and they just want to use the constitution to further share power with the Manchus.Some people who are obsessed with constitutionalism pretend to be confused, while others are really confused.

No matter what everyone's plans are, anyway, under the clamor of the government and the opposition, the overseas returnees took advantage of the opportunity of collective learning at the highest level to give lectures in the palace several times, or fool them. Cao Rulin, the traitor.The Empress Dowager was told that after the constitution was established, the power of the royal family in the late Qing Dynasty would not be weakened, but would be strengthened.No matter whether she believed it genuinely or not, the image of Japan stood there, and the covetous eyes of the great powers stimulated her nerves, so she couldn't help but be tempted.Even so, she still wanted to "seeing is believing" and sent five ministers to go abroad to investigate the constitutional government as her eyes and ears.Among the five ministers, Zaize, Shaoying, and Duanfang are Manchurians, while Xu Shichang and Dai Hongci are well-known, mature and reliable Hanchens. None of them are foreign students, and none of them have had anything to do with Kang Liang. There is no reason not to be trusted .The five ministers inspected Japan, Britain, France, Belgium, the United States, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Russia.It is not without experience to take a quick look at the flowers, but the writing of the investigation report finally fell into the hands of Liang Qichao secretly.With such a report handed in, the imperial court has no reason not to act.When the Queen Mother asked Duan Fang, the most capable of the five ministers, how he would like to establish a constitution, Duan Fang replied that if the constitution is established, the emperor can be hereditary.In a word, the old woman's worries were dispelled. On September 1, 1906, the imperial court announced the imitation of constitutional law, which began in 1908 for a period of nine years. By 1917, the constitutional law was formally implemented.Previously, it was to prepare for the constitutional period, and various preparations for constitutionalization were carried out during the preparatory period.The establishment of provincial consultative bureaus and the central government council is an important step in preparing for a constitution.

"Protect China or protect the Qing Dynasty", this was a question raised during the Reform Movement of 1898, and conservatives used it to make things difficult for reformers.In the process of preparing for the establishment of a constitution in the Qing Dynasty, the shadow of this problem has not disappeared, and it has become a curse that tortured the supreme ruler.Objectively speaking, for Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao among the constitutionalists, the main goal was to protect China, and by the way, the Qing was also preserved.As for those in power in the dynasty, especially the dignitaries in the late Qing Dynasty, protecting the Qing Dynasty was the first priority, and by the way, protecting China.In fact, between these two, there is a third party, that is, the revolutionaries. In 1905, after the Revolutionary Party formed the Tongmenghui, its strength increased greatly and should not be underestimated, while the Revolutionary Party only protected China, not the Qing Dynasty.

In fact, the background of China’s reform at that time was the crisis of carve-up among the great powers, the specific steps they took to divide their spheres of influence in China, the last step in Japan’s annexation of Korea, and the military presence of Japan and Russia in Northeast China.Therefore, there is the issue of "guarantee".In fact, even the diehards in the late Qing Dynasty may not be willing to accept the status of the vassal state regime willingly, because they also know that once this step is reached, the complete subjugation of the country is not far away.Therefore, in this sense, even for those in power, protecting China and protecting the Qing Dynasty are the same thing.If China cannot be kept, the Qing Dynasty will have no chance.If someone enthusiastically and actively preserves China, and at the same time does not reject the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty will naturally be preserved.Therefore, when someone desperately wanted to expel the Tartars, the best choice for those in power in the Qing Dynasty was to actively promote constitutionalism together with the constitutionalists.In this sense, constitutionalism is the best way to avoid revolution.This point, the head of the court is very clear.Therefore, even though the Empress Dowager Xi and Guangxu who made the decision to establish a constitution in 1908 died, and the royal family who succeeded them were young and inexperienced and desperately grasping power, they were never ambiguous about constitutionalization.The regent Zaifeng, who was young and had seen the world abroad, was actually very interested in Western affairs according to his son Puyi's later recall.Therefore, during his administration, the Consultative Council and the Advisory Council, which served as constitutional preparations, successively appeared.The scale of openness to public opinion has also become wider and wider. Although not all of the constitutionalists' petitions for early constitutionalization have been agreed, they have also agreed to shorten the period by three years.It's just that these young relatives only insisted on the constitution, but they didn't know what the constitution meant to China at that time.It seems that in their eyes, as long as the constitution is established according to the established guidelines, the revolution can be avoided, and China, or the Qing Dynasty, can be safe.

In fact, not only did the imperial court avoid the revolution by establishing a constitution or preparing for a constitution, but the revolutionary party also realized that as long as the Qing court really established a constitution, their revolution might be aborted.Therefore, during the preparatory constitutional period of the Qing court, the revolutionaries tried their best to organize a series of uprisings and assassinations, with the purpose of trying to overthrow the Qing government before the Qing government was completely constitutional.On a relatively large scale, there were the Pingliuli uprising in 1906, the Huanggang and Qinvhu uprisings, the Fangcheng and Zhennanguan uprisings in 1907, the Madushan uprising in Qinzhou in 1908, the Hekou uprising, and the Anhui-Zhejiang uprising launched by the Restoration Association in 1907. In this semi-aborted uprising, the governor of Anhui was killed, which shocked the Qing court greatly. In 1908 and 1909, Anqing and Guangzhou new army revolted, and the formed new army launched an attack.There are too many small-scale abortive uprisings everywhere.These uprisings were more or less related to the Qing Dynasty's preparations for constitutionalism. In 1905, the assassination of the five ministers carefully organized by the assassination group of the Restoration Society was directly aimed at establishing the constitution.In this sense, the revolutionaries were not afraid that the Qing government would be "bad" and would not reform, but what they were afraid of was that the Qing government would become better and quickly implement constitutional reforms.But what is paradoxical is that it was this series of uprisings and assassinations that negatively stimulated the pace of constitutionalization and strengthened the determination of the Qing government to establish a constitution.Even though the Empress Dowager and Guangxu who made the decision died, and the successors were full of relatives and nobles, they were quite active in seizing and collecting power, but they did not stop the pace of constitutionalization at all.Their only mistake is that these young and inexperienced young relatives did not realize that the so-called constitution and organizing a congress are not just a constitution and a legislative body, but the rising Han gentry want to share power with them .This power is mainly reflected in specific administration and resource control.In fact, during the period when the Qing government was earnestly implementing constitutional preparations, the uprisings and riots of the Revolutionary Party were indeed greatly contained. Some people in the intellectual circles and the new army agreed to the Qing government to establish a constitution. It is quite puzzled to insist on rioting.The uprisings and riots organized by the revolutionaries were not without effort, but they did not pose a great threat to the Qing government.On the whole, until the Qing government took back the local road mining rights and launched the royal cabinet, their rule was relatively stable, and the local law and order was generally good. In April 1911, the revolutionaries devoted all their efforts to the Guangzhou Uprising, which was launched by the deputy commander-in-chief Huang Xing himself, but it was completely defeated.The final avalanche collapse of the Qing government was because not only did it not respond to several constitutional petitions from the constitutionalists, but it also seized power frantically and excluded the Han people.Disappointed almost all well-known gentry.In this sense, the ultimate culprit for the failure of the Qing Dynasty is the Qing Dynasty itself.It was the relatives and nobles in the late Qing Dynasty that gave the revolutionaries as the third party the greatest opportunity.

The imperial court's establishment of a constitution is good news for both the traditional gentry and the new intellectual circles.At this time, although the propaganda that the revolutionaries were full had spread to the mainland, some students and citizens of the new school had heard of the atrocities of the Qing Dynasty's entry into the customs, Jiading Three Massacres, and Yangzhou Ten Days.But even so, the gentry, citizens and students were quite excited. They took to the streets to celebrate with lanterns. People reveled all night, shouting long live the emperor and long live the constitution.The next thing is to elect the provincial councils.Starting with local self-government in constitutionalism is also Japan's experience, and it was also a relatively reliable path for China at that time.However, for the Chinese people, elections have always been the selection of officials, and voting is still a new thing.At that time, China had a total of 22 provinces. According to the regulations, 22 consultation bureaus were to be elected. However, because Xinjiang was quite backward, there was no establishment for the time being. Therefore, only 21 consultation bureaus were elected successively. .The Consultative Council is a quasi-local council, or a practice local council.The authority is to decide on local reform matters, to decide on local financial budgets and final accounts, to propose amendments, additions and deletions to local laws and regulations, and to be responsible for dealing with local autonomy matters below the provincial level, etc.However, matters to be resolved by the Advisory Council must be submitted to the governor for approval before implementation. If there is a dispute between the governor and the Advisory Council, the motion can be submitted to the Advisory Council for reconsideration, and if it fails, it will be submitted to the Advisory Council for approval.There are two kinds of meetings of the Consultative Council, perennial and temporary, all of which are convened by the governor.Just like in the West, members of the Conference Board are not bound by the law to speak during meetings, and members of the Conference Board are not allowed to be arrested during meetings without the permission of the Conference Board.Obviously, the gentry in China cared about this very much.

In China at that time, such a quasi-parliament could not actually be "elected by the people", but a platform for the gentry to share local power.The electoral process, though primary elections and re-elections, means that voters elect a number of candidates, and then the candidates are elected among themselves, finally electing councilors.But in fact, voting has turned into mutual recommendation among the gentry, and the people who are recommended are all big figures who are highly respected, powerful and enthusiastic about public welfare in the local area.In some places, the selection process was the same as in the past when the top figures were selected for public benefit. Even though they wanted to do the job to death, everyone still gave in, but in the end they pushed out all the people who should be promoted.Voting has mostly become a form.In fact, the design of the election of the Consultative Council took into account China's national conditions. Therefore, the number of councilors that should have been set according to the population ratio was actually based on the number of seats in the imperial examination era (that is, the provinces were determined according to the population and the proportion of scholars. Scholars quota) to determine.As for the qualifications of voters, the threshold is quite high. Men over the age of 25 must also meet one of the following conditions to be eligible: 1. They have been engaged in academic affairs and other public welfare undertakings in the province for more than three years, and have achieved great results; 2. Have obtained a middle school degree or above or equivalent to a middle school degree in this country or a foreign country; 3. Have a tribute student or above background (that is, a scholar); 4. Have served as an official with a seventh rank or above in literature and a fifth rank in military affairs, and have not been recruited 5. Own real estate and business capital of more than 5,000 yuan in the province; 6. Send citizenship from other provinces but own real estate and business capital of more than 10,000 yuan.As for the candidates, in addition to being thirty years old, there are also many moral restrictions, and they must be able to read and write.Therefore, in fact, the election of the Advisory Council was a matter for the gentry themselves, and even businessmen did not participate much, unless the businessmen themselves were originally scholars, or top businessmen like Zhang Jian and Lu Runxiang.The gentry elected each other and promoted each other to form the Consultative Bureau.Therefore, where the gentry is stronger and more active, the elections are more enthusiastic and decent. On the contrary, in remote provinces, the elections are relatively cold, like Xinjiang, where they cannot be elected at all and can only be postponed.

As the country's quasi-representative body, the councilors of the Zizhengyuan are composed of two parts, a total of 200 members, half of whom are elected by the provincial councils.Half are appointed by the emperor and belong to elected members.Among the elected members, there are forty-eight members of the royal family, princes and nobles of Manchu, Han and Mongolia, thirty-two officials from various ministries, and ten scholars and big taxpayers each.Since there is no consultative bureau in Xinjiang, there are vacancies in the two councilors to be elected in the province. Therefore, the appointed councilors will be reduced by two correspondingly, for a total of 196 councillors.However, since the president, vice-president (speaker and vice-president) and the secretary-general of the Council of Ministers are also elected, and the members have voting rights, the elected person has an advantage.

The jurisdiction of the Advisory Council is similar to that of the Advisory Council. It can formulate laws other than the constitution, discuss the country's budget, review fiscal final accounts, discuss tax laws, and issue public bonds.If the Military Aircraft Department and other state agencies disagree with the resolutions of the Zizhengyuan, they can submit a reconsideration. If the administrative agency still disagrees after the reconsideration, it can be submitted to the emperor for adjudication.If the Zizhengyuan has doubts or dissatisfaction with the actions of the administrative agency, it can ask the agency to come to the Zizhengyuan for explanation.But the final disagreement still has to be handed over to the emperor for final decision.

In addition to princes and relatives, most of the court officials and scholars are also gentry in the traditional sense. Therefore, according to the statistics of Taiwanese scholar Zhang Pengyuan, nearly 90% of the members of the Advisory Council have the honor of being a student (scholar) or above. The proportion of those who have meritorious service in the House of Representatives is similar.And more than one tenth of them have received new education, most of them are foreign students.Therefore, the representative system tried out at that time actually established a gentry authority, not a civil authority.However, under the background that the general public at that time was extremely unfamiliar with Western representative systems, completely ignorant, and even afraid of voting, this kind of constitutional preparation led by gentry was undoubtedly appropriate.After all, the characteristics of Chinese society, both culturally and politically, are dominated by elites represented by gentry, and there is a long tradition of gentry autonomy.Although the people are accustomed to living under the rule of imperial power, what they really trust are the gentry around them.They have become accustomed to let the gentry speak on their behalf, and at the same time let the gentry dominate cultural and social life, not only by the gentry, but also by the gentry to protect their safety.If the establishment of a constitution means the separation of powers, then the imperial court can only distribute power to the gentry, and it cannot be distributed to ordinary people anyway.In fact, if we carefully dissect traditional rural society, we will find that there is not only a gradation structure in blood relationship ethics, but also a gradation structure in people's right to speak.Even if the clan discusses matters, the right to speak is not equal.The little ones need the big ones to be represented, if not adequately represented.Due to the absolute superiority of the gentry in culture, it is inevitable for the gentry to appear as a representative system before the whole society undergoes fundamental changes in modernization and urbanization, and at the beginning of democracy.Some people have compared the members of the Consultative Council, the Advisory Council, and the two congresses of the Republic of China, and found that the members of the quasi-parliament in the late Qing Dynasty were of the highest quality. We have seen that neither the Consultative Council nor the Advisory Council is yet a parliament.Even the parliament of the dual monarchy in Japan is not as good.Because they can neither elect members of the executive branch, nor form a cabinet with a majority party in parliament, nor can they really formulate a constitution.However, they are not just a kind of advisory body of the imperial court, rubber stamps, as the previous textbooks said.Although the Advisory Council and the Advisory Council did not exist for a long time, it was the first time that voices from the people appeared in the political arena of the Qing Dynasty.In the absence of modern party politics, the gentry group made good use of this platform to make their own voices, changing the pattern and direction of Chinese political tradition. There is a gradient effect in the operation of the Consultative Council. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas are the best, followed by the two lakes, and Guangdong is also good. Although Zhili is in the north, because Yuan Shikai vigorously promoted local autonomy when he supervised Zhili, Zhili The Conference Board is also doing well.In the area of ​​Jiangsu and Zhejiang, because the gentry has always had relatively strong power, local officials have long been accustomed to consulting the gentry leaders in case of problems. Now they just change the previous behind-the-scenes operation to the front stage. Therefore, the governor and the Advisory Council generally cooperate well.Because the gentry in the two lakes are also relatively powerful, even though the governor is reluctant, the two sides will not tear their faces apart.But if you meet a governor who doesn't know much about things, there will be friction.In general, the original vertical administrative structure of the imperial system, a consultative bureau suddenly appeared, and it was a bit inconvenient from top to bottom.Between the Governor and the Advisory Council, there is endless quarrel over the trivial matter of whether the writing can be written on an equal footing.It took a lot of effort for the consultation bureaus of the provinces to obtain a roughly parallel exchange of official documents with the governor.The most disputed issue between the Conference Board and the Governor is the budget issue.The governor had no sense of budget at all, but now he has to submit it for deliberation, which of course is inconsistent everywhere.In addition, there was friction between the Consultative Bureau in Sichuan and the governor over the control of the Sichuan railway, friction between the Consultative Bureau in Jiangxi and the governor over the reform of taxation and silver dollar collection, friction between the Consultative Bureau in Guangdong over the period of the ban on gambling, and friction between the Consultative Bureau in Yunnan. There is friction in the Council for increasing the price of salt.These frictions and struggles have their own winners and losers, but one thing is certain, that is, since the establishment of the Advisory Council, the behavior of officials, generally speaking, has been restrained a lot. , is being weakened.The emergence of the Consultative Council, the biggest excitement for Chinese politics, was the launch of three constitutional petitions, each of which became larger and more powerful.For this purpose, the conference bureaus in various places have organized a federation of conference bureaus, which is already close to the parliamentary parties. If we say that local politics originally had a tradition of gentry participation, then the imperial court as the central government has never had such a tradition.Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has always been centralized and extreme royal power.Especially in the Qing Dynasty, all power was in the hands of the emperor alone. Even the military aircraft department was nothing more than the emperor's secretary team.Because of this, the Qing government tried to make the Zizhengyuan harmless in its design, with the majority of elected members, so that the Zizhengyuan would not cause trouble for the emperor's central decision-making.However, this wishful thinking was wrong from the very beginning. In fact, even if they are elected members, most of them are from gentry background and belong to the social elite.Their background and demeanor determined that even if they were selected by the emperor, they would not be unprincipled voting machines, let alone unprincipled and unreasonable official intentions.Because they are Chinese gentlemen, gentlemen have the demeanor of gentlemen, even if they are powerful, it is impossible for them to exceed their duties easily, not to mention that the imperial power at that time was far from that strong.Undoubtedly, any matter that elected members insist on fighting for, it is reasonable for them to be more reasonable.When a gentleman discusses an issue, he speaks uprightly when it is obviously reasonable, and on the contrary, speaks clumsily and shortly.Therefore, whenever disputes arose in the Zizhengyuan, the elected members often kept silent, and some even "helped the evildoers" to speak for the elected members.Therefore, relying on the weak majority of three votes from the speaker for the imperial election does not work at all.Not only in parliamentary debates, elected members are overwhelmingly dominant, even in voting, officials cannot take advantage of it.Obviously, if they want to manipulate the parliamentarians, the emperor's electorate is still too small, and the personnel are too elite. If they expand the parliament to 1,000 people, select 800, and stuff a large number of fools who only know how to vote to facilitate manipulation. play. In 1910, the Zizhengyuan impeached the military plane and dealt with it, which was very typical.The cause of this case is as follows. That year, Governor Yang Wending of Hunan started to issue local government bonds, but he started issuing them without approval from the Provincial Consultative Council.Tan Yankai, chairman of the Hunan Consultation Bureau, protested to be invalid, and angrily submitted the case to the Zizheng Yuan for review.Naturally, the Zizheng Yuan immediately deliberated on such an obvious infringement case.However, after the imperial court investigated the case, it said that the failure to submit it to the Consultative Council for resolution was only an oversight, and the public debt was issued as it was.This kind of handling, in any case, made the congressmen unconvinced, and there was a lot of quarrel in the parliament.The "big mouths" among several members of parliament, such as Lei Fen from Jiangsu, Yi Zongkui and Luo Jie from Hunan, and Liu Chunlin (the last champion) from Zhili, spoke successively and argued hard. Members of Parliament also echoed.However, if the Zizhengyuan is the parliament, then the corresponding administrative body should be the cabinet. Even if it is like the Japanese system, the cabinet is also responsible to the parliament.But there was no cabinet at that time, and the Military Aircraft Department was not a cabinet, but just the emperor's secretary team.The emperor (actually the regent) is the de facto head of administration, but this head of administration is also the head of state who holds the final decision.After the Zizhengyuan made a statement, the imperial court handled it in this way. Although the person who handled it was the Military Aircraft Department, it was handled in the name of the emperor.The MPs couldn't swallow their breath, but if they want to fight, it's not good to be directed at the emperor.Therefore, on the grounds of negligence in government affairs, the Military Aircraft Department was asked to come to the Zizheng Yuan to answer the question.The Military Aircraft Department has always talked about Tianxian and ignored it at all.The Advisory Council changed the inquiry to the State Council, and the Military Aircraft Department replied that only the cabinet can be responsible to the parliament.This case is still over, and two more violations by the governor occurred in Yunnan and Guangxi.Now before the imperial court came up with a solution, the Zizheng Yuan decided to impeach the Military Aircraft Department.When the Military Aircraft Department saw that there was a big commotion, and that he had no reason to do so, he quickly compromised and agreed to deal with the violating governor.But it was already too late. The Council of Senior Citizens was relentless. After discussing for a while, they were determined not to revoke the impeachment.In fact, according to the nondescript system at that time, the Senior Advisory Council should not have the authority to impeach the Military Plane Department, because according to the constitutional outline, the emperor has the final decision-making power, and the Military Plane Department is only the emperor's secretarial team, not Bifu. The emperor cannot be impeached.Only when the system changes and a responsible cabinet is established, can impeachment be possible.However, the Zizhengyuan didn't care about this. After discussion, although a few elected members Pipa half hugged and said a few words for the court, the impeachment case was still passed by a majority.The emperor brought the case back, and the councilors disobeyed again, criticizing the emperor's Zhu Yu for not conforming to the spirit of constitutional government.Some people even said that if the emperor refused to agree, simply dissolve the Zizhengyuan.In the end, the Advisory Council still supported the impeachment of the Military Aircraft Department with a majority of 102 votes.After the bill was submitted, the regent had no choice but to stay.In fact, such a proposal has long been beyond the jurisdiction of the Senior Advisory Council, but no one in the court pointed this out. It must be mentioned that the voices of the Consultative Council and the Advisory Council are often amplified by the press, creating enormous public opinion pressure.After a young man like Zaifeng took charge of his family, although he was far less sophisticated than the Queen Mother, the media was much more open.Not only the newspapers inside and outside the Shanghai Concession were extremely arrogant, but even Tianjin and Beijing had newspapers that dared to speak out. The revolutionaries were able to sneak into Beijing and run newspapers under the nose of the imperial court, making irresponsible remarks about the government.This is also one of the reasons why congressmen from the central to local governments are so tough. The imperial court did not slow down the pace of constitutionalization when the parliament was noisy and always had trouble with itself. As a step in preparation for constitutionalization, in May 1911, the imperial court launched a responsible cabinet.However, this royal court is establishing a constitution while collecting power. The responsible cabinet is actually the royal cabinet, and all of them are their own people.At the same time, it also took back the road mining rights from the local area with great fanfare.They did not understand, what is the nature of the gentry advocating constitutionalism?It is nothing more than sharing power with them, especially executive power.Relatives and nobles have a bit of institutional superstition about constitutionalism, thinking that as long as the form of constitutionalism exists, the Qing Dynasty will be preserved.However, this method of collecting power and establishing a constitution completely hurt the hearts of the gentry. All the leaders of the constitutional petition agreed that the imperial court was engaged in a false constitution.At this time, the revolutionary party's anti-population propaganda usually works, and it really is not my race, so its heart must be different.They were extremely disappointed with such a result in exchange for their enthusiasm.As a result, Tang Hualong, chairman of the Hubei Counseling Bureau, immediately became involved with the rebels as soon as the Wuchang Uprising broke out in 1911.The Senior Advisory Council in Beijing held a meeting, shouting and cursing angrily.First, everyone condemned the Ministry of Posts and Communications. Sheng Xuanhuai, the minister of the Ministry of Posts and Communications, did not dare to come to the court for questioning, so he sent a representative, but the representative was scolded to the point of embarrassment.Next, the royal cabinet was rejected, and a new responsible cabinet was elected (someone even voted for Huang Xing).The Zizhengyuan passed the nineteen articles of faith on constitutionalism, and submitted them to the emperor for approval and promulgation.It is clearly stated that the power of the emperor is limited to those stipulated in the Constitution; the power to formulate and amend the Constitution lies with the National Assembly; the Prime Minister of the Cabinet is publicly elected by the National Assembly; if the Prime Minister is not trusted by the Parliament, he will either step down or dissolve the Parliament to hold a general election; the National Assembly has approval The right to make contracts, the right to formulate and review budgets, etc., also specifically stipulates that the royal family is not allowed to serve as the prime minister, and the emperor commands the army, but internal use must be approved by the National Assembly, and the royal family's expenditures are decided by the National Assembly.According to this creed, the dualist monarchy that was originally a constitutional monarchy has completely transformed into a constitutional monarchy.Except for retaining an emperor, this country is not much different in essence from the countries established after the Revolution of 1911. They are all representative countries.In fact, it is a big step forward than the goal of constitutional petitions by constitutionalists.The resolution of the Zizhengyuan, only requiring the execution of Sheng Xuanhuai, the Minister of Posts and Communications who advocated state-owned railways, was not implemented, because the big powers refused to allow it, and sent troops to escort him to Qingdao.However, at this time, no matter how the royal family expressed their stance, no one cared anymore, and it was too late.Soon, a large number of congressmen fled and went back to their hometown to revolutionize.Manchurians who wanted to hold everything in their hands lost everything, completely.This is how China's first parliament came to an end. In 1905, when the Qing court announced that it was preparing to establish a constitution, the students in Jiangsu compiled a song to welcome the establishment of the constitution. The lyrics said: "There is no suffering in peaceful reform, and the establishment of a constitution depends on the monarch." Looking forward to peaceful reform, peaceful transition, and no suffering from top to bottom .However, it is the monarch who makes the constitution, and it is also the monarch who destroys the constitution.If the constitution is destroyed, the monarch is gone.