Yuan Shikai has little experience in local governance, but he is not very interested in Tang Shaoyi and Cai Shaoji's theories of "separation of powers", "judicial independence", and "the sanctity of private property".

The [Outline of the Land Reform System] issued by overseas Chinese and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's [Tianchao Tianmu System], Yuan Shikai has seen them, and the content does have some similarities, such as advocating that the land be nationalized, and then distributed, to achieve the goal of "the cultivator has his land", but there are also big differences, although Yuan Shikai can't say what the different methods are, but instinctively feel that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's [Tianchao Tianmu System] is basically a dead letter, and it is impossible to do it, of course, in the [Tianchao Tianmu System] , to put it very vaguely, many systems are simply not feasible.

For example, in the advocacy of the [Tianchao Tianmu System], it is advocated that "land is divided into upper, middle, and lower levels according to the annual output, and then the good and bad fields are matched with each other, and the good and bad fields are evenly distributed according to the population." But what is the standard for the quality of the land, and who will delineate it. Moreover, "land and land are evenly distributed according to the population", what kind of population does this population refer to, is it the population of the whole country, the population of a province, or the population of a state or county. Although Yuan Shikai has little experience in local governance, he also knows that China has a large land and abundant resources, but the situation is different in each place, generally speaking, the yield of land in the south is higher than that in the north, and the good fields in the north may only be regarded as middle fields in the south, and in the case of roughly the same population, some provinces have more arable land, and some provinces have less, such as Lianghu Province, Sichuan is a large province of arable land, and Fujian and Jiangxi have much less arable land, so this absolutely equal land distribution method is simply impossible.

The distribution method advocated by the Tianchao Tianmu system is "everyone in the world is not selfish, and the things belong to the Lord", that is, each household keeps enough rations, and the rest goes to the Holy Treasury, and each family encounters weddings, funerals, marriages and childbirth, etc., according to the prescribed expenses to the "Holy Treasury" to collect, so as to achieve "everyone in the world is even, everyone is full of warmth", this seems to be no problem, but Yuan Shikai knows that this is also impossible, although Yuan Shikai does not understand "absolute egalitarianism" and "utopian socialism" These concepts, but also know that people's hearts are greedy for selfish interests, after solving the problem of obtaining food and clothing, and then hope to get more and more private property, not to mention this "enough", a "surplus", which is very flexible and full of loopholes. When it is really implemented, there will definitely be situations such as overproduction and underreporting, concealment of property, concealment, and private distribution. This can by no means be solved by rigorous investigation.

In fact, after the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, only in some areas did the [Heavenly Dynasty Tianmu System] really be implemented, and in most areas it was still practiced a more realistic method of "paying grain and paying taxes as before".

However, the [Outline of the Land Reform System] issued by overseas Chinese is much more obvious and reasonable in these details, first of all, it is clear that the division of land is based on the village, and in the distribution system, as long as the grain tax is paid in full, the rest will be privately owned by the peasants. However, on the whole, the [Outline of the Land Reform System] is obviously much more feasible than the [Tianchao Tianmu System].

After another day's journey, Yuan Shikai and his team arrived in Qingdao, and Qin Zheng came forward and Yuan Shikai and his party arrived. This also flattered Yuan Shikai, because he knew that Qin Zheng was the number two person among overseas Chinese, and it was a great shame for him to greet him, and I heard that Li Zhongtang was also the political commissar of Qin who came forward to greet him.

Qingdao has no city walls, but Yuan Shikai still ordered the army to be stationed on the outskirts of Qingdao, and he only brought a small number of troops into the urban area of Qingdao. The traverser specially allocated a residence for Yuan Shikai and his entourage to live in, and the guards were all soldiers brought by Yuan Shikai, leaving only five staff members responsible for liaison and communication.

At this time, Li Hongzhang had not yet arrived in Qingdao, so on the evening of the same day, Yuan Shikai and Qin Zheng had a meeting.

Qin Zheng and Yuan Shikai sat opposite each other, Shang Qisong accompanied each other in the side seat, Yuan Shikai first said: "Political Commissar Qin, the former is the brother's subordinates Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others privately led the army to lead the action, and the enemy of the nobles clashed, although it was not the original intention of the brothers, but there was also a mistake in the investigation, this time it is also to make amends to the nobles, and now the brothers have corrected Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others, and all the losses of the nobles are responsible for compensation." ”

Qin Zheng shook his head and said, "Governor Yuan, please rest assured, we don't plan to pursue this matter any further, let the past matter pass, and don't need to mention it again in the future, everyone is as optimistic as before." ”

When Yuan Shikai heard this, he couldn't help but be a little surprised, he originally thought that he was going to waste his tongue, and overseas Chinese would also take the opportunity to make things difficult, and even ask for a sky-high price, so he knew that they would be so good at talking, and he brought it all over in a word. However, Yuan Shikai is not an innocent teenager, of course he will not believe that overseas Chinese are really good-natured, and there must be something to say later, so Yuan Shikai hurriedly arched his hand and said: "Your magnanimity is magnanimous, brother, I really admire it, but the compensation is still inevitable, this time the brother brought 100,000 taels of silver, I don't know if it is enough." ”

Qin Zheng smiled and said, "The matter of compensation, I will mention it in the next step, but there are some things that we need to figure out, so we hope that Governor Yuan can truthfully answer a few questions from us, but this is not to hold Governor Yuan responsible, and I also hope that Governor Yuan will not mind." ”

Yuan Shikai listened, although he was a little confused, but he also understood that the real goal of overseas Chinese was here, so he said: "Although the political commissar Qin asks, brother, I must know everything, and I will never hide anything." ”

Qin Zheng nodded and said, "If you dare to Governor Yuan, do you know Wang Kexing and Wang Kefu's brothers, maybe they don't use this name, but two young people in their 30s, with Shandong accents, are from this province." ”

Yuan Shikai thought about it seriously, shook his head, and said, "Among the people who know each other, there don't seem to be such two people. ”

Qin Zheng was also noncommittal, and said: "Okay, then this time let Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun lead the troops to participate in the armed forces of the landlord alliance and attack Menbu Village, is it Governor Yuan's own decision, or is it someone else who makes suggestions to Governor Yuan?"

When Yuan Shikai heard this, he hurriedly waved his hand again and again, and said: "Political Commissar Qin, this matter is definitely not my intention, but the private actions of Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others, brother, I really don't know ......"

Qin Zheng interrupted him and said, "Governor Yuan, I have already said just now, we are not trying to hold you responsible, we just want to find the true image of the matter, and we must not end it in such a muddle, so there is no need to say anything about these scenes, I hope you can answer our questions truthfully, this is very important." ”

When Yuan Shikai heard this, he couldn't help but look a little embarrassed, because the other party's words were so straightforward that Yuan Shikai, who was used to the way of speaking around in the Qing court officialdom, was a little uncomfortable. However, Qin Zheng's meaning was completely understood, in fact, after the incident in Menbu Village, Yuan Shikai only thought about how to deal with the relationship with overseas Chinese, and he didn't have time to think about the cause of this incident, after all, the matter had already happened, and it would not make much sense to investigate the cause.

And now that Qin Zheng raised this question very solemnly, Yuan Shikai couldn't help but calm down, thought about it seriously, and then said slowly: "To be honest, this matter was first raised to me by a Japanese military adviser under my command. ”

When Qin Zheng heard this, he couldn't help but look at Shang Qisong, so it seemed that Shang Qisong really guessed that this matter was really related to the Japanese, so he said: "Governor Yuan's subordinates Jingran still have Japanese advisers?

The Beiyang New Army was formed in imitation of the model of the German Army, so it hired a large number of German military advisers, but there were also some military advisers from the United States and Japan, and the American advisers were invited because the United States had a large number of commercial interests in China, and compared with other countries, the United States was quite friendly to the Qing court, and did not send troops to attack the Qing court, nor did it come to ask the Qing court to cede land and pay compensation, and even did not want the concession, so Yuan Shikai and the Qing court also hoped to establish good relations with the United States.

The background of choosing a Japanese military adviser is much more complicated, in fact, according to his heart, Yuan Shikai did not have a good impression of Japan, because Yuan Shikai was disgraced by Japan in North Korea and suffered the first defeat in his life. However, after the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese side intended to improve relations with the Qing court, and also made some gestures of goodwill, and on the other hand, although the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan beat the Qing court all over the ground to find teeth, but in this era of China, there is not much hatred towards Japan, at least the hostility towards Japan will not be above other countries, after all, the Qing court has been beaten too much, there are not many Japan, there are not many Japan, the social sensation caused after the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War is mainly in the face of the can't get by, being beaten by the Westerners, now even a small country around the side can't beat, the face is naturally not passable。

At the same time, there are some people who look at Japan from another point of view, because the national conditions and cultures of the Qing and Japanese countries are similar, and the starting point of the Qing court is much higher than that of Japan, after all, it is a large land and rich resources, but after more than 30 years of Meiji Restoration, Japan has surpassed the Qing court and achieved a rich country and a strong army. The culture is similar, then Japan can do it, the Qing court can also do it, and the road that Japan has taken to achieve prosperity and strength is naturally suitable for the Qing court, so in China once formed a trend of learning from Japan, and later led the reform faction of the Wuxu reform, that is, the Qing court was required to imitate the Japanese reform, and even during the Wuxu reform, the Qing court also hired Ito Hirobumi as a consultant for the reform.

Moreover, the Japanese Army also studied Germany, so it naturally had its own uniqueness, so Yuan Shikai also hired two Japanese consultants, one named Yamaki Ichiro, and the other named Takeo Honda.