At noon the next day, Yuan Shikai sent Cao Kun to lead a team of soldiers to pick up Wang Sheng, and at this time Luo Yue had already led the army to Jinan City to meet Wang Sheng, so the two led the army and set off with Cao Kun and others to Deshenglou Restaurant.

Deshenglou Restaurant is located on the Jiangjiachi side of Jiangjiachi Street at the west gate of Jinan City, it is a two-storey building, built on the waterfront, the scenery is quite beautiful, especially famous for making fish. Customers come upstairs and look down at the fish in the pool, and they can select the fish in the pool on the spot and cook them immediately, so they are more loved by old Jinan diners, and business is very prosperous.

When Wang Sheng, Luo Yue and others came to Deshenglou Restaurant, Yuan Shikai had already received a notice and was waiting downstairs. Seeing them coming, Yuan Shikai immediately greeted him and said, "Director Wang, Camp Chief Luo, you are here, the squires of Jinan have already come, and they are waiting for you upstairs, come upstairs with me." ”

Wang Sheng also nodded and said with a smile: "There is Governor Lao Yuan." Then he introduced Luo Yue to Yuan Shikai, and the two greeted each other. Luo Yue ordered the soldiers to guard the four sides of the Deshenglou restaurant, and he took the guard platoon to enter the building with Wang Sheng, and ordered two guard squads to guard the stairs and take one guard squad upstairs. Yuan Shikai has no objection to this

At this time, only five tables were placed on the entire second floor, four of which were full, each table had a total of eight people, only one table was still vacant and a few vacant seats, Yuan Shikai led Wang Sheng and Luo Yue to this table in place, and the 8 soldiers of the guard squad lined up, standing behind the two, accompanied by Xu Shichang, Zhao Bingjun and Tang Shaoyi, and the other two were Liu Peihe and Du Xinshan, the two proprietors of Deshenglou Restaurant, both of whom were locals and were also regarded as local squires.

After taking a seat, Yuan Shikai introduced everyone present to Wang Sheng and Luo Yue one by one, all of whom were well-known local figures in Jinan, the shopkeeper of the Ruifuxiang silk cloth shop, the owner of the Longxiang cloth shop, the owner of the Puhua shoe store, the young master of Yongsheng East Hat Village, the owner of the old Maosheng candy village, the head of the old house of Ma Xingsheng Shanguo, etc., although most people have their own business operations in Jinan City, but at the same time they are also big landlords, and the family's land is at least more than 1,000 acres, distributed in the villages around Jinan City. In addition, there is a single table of banner people, although by this time, many banner people have gone bankrupt, but there are also some banner people who are good at management, or because they were admitted to the imperial examination as officials, they still have a lot of land and wealth, plus the banner people have political privileges, so they are still a force to be reckoned with.

Every time someone is introduced, both sides will be polite to each other and say "long admiration", but each person's expression is different, some deliberately welcome, some are invisible, some are not smiling, and some are even unable to hide their hostility. However, Wang Sheng is neither humble nor arrogant, and treats each other with complements.

It's just that after introducing a circle, in fact, Wang Sheng didn't remember a few people. But after all, the number of rituals has arrived, so everyone has re-entered the table, and the proprietors Liu Peihe and Du Xinshan ordered the wine and food to be served.

After the wine and food were served, Yuan Shikai took the lead in raising a glass and expressed his joy to Wang Sheng and Luo Yue on behalf of the squires, and everyone echoed together, Wang Sheng and Luo Yue also raised their glasses and toasted this glass with everyone.

When many people were holding the dishes and pressing the wine, Wang Sheng stood up, and everyone thought that Wang Sheng was going to raise a glass to persuade the wine again, but Wang Sheng did not raise a glass, but said: " You warmly invite us to the banquet, of course, it will not just be a drink together, I know that we are all the local leaders of Jinan, that is, in the whole Shandong Province is also a number of figures, the family is big, and there are many industries, I am afraid that we are some resistance to the land reform we are promoting in the Jiaoao area, since we are here today, the wine is not busy drinking, we do not visit to make this matter clear. ”

Wang Sheng went straight to the point so directly, so that all the squires were a little uncomfortable, because according to Chinese habits, they always had to drink three rounds, and then slowly lead the conversation to the topic, but Wang Sheng did not play cards according to common sense, disrupting the normal banquet procedures, so everyone was a little overwhelmed for a while, and after a while, someone got up and said: "Director Wang, after your people take over Shandong, will they also forcibly expropriate everyone's land like Jiaoao?"

Wang Sheng said with a smile: "First of all, I want to clarify that we are not going to expropriate everyone's land, but only to expropriate excess land, which has the standard content in the [Outline of the Land Reform System] we issued, I think you should have seen it, if not, you can come to our office to get it for free." But one thing is certain, that is, after we take over Shandong, we will definitely push forward our land reform system within the Shandong region. ”

The squire said, "The expropriation of excess land is actually the expropriation of the land of our squires." ”

Wang Sheng nodded and said, "You can also say the same." ”

After Wang Sheng finished speaking, the squires suddenly had a whispered discussion, in fact, this answer had long been expected by everyone, but Wang Sheng said it in such a firm tone, which still brought a lot of impact to everyone.

At this time, another squire spoke: "The nobles were originally returned from overseas, but they are descendants of China, and they should know Chinese etiquette, and the nobles act like robbers, so they can convince the people." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, someone immediately echoed him, saying: "That is, that is, aren't you attached to the Great Qing Dynasty? Now that you have been granted the title of my Great Qing Dynasty, and you should respect and abide by the laws of the Great Qing Dynasty, my Great Qing Dynasty still has the royal law, how can I allow you to come nonsense." ”

"Yes, we are all peaceful and kind people, we usually don't steal or rob, we keep our peace, why do you want to expropriate our land, is there any Tianli King Law. ”

"Hmph, I want to take our land, but there is no door, so it's better to go back to your overseas as soon as possible. ”

Everyone gossiped, you and I said one after another, and Wang Sheng and Luo Yue were silent, listening quietly, and when everyone was almost finished, Wang Sheng said: " First of all, I would like to correct one of your statements, it is true that we expropriated land, but we did not expropriate these lands for our own interests, but distributed all the expropriated land to landless peasants, so that they could have land to cultivate, and we have more than 6,000 returnees from overseas, but not one of them has collected a single acre of land as our private property. ”

After hearing this, everyone was a little at a loss for a while, because looking at Wang Sheng's tone and categorical appearance, it really didn't look like a lie, and according to the information they knew, it was true that they had only heard of the expropriation of land by overseas Chinese, but did not occupy the land. Therefore, some people can't help but feel strange, overseas Chinese have collected all the land, but they don't want to give it to the landless peasants.

Only a few people with a clear mind and a keen sense of politics know that this is clearly a move by overseas Chinese to buy the hearts and minds of the people, and from this point of view, the ambitions of overseas Chinese are not small.

Wang Sheng continued: "Why do we want to give all the expropriated land to the peasants? Because there are too many landless peasants, the results of the land surveys we have done in Jiaozhou, Gaomi, and Jimo counties are ......." Wang Sheng said as he took out his tablet and read out the relevant data of the survey. Generally speaking, in the three counties of Jiaozhou, Gaomi, and Jimo, less than 20 percent of the peasant households have land that is basically sufficient to meet their survival needs, while nearly 80 percent of the peasant households have no land, or have a small amount of land but cannot meet their basic survival needs, while the landlords and gentry, who account for less than half of the total population, own more than 80 percent of the land.

"Although we are only doing a survey of the land situation in Jiaozhou, Gaomi and Jimo counties, we think that in other parts of Shandong, the situation is similar, and if the person thinks that there are places in Shandong where the land situation is very different, and most of the farmers have their own land, then he will not visit and tell us. ”

Naturally, no one answered this question, first, because the data listed by Wang Sheng were detailed, and secondly, according to what they saw in their daily lives, everyone felt that the situation in various parts of Shandong was indeed similar, and there were indeed not many landed peasants there, and most of the land was indeed concentrated in the hands of a small number of landlords. I wanted to find a place where most of the farmers had their own land, but I really couldn't find it.

However, someone immediately reacted and said, "Whether the peasants have land or not, what does it have to do with the squires such as me, why do you want to take our land and distribute it to those grass people." ”

This rhetorical question immediately aroused a response from many people.

Wang Sheng nodded, and said: "This question is very good, then I ask you a question, if the peasants have no land, then how can they survive, there is only one way to go, that is, rebellion, the Yellow Turban at the end of the Han Dynasty, the Yellow Suppression at the end of the Tang Dynasty, Li Zicheng at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong and others, that one is not a high call, tens of millions of followers, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, attacking the city and plundering the land eventually caused the dynasty to change the dynasty, and under the suppression, there is no egg, there was a peasant riot, do you think you can be spared? What I just said was about the previous dynasty, let's talk about this dynasty, 40 years ago, I think you should have heard the old man talk about it, even if you haven't experienced it, and the Boxer Rebellion that happened last year was launched in Shandong. Although the initiators and leaders of these events may have ulterior motives, and the vast majority of the followers are peasants who have lost their land and cannot survive, who wants to rebel if there is a way to survive? I don't think you want to go through the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or the Boxer Rebellion again. ”

"We expropriate your surplus land and distribute it to landless farmers, so that they can cultivate with peace of mind and let the cultivators have their own land, which is the right way to govern the country, and at the same time, it is also for your personal safety. Our ancestors went overseas to survive in the late Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty fell because the land annexation was too heavy, and the peasants had no land and no way to survive, so they had to take risks and rebel and make chaos, so that the late Ming Dynasty was full of Kou and Quartet, so we absorbed the lessons of the late Ming Dynasty overseas, divided the fields equally, so that the cultivators had their fields, could operate with peace of mind, and lived and worked in peace and contentment, so there was no rebellion for more than 200 years. Now the land situation in the Qing Dynasty is very similar to that in the late Ming Dynasty, the peasants have no land, although we have returned to China for the first time, but we also know that its situation is in danger, under our own rule, but we must try our best to divide the land equally, in order to reassure the people. ”