What would a book that can anger the leaders of the party* and the state go on a collective hunger strike? Wu Chenxuan's hand is this, coated paper printing with more than 30 pages of vinyl photo inserts, the cover is imitation leather surface of the spine of the book, the hard bottom cover of the leather decoration is atmospheric and solemn, especially the empty eyes of a farmer with a tangled head in Xiangxi and the rough porcelain bowl that he is holding in his hand full of calluses, which is his only dry meal of the day, a small half bowl of pumpkin red rice. The blood-red title "A Thousand Miles to the Republic of Vientiane" is the original material that a female reporter of the "Zilinxi Daily" spent more than a year sorting out from the oral accounts and texts and photos of more than a dozen Chinese and foreign travelers.

Perhaps from some of these chapters, it is clear why President Qiao Da was so angry that he did not hesitate to prosecute an uncrowned king again less than two months after the "concession report", completely ignoring the last bit of face of the revolutionary party.

In the third chapter of the book, the bandits protect the people as follows: "In the second year of the Republic, the American pastor Anton 61 Lunding was kidnapped by Jiangxi bandits, and after his release, the pastor Lunding wrote about the bandits:

While he was still in the wine business, one day, a heavy gloom enveloped the bandit leader and the entire camp. One of the subordinates of the bandit leader violated the order. In bandit territory, there are some practices that differ from those on the march. On the road, any bandit can commit almost any atrocity without impunity. And here, in the bandit territory, the bandit leaders are very concerned about their reputation. The bandit, who was on trial, stole a blanket in the name of the bandit leader. When the news reached the ears of the bandit leader, he flew into a rage and ordered the damned bandit to be slaughtered immediately. Many of the bandit's friends came to see him, hoping for leniency, but all these efforts were unsuccessful. The man was shot, everything was over, but the order for the execution was haunting. For several days, the camp was demoralized. The bandit leader himself, in particular, was visibly depressed, but it was clear that he regarded himself as the magistrate of the local area, and the maintenance of order in the area was obviously more important than the lives of his brothers.

Pastor Lunding had a good impression of the bandits, but as soon as we got out of the bandit area, our impression of them suddenly turned bad. They did all kinds of evil, burning, killing and looting to the highest level, and the terrible scene of looting is difficult to describe in words. Villages near and far were destroyed, and smoke and fire were the most visible traces left by the bandits. As the bandit team moved, the area of distress actually expanded to more than 10 miles, filled with smoke, fire, ash and ruins.

Pastor Lundin's description of bandit law enforcement is true. It can be seen that in their own territory, the bandits fight crime more severely than the security army of the republic and the local police. Pastor Lundin sees this as a gradual series: a pure thief at one end and a pure tribune at the other, and there are many combinations between the two, the combination of protection and harm. So, what exactly is it that determines this combination? It may be the pursuit of maximizing profits, both in the long term and in the short term.

Whether it is to protect the people or harm the people, violent groups are seeking to maximize their profits. The reason why the bandits did not disturb the cultivation of the peasants in his sphere of influence was so that there was something to rob.

The premise for the existence of robbery is that there is something to rob; The premise of the hostage for ransom is that the hostage has the financial means to pay the ransom. As stated in the law of blood reward, the price of a hostage is determined by the willingness and ability of the person concerned to pay the ransom. Under the same conditions of risk and cost, the richer the hostage, the richer the object of robbery, and the higher the benefits of kidnapping and robbery. Conversely, the poorer the target of the robbery, the lower the income of the robbery. It is so low that the gains outweigh the losses, and the bandits will not be able to do it.

However, the government obviously has no such scruples, whether it is the county yamen of the previous dynasty or the county government of the current republic, they obviously have the same interest in "three feet high in the sky". (I have to admit that Oriental humor tends to be more black, and they use this humor to express their helplessness in desperate situations.) ）

Because the republican regimes in the South are very skeptical of the long-term nature of their regime, in order to maximize short-term blood gains, legitimate violent groups can also degenerate into bandits (in this case, bandits in the traditional sense).

For example, Huang Qi, the military and political governor of Yulin in Guangxi Province (a revolutionary, who also participated in the Zhennanguan Uprising), was more ruthless than the local bandits, and several kinds of taxes had to be completed when they arrived in Yulin. For example, when you go to Yulin, you will have a rice purchase tax, a distillation tax, a urn tax, a wine sale tax, a wine tax, and so on. Once, the Yulin Poetry Society held a joint contest with the words "poetry" and "wine", and one of the winning couplets was like this:

"The general is astringent and levies alcohol, and the government is busy with tax evasion."

After Huang Qi learned about this satirical matter, he ordered to levy 30% of the income of each person who made the poem, and 20% of the tax on the award. This decree aroused public outrage, but apparently did not make the great and upright President of Nanking react, perhaps because officials like Huang Qi were very common among his subordinates. ”

In the fifth chapter of the book, the official and bandit families describe that in order to maximize their rewards in the long run, the bandits are willing to establish an order that protects the objects of plunder. Hou Shaoxuan is a famous Sichuan robe brother and has close contacts with bandit leaders. In a conversation with the female journalist, he mentioned:

Guanghan is located on Sichuan-Shaanxi Avenue, and business travel is very frequent. However, after the year of Xuantong, the time was blocked, and the republic began, and it was almost often incompatible. Not only do business travelers pass through, but they also need to make a detour or send a business card and letter to negotiate with a robe bandit leader with strength, that is, a small army passes, and they must also send people to negotiate along the way, otherwise they will be beaten and eaten. Later, the bandits decided that the road was impassable and that they would lose their money, so they agreed to a plan whereby they would collect insurance premiums in sections and allow pedestrians to pass with their tickets. For example, a pick-up of salt collects five jiao for insurance, and a bare hand or baggage customer charges one yuan. Cloth dealers and silk gangs negotiate fees for viewing goods, ranging from 100 yuan to a few yuan or dozens of yuan. ……

In view of the widespread uncultivated land and the decline of the population, the bandits will cut off their jobs in the future, so they also came up with a set of "new methods" to replace the general robbery with insurance premiums. That is, each township pays a certain amount of insurance premiums with the local bandit boss every month, that is, the bandit leader is responsible for protection, and if a robbery occurs, they will investigate and punish it. When bandits from other places come to rob, they send bandits to fight the bandits. The method of collecting insurance premiums varies from township to township. The six farms in the north district and the Lianshan and goldfish farms in the east district stipulate that farmers have one ploughing ox and pay five jiao per month; raise a pig, monthly payment triangle; Plant one acre of rice, and pay one bucket of grain after autumn harvest; The landlord rented the valley into the city, and paid five cents of silver per stone...... And all that. As a result, some peasants in towns and villages began to engage in production in part, and the number of fleeings began to decrease, and the bandits enjoyed the benefits without the trouble of robbery. But their desires are endless, the more money the better, and the more guns the better. This method of collecting insurance premiums by township and sub-region always has restrictions on them, and of course they cannot be satisfied. Therefore, in some areas where insurance premiums are paid, there are still robberies. The local leader (of course, Uncle Pao) went to report to the big bandit, but the bandit leader only said that some brothers were disobedient and promised to investigate. Sometimes, they also make a few of the brothers' "Mao" (i.e., killed) to show their "credit".

Although the female reporter is not clear about the local price level, but only from the perspective of land rent or land tax, "plant one mu of rice, and pay one bucket of grain after the autumn harvest", and the tax rate set by the bandits is between 5% ~ 10%, which has the Confucian style of tithing and tax. How should this money be characterized? From the source, this is an alternative to robbery, which can be seen as stolen money. From the point of view of form, if the system established and maintained by the violent group is regarded as the germ of "law", the illicit money is embodied in the income of the system, or "unofficial taxation". From the point of view of function, after the bandits collected fees, they assumed the responsibility of maintaining law and order and fighting against foreign bandits, and sometimes killed a few brothers who broke the law to show credit, and this money has a bit of a public tax meaning. ”

President Qiao Da ate some Huzhou millet porridge under the persuasion of Song Meizi, but Wu Daguan's side was much more corrupt, and the meal was not sumptuous at that time, but the banquet with a very Jinan flavor was held in the restaurant of the Lixiating Old Chamber of Commerce Club in Daming Lake. During the banquet, Wu Chenxuan still had the vice of holding a book in one hand and chopsticks in the other, but it was corresponding to Miss Wang Zijin, who spread out the experimental data during the meal, and the couple was really not a family that did not enter the door.

However, Wu Chenxuan's image of holding "A Thousand Miles to the Republic" in his hand while watching and applauding the case is too unkind, and it is not a small number of words that add blockage to the revolutionary party, not to mention that Tie Liu's huge pen is like a rafter to the revolutionary warlords who spoil the people of Sichuan, but the social investigation reports of the other brother are serialized in the "China Daily" revised from "Qilu Daily", which slapped President Qiao Da and the revolutionary party in the face in front of the people. Of course, this kind of text is not comparable to the immature brushstrokes of this female reporter, but this young reporter Jiang Shangqing has adopted the narrative technique of white drawing very methodically, and does not have any subjective comments of his own from beginning to end, and tells through the words of foreigners and many people in the sea, but has the upper hand in objectivity. Many readers in the south may still have regional partiality towards the issues in the North-South debate, but Jiang Shangqing's book makes them want to believe from the bottom of their hearts that these are realities, without any whitewashing or smearing.

"Jiang Shangqing heard that he is still a double ten young age, and this kung fu really impresses Brother Tieliu and Brother Bei'an." Wu Chenxuan turned his head to Director He Minhan, who was sitting in the corner (the two departments of mood and coordination were upgraded to bureaus, separated from the General Staff Department, and directly under Wu Chenxuan's secretary office and guard room) "I said, Director He, investigate the origin of this Jiang Shangqing to see if there is any possibility of recruitment, he is a talent, don't let it go, ah!" ”

Wu Chenxuan's sudden change of tone surprised all the bigwigs who had dinner together to celebrate the third anniversary of the boss's engagement and the upcoming make-up wedding, but looking at the porcelain teeth grinning and rubbing his thighs, the general seat helplessly put down the book and put down the vegetables for his beloved wife, and the future housewife who had never taken his eyes off the report had just taken back the Qianqianyu hand that had just taken back the spoon and drank porridge. Everyone chose to ignore it, eat and drink, and work with temporary amnesia. Xiong Bingsan and Xu Juren also glanced at the husband and wife, smiled knowingly, and walked away, which made Wu Chenxuan hate itchy, this old man is not repaired!