The government hall is located in the building behind the Hanhe Palace, and its location can be said to be half in the presidential palace and half in the old country. Business. Courtyard. The Printing and Casting Bureau was already outside the hospital. The left side of the government hall is the confidential bureau, the right is the left and right rest houses, and the government hall office is the old country. Business. Location.

The Articles of Association of the Government Council are as follows:

1. The Secretary of State shall have the right to participate in military affairs, and the Secretary of State of the Military Council shall be present.

(2) All external affairs shall be conducted in the name of the government affairs hall.

(3) The Secretary of State shall issue a decree within the confines of the Chamber.

(4) The Secretary of State may convene a meeting of the Ministers of Ministers.

Judging from the above situation, Xu Shichang, the secretary of state, is actually presiding over the government. The day-to-day administration of the government.

Although there is no country of origin in law. Business. Total. The status of the reason, but in substance, far exceeds that of the former state. Business. Total. above the reason. This should be because Xu Shichang is the secretary of state, and the so-called things are set up because of people.

Because this authority comes from the president's authority and has no legal guarantees, it can be withdrawn at any time if the president does not want to.

The Secretary of State is required to approve the main matters of the Ministries, except for routine business that can be handled on their own, so the Heads of Ministries are actually subordinate to the Secretary of State. At that time, there was also a stipulation, that is, the five chiefs of foreign affairs, internal affairs, communications, finance, and army, that Yuan must be met every day, and the secretary of state must lead the meeting.

Xu Shichang told a friend that the secretary of state was no less busy than the minister of military aircraft in charge of various ministries in the Qing Dynasty.

This old minister gets up very early every day, goes to work after washing up after 8 o'clock, and arrives at the presidential palace at 9 o'clock. At about ten o'clock, Yang Shiqi and Qian Nengxun entered the court to discuss state affairs with Yuan Shikai. At eleven o'clock, I went to the government hall to work, and at twelve o'clock I had lunch. Sometimes he eats with Yuan Shikai, and sometimes he eats with Yang Shiqi and Qian Nengxun. Rest at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, work from 4 or 5 o'clock to 10 o'clock in the evening.

There are six bureaus under the Political Affairs Hall: the Confidential Bureau, the Comptroller's Bureau, the Quanxu Bureau, the Legislative Affairs Bureau, the Printing and Casting Bureau, and the Secretariat. The busiest is the Confidential Bureau. In addition to the director of the Confidential Bureau, Zhang Yixuan, there are two deputies Feng Xueshu and Guo Zeyun.

Zhang Yixiao is the most diligent and starts working at 6 o'clock in the morning every day.

Yang Shiqi and Qian Nengxun went to work at seven o'clock, reviewed the official affairs sorted out by Zhang Yixuan, and then presented them to Xu Shichang.

Zhang Yiyan also has a deep relationship with Yuan Shikai, and he is a person who is deeply trusted by Yuan Shikai.

Before this, although Liang Shiyi had all the power, Zhang Yiyi was also a red-card secretary. He does not belong to any faction, it is said that Xu Shichang became the secretary of state, and many details between Yuan Shikai and Xu Shichang were contacted by Zhang Yixuan from the middle.

The director of the Comptroller Bureau, Wu Dinh Xie, has always had a deep relationship with Xu Shichang, is familiar with political leaders and evidence, is good at literature, and is regarded as a Taoist gentleman. The Comptroller's Office is a condescending financial body, and the financial councils in the former Presidential Palace were merged into the Comptroller's Bureau. Ngo Htin Sup is not a financial expert, and his ability to make plans is not useful.

In view of this, Ngo Dinh Xie expressed his "authoritative" opinions on the financial evidence, such as the number of books in China's Tianfu and the original cause of the reform of the tax law, and he also wrote a special book entitled "Cleaning Up the Fiscal Examination".

The Comptroller's Bureau was located in Huairen Hall, which was the Yiluan Hall of the Qing Dynasty.

The Quanxu Bureau, the Printing and Casting Bureau, and the Legislative Affairs Bureau are all old people, the Department Affairs Bureau is a special general office, and the director is Wu Qiansun, an old man who once accompanied Xu Shichang in the three eastern provinces.

After Xu Shichang came out of the mountain, he had his own way. In the past, when cabinet members joined the cabinet, they always made long-form political opinions, but the result was that nothing was accomplished and they were anxious.

Now after the chaos, I only want to rest, so I don't dare to publish a new deal, I only want to choose what is feasible, and what is not feasible is not. Good governance is good and effective, and bad governance is the opposite.

He said: "If everyone laughs at me for not showing anything, I don't dare to quit, and today everyone pulled me out, or because of this characteristic of me." ”

But what are the characteristics of Xu Shichang? , many people say that it is "retro" in concrete terms! In fact, there may be a certain misunderstanding. Among the important ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, Xu Shichang was by no means a stubborn and conservative person, on the contrary, he had always sought new changes.

For example, in the Wuxu Restoration, he undoubtedly belonged to the Restoration, but he was not involved in it because of his knowledge of current affairs. In the constitutional movement, he was not only a staunch constitutionalist, but also a radical among the constitutionalist. In the process of abdicating the Qing court and peacefully realizing the republic, Xu Shichang's role was at least one of the masterminds.

After Xu Shichang became Secretary of State, what he did did did have a strong retro flavor, which was not necessarily his original intention. He was with Yuan Shikai, always a staff officer, and Yuan Shikai's adviser. In other words, Xu Shichang's retro is adhering to Yuan Shikai's wishes.

Objectively speaking, in any era of transformation between the old and the new, the shadow of the old always disappears from time to time. As the revolutionaries represented by the Kuomintang were driven out of politics, Yuan Shikai was in power. Most of the backbone of the government are the old and young remnants of the Qing court, the so-called old people.

And Yuan Shikai's Beiyang system is fundamentally an old thing.

At that time, in the Republic of China, ordinary martial artists, officials and literati without practice were stubborn in their minds, and most of them were vying for favor in order to be promoted and make a fortune. Most of them don't know the difference between a great president and an emperor, and the difference between a democratic republic and a feudal autocracy.

At that time, a lot of strange things happened every day, which made people laugh and cry.

Like what:

1. On March 3 of the first year of the Republic of China, Zhao Erxun, the governor of the three eastern provinces, ordered: "The republic is established, that is, the party ban should be dissolved and the business should be resumed." Recently, it was reported that the party members in southern province were still lurking in various parts of Feng Province and had no qualifications to return to their hometowns, so they were limited to reporting to the nearest government office within five days, and they were given Sichuan funds to leave the country at a limited speed. ”

Zhao Erxun, who was transformed from the governor of the Qing Dynasty to the governor of the Republic of China, doesn't know what the political party in his heart is, and who created the Republic of China?

2. On March 10 of the first year, Feng Guozhang, the commander of the Praetorian Guard, ordered the residents of Nancheng to remove the national flag, "covering the two palaces with fear". Feng Guozhang later became the president of the Republic of China, but in his heart, the national flag was not as important as the abolished emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

3. Zhao Weixi, the governor of Gansu, refused to cut his hair and persecuted those who cut his hair.

In July of the first year, people in Beijing from Gansu Province petitioned the Senate, asking for a transfer to Zhao Weixi to cut his hair and protect the people who cut his hair.

Later, Zhao Weixi actually won the second-class Jiahe Medal and the rank of army general. He folded on the thanksgiving, and in the compromise, wherever there was the word "Kai", it was replaced by the word Kai.

Fourth, in the first year, Fan Zengxiang telegraphed Yuan, opposing officials calling themselves "servants". It is also said that the Republic of China should have a fifth-class title.

On February 28, 202, Beijing's "Guofeng Bao" carried a secret telegram from Feng Guozhang and Ni Sichong to persuade them, and the sentence was: "...... Sun Huang lost power and has entered the hero's nest; Li Duan's heart can be sent to the general outside the ......".

6. Qiu Pingzhi, a businessman from Hubei Province (one said to be from Shandong), sent a letter to the Presidential Palace, abbreviatingly: "The dignity of the president is not as good as the monarch, and the order of the governor is equal to the fashion." The National Assembly was established in the country, and the official election was officially elected, and the relationship was light, and if you were not careful, the whole country would be eroded. The happiness of the republic is not as good as the slave of the country, such as temporarily changing the constitution of the empire and slowing down the republic. ”

Although Yuan ordered it to be taken on March 19 of the second year, Qiu actually openly surrendered to Jinjing, like a hero who was rewarded.

7. In April of the second year of the Republic of China, Zhang Zhongyi, a native of Hunan, handed over the list of emperors who persuaded him, claiming to be a minister, and all of them used the pun script, and there was no reason for not being right. Yuan ordered Xiang to take over, but there was no follow-up.

The above are just picked, and there are many strange phenomena like this.

When Xu Shichang came to power, retro openly advocated it.

One of the first things he did when he took office was to order the civil servants of the country to issue the old official titles of the Qing Dynasty when submitting their resumes. On the first Dragon Boat Festival when he was secretary of state, he actually wore a red-topped flower feather, participated in the festival banquet of the Xunqing Dynasty as the "Great Qing" Taifu, and kowtowed to Puyi.

Because Secretary Xu actually restored the status of Taifu, there were rumors that Yuan Shikai would restore the Qing Empire through Xu Shichang, and the deputy ministers would use Manchu.

Xu Shichang not only wanted the resumes of all civilian officials who had been officials in the Xun Qing Dynasty, but also further restored the old official names.

On May 23, the third year of the Republic of China, the civil affairs chiefs of each province were changed to patrol envoys, and the observation envoys were changed to Daoyin.

What is even more intensified is to restore all the old habits in the former Qing officialdom, including salutation, pomp, and so on.

Yuan Shikai instructed the War Department to order all provincial military organs to prohibit each other from addressing each other as "Mr.", whether in official documents or private letters; This is in sharp contrast with the order of the provisional President Sun Yat-sen on February 24 of the first year of the Republic of China to ban titles such as "adult" and "master", and the officials refer to each other by their official positions, and the people call each other by "sir" or "jun", which has just become a sharp contrast!

Secretary Xu also reinstated the habit of serving tea to guests, which was originally a ritual in Qing Dynasty officialdom. When officials receive their subordinates or guests, the waiters serve tea, and the guests are not allowed to drink as usual. When the host serves tea, it is a hint that the guest must leave.

As for the locality, the governors of the provinces use arrows, the itinerary uses rolling orders, and those who seek to see them hand over their notebooks and resumes.

There is a magistrate of Tongcheng County, Anhui Province, who went to meet Ni Sichong, who is also the head of civil affairs, after taking office. didn't prepare a handbook, it was a business card used, and was severely reprimanded by Ni Sichong.

Yuan often convened all his subordinates to hold an audience ceremony, and except for those who were "exempted from the audience" by the president, the senior officials from all provinces who came to Beijing and the newly appointed officials had to hold the audience ceremony. There is a certain procedure for writing between the upper and lower levels and the parallel level, and the governors of all provinces use "submission" for the political affairs hall, the general staff, and the six military departments. However, the exception was the Governor of Zhili, which was also an old precedent invoking the Qing Dynasty's Governor of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang as parallel organs to the Military Aircraft Department and other organs.

Therefore, everyone feels that the officials of the Republic of China are far less majestic than the officials of the Qing Dynasty, the chief is not as good as the Shangshu, the governor and the chief of civil affairs are not as good as the governor and governor, and the county governor is not as good as the county main hall.

In the third year of the Republic of China, Qiongya Dao Yin Wang Shoumin submitted to Li Guoyun, the envoy of Guangdong, and said: "Qiongya folk customs are strong, not to be convincing by official authority, not enough to be subdued, and it is planned to use the former Qing Dynasty honor guards, such as golden drum umbrellas, Rizhao deacons, large four sedan chairs, etc. ”

Li Guoyun, the envoy of the Guangdong Governor's Command, even openly approved it.