Yuan Shikai's strength is to dare to speak, dare to think, dare to do, and dare to break through, which is precisely Zhang Zhidong's shortcomings. Because of the latter, there are always a lot of concerns. Yuan Shikai's shortcoming is that he doesn't think about things comprehensively enough, he takes care of one thing and loses the other, and he can think of all aspects involved in a certain matter, which is Zhang Zhidong's advantage.

Perhaps, this is the complementary advantages.

After the reorganization of the Military Aircraft Department, there are no Zhai Hongsui and other people who are against Yuan Shikai everywhere. The second round of constitutional reform, presided over by Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong, went smoothly and achieved a series of results.

For example, the Political Investigation Hall was changed to the Constitutional Compilation and Investigation Hall.

Wang Daxie, Da Shou, and Yu Shimei were sent to Britain, Japan, and Germany to inspect the constitution.

Pu Lun and Sun Jiading were appointed as presidents of the Information Administration Yuan, and the establishment of rules and regulations of the Information Administration Yuan was planned.

The provincial governors were instructed to quickly prepare for the establishment of the Consultative Council and the prefecture and county assemblies, and to promulgate the outline of the constitution and a series of laws for change. ……

This series of measures is of great significance.

On October 19, 1907, the Qing court issued an edict to set up advisory bureaus in all provinces. The central government is preparing to establish the Information Administration Yuan.

On 22 December 1908, the Qing court promulgated the Statutes of the Provincial Consultative Bureaus and the Statutes for the Election of Consultative Councillors.

Subsequently, the propaganda work for the election of members of parliament for the national election was carried out in an all-round way in various localities.

The gentry and local organizations sent people to give speeches in various places. Tell the people that the parliament is for the people to speak. Choosing a parliamentarian who can express his wishes, can speak up and do things for everyone, dare to speak, and have the ability to speak is related to everyone's vital interests.

Although the constitution of the Qing court did not achieve final results, this series of activities and measures was not insignificant. This is because the transformation of the country is gradual, and it is transformed into qualitative change through continuous accumulation.

Many people look at history and focus only on those epoch-making events. However, they forget that without the accumulation of quantity, there can be no qualitative change.

Just as there is no grass that has been pressed on the camel, the last straw cannot bring the camel down.

The establishment of the Yuans was based on the consideration that "the House of Upper and Lower Houses of China has not been established for a while, and it is urgent to set up the Yuans as the basis for the Legislative Yuan". In other words, it is a transitional legislature that aims to cultivate and train the capacity of parliamentarians and lay the foundation for the establishment of a full-fledged bicameral parliament.

The Consultative Bureau is a local deliberative body established in the reform of the late Qing Dynasty, and has the rudiments of a representative legislature in the West. In imitation of the councils of local councils in Western constitutional countries, they discuss the events that should be reformed in the province, such as budgets, final accounts, tax laws, public debts, and provincial government obligations. The election of members of the Council is the first election of representatives in the history of China.

The establishment of the Information Council, the provincial consultative bureaus, and the state and county assemblies marked the legal beginning of the process of local democratization in China, and for the first time within the feudal hierarchy, democratic institutions outside of privilege and autocracy appeared.

On the one hand, it restricts the feudal autocracy to varying degrees, and on the other hand, it has also become a school, a school for cultivating people's democratic consciousness.

It turns out that the world should not have the final say on the governor, and many important matters have to be discussed with everyone, and everyone's opinions must be sought.

This opened up a way for all strata of Chinese society to participate in politics, and provided a platform for the new gentry class to express their political demands.

It also formed a powerful political force, cultivating gravediggers to bury the decaying feudal system.

Progress continued, and in 1908, the Qing court promulgated the Outline of the King James Constitution and the Essentials of the Election Law for the House of Representatives, which specified that a preparatory constitution should be established for a period of nine years.

The constitution will be formally promulgated in 1916 and the first congressional elections will be held. The first congress will be convened in 1917.

The "Outline of the King James Constitution" is the first constitutional document in modern China, which is compiled by "the Constitutional Compilation and Investigation Hall, the Five Ministers of the Information Yuan, and the Governor of the same Pavilion, who are familiar with the law and politics, and selects the good rules of the nations and compromises the constitution of the country", with a total of 23 articles, divided into two parts, one is the power of the monarch, a total of 14 articles; The second is the rights and duties of the subjects, with a total of nine articles. A striking feature of the Outline of the King James Constitution is the reference to Japan's Meiji Constitution.

The Outline of the King James Constitution is of unprecedented significance. Although the Qing court's "Outline of the King James Constitution", when borrowing from Japan's "Meiji Constitution", deleted the most important part, that is, the restriction clause on the monarchy's power, in essence, it was another strengthening of the feudal monarchy's power, and it could not be regarded as a constitution in the true sense. Because of this, it was condemned and denied by the constitutionalists.

However, in China before, imperial power had always been supreme. Now at least the imperial power must be regulated by law, and the step of limiting the supreme power within the scope of the law and the system is, after all, a step out.

Cixi has always regarded imperial power as more important than life, and under her watchful eye, can she still be too demanding of Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong?

The progress of social material production and material life, the changes in social life, and the demands of social and economic development for changes in the country's political system. Within this feudal regime, the system itself is being eaten away.

During this period, the Qing court made every bit of achievements in the constitution should be engraved with the names of two people, that is, Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong.

This can at least show that two people can work together to do things together, no matter how different their political views are.

As we said, Yuan Shikai is a person who does things, no matter what position he is in, no matter what he is doing, he always tries to find out the situation and is good at finding and solving problems.

Similarly, in his position as the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he also did a lot of practical things.

When it comes to Yuan Shikai's performance in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first thing that should be mentioned is that the United States has refunded part of the Gengzi indemnity.

Gengzi was once the heaviest burden on the poor Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty, and it can be said that the Chinese people could not breathe.

Some people say that in the foreign relations of the late Qing Dynasty, Britain was the first to have a grudge with China, Japan was the one with the deepest grudge against China, and the United States had a better relationship with each other.

When Yuan Shikai arrived in office, he heard about a situation that was provided by Liang Cheng, the Chinese minister to the United States. US Minister Liang Cheng said that in his contacts with people from all walks of life in the United States, he found that there are many conscientious politicians and people from all walks of life in the United States, who believe that China's Gengzi has paid too much compensation and have deep sympathy for the Chinese people who are suffering deeply.

Yuan Shikai paid great attention to this matter. Therefore, he asked Tang Shaoyi, the governor of Mukden, to make efforts to liaise with the US consul general in Mukden to strengthen communication and cooperation.

In 1908, Yuan Shikai promised to set up a bank of the three eastern provinces to borrow money from the United States and actively respond to the concerns of the United States.

In the same year, Yuan Shikai sent Tang Shaoyi to the United States for secret negotiations, and the main task of this trip was to return Gengzi's compensation.

In order to bring about this important event for the country and the nation, the person who made the merit was Liang Cheng, the Chinese minister to the United States, who had done a lot of work as a member of the US Congress.

Another person was the American missionary in China, Ming Enpu, who once wrote a letter and persuaded the American president in person through his relationship with the then incumbent American president.

Foreign missionaries were one of the earliest groups to come into contact with the Chinese in modern times. In the course of their mission, they were able to get in close contact with the Chinese and had a keen and meticulous observation of the Chinese character. American Congregational missionary Ming Enpu came to China in 1872 and lived in China for 54 years, and wrote the book "The Quality of the Chinese," which provides a detailed analysis of the character of the Chinese.

In Ming Enpu's view, hard work is a distinctive characteristic of the Chinese, but it is not a virtue worth proclaiming. Because behind the hard work, there is continuous hard work and struggle for "living". This phenomenon shows that China's productivity and living standards are very low. Only hard work can maintain a basic life, which must be done by diligence and thrift, so "thrift" has become a derivative character, and in the eyes of Chinese, thrift is also a traditional virtue.

This strange logic baffles Americans. Ming Enpu believes that the Chinese have turned "poverty into a science."

Long-term poverty has forged the tenacious character of the Chinese, and generally has the characteristics of high-strength tolerance and pressure resistance. In Ming Enpu's view, patience is a kind of concealment, a kind of caution, and there are similarities with fishermen and hunters. But Ming Eunpu equates this patience with the passive patience of the Indians.

The so-called benevolent sees the benevolent, the wise see the wise, no matter what, we should remember this person. Now, let's go back to the story.

Through the efforts of all parties, the US Congress finally made a decision in 1908 to refund half of the Gengzi indemnity it had received and use the money to train Chinese students to study in the United States.

And the current Tsinghua University, which was the preparatory school for studying in the United States at that time, was established with part of the Gengzi indemnity refunded by the United States.

The Chinese should not forget the humiliation and oppression inflicted on the Chinese by the great powers more than a hundred years ago. But we should also remember that there is a country that, thanks to the efforts of many of its high-character politicians and people from all walks of life, has sincerely helped the Chinese people in disasters.

During Yuan Shikai's tenure as the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, another thing he did very well was to abolish the "Five Articles on Receiving Clergy".

After the defeat of China in the Opium War, under the pressure of the great powers, it formulated the "Five Articles for Receiving Missionaries", which was superior to foreign missionaries.

The regulations stipulate that foreign missionaries are equivalent to magistrates in China, and this encourages some foreign missionaries with poor character to commit crimes in China.

The issue of the "lesson plan" that triggered the Gengzi incident is not unrelated to this.

In April 1908, Yuan Shikai reported to the imperial court and revoked this unreasonable regulation. It is of positive significance to curb the arrogance of bad clergy and ease the relations between the church and the people.