After the death of Liu Kunyi, the former governor of Liangjiang, the governorship was replaced by Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Huguang, and the imperial court reappointed a new governor, Wei Guangtao, in the shortest possible time. Everyone knows that Zhang Zhidong is inseparable from the imperial court, and everyone also knows that the most important task after arriving in Liangjiang is to exterminate the chaotic party.

It was not the right time for Wei Guangtao to take office, and the Zhenguo Party attacked Guangxi during this time and pacified it in a very short time. Most of the Guangxi Green Battalion, Frontier Army, and Eight Banners Army surrendered, Guangxi Governor Li Jingxi was nowhere to be found, and Guangxi Governor Su Yuanchun died on the battlefield. At this point, the Zhenguo Rebellion Party has occupied most of the southern part of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and it is completely occupied, compared with the Changmao Rebellion of the year, the influence of the Rebellion Party is greater, the strength is stronger, and the military strength of the imperial court is relatively worse. The Hunan Army and the Huai Army are long gone, and the new army has not yet been formed.

Before coming, Wei Guangtao went to Cixi to kowtow, and the Queen Mother told him that the harm of the chaotic party endangers the foundation of the imperial court, if you don't get rid of it, the country is in danger, and the only task for you to go to Liangjiang is to inherit the task of suppressing the bandit alliance and exterminate the bandits. In order to help Wei Guangtao achieve his goal, Cixi even handed over the 10 million taels of silver originally allocated to Yuan Shikai to Wei Guangtao, so that he could step up the training of the Jiangnan New Army.

Before taking office, Wei Guangtao also did his homework, his understanding of Zhenguojun was no worse than that of other southern officials, and he held tens of millions of taels of silver in his hand, and his psychology was not easy. The Zhenguo Party has a strong army like the Changmao in those days, but what is more advantageous is that the Zhenguo Party has strong economic strength and has the support of the locals. The formation and training of the new army is one thing, but it should not be the whole story, and it is also necessary to attack the basis of the existence of the Zhenguo Party at the economic level, and once its economic base is broken, its upper echelons will collapse without a fight.

In the gentry class, the Zhenguo Party was not without enemies, and after arriving in Nanjing, Wei Guangtao received many greetings from some people, and also met many people, and it was obvious that the factories of the Zhenguo Party caused a lot of trouble to the compradors in the south. The goods of Guangdong were sold to the southern provinces, and the border blockade did not play a role at all, and smuggling and corruption made it useless, and the influx of a large number of commodities led to the impact of the goods brought in by foreign companies, which in turn made a huge group of compradors hate the Zhenguo Party to the core. Local merchants and gentry from all provinces joined the ranks of selling Cantonese goods, and the compradors, no matter how powerful they were, could not compete with the more powerful local merchants.

More importantly, the Beiyang forces, which took over the China Merchants Steamship Bureau after Li Hongzhang's death, also had a positive conflict of interest with the Zhenguo Party, and the shipping company in Guangdong, which had been established less than three years ago, transported goods from Guangdong to the coast and along the Yangtze River under the banner of an American company, and in this way continued to expand its business scope, thus forming a situation of opposition between the two powers and the China Merchants Steamship Bureau. This is by no means tolerable for the various interest groups that are attached to the China Merchants Bureau.

On December 1, 1902, Wei Guangtao again convened the annual meeting of the Bandit Suppression League, and unexpectedly, this meeting chose Shanghai, the most important economic city in China, the location of the steamship China Merchants Bureau, and the place where the achievements of the Westernization Movement were most concentrated. Except for Wei Guangtao, the governor of Liangjiang, and Li Xingrui, the acting governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Zhou Fu, the acting governor of Liangguang, Ding Zhenze, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and Cen Chunxuan, the governor of Sichuan, did not come. Ding Zhenze and Cen Chunxuan are because of the long distance, while Zhou Fu is because after the fall of Guangxi, they are now at a political low ebb and have no face to face.

In the largest room of the Daotai Yamen in Shanghai, more than 40 people were seated, and unlike in the past, some of them were obviously not feudal officials or officials with real power, but their expressions looked even more impatient.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have just taken office, but I have already felt the pervasive pressure of the chaotic party on us. A few days ago, I was on the street of Nanjing, and I saw many people cutting off their braids and wearing the so-called Hanfu (a popular costume in the south, very close to the tunic suit, a product of Guangzhou Garment Factory), and they did not kneel when they saw the official sedan chair! The official asked him to take it down, but he didn't expect this person to have a heart-wrenching word: everyone is created equal, why should those who are officials be superior? Sooner or later, the Zhenguo Party will come and kill all of you Manchu minions! Listen, when did the common people have this kind of courage and insight? It can be seen that the chaotic party has affected all aspects of society, and it is urgent to eradicate the chaotic party! The more Wei Guangtao spoke, the more angry he became, he was an official in the northern interior before, and he couldn't imagine that he would be in such a mess here! This is still Nanjing, what about other places?

"Lord Wei is angry, may this official ask how that person was dealt with in the end?" Li Xingrui asked.

"How can this official be as knowledgeable as this kind of person, let his subordinates teach him a lesson and then blow away, speaking of which this official is an official and a place, for the benefit of one party, he still has to be open-minded!" Lao Wei touched his beard, looking like a good person who was compassionate and compassionate.

"Lord Wei is confused, that person is nine times out of ten to revitalize the country and rebel against the party. What you don't know is that more and more people are joining the Zhenguo Party in the southern provinces, especially in the two rivers and lakes. These people are bold and often openly promote the Zhenguo Party on the street, and when they are arrested by the imperial court, they even take out their guns to resist! They are numerous, have advanced guns, and are not afraid of death, and the court's captors avoid them when they encounter them. Now all localities are organizing forces to arrest those rebellious parties, and this official is also thinking of using the new army that is being trained to join! "Although Li Xingrui is acting in Fujian and Zhejiang, he is mostly in Jiangxi, which is the front line facing Guangdong, the Zhenguo Party is more active, and Li Xingrui's tasks are more onerous, so he knows more about these things.

"Lawlessness! The purpose of this official meeting is to discuss how to speed up the pace of exterminating the rebellious party. It has been more than four months since the formation of the new army, and the progress of the seventh, ninth, seventeenth, and nineteenth towns varies, but it is expected that the reorganization will be completed next year. Compared with the Zhenguo Rebellion Party, the troops in these four towns are not sufficient, and we still have to find a way to expand the scale of the new army. Yungui and Sichuan can each form a town has exhausted all their strength, so this official will continue to form a new army in Liangjiang, and temporarily name it the twentieth town and the twenty-first town of the new army. Military preparations will take time, but we must strike at the rebels now. ”

"Lord Wei, I think I already have a strategy in my chest, why don't you tell it and let everyone refer to it?"

"Well, before I say that, I will introduce these people to you, Lord Sheng Xuanhuai, the left waiter of the Ministry of Industry, Xu Run, the Chinese tea king and real estate tycoon, Zheng Guanying, the former governor of Zhili, and the representatives of businessmen in Jiangsu and Zhejiang." These people are not strangers in the officialdom, in fact, everyone here knows them, what is puzzling is what is the purpose of Wei Guangtao inviting them?

"Ladies and gentlemen, the China Merchants Steamship Bureau has been thriving since the official supervision and commercial office, and has become the core industry of the Westernization Movement, contributing a large amount of tax and silver to the imperial court every year. However, in recent times, they have been strongly squeezed by Guangzhou Shipping, and their business has entered the Yangtze River, and Lord Gong Bao is also very angry about this. In addition, the situation of the merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is also becoming more and more difficult, and the arrow points to the factories opened by the Zhenguo Party in Guangzhou. From this point of view, we have the same goal as all of you, and from the perspective of serving the imperial court and solving problems, we should make a difference, so we are willing to do our part for the bandit suppression alliance. Sheng Xuanhuai took the lead and said.

"The Meng family in Zhejiang is willing to contribute one million taels to fund the formation of a new army by the imperial court."

"The Zhang family in Suzhou is willing to contribute one million taels."

"The Taizhou Shen family is willing to contribute 500,000 taels."

The compradors present here have opened their mouths, these are all comprador families that have accumulated for nearly half a century, and it is not an exaggeration to describe them as rich and rival countries. The Zhenguo Party cut off their financial routes, and they are enemies who do not share the sky. These people contributed a total of more than 12 million taels, and their wealth moved the feudal officials.

"I would like to thank you for your generosity, and this money is enough to raise the strength of the two towns. However, I think you can do more, because you are all over the southern provinces and are very familiar with the local area. The official proposed that the governors participating in the anti-bandit alliance should set up an anti-bandit group under their jurisdiction, composed of all merchants, gentry, and compradors who participated in the anti-bandit alliance, to form a civilian armed force to fight against those lawless and disorderly parties with the permission of the imperial court. For those merchants from all over the world who sell goods in Guangdong, they can also be cracked down on at the appropriate time, of course, they are different from those chaotic parties, it is better to carry out actions with real evidence, and the imperial court will also support your activities. In this way, the products of the chaotic party will be unsalable, and everyone's trading will be able to return to normal! ”

Wei Guangtao's hand can be described as very vicious, he allowed the comprador class hostile to the local merchants to form an armed force, violently destroyed the civil base of the Zhenguo Party in the southern provinces, and sabotaged the business of local merchants who had joined the Guangzhou Ziqiang Chamber of Commerce system, and the imperial court even legalized the violent activities of the comprador class by decree.

The comprador class, represented by Sheng Xuanhuai and others, rejoiced at this, and they could not compete with Guangdong through normal commercial means, but they could adopt this way. It is foreseeable that a great struggle will break out among the people, and as long as the imperial court is on its side, it will not lose, and those merchants who have taken refuge in Guangdong will be driven out sooner or later.

Unfortunately, the actions of these people were made known to the Provisional Government shortly after the meeting, and it was not the Investigation Bureau that planted an inside line in them, but someone who took the initiative to inform the Zhenguo Party.

This person's name is Zheng Guanying, after Li Hongzhang's death, he served as the minister of Beiyang, the governor of Zhili, different from other officials and businessmen, this person is the earliest theoretician in modern China with a complete ideological system of reform, supporting the "constitution" and advocating reform.