Just when Duan Qirui and Xu Shichang reached a preliminary agreement and decided to unify their understanding and brew cooperation again, the Second Plenary Session of the Chinese Mingzhuo Party was held in Nanjing, and more than 2,600 representatives from 24 provinces across the country gathered together to warmly celebrate the total number of Mingzhuo Party members exceeding one million.

During this period, seven political parties, including the Fuxing Society and the Revitalization Association in Jiangsu and Zhejiang and the southern provinces, jointly announced their merger into the Chinese Mingzhuo Party, and Gong Baoquan, Sun Baoqi, Yang Du, Lin Baishui, Gu Weijun, Wang Zhengting, and others sent a telegram to the whole country on behalf of 120,000 new party members, announcing that they would join the Mingzhuo Party.

After Yuan Shikai's death, Xiao Yimin, who took over the chairmanship of the Mingzhuo Party and led the troops out of Sichuan, retired again on the grounds of "expiration", and was unanimously elected as the nominal permanent chairman by the congress, and Zhang Lan took over the chairmanship of the Mingzhuo Party again; Gong Baoquan, Sun Baoqi and other nine people were elected as members of the Mingzhuo Party Council.

At the end of the three-day meeting, Zhang Lan, chairman of the Mingzhuo Party, solemnly announced that he would move his headquarters to Shanghai, and publicly distributed propaganda books such as "Mingzhuo Party Manifesto", "Mingzhuo Party Constitution", and "Mingzhuo Party Organization Law" to the whole country. Since then, the well-known Chinese Mingzhu Party has been presented to the world with its strict organizational structure, clear political stance, clear governing philosophy, and moderate and pro-people image, and has become the largest political party in China.

On 10 June, the "Blue Flag International Investment Company of the United States" and the "Citibank of the United States" jointly announced that China and foreign countries were:

Negotiations held in Nanjing with the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Central Committee of the People's Republic of China were successfully concluded, that is, the "China International Commercial Bank" was fully acquired from all fixed assets of the "China International Commercial Bank," which had been declared bankrupt, and the original creditor's rights and debts of the "China International Commercial Bank" were assumed.

At 3 p.m. on 15 June, the consul generals of the United States, Britain, and France in Shanghai, more than 100 Chinese and foreign journalists, and dozens of bankers gathered in the hall on the first floor of the newly decorated Shanghai headquarters of the "Blue Flag Bank of the United States" to attend a grand signing ceremony.

In the midst of warm applause, the general manager of the American Blue Flag Bank, Corey. Douglas, Deputy General Manager Will. Hopkins signed his name with Wang Zhengting, director of the Nanjing Business Finance Committee, and Zhang Jian, director of the Economic Committee, on a loan agreement totaling $16 million.

This is the first business since the establishment of the Blue Flag Bank of the United States, and it is also a loan business that has made Chinese and foreign politicians and bankers from all over the world extremely worried but blushing, and the loan is completely used for the introduction of machine tool manufacturing equipment, alloy smelting equipment and production technology, diesel engine production lines and related raw materials of the "State-owned Nanjing Machinery and Equipment Company", "State-owned Jinling Industrial Group Corporation" and "State-owned Yucheng Jialing Industrial Group Corporation" under the Nanjing Xingying of the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Central Committee of China.

"State-owned Nanjing Machinery and Equipment Company" is a new type of industrial enterprise mainly producing various machine tools and diesel engines, and is also the first real machinery and equipment manufacturing enterprise in China, with a total investment accounting for more than one-third of the total loans.

The "State-owned Jinling Industrial Group Corporation" is a large-scale military enterprise reorganized on the basis of the original "Jinling Arsenal, Jiangsu Provincial Tongyuan Bureau, and Jinling Shipbuilding Repair Factory".

Within six months, this brand-new enterprise, which has doubled in size after the reorganization, will not only be able to obtain two advanced bullet production lines, a Remington shotgun production line, and two American-made rifle and water-cooled machine gun production lines designed by German technical experts, but will also completely eliminate the original obsolete equipment and become China's largest manufacturer of light weapons and ammunition.

The predecessor of the "state-owned Yucheng Jialing Industrial Group Company" is the "Yucheng Iron and Steel Company" controlled by the Xiao Yimin family, which was established less than three years ago, and is actually a small and medium-sized alloy smelting, metal casting and finishing enterprise with technology from Germany, located on the south bank of the Jialing River in Shapingba in the western suburbs of Chongqing, both land and water transportation is very convenient, and the light infantry artillery of the Sichuan Army is the fist product of the factory.

Because the company has a number of advanced alloy smelting and processing technologies purchased from Germany, all aspects have been on the right track, and the trial production of imitation German M1912 75 mm field guns has been successful, Sichuan Province political axe and Yucheng local political axe very much want to take this huge profit enterprise into public ownership, Xiao Yimin, who already has two arsenals in Ya'an and Chengdu, readily accepted the cost price of 8 million yuan for the Sichuan two-level political axe, and transferred the "Yucheng Iron and Steel Plant" to the Sichuan two-level political axe. And through the introduction of advanced production equipment and technology from the United States, we fully support Sichuan Zhengaxe to make the factory bigger and stronger.

In addition to expanding the production of various types of artillery, the newly established "state-owned Yucheng Jialing Industrial Group Company" will also take advantage of this rare Sino-US cooperation opportunity to get involved in industrial manufacturing fields such as machine tools, industrial boilers, and diesel engines.

Before the signing ceremony, Wang Zhengting and Zhang Jian announced the main content of the huge loan contract according to Xiao Yimin's request, which caused a response from all walks of life across the country:

"Credit guarantee, six-year repayment period, 5.8 per cent per annum, no discount, no collateral with customs duties and salt taxes...... Is there such a good thing in the world? ”

"Not a penny is spent on weapons, ammunition or cars and ships, it is all spent on equipment, technology and raw materials...... God! It's not a dream, is it? ”

"Don't think about it, it depends on who borrowed the money, I don't believe anyone else, but the lender is General Xiao, I believe it!"

"If it can be implemented smoothly, our national industry will be saved!"

On the evening of 10 June, Xiao Yimin, who had no interest in the signing ceremony, attended a celebratory reception held by the US Consulate General in Shanghai, and the next morning appeared at the construction site of the "state-owned Nanjing Machinery and Equipment Company" outside the stone city in the west of Nanjing, visited the concrete pouring project of the special wharf with the person in charge of the company and several representatives of old workers, and planted a plane tree in front of the office building that had not yet been capped.

On the afternoon of 12 June, Xiao Yimin appeared on the gatehouse at the south gate of Nanchang City and held a discussion with Jiangxi Provincial Governor Ouyang Wu, the overseer Wang Lingji, the new lieutenant general of the First Army, Zhong Tidao, and the commander of the Fourth Army, Wang Zhanxu.

On the morning of 15 June, Shi Xingchuan, the overseer and governor of Hubei, accompanied Xiao Yimin to inspect the officers and men of the reorganized First Division of the Hubei Army and the Wuhan Garrison Division, and then went to the Hanyang Arsenal to inspect the factory.

On 19 June, Xiao Yimin held a forum with Cheng Qian, the governor of Hunan, and Tan Yanhong, the governor of Hunan, in Changsha, and then went to the Hunan branch of the Mingzhuo Party to attend a dinner.

Xiao Yimin's successive political methods, continuous interviews, talks, and the content of the conversations published in each place occupied the front pages of major newspapers across the country every day, making Duan Qirui and Xu Shichang in Yanjing City painful, and what is even worse is that the people of the whole country compared Duan Qirui's "Xiyuan loan" with Xiao Yimin's "Sino-US loan":

said that I deducted this and that deduction for each loan, and it was not enough to pay at eighty-seven percent, and I had to deduct all the interest on the loan in advance, which was actually given to Duan Qirui by almost half, and the nominal loan of 10,000 yuan was actually only five or six thousand, and the Americans' 16 million US dollars were paid in full to Xiao Yimin, and the current interest was paid at the end of each year; Xiao Yimin borrowed money by virtue of his personal and Nanjing business credit, but Duan Qirui had to use the entire country's customs duties, salt taxes, railways, minerals and other rights and interests as collateral, how could the huge difference between the two not make the people quarrel?

As a result, Duan Qirui already wore big hats such as warlords and scholars on his head, and now he has been deducted countless hats of worshipping foreign flattery and betraying the country to seek glory, and the radical Yanjing students are not happy to demonstrate in addition to the demonstration, and they ran outside the prime minister's palace in the middle of the night, and wrote on the outer wall with bright red paint, "Down with the Han and Duan Qirui", "Down with the hypocrites" and so on.

Duan Qirui once again ushered in a dark period of rule.

At this time, both Duan Qirui and Xu Shichang were helpless, facing the fierce inquiries of the members of the two houses, the strong calls from all walks of life for explanations, and the doubtful eyes of the generals under their command and reaching out for money, the internal alliance between Duan Qirui and Xu Shichang that had finally come together collapsed, and the acting president Xu Shichang, who did not get involved in the "Xiyuan loan", was better, Duan Qirui fell into a scorched self-defense every day, where can he still take care of demolishing Xiao Yimin's platform?

Throughout mid-to-late June, the Prime Minister's Office doubled the number of sentry posts, and there were still countless teachers and students holding signs to petition every day, and the Senate and the House of Representatives were noisy, and from time to time they staged all-out military parades.

"Look! Look, this little teapot has published a fallacy again, is he finished? Jin Yunhe slapped the newspaper on the table in annoyance.

Wang Shizhen picked it up and took a look, put it down, and shook his head and smiled bitterly: "It's not wrong for him to say so, isn't it just to cater to the appetite of the people by emphasizing the construction of a clean government?" In the final analysis, it is still the propaganda mouthpiece of others who has a way, and every step is ahead of us...... And this Mingzhuo Party, not only took the opportunity of our eagerness to pass the "Press and Publication Law" to submit the proposal of the 'Independent Commission Against Corruption', but also echoed the north and south of Nanjing and Shanghai, and even Sun Wen's revolutionary party was used as a negative teaching material, what else do we have to say? ”

"The little teapot that the dog said, does he really want to set up an anti-corruption office in Nanjing?" Xu Shuzheng, who had just arrived, couldn't help but scream when he saw the subtitle of the front page of the newspaper.

Liang Shiyi, who was invited back by Duan Qirui again, raised his head:

"Xiao Yiming is indeed qualified to do this, from his debut to the present, he has not been tainted with a bad reputation for corruption, and this person has a good way of making money, rich in the world, never disdainful of competing with the people for profit, let alone damaging his reputation for three melons and two dates, so he dares to be so tough."

Duan Qirui, who had a dark face and didn't speak, suddenly stood up, his eyes were red, and he decided loudly: "Get ready, come with me to Nanjing tomorrow to inspect!" ”

Everyone was surprised and looked at each other, but Liang Shiyi kept nodding his head and showing a look of approval.

Xu Shuzheng reacted quickly, sighed helplessly, and nodded heavily to show his attitude, but this time, I am afraid that he will have to compromise with Xiao Yimin in many aspects.

(To be continued)