Nanjing's presidential palace is next to the Ministry of National Defense, and it is also a new building, but the architectural style is completely oriental, all painted gold, also known as the Golden Palace.

Duan Qirui entered the Golden Palace, and Xu Shuzheng naturally became his assistant.

When they first entered the Golden Palace, Duan Qirui and Xu Shuzheng were very excited and excited, but they soon felt tremendous pressure, not only the problems of people's livelihood in various places drifting like snowflakes, but more importantly, the diplomatic pressure of the unequal treaties and trade of the great powers came one after another. What made them feel the most pressure was a special decree issued by Li Bufan before he officially gave up his throne - the "Local Protection Tax", of course, this tax was completely aimed at non-national capital.

Why? This is because this not only restricts foreign goods from being taxed, but also applies to goods invested by foreign investors in China. In the words of Li Bufan and Wu Di, they are not short of money, and there is no need to attract foreign capital. At this time, although China has a number of important areas of cutting-edge technology (cloning technology experts brought), but many fields are still relatively backward, if the national capital is not protected, the national capital is not able to compete with foreign investment in China, that is not the same as the huge cake in front of foreign capital? Therefore, it is necessary to directly wipe out all the foreign-funded enterprises, use this means to restrict their development, and force the foreign-funded enterprises to bankruptcy one by one.

This tax has made foreign-funded enterprises and foreign businessmen miserable, and naturally triggered a wave of protests from the Western powers. However, this wave of protests has not yet been extinguished, and there have been huge demonstrations among the people in the country, demanding that the political axe abolish the unequal treaties and expel the foreign powers.

Duan Qirui is so worried, don't mention it, he can't sleep well almost every day.

"Zhigong, Li Bufan is meeting Sun Wen now." Xu Shuzheng anxiously reported, you must know that Duan Qirui has no good impression of Sun Wen's "chaotic party", and the original policy of "unifying the whole country by force" was stirred up by Sun Wen's southern French Protector Army, Xu Shuzheng naturally hated it to the core, gritted his teeth and said, "This gang of chaotic parties will only make trouble." Li Bufan didn't know what [***] soup they poured into him, and it was said that the Kuomintang would be allowed to officially participate in politics, so don't cause chaos in the world. ”

Duan Qirui frowned and said, "Li Bufan, this is nonsense. At the beginning of the civil demonstration, I asked him to mobilize troops and ammunition, but he said that the people had the freedom to assemble lawfully, refused to send troops, and we could not even mobilize a single policeman, so we had to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hastily negotiate with the foreign powers on the issue of unequal treaties. It's not that we don't want to abolish the unequal treaties, but he's in a hurry to do so. Is it to co-opt the Kuomintang now, is it to contain us? ”

Xu Shuzheng smiled bitterly: "Zhigong, there is no fundamental contradiction between us and Li Bufan, the problem is mainly due to the difference in the time for us to deal with the problem. I think we should have a good talk with Li Bufan, if this misunderstanding is not resolved, then I am afraid that there will really be a gap. ”

Duan Qirui said angrily: "Talk? How to talk about it? He didn't even take me seriously. I'm a big president, and I can't even move a soldier, am I still a big president? ”

Xu Shuzheng could only smile bitterly, he finally understood the purpose of Li Bufan's resolute request for the separation of military and political affairs when he gave up the presidency, so that the presidential palace and the State Council would completely become an administrative body, as long as there was a violation of the law to mobilize the army, the military under Li Bufan's control had every reason to refuse, which meant that the presidential palace must act in accordance with the law. The so-called old-fashioned behavior in Beiyang has completely failed, the warlord's set has no way, and now that army dares to move without Li Bufan's instructions? It will be cracked down on right away.

Xu Shuzheng sighed and said: "Zhigong, after all, this world was fought down by Li Bufan, and it is already benevolent and righteous for him to give up the position of president." Besides, he's just doing things according to the law now, that's right. The main problem is that our strategic arrangements are different, and it is still necessary to communicate with each other. ”

Duan Qirui didn't understand things, but he couldn't hold his face, and snorted coldly: "I won't bow to him." ”

In fact, as Wu Di said, the only way to quickly reverse China's bad habits is to read it. Different people are in power, and they all have different governing concepts and strategic deployments, and even if they have the same goal, there are differences in methods and time layouts.

However, Li Bufan also described a lot of problems left over after reading talents from Wu Di's mouth, and he didn't want to take this road. Of course, this is also because Li Bufan is still young, his rise has not been long, and his ambition and power have not yet swelled to a certain extent.

With the monitoring of the base car, the conversation between Duan Qirui and Xu Shuzheng naturally fell in Li Bufan's eyes, and after thinking about it again and again, Li Bufan decided that he still had to talk to Duan Qirui, after all, at such a juncture, any internal friction and confrontation would be shameful and extravagant in his opinion.

Li Bufan took the initiative to ask to meet, Duan Qirui also got down the stairs, and the two sides met soon.

"Extraordinary, what do you mean by this?" Duan Qirui met, and soon asked straight to the point about Li Bufan's meeting with Sun Wen.

Li Bufan said with a smile: "Old Duan, there is competition and pressure to make progress. In any case, the original purpose of Sun Wen and his Kuomintang was good, and it was also for the country and the people, and they also had their credit for overthrowing the Manchu Qing and realizing the Ming Dynasty. If China wants to rise as quickly as possible, we must unite all the forces that can be united. If we kill them all, won't that force the other party to jump over the wall? If they are forced to riot and assassinate every day, then how can the country talk about development? How can we do our best to regain lost territory and expel foreign humiliation? ”

Duan Qirui said bitterly: "Extraordinary, you are so young. Don't you know what a revolutionary party is? What else would they do but assassination, rioting and sabotage? When Sun Wen proposed the 100,000-mile railway, it simply made the international people laugh and laughed, this kind of person will govern the country? ”

Li Bufan smiled and said: "It is precisely because they don't know how to govern the country that we show the amount of tolerance for people, and also show our determination to cook clearly." If you think about it, if they can't govern the country, then they won't threaten the dominance of our Beiyang. Do you hope that Sun Wen has the ability of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che and Tang Taizong Li Shimin? ”

"This" Duan Qirui couldn't refute for a while.

Li Bufan continued: "Elder Duan, you see, they can't threaten our Beiyang status, and we have let them exist legally, but they can't compete with us, because they have no ability." Also, you said that the revolutionaries will only engage in sabotage and assassination, and that they are in the shadows, and if we do this, then let them turn from darkness to light, and if they do something out of the ordinary, we can still deal with it. Hey, you get the idea. ”

Duan Qirui naturally didn't take the strength of the Kuomintang in his eyes, and after listening to Li Bufan's explanation, he also breathed a sigh of relief and said: "It's okay, forgive those revolutionary parties and they won't become the climate, so this matter is over." After a pause, he quickly frowned and said, "Now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is talking with the great powers about the abolition of the treaty, but now the people's demonstrations are constantly attacking the concession and anti-Western colonization and rebellion are prevalent, and if it is not properly handled, it will cause a catastrophe." ”

Li Bufan sneered: "The catastrophe may not be. Are the Great Powers still unwilling to abolish the unequal treaties? ”

Duan Qirui sighed: "How can it be so easy? Their entire Western world is united and powerful, and the matter of you forcing Emperor Saimoto to die in the first place has made the entire Western world royal family dissatisfied with our country, and there is still a debate within each country for this, how can their diplomats express their position? ”

Li Bufan sneered: "In this way, the pressure we put on them is not enough." These foreign devils are dead ducks with hard mouths, and it seems that if they don't give them a little color, they don't know how powerful we are, and they won't know how to be afraid. ”

Duan Qirui was taken aback and said, "You, what do you want to do?" Extraordinary, at this juncture, you can't mess around. ”

Li Bufan said lightly: "It's not going to be messed around, I just think, if we mobilize garrisons to station heavy troops around the various concessions of the great powers, I don't know what the foreign devils on lease will think?" I think that with our heavy protection, they will no longer be 'disturbed' and will be able to sleep well." ”

Duan Qirui and Xu Shuzheng looked at Li Bufan speechlessly, what do you mean by the heavy troops stationed around? Isn't that just a group of surrounding? Under this kind of "protection", even if there is no disturbance, is it strange that you can sleep? Isn't this a knife around their necks?

Xu Shuzheng couldn't help but say: "Commander-in-chief, if you do this, I'm afraid that it will intensify the contradictions." ”

Wu Di also immediately interjected and sneered: "Intensify the contradictions? No, no, no, they don't have the courage, and now the Western world is extremely war-weary, and there will be absolutely no problem. In my opinion, the boss's idea is very good, of course, our 'protection' must be foolproof, such as grain, it must not flow into the concession, in case someone poisons the grain, then what should we do? Well, the water source must also be cut off, and if they are poisoned, they will not be killed. Heck, there are so many troubles, it's better to block them completely and prevent our countrymen from entering the concession, and if you sneak in the Assassins, it will be even more troublesome. Boss, don't you say? ”

The corners of Li Bufan's mouth twitched, and he said with a smile: "Well, it makes a lot of sense." I couldn't be sloppy about this, and as soon as I saw it, I signed an order that the troops stationed around the concession must 'protect' the concession like an iron bucket, so that not a single fly could fly in. ”

Duan Qirui surrounded Xu Shuzheng and looked at each other, they understood that Li Bufan and Wu Di were even more prepared to make the foreigners in the concession unable to live, and this is still called protection? Is this outrageous or outrageous?

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