The town guard in Longyan County, May 25, 1917.

This day is undoubtedly a worthwhile day for the local tyrants and inferior gentry in the six counties of northwest Fujian... It's time to celebrate! The hall of the town guard yamen was arranged in the shape of a meeting place.

Large landlords and Hakka clan patriarchs from various counties in northwest Fujian rushed in, and there was a rush of traffic at the door. Tuanding, dressed in black or gray shorts, with box guns on their waists and hips, stood everywhere, and at the door, there were landlords and gentry everywhere constantly chatting with each other, talking and laughing loudly, and some tabloid reporters from Fuzhou and Xiamen were also clustered at the door, and the magnesium lights kept flashing.

The six counties are already economically well-connected.

Long Qingyu, commander of the Western Fujian Self-Defense Brigade in Yongding County, has also arrived under the escort of the guards.

He is undoubtedly the most important representative of today's "Northwest Fujian Tyrants and Inferior Gentry Congress"! Because the Yongding Long family is the most powerful family among the local tyrants and inferior gentry in northwest Fujian at present! And Long Qingyang himself is the only soil emperor in Yongding County, and the regiment under his command is called 3,000, and he also appoints himself a brigade commander, and he doesn't buy the account of the Li Overseer in Fuzhou City at all!

The officials sent by Fuzhou don't want to take office in Yongding at all, and all the taxes in Yongding County will not be able to reach the accounts of the Fujian Provincial Department of Finance. For this reason, Li Houji also sent troops to recruit several times, but he asked this brigade commander to run away...... In the end, I had no choice but to stop it, anyway, this kind of thing happened everywhere in the Republic of China, and it was no longer strange.

For today's "Northwest Fujian Local Tyrants and Inferior Gentry Congress", Long Qingyang didn't want to participate in it at all, isn't it just a Beiyang mixed brigade commander! Could it be more powerful than Li Houji, the Fujian overseer? Want to visit the door yourself? However, Guangdong sent people to say hello Long Qingyang, thinking that he had participated in the League back then, and he was still Xu Chongzhi's old subordinate, and now he is also a member of the Chinese Revolutionary Party. Li Houji's face can not be given, and Xu Chongzhi and the "Revolution" party still have to listen to what they say.

As soon as Long Qing entered the venue, the officers and soldiers of the Mixed Brigade in uniform politely introduced him to the main venue. It's a conference room with several long tables in a hollow shape and a green tablecloth on it. On the walls are two cross-colored flags, as well as a full map of the Republic of China.

The conference room was already full of people, most of them were landlords and tyrants wearing silk and satin, and there were few people like Long Qingyu who were dressed in such a straight uniform. Seeing Brigade Commander Long come in, there was a sudden sigh in the conference room, and a group of local tyrants and inferior gentry were busy and bowed. Among them, a middle-aged man wearing a suit, with a white face and a kind smile greeted him: "Brother Lan Yuan, I didn't expect your brother to be invited by the constant brigade commander!" ”

Long Qingyang was also taken aback when he saw it, and the other party was actually Luo Yiqun, a major general of the Guangdong Military Government! This is Sun Yat-sen's henchman, and he once served as the director of the Guangdong Army Survey Bureau, the principal of the Army Survey School, and he appeared here for only one reason, that is, to meet Chang Ruiqing on behalf of Sun Yat-sen!

Luo Yiqun pulled his arm and said in a low voice: "Why did my brother come, my brother should be able to guess, this Chang Ruiqing's face still needs to be given a little...... He's not like the other Beiyang warlords! His words were vague, but Long Oak had already understood everything. Long Qingyu nodded, Luo Yiqun pulled him to the other exit of the conference room, and when he went out, he saw a row of offices, and the two of them stopped at the door of one of the offices with the sign "Town Guard, Brigade Commander" hanging at the door Luo Yiqun knocked lightly on the door a few times, and heard someone inside say in a northern accent: "Please let them in." ”

Then the door of the office opened, and I saw a small, unfurnished office with three people sitting in it. One of them is extremely burly, it should be Chang Ruiqing, and the other one is also dressed in a straight uniform, with the rank of colonel and an extremely strict face, Long Qingyang recognized him as Xu Chongzhi's brother Jiang Jishi.

In addition, a woman wearing a blue cloth cheongsam, with a graceful figure, a dark complexion, and a heroic facial features I don't know if it is Chang Ruiqing's wife and concubine? She was the one who opened the door for Long Qingyu and Luo Yiqun just now.

"This is General Chang Yaoru." Luo Yiqun nodded politely at the woman, and began to introduce the two sides: "This is Jiang Jishi, a comrade of the Chinese Revolutionary Party, this is General Long Lanyuan, the commander of the Northwest Fujian Self-Defense Brigade. ”

Several people said hello to each other and sat down separately, while Zhao Xiang'er quietly left the house and closed the door. She was discussing with Chang Ruiqing and Jiang Jshi about "murder for money" just now, but she couldn't participate in the current meeting.

Chang Ruiqing looked around for a moment, and then hugged Long Qingmule and punched: "Brother Lan Yuan is now nominally in charge of the six counties in northwest Fujian. However, after all, the brother is an outsider, and there is no foundation in the northwest of Fujian, if you want to be a good family, you can't do without a local gentry like Brother Lan Yuan. Therefore, the brother entrusted the comrades of the party to the revolution, and took the liberty of inviting Brother Lan Yuan to come to Longyan for a while........."

Chang Ruiqing was talking as he looked at the somewhat excessive Dragon Brigade Commander in front of him... It's about thirty-four or five years old. He is also handsome, his complexion is fair, his stature is not short, he is wearing a black tweed military uniform (homemade), he sits there with a straight waist and a calm complexion, and he doesn't look like a tyrant who dominates one side, but like a university professor or something.

Listening to Chang Ruiqing's words, Long Qingyu just unconsciously discarded the teacup lid in his hand...... But I was sneering in my heart! "Is this trying to trap the largest snake on the ground in the northwest of my Zhongtiao Fujian? Hehe, let's see what kind of conditions he can give. Chang Ruiqing looked at Long Qingsu calmly, and said in a sincere tone: "Brother knows, Yongding County has been governed by Brother Lan Yuan in an orderly manner in recent years, the people live in peace, the market is prosperous, and the bandits are almost extinct!" In today's chaotic Fujian Province, it is a rare paradise! ”

"General Yaoru is overrated." Long Qingyang's expression did not move, but he shook his head slightly.

Chang Ruiqing smiled and continued: "Brother has always known that it is difficult for local officials to do, and unlike us in the army, the situation in the place is extremely complicated. The power of the clan, the power of the gentry, the power of the gangs, the power of the bandits, and the leaders of our martial arts who support the army and respect themselves must be dealt with well, so that the people of a county can live and work in peace and contentment...... Brother asked himself, in governing the place, the ability to pacify the forces of all parties is far inferior to Brother Lan Yuan.

But now the brother has served as an errand for a town guard, in charge of the territory of the six counties in northwest Fujian, to be honest, the brother has been annoyed by the local miscellaneous things during this time because he can't eat, can't sleep well, and the number of people has also decreased a lot. But I still can't even figure out the matter! If this continues, I am afraid that it will harm millions of Li people in the six counties of northwest Fujian, and it will be difficult for my brother to die at that time! Brother Lan Yuan, I don't think it's better to do this, you just come to Longyan to assist your brother, how about being a deputy envoy of Longyan Town? ”

"The deputy envoy of the town guard?" Long Qingyang was stunned when he heard this, and his face suddenly became complicated. There doesn't seem to be the title of deputy envoy in Beiyang's official system, but there is nothing wrong with a warlord like Chang Ruiqing setting up one...... This official title sounds like a big one, and in the local system of the six counties in northwest Fujian, it is probably second in command after Chang Ruiqing, right? He knew before that Chang Ruiqing would give some kind of official to envelop him, but he never expected that the other party would come out with such a high position!

Chang Ruiqing smiled and nodded: "How is it?" Brother Lan Yuan shouldn't let his brother down, right? "How can he say that he has been in the turbulent times of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China for many years, and he has studied this history in his previous life, so he probably belongs to the type of person who combines theory with practice, right? So it's not stupid to be rigid,

As soon as he became the town guard, he kicked away the local tyrants and inferior gentry, and then went to fight the landlords, divide the land, and exempt the agricultural tax...... The local forces are intertwined, and it is not something that he, an outsider, can touch! Moreover, there are no cadres under him who can implement his political propositions to the letter, no matter how good the policy is, without cadres to implement it, it is all empty nonsense, it is better not to say it!

In order to control such an unfamiliar and chaotic territory in northwest Fujian in the shortest possible time and at the lowest cost, the best way is undoubtedly to join forces with local forces, and the best object of cooperation is, of course, the biggest "hooligan" in the locality.

"I don't know how General Yaoru plans to govern the six counties in northwest Fujian? To be honest, this land is very barren" Long Qingyang thought for a moment, and began to cry poor. In his mind, Chang Ruiqing always had to search for a lot when he came to the place! His town guard envoy only took more than 200,000 oceans to get his hands on it, and now that he has come to power, of course, he has to quickly recover the cost.

"This brother naturally knows." Chang Ruiqing smiled and nodded: "If my brother wants to make a fortune, he won't scrape the land in northwest Fujian, so why do you have to find a piece of fat land to fish?" Long Qing smiled a few times as if he was violent: "Since this is the case, it is better for the brother to be respectful and obey the order, and take over the errand of the deputy envoy of Longyan Town." Chang Ruiqing then said: "The principle of brotherhood governing northwest Fujian is one, to use local financial resources to do local things.

The brother's army is the Central Army, and the military expenses are allocated by the Ministry of the Army, and there is no need for local assistance. However, since the brother has served as the guard of Longyan Town and the supervisor of the suppression of bandits in northwest Fujian, he naturally hopes to make some political achievements! Long Qingyang nodded: "That's natural, that's natural, I don't know what General Yaoru is going to start from to govern northwest Fujian?" Chang Ruiqing looked at each other solemnly, and said word by word: "Brothers only do sub-things." First, suppress bandits! Rectifying public order: Second, reorganize the local armed forces and form an independent brigade in northwestern Fujian; third, to establish education, it is necessary to ensure that every town has a primary school and every county has a middle school. Brother Lan Yuan, this little ideal of the first little brother should be achievable, right? Long Qingyang frowned at his question. Among the three things proposed by Chang Ruiqing, the suppression of bandits will definitely be supported by the local tyrants in northwest Fujian, and the establishment of education is also a good thing, but how to solve this cost? And the last item of reorganization of local armed forces is not very easy to handle, how many establishments can this Northwest Fujian Independent Brigade have? I'm afraid that the local armed forces in northwest Fujian will be reorganized and wiped out by more than half, right?

Chang Ruiqing stood up, walked to Long Qingyang's side, pressed his shoulder and said: "Brother, I am also on the road, the reorganization of the local armed forces in northwest Fujian will never let Brother Lan Yuan suffer, the brigade commander of the Northwest Fujian Independent Brigade is none other than Brother Lan Yuan, and the officials below are also discussed by Brother Lan Yuan and the leaders of the local armed forces in northwest Fujian, and my brother will not send a person here!" As for those who have been eliminated and cannot enter the Northwest Fujian Independent Brigade, the brothers' first mixed brigade will also accept some as appropriate, and try not to let a regiment go without food...... Brother Lan Yuan, do you think this will work? If it can be done, then at the conference later, Brother Lan Yuan and Zai Xia will jointly propose the three bills. ”

Long Qingshu looked like he was thinking hard, and after a while, he nodded heavily, getting on Chang Ruiqing's thief ship, after all, the benefits of a brigade commander and a deputy envoy of Longyan Town Guard are really there!

At the same time as Chang Ruiqing's "Northwest Fujian Tyrant and Inferior Gentry Congress" was successfully held. Thousands of miles away in Russia, a train is heading from Moscow to Petrograd.

The train came all the way from the fortress city of Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, stopping for more than a month before approaching its final destination, Petrograd. More than a dozen members of the GCD (in preparation) delegation to Russia are now sitting in the middle of a carriage.

At this time, the shape of the Russian domestic shì was already very severe. Although the "February Revolution" overthrew the Romanov dynasty and established a republic, it did not ease the tense situation in Russia. In Russia after the victory of the Revolution in February, there was a situation in which the Provisional Government and the Soviet regime coexisted, although this situation was eased by the concessions of the Soviets.

However, on April 17, 1917, Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, returned to Petrograd from abroad and delivered a report at a Bolshevik conference entitled "On the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Destiny of the Revolution" (also known as the "April Program"), asserting that the bourgeois government could not fulfill the life of the Russian "democrats" and "revolutionizing" the proletariat to seize power and start the "revolution" of socialism in Europe as the goal of the Bolsheviks! Thus completely changing the policy of the Bolsheviks and tearing apart Russian society, which had already been cracked!

In the hands of Huang Baopei, head of the Chinese-G delegation to Russia, there is a Chinese translation of the "April Program," which has just been translated by Liu Bo, a Russian translator hired by the delegation in Vladivostok. A total of two copies were copied, Huang Baopei had one copy in his hand, and another Peking University student in the delegation, Zhang Guotao, who had a dignified appearance and a Chinese face, also took a copy, and was reading and commenting at the same time.

"Haha! This Comrade Lenin's tone is not small! After the revolution of Russia's life, it will also reform Europe, and after the revolution of Europe, it will also reform the world, and it will be better than our country's Sun cannon! Huang Baopei put down the translation of the "April Program" in his hand, and frowned slightly: "Kaiyin, don't jump to conclusions so early...... Don't forget the purpose of our visit to Russia. ”

At this point, his brow tightened. What was the purpose of coming to Russia on his own? Contact Lenin, a madman who wants to provoke the world's revolution? The Bolsheviks who want to reform the world must have a sick brain! On the contrary, the provisional government's mind is much more normal, and this time Chang Ruiqing is afraid that he has lost his eyes.

"Zhisheng, Kaiyin, whose hands do you think Russia will end up with?" The question was asked by a young man with a round face, he was Liu Bo, a Chinese businessman from Vladivostok, who grew up in Russia and was proficient in Chinese and Russian languages, but he was not a member of the Chinese G Party, and he just did some translation work with the group.

"Repentant government!" "Bolsheviks!"

Huang Baopei and Zhang Guotao gave a diametrically opposed "answer" almost at the same time. Huang Baopei glanced at Zhang Guotao: "Kaiyin, didn't you say that Lenin can fire cannons better than Sun cannons?" Why are you optimistic about the Bolsheviks again? ”

Zhang Guotao glanced at the puzzled nose Baopei, and snorted: "Nonsense, where are the Bolsheviks shouting and shouting to kill the social revolution party and the Mensheviks?" What elections are they counting on, what constitution, and when will they defeat Germany and win the war in Europe, they are still dreaming...... How could such a person be Lenin's opponent? ”

Huang Baopei was stunned, looked at this "little brother" introduced by Li Dazhao to the party, and suddenly asked again: "Then what should we do?" ”

"What else can I do?" Zhang Guotao shrugged his shoulders: "Of course, I went to Petrograd to meet Lenin!" Let's see if it's possible to recruit an army from among the Chinese diaspora and laborers. ”

Zhang Guotao said as he stood up and paced in the carriage. The train to Petrograd was very empty, and probably the Russians had already smelled the strong smell of gunpowder in Petrograd, and not many people wanted to jump into it, right? So these GCDs from China now occupy a whole carriage.

"At present, there are 50,000 or 60,000 Chinese laborers in the western part of Russia, all of whom are young and strong people from the northeast and Shandong...... Now that civil strife is coming, what should these people do? How to return to China? The Beiyang government won't care about them! If we can persuade Lenin to support us in recruiting them as soldiers and helping Lenin fight the civil war, won't we be able to take the opportunity to control an army? When the Russian Civil War is over, we will command these armies to fight home! Even if you can't defeat the Northeast, it is still not a problem to conquer Xinjiang, do you think my plan is feasible? "This" Huang Baopei looked thoughtful: "Comrade Zuo Min instructed us to find a way to help these laborers return to China." ”

"What country are you going back to?" Zhang Guotao waved his arms heavily, and a trace of frenzy flashed on his young face: "We should guide them to participate in the [Revolution] life!" That's fifty or sixty thousand young people! Even if more than half of them are killed, 20,000 people will return to China in the end, which is the elite of a hundred battles, and I believe that Comrade Zuo Min will definitely not oppose it! (To be continued.)

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