What is strange is that although the rent and tax reduction policy implemented by Song Zhewu is only applicable to the Taiyuan Administration and Suiyuan, as well as the southern and northern Mongolian regions, and the landlords in areas outside the Taiyuan Administration will not be involved, it is the landlords in the areas outside the Taiyuan Administration who are the first to stand up and oppose it.

First, the landlords in the Wutai area published an article in the newspaper and vehemently opposed it, and then the landlords in other areas of Shanxi raised their voices of opposition, and these people even jointly asked Shang Zhen, chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Political Axe, to come forward to stop Song Zhewu's "bad government."

Shang Zhen is now the chairman of the province is very troublesome, although Zhang Xueliang gave him the position of commander of the Fourth Army, but the Jin Suijun under the tandem of Yang Aiyuan, Fu Zuoyi, Sun Chu, Wang Jingguo and others, squeezed out Shang Zhen everywhere, and even Shang Zhen's original old department was not returned to him when it was reorganized, only Feng Pengxi took the initiative to hand over Gao Hongwen and Huang Guanghua to him.

However, Shang Zhen is not a fuel-efficient lamp, since you are unkind, then don't blame me for Shang Zhen's injustice.

Although Zhang Xueliang paid the reorganized troops of the Jin Sui Army in full on a monthly basis, all the departments of the Jin Sui Army more or less left some non-staff personnel, especially according to Yan Xishan's instructions, the officers who had been reorganized and laid off were privately left in the troops by them, and they had to settle their own military salaries.

Although Xu Yongchang and Yang Aiyuan were entrusted by Yan Xishan to serve as the chief and deputy commander of the Shanxi garrison and take charge of the Jin Sui Army, they did not care about civil affairs, and they had no other financial resources except for the military salary given by Zhang Xueliang, so they had to find Shang Zhen, the chairman of Shanxi Province, to solve the problem. For Xu Yongchang and Yang Aiyuan to ask for money, Shang Zhen, who was angry, was all two words, "no money".

Because Shanxi's industry and commerce are the most developed in Taiyuan and the surrounding areas, the fiscal and tax revenue of Shanxi Province's political axe in Taiyuan is naturally a large part less. However, although the tax revenue of the provincial political axe is not much, there is still a surplus, but Shang Zhen will never give it to these people who have excluded him, and Shang Zhen unceremoniously used the surplus money on his own troops.

Shang Zhen knew that the contradictions between him and these Jin Suijun generals who were loyal to Yan Xishan were difficult to reconcile, so the surname Suo "sorted out" the administrative foundation left by Yan Xishan in Shanxi, first proposed that the provincial government committee approve the abolition of the village administration office personally appointed by Yan Xishan, and then the surname was removed from more than 20 county magistrates.

In this way, public opinion in Shanxi was in an uproar, and with the instigation and support of Yang Aiyuan, Wang Jingguo, Sun Chu and other generals of the Jin Sui Army, Shanxi businessmen held a conference to drive merchants in Linfen, where the political axe of Shanxi Province was located, and the masses denounced it. At the same time, the Jin Sui Army was also brewing an action to expel Shang Zhen and seize the military power of the Fourth Army.

This time, Song Zhewu reduced rents and taxes, which made these supporters of Yan Xishan in Shanxi upset, and also indirectly made Shang Zhen breathe a bad breath, he couldn't be happy, what else would he do for these landlords.

Although Shang Zhen has some resentment towards Song Zhewu, but now in Shanxi, except for Song Zhewu is the Jin Suijun and the former Northwest Army Song Zheyuan, among these people, Song Zhewu can still be emotionally close to him. At this time, he Shang Zhen would not go to cause trouble for Song Zhewu, not to mention that he was only the nominal supreme head of Shanxi now, and the Taiyuan Administration would not listen to him Shang Zhen.

Moreover, Shang Zhen wanted to pull his Fourth Army out of Shanxi, and he needed Song Zhewu's help. Without Song Zhewu's help, he would pull the troops away, not to mention that Yang Aiyuan, Sun Chu, Fu Zuoyi, Wang Jingguo and other generals of the Jin Sui Army would not agree, even Xu Yongchang, a real person, would not do it.

Therefore, Shang Zhen not only ignored the requests of the landlords, but also sent Huang Guanghua to Taiyuan in person to report to Song Zhewu some of the information that Shang Zhen had learned, and the list of large landlords who had caused trouble in various counties was also handed over to Song Zhewu.

It's not a crime to just petition the provincial political axe, and Song Zhewu can't punish these landlords because of this matter, he has to wait, and when these people do something that touches his bottom line, then he won't be polite to these people anymore.

Seeing that it was useless to petition Shang Zhen, the provincial chairman, and that Song Zhewu did nothing to petition them, this made these landlords gradually emboldened.

At the instigation of "well-intentioned people", large landowners in Shanxi, including the Taiyuan Administration, jointly petitioned the Nanjing political axe, demanding that the national political axe come forward to stop Song Zhewu's arrogant and unreasonable "evil government."

Song Zhewu, who had not made any movement, saw that the time was almost up, and at this time he also began to attack.

First of all, under the leadership of the Northern Morning Post, the major newspapers in Taiyuan published articles in support of rent reduction and tax reduction by people from all walks of life, saying that all walks of life in the Taihang Administration resolutely supported Song Zhewu's vigorous implementation of the national political axe rent reduction policy, saying that Song Zhewu was the first practitioner of the former premier's "cultivator has his land", and Song Zhewu was worthy of Chairman Jiang's praise of "national elite and national model".

Subsequently, Zhao Pilian's elder brother, Zhao Piqing, the largest landlord in Xinzhou, published an article in the Northern Morning Post, ruthlessly exposing the severity of Shanxi's land annexation and the peasants' exploitation by landlords and their hardship. At the same time, Zhao Piqing said that all the land in the names of himself and his family and children will be sold, and all the funds will be invested in industry.

Immediately afterwards, Fan Xudong, a well-known capitalist in the north and the boss of Tianjin Yongli Company, as well as Liu Gongheng, Feng Qingpu, Liu Zhaowen, Shi Beilan, and other private enterprise capitalists in Taiyuan and Suiyuan, also wrote articles in the Northern Morning News, vigorously praising Song Zhewu's policy of reducing industrial taxes, which is a great thing for industry to save the country and benefit the people and the country.

Enlightened newspapers in large and medium-sized cities across the country also reprinted and published articles one after another, supporting the Taiyuan Administration's approach, believing that this is a feasible way to solve the problems of Chinese peasants.

At the same time, all walks of life in Taiyuan organized street demonstrations in solidarity with Song Zhewu.

Millions of peasants in the area to which the Taiyuan Administration belonged also signed a petition-for-tat, and the petition signed and signed by several million peasants was sent to Nanjing by Zhao Pilian with dozens of people.

Regarding the petition against Song Zhewu's rent reduction and tax reduction, although the high-level leaders of Nanjing Political Axe, except for Chiang Kai-shek and a few other people, were very sympathetic, and even turned their noses up at Song Zhewu's actions, and some people even thought that Song Zhewu's actions were not essentially different from GCD's efforts to fight local tyrants and divide land in Jiangxi.

It's just that Song Zhewu did this, which was indeed the last wish of the former Prime Minister Sun Yat-sen, and even the current land policy of the national government, and they really couldn't oppose it openly.

Moreover, the peasants who supported Song Zhewu signed a very strong show of solidarity, which was signed by millions of people, and Song Zhewu's policy obviously won the support of the vast number of peasants, not to mention that public opinion was almost overwhelmingly in favor of Song Zhewu.

Although Song Zhewu's policy was clearly welcomed by the peasants, the Nanjing political axe could never express its support for Song Zhewu's actions.

Because, although this is the nominal land policy of the national government, except for Zhang Jingjiang's two-five-year rent reduction in Zhejiang, which ended without a problem, no one in the provinces is doing this now. If the national political axe expresses its support for Song Zhewu, it is undoubtedly a slap in the face of the national political axe.

Therefore, whether it was a petition against or in favor of Song Zhewu's policy, the Nanjing political axe did not express any position.

Thanks to Zhao Piqing taking the lead, coupled with Jia Jiying, Jia Jingde, Zhao Pilian and other members of the Northern Construction and Development Committee at all levels, using various connections to actively persuade relatives and friends and make them aware of the benefits and disadvantages, some small and medium-sized landlords have begun to gradually start selling land, because they are worried that if everyone starts selling land, the price of land will drop sharply.

The Taiyuan Commercial Bank, presided over by Qiu Zengyi, also actively organized manpower to go to the Taiyuan Administration and Suiyuan counties to set up temporary loan points to provide loans to farmers who needed loans to purchase land. The procedure for a loan is very simple, as long as there is a certificate issued by the local village office, you can get a loan, of course, the loan is secured by the purchased land.

As more and more small and medium-sized landlords sold their land, the big landlords in the counties who made the most trouble couldn't sit still, but the first person to jump out was very unexpected to Song Zhewu.

This person is none other than Jia Xuren, a big landlord and big capitalist in Liuzigou of the Jin Temple.

It stands to reason that the most opposed to Song Zhewu's rent and tax reduction policy should be the landlord who clings to the land, while a landlord like Jia Xuren, who is also engaged in industry, should not be so desperate and have to resist Song Zhewu.

After Jia Jingde's introduction, Song Zhewu learned that Jia Xu was originally a small landlord, but later discovered coal mines in his own fields and made a fortune by mining coal mines. However, Jia Xuren's preference for land is almost to the point of obsession, and all the money he gets from operating coal mines will be used by him to buy land, and now he has more than 15,000 acres of land in his name, and he can be called a big landowner even in Shanxi.

In order to stabilize the camp of these landlords who refused to sell their land, they had no choice but to jump out and take the lead in making trouble, forcibly recovering the rented fields, shouting, "Even if the fields are barren and the grains are not collected, they will never reduce the rent, let alone sell the land." ”

Immediately following Jia Xuren jumped out was the Kang family, a large landlord known as the four richest people in Shanxi. The Kang family owns more than 20,000 acres of land, and the family property is countless, it stands to reason that if you run an industry, there is no problem with the strength of the Kang family, but he is also a person who only believes that land is the best and most reliable property.

Song Zhewu had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, and he felt that if he didn't take a few big landlords, his policy would not be implemented smoothly in the areas under his control. There are two "negative teaching materials" of Jia Xu and the Kang family, which is exactly the "great thing" that he can't ask for.

The next day, Fang Zhen and Kong Wei personally led their people to forcibly confiscate all the land deeds of Jia Xu and the Kang family on the charge of resisting the land policy of the Republic of China, announced the confiscation of all the land properties of the two people, and restricted their families from leaving the area controlled by the Taiyuan Administration within ten days, otherwise all the family properties would be confiscated.

At the same time, the newspaper once again warned the landlords that this would be the fate of any landlord who dared to resist the New Deal.

With the experience of the Jia Xu people and the Kang family, the Taihang Administration and the landlords of Suiyuan, Nanbeimeng, no longer dared to openly oppose it, and most of them had to reluctantly start selling the land in their hands.

The poor peasants who bought the land with the interest-free loans of the Taiyuan Commercial Bank all shed tears and praised Song Zhewu as their great benefactor from the bottom of their hearts......

(To be continued)