When the time entered December 1860, half a month after the implementation of the so-called Chinese New Deal in the Chinese Empire, the first wave of cold air from the north came prematurely, making the entire Jiangnan have a sparse first snowfall early, and with this first snow came a wave of opposition to the New Deal among the people.

The source of this trend is that the content of the high school examination and the civil service examination is incompatible with the content of the traditional examination, and many math problems, general knowledge questions and history problems are added to it.

Can't adapt to the meaning, that is, if you can't get a high score, if you can't get a high score, you can't be an official, if you can't be an official, you won't have privileges, and if you don't have privileges, you won't have a good job, a good income, and a good life.

In the view of these so-called wise Confucians, who gathered in private, these new bureaucratic systems carried out by the new government of the Chinese Empire were nondescript, unChinese and foreign, and completely chaotic.

Of course, they did not dare to point the finger of their comments at the emperor or speak ill of the prime minister, so they pointed the finger at other people, especially Li Yongchang's staff team, that is, the so-called members of the prime minister's shogunate.

Among them, Wu Tingfang was particularly attacked because he was young, came from a foreign school, and was an important prime minister in the shogunate.

These people are also very smart, and the main direction of their attacks never says anything about the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but they are a mess of derogatory criticism of other systems, and they also form gangs and criticize the government in public everywhere, with a posture of daring to be the first in the world, and as a result, they have really been praised by many people.

In fact, the reason why these people are so bold is also related to the unprecedentedly loose public opinion environment at present. Compared to the Qing court, the Chinese empire had a negative impact on public opinion. In particular, the public opinion of intellectuals has always been very loosely controlled, and it is basically an attitude of innocence of speech, which allows those intellectuals to speak their minds freely.

Most of these intellectuals who opposed the New Deal were old-fashioned Confucian scholars who were not adapted to the New Deal, and the reason why they attacked so violently was actually because they also had the intention of striking back, essentially hoping to attract the attention of the emperor, and perhaps they would die to survive, which was much better than having no hope under the New Deal.

Of course, this kind of thing will attract the attention of the government, and the staff of the Prime Minister's Office originally advocated compulsory arrest, but Li Yongchang strongly opposed it. Oppose the brutal treatment of intellectuals.

To put it simply, it was precisely because Li Yongchang was too indulgent to the intellectuals, and Li Yongji did not pay attention to this part, that the intellectuals rebounded.

Originally, Li Yongji had no time to worry about these things. He was now preoccupied with the reorganization of the army in antiquity with the impending intervention of Britain, France, and Russia.

Because just five days before the first snow fell in Suzhou, the long negotiations between China, Britain, France and Russia finally ended in a complete breakdown, and the Russian envoy officially submitted a declaration of war against China. Since then, the Chinese Empire and Russia have entered a state of war.

Therefore, at this critical juncture, Li Yongji has no time to pay attention to these things in the country, and there is no problem with economic reform anyway. Not only have all the treasury bonds been issued, but the issuance of new banknotes is also proceeding in an orderly manner, on the premise of not affecting prices too much. Let the Imperial government's finances be in a state of excessive surplus.

In Li Yongji's view, as long as the country's finances are okay and the army is fine, everything else is a minor problem.

However, when the intellectuals developed to the point where tens of thousands of scholars gathered, knelt down in front of Yonghua Palace to petition, and got a bus to read books, Li Yongji couldn't help but ignore it.

Because of the severity of the matter, Li Yongji could only temporarily leave the Tiger Hill base camp and return to Yonghua Palace to deal with the so-called bus book incident.

To tell the truth, Li Yongji had a headache about the so-called bus petition of tens of thousands of people kneeling down en masse to petition, and he also accepted the mention submitted by their representative, but in Li Yongji's view, these suggestions were completely useless.

Because these people's mentions seem to be the first thing, but in fact, they are all in general terms, they are all opposed for the sake of opposition, few of them really grasp the main point, they have no constructive opinions, they are useless for the improvement of policies, and even many of the contents are turning back the clock on history.

For example, the first one is to give an edict to encourage the spirit of the world and reduce talents without sticking to one pattern.

That's a good thing to say, but what's the puff up? The whole article is full of some people, what is heroic and upright, but to put it bluntly, it is necessary to restore the previous status and privileges of the scholars, and to return the privileges given to the families of workers and soldiers to the scholars.

The eclectic reduction of talents sounds very emotional, but the essence is to restore the recommendation system, that is to say, without going through examinations, directly through the promotion among private scholars, to promote famous and talented "great talents", enter the government as officials, and control the power of the local and even the central government.

In this, they especially criticize the new civil service examination and the internal servant examination, because many of the questions in it are not the Four Books and Five Classics, but the general knowledge test, the logic test, the math test and the like, these things are not suitable for many people, at least far worse than many young people, so they think it is ridiculous.

Therefore, this first article is the most important, and the spearhead of this article is directly aimed at the new imperial examination system and the new official examination system, which is to fundamentally overturn the official selection and promotion system in China's new policy.

Another example is the second article, which is the foundation of moving the capital to determine the world.

In their opinion, Suzhou is not enough dragon energy, and Nanjing is a cursed place, which is not enough to be the capital, and the capital should be moved to Beijing, and the Son of Heaven should guard the country.

What are you kidding, Beijing is still at the forefront now, and most of Li Yongji's foundation is in Shanghai and Suzhou, and Nanjing is building a lot of buildings, and many places are inseparable from Li Yongji's golden finger. Putting down the good situation here and going to Beijing? What kind of head does Li Yongji have to take before he can agree, let alone the moment when the Russians are about to come.

There is also a third article, reverting to the Han family system and implementing the law of the ancestors.

This is also nonsense, because their opinion is to restore the system of the Ming Dynasty, so that the courts, parliaments and the like are merged under the State Council, and what responsibilities and powers are unified. The independence of adjudicating cases cannot be allowed to constrain the government. At the same time, it has also changed the title of mayor and county magistrate, and changed it to the title of prefect and county.

If this is the case, why is Li Yongji engaged in the separation of powers? The reason why he separated the Supreme Court and the House of Representatives from the State Council was to better supervise the government.

Relatively speaking, the supervision system of the separation of powers can better supervise the government, and with a better supervision system, the government can be more honest and efficient, and simply rely on the internal affairs government to play the spy system. It's not going to work.

Li Yongji's engagement with the Internal Affairs Office is just to add an insurance, and at the same time, in order to make it more convenient to act in the future, the main thing is to be external, not internal.

As for the implementation of the ancestral law, this is actually mainly against the new tax law, especially the dissatisfaction with the luxury tax. In their view, except for smoking a lot of cigarettes and paying high taxes, there are problems with other luxury taxes.

It's like a concubine tax. They think that polygamy is justified, just because they have to pay more taxes because of concubines, and the more concubines they pay, the more taxes they pay, which is completely evil!

There is also a foot-wrapping tax. Large taxes are also criticized. They feel that it is their family's business to let their women bind their feet, and the court will overcharge taxes for this, which is also a bad government; There is also a large household tax. This is to force relatives to separate, and large households to become small households, and it is also a kind of evil government.

In a nutshell. The third opinion is to restore the old dynasty system in an all-round way, and not to engage in those new tricks, especially in the area of taxation, and not to play those tricks.

Fourth, expel foreigners and close the country!

That's right, as the literal meaning is, they feel that the Chinese Empire is now too close to the foreigners, which is disturbing the Chinese system, and the hearts of non-our races will be different, and the foreigners who come to China are uneasy and kind, so they should expel the foreigners from the Chinese Empire, and then close the customs, and not allow the foreigners to enter the ground of the Chinese Empire.

As far as this article is concerned, Li Yongji is too lazy to complain, it is completely synonymous with ignorance and conservatism!

Only the fifth article is slightly interesting, which is to amnesty the world and open up the way of speech.

The ostensible meaning of this article is to pardon the so-called reactionaries who have been arrested before, and at the same time open the channel for scholars to discuss politics, so that scholars and doctors can rule the world together with the Son of Heaven. Undoubtedly, the meaning of this is also paving the way for the intellectuals of the old school.

Finally, these people also said that if the state did this, then the inner and outer kings, and the other provinces that were not yet under the rule of the Chinese Empire, would also be inspired to fall into the hands of the Chinese Empire like a ripe melon, instead of hesitating and falling apart as it is now.

This makes some sense, because the reason why provinces such as Fujian, Henan, and other provinces are still ashamed to refuse to surrender to the Chinese Empire is not only that they have not yet reacted, but also because they are afraid of the new policies of the Chinese Empire, and they are afraid that they will not be able to adapt to it after surrendering and will not get their due status.

But these people don't know that the reason why these places can still be independent is not because the Chinese Empire is unable to take them, but because they don't want to take them for the time being, because they don't want to increase the burden for the time being.

Because Li Yongji will inevitably take the road of becoming a prosperous country through industry and commerce in the future, this requires sufficient labor, abundant resources, abundant capital, and a vast market, and these four conditions are indispensable.

Calculate that the territory that Li Yongji now controls is the place with the largest Chinese population and the richest, so within the control of the Chinese Empire, it is necessary to have people, land, resources, funds, and everything.

The so-called economy determines the government, the government affects the economy, the difference in the political system will also affect the speed of the advancement of the industrial and commercial rich country, at least the old things of the Qing Dynasty, it is impossible to use the new capitalist society, so reform is imperative, and the best time for reform, what can compare with the new establishment of the country?

However, if the Chinese Empire continued to take more places at this time, especially those poor places, such as Henan, Shaanxi, Fujian, etc., then the administrative costs would rise sharply, and at the same time, the resistance to reform would also increase, increasing the cost of reform.

For example, in Henan, Shaanxi and other places, the Yellow River is overflowing, and there are groups of victims, you have to take care of these people, right? What the? Continue cash-for-work? Yes, yes, but it will take up more money, and Li Yongji has money for the time being, but there are many places to use it, so he plans to let the local economy under his rule develop first, and then take down those poor places.

In fact, Shandong is not rich now, especially when the Yellow River was diverted, which caused a large number of victims, and it is still full of bandits. Shandong alone is a headache for Li Yongji, and Wang Sanwu is not doing anything else now, but to suppress bandits everywhere.

Shandong is like this, Henan, Shaanxi, and Gansu will only be stricter, not better, not to mention anything else, the great uprising of the Hui people in Gansu has begun to appear, and interfering at this time is purely to make yourself uncomfortable.

In Li Yongji's plan, now should be the time to go all out to develop the economy. Next year, after the economic situation improves, it will give priority to interfering in the United States, and China will still have to maintain a limited split situation here, and when the United States is done, it will go back to unify China, develop a little, and then expand to the surrounding areas.

Of course, it's not that it's not expanding at all. For example, Jiangxi, Anhui Province, which was controlled by the Taiping Army, was the place where Li Yongji was greedy, and when he recovered his strength, the new army was built. These places have to be taken down, and by the way, let the recruits practice.

In other words, Li Yongji's ideal strategy was for the Chinese Empire to rule only Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin for the time being. Elsewhere, let the old warlords manage it for the time being, if the Great Powers are willing to support it. Then whatever, anyway, support to support and go, in the end, as long as you can't beat yourself, it's all your own.

As for now, before Li Yongji has more bureaucrats, he doesn't want to continue the offensive, he has come fast enough, and his stamina is a little lacking, and it is time to stop and develop his internal affairs well.

Regarding the issue of the New Deal, Li Yongji also knew that there would definitely be problems, but he felt that no matter how much there was a problem, it would not be worse than the original system of the Qing Dynasty.

Anyway, there is no fear of problems, because the army is firmly in the hands of the emperor, and it is outside the government, and then the police force of the local government, the directors at all levels are also from the old elite military demobilized personnel, all have special telephones, and they will give priority to obeying the orders of the royal family in times of crisis.

In other words, all the armed forces and violent organs are in the hands of Li Yongji, and the financial and economic system and the trade of bulk materials related to people's livelihood, such as grain, tea, salt, etc., are also in the hands of the big chaebol led by Li Yongji.

However, Li Yongji's thoughts must not be announced to the public, nor can he be said, with the IQ of those corrupt Confucians, it is estimated that he will not be able to see clearly for a while, otherwise he will not come over to make a fuss.

Although Li Yongji was dismissive of these corrupt Confucians, and originally did not want to take care of them and wanted them to fend for themselves, but now the actions of these people have affected the implementation of many policies, slowed down the government's governance efficiency, and even made it impossible to effectively implement many administrative orders.

For example, as far as Li Yongji knows, this trend of books on the bus is comprehensive, and Suzhou is fine, but readers in other places are not so polite.

Like Huzhou City and Changzhou City, there are actually many scholars who actually entangle some ruffians and begin to occupy local government departments and obstruct the implementation of government decrees, which is just like creating a rebel faction and seizing power, which touches Li Yongji's bottom line.

Therefore, according to Li Yongji's original intention, he wanted the police to arrest a group of people, deter the matter, first establish the authority of the new government, and let the policy continue to be carried out smoothly, but in this matter, Li Yongji was opposed by Li Yongchang, Li Zhengxiang, Wang Tianzhong, and other cadres, and this was also the first time that this small circle of power within the family collectively opposed Li Yongji's opinion.

"Scholars are the mouthpieces and backbone of the world, just because people say a few unpleasant words, they are all arrested, so what is the difference between this and the Manchu Qing Dynasty?" Li Yongchang blushed and argued loudly, "If we really do this, then what will the people of the world think of us, and will anyone dare to tell the truth at that time?" ”

"What a backbone, mouthpiece, let me see that it's a bunch of rotten people who don't know the so-called!" Li Yongji pointed to the "Shangshu" on the table, pouted, "Look at it, what the hell is written on it?" It's the restoration of the old system, the relocation of the capital to Beijing, and the closure of the country, hum, if I really do what they say, then it will really be a catastrophe. Do you think that with this bit of knowledge, they can become the backbone of China? ”

"They are just anxious in their hearts, a little overkill, and they don't understand the true meaning of His Majesty's new policy." Li Yongchang said, "It is precisely because what they write is absurd and has no merit that it shows that they do not intend to oppose us, but they are desperate." ”

"Hmph, yes, why are you desperate?"

"陛xià." Li Yongchang sighed, "Under your rule, soldiers and workers can eat imperial grain, eat and drink without worry, and their families can also sell limited and cheap grain." Ordinary peasant households are exempt from agricultural taxes, and their lives are okay, but these urban scholars can only buy high-priced grain at market prices, can they be convinced?

Moreover, we have implemented compulsory education, and all schools are new teaching materials, new teachers, and most of the scholars have lost their way to advancement.

Nowadays, the new civil service exams are all new, and they can't adapt to it, so what will they do in the future?

Not to mention. Now that the harsh winter has come, many of them have no livelihood, and life is becoming more and more difficult, and it is understandable that they have some resentment in their hearts. ”

"Understand a fart." Li Yongji said impatiently, "Difficult to make a living? Then go to the army, then go to work. If you don't want to, then you can compete to be a teacher, or you can't. That's the waste of leisure and hard work, what are they going to do? ”

"Your Majesty, things can't be said like that." Li Yongchang said, "The reason why these scholars are still not enlightened. I can't let go of my body, but it's just the traditional inertia, and it also shows that our work is negligent and we haven't done it home. We have not communicated our true will in a timely manner, and have not made them understand that our new dynasty is a country of distribution according to work. So this is because we didn't do a good job in propaganda work, and we can't blame these readers themselves. ”

"Okay, okay, you don't have to excuse them all day." Li Yongji frowned, "I'm not arresting all of them, just arresting a few leaders, just to sue them, petitioning must go through the normal way, don't we have petition bureaus everywhere, they can use the guò petition bureau to express their opinions to us, and now they are kneeling outside my palace collectively, and even some places have occupied the city government, what is this?" ”

"That's just a handful of people." Li Yongchang said, "As long as we patiently persuade and educate, they will understand our painstaking efforts!" ”

"Is that what dad and grandpa mean?" Li Yongji asked again, "Are they also determined to protect them?" ”

"Yes, that's what they all mean." Li Yongchang nodded.

"That's weird." Li Yongji looked at Li Yongchang, "Big brother, it was you who launched the fight against the reactionaries in the first place, and I didn't see you soft at that time, right?" It seems that among the people you hit at that time, there were also some readers, right? ”

"This time and that time." Li Yongchang said, "At the beginning, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was eyeing the outside, and we must make every effort to remove the internal instability factors, and we also have to give a little explanation and sweetness to the people who follow us, otherwise who will follow us?" But now it's different, now the Manchus are no longer afraid, our Chinese empire has gained Chinese orthodoxy, and now we can no longer act as unscrupulously as before. ”

"Oh, I see." Li Yongji nodded, "You mean, in the past, we were the opposition, playing rebellion, so we can use any means, no matter how cruel the means are, as long as we can win." But now that we are the ruling party, we must be gentle in our means, we must be particular, and we must save face, so that people do not gossip, isn't that so? ”

"Well, almost." Li Yongchang frowned, "Your Majesty, if it is decided today, it is the time when people's minds change, we must always convince people with virtue, and we can't continue to forcibly suppress them." Especially those who read, many of them just can't think about it for a while, as long as they take time, they will definitely understand. ”

After a pause, he seemed to know that his younger brother emphasized utilitarian virtues, and he knew that he couldn't listen to sensual things, so he changed his words and said: "Your Majesty, how do you say that you are also a literate person, although you don't dare to say that it is the elite in your mouth, but it is more useful than an uneducated person."

We should listen patiently to their voices, patiently persuade and educate, if they are forcibly suppressed as soon as they come up, they will become our enemies, although we are not afraid, but then we will lose this group of literate labor.

But on the other hand, if we can convince them to understand our painstaking efforts and follow in our footsteps spontaneously, then we will have more literate labor, don't you think that's right? ”

"Well, for your sake, I'll give you three days." Li Yongji said, "In three days, you will find a way to persuade these people to stop and leave automatically, otherwise, don't blame me for being unkind." ”

"Three days is too short." Li Yongchang shook his head, "At least seven days!" ”

"Five days, no more." Li Yongji shook his head, "You can also tell them what I mean, if you don't leave after five days, I will send troops to forcibly expel and arrest people!"

Hmph, when is it, and do you still have time to play this? This is not a folk cooking, Lao Tzu doesn't serve these uncles who can only spray dung!

By the way, you tell them by the way, and then play the petition in the book, you have to go through the program, and then it's so messy, I have one, catch one, have a pair, catch a pair! It doesn't matter if you are 1,000 or 10,000, as long as you don't listen to the order and mess around, you will be arrested and sent to a labor camp for labor reform! It just so happens that whether it is building roads or digging coal, there is a lack of literate high-level labor, so it is most suitable to send them there! (To be continued......)