"Students, students, the rise and fall of the world is the responsibility of the husband. Just last night, the corrupt and incompetent Premier Qian Nengxun actually sent a secret telegram to Deputy Lu Zhengxiang to sign the Paris Peace Conference. This is the manuscript of the telegram that my Fujian compatriots who work in the telegraph office seem to have given me, and Jiaozhou is dead! Shandong is dead! The country is not a country! The country will not die, and I am willing to join 40,000 people to swear to die. "This is the early morning of the third day of the fifth month of the eighth year of the Republic of China, Director Lin Changmin, who stood at the door of the National Foreign Affairs Committee and made an impassioned speech.

When Britain and France decided to transfer China's Shandong to Japan, the news that Qian Nengxun secretly instructed the Chinese delegation in Paris to sign undoubtedly ignited the final limit of patriotic students.

Lin Changmin announced the decision of the National Foreign Affairs Committee in public:

1. The National Convention will be held in Central Park on May 7 and will be held on the same day in all provinces and organizations;

2. Declares that it does not recognize Article 21 and the secret treaties between Britain, France, Italy, etc., and Japan on the issue of the disposition of Shandong;

(3) If the claims of our country cannot be asserted during the peace conference, the Government shall be requested to withdraw the special envoy;

(4) To express the views of the people to the embassies of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Italy.

But what Lin Changmin and others did not expect was that on May 4, the next day, the May Fourth Student Movement, which shocked China and the rest of the world, broke out.

On the afternoon of May 4, 1919, more than 3,000 patriotic students from 12 schools in Beijing held a demonstration. The May Fourth Movement broke out.

In fact, on the evening of May 3, Peking University students held a student meeting in the Bei ** Science Auditorium along the Beihe River, and invited representatives of 13 secondary schools in Beijing to attend. The student representatives who attended the meeting include: President of the Beijing Student Federation, President of the Beijing Federation of Students of Schools above Secondary Level, President of the National Student Federation Duan Xipeng, Luo Jialun, Fang Hao, Luo Zhanglong, Wang Zhizhi, Zhang Guotao, Fu Sinian, Deng Zhongxia, Xu Deyan, Gao Junyu, Luo Longji, Wang Zaoshi, Chen Changtong, He Haoruo, Qu Qiubai, Wen Yiduo, Zheng Zhenduo, Liu Renjing and others.

At 10 a.m. on May 4, 1919, the students of each school met to agree on the course of the procession. At 1 o'clock in the afternoon, more than 3,000 Beijing students gathered from the first place, and hung the blood book of Peking University students "return me to Qingdao". The student representatives asked to meet with the ministers of the four countries, but only the American embassy personnel accepted the students' submissions, and the British, French, and Italian embassies refused to accept them. At this time, Zhang Zuolin's marshal mansion actually didn't say anything, it is said that Zhang Yushuai was busy rubbing mahjong, after all, it was just a student making trouble, and in his opinion, it was still dangerous to mutiny. At that time, when Yang Yuting reported the matter to him, Zhang Yushui actually asked: "Yuting, let's pay this month, don't make a fuss, the brothers below won't have an accident." ”

Zhang Zuolin actually has such a mentality, and you can imagine how slow Beijing's top brass will be in dealing with the student movement.

However, the students' movements were swift, and unlike in history, Cao Rulin went to work in the Southern Nationalist Government after the fall of Duan Qirui, and he was technically not very involved in the loan of Xiyuan, so he managed to escape the student movement. But Liang Shiyi, Lu Zongyu, Zhang Zongxiang and other officials of the Department of Transportation who defected to Fengjun were not so lucky, Lin Changmin and they unceremoniously pushed the responsibility of signing a contract with Japan to them, and the students naturally unceremoniously wanted to settle accounts with them.

The funniest thing is that Liang Shiyi actually moved into the Zhao family mansion that Cao Rulin resold after he went south.

So Hunan student Kuang Husheng was the first to take the lead and rushed into the Liang Mansion in Zhaojialou, and the situation instantly got out of control. They didn't catch Liang Shiyi, but they succeeded in catching Zhang Zongxiang, who was a guest at Liang Shiyi's mansion, and a group fight was inevitable.

In Chinese history, the status of scholars has always been high, and there is a saying that "everything is inferior, only reading is high", and scholars are often called "learning masters". Zhang Ming said in "Beiyang Fission": In the late Qing Dynasty, soldiers did not dare to enter the school to make trouble, even if there was a revolutionary party in the school that needed to be searched. After entering the Republic of China, this situation of military and police being afraid of students has not been eliminated. Even with orders from above, the military and police still shrank in front of the students, afraid of three or four. They respect the students as masters, saying that we are Qiu Ba, and you are Qiu Jiu, a generation older than us. The military police not only stopped arresting the students, but tried their best to persuade the students not to go out to give speeches, and "there were even kneeling and begging." At that time, the military and police were also very difficult, and they did not dare to do anything to maintain order, so they could only passively accept the students' attacks. On the day of May Fourth, Li Changtai, the commander of the infantry, persuaded the students gathered in *** to disperse, and some students scolded him as a "traitor", and he replied: "You have a patriotic heart, are we not patriotic as officials, and we have to give up the place to others?" He expressed his willingness to convey his opinion to the students, but implored them not to use barbaric methods, and when the students replied that they were extremely civilized, the chief rode away.

When the students broke into Zhao's house and set fire to the house, the heavily armed military and police were unmoved. Zhang Zongxiang was severely beaten by the students and suffered more than 50 injuries all over his body, and the dozens of military policemen with guns at the scene were helpless, and someone around him called for help from the police, and the patrol officer replied: "We did not dare to beat (the students) without the orders of the superiors." ”

At that time, Li Changtai caught a few students who had fallen behind to cope with the errand, and when it was time to testify, none of the military and police officers present were willing to come forward to testify. Even the military police, who were wounded by the students, were reluctant to testify against the students, claiming that there were thousands of students at the time, and that "they could not see it at the scene and could not prove it afterwards."

It should be said that the Beijing military and police in this era are still a group of people with a conscience and a group of people with a conscience compared with later generations.

However, the burning of Zhao's house obviously exceeded the expectations of the military and police, and if they did not arrest people, they were afraid that they would not be able to give an explanation, so on 4 May, the Beijing military police arrested a total of more than 30 students. That night, President Xu Shichang rejected the request of Lin Changmin and others to release the arrested students, and the ensuing situation became out of control.

On May 5, 1919, there was a general strike in colleges and universities in Beijing.

On the same day, Sun Wen, chairman of the Nationalist Government, sent a telegram to Xu Shichang, president of the Central Government, in the name of the Nationalist Government: "I have recently heard that Jingshi ** is a patriotic act to protect sovereignty, but it is really unwise for the government to act excessively and arrest many students. ”

Xu Shichang vomited blood angrily when he saw Sun Wen's telegram, this president of the central government is really not a person inside and outside.

Large-scale demonstrations broke out in Wuhan, Nanjing, and Shanghai in solidarity with the patriotic students of Beijing. Wang Zhenyu did not order a ban on the march, but in order to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the opportunity, he still ordered all members of the military police and security forces to be put on standby. At the same time, the Nationalist Government ordered all colleges and universities under its jurisdiction to strictly prohibit students from connecting with each other, and allowed them to go north to support the patriotic student movement, but it was strictly forbidden to organize activities that disrupted the normal order of social life such as class boycotts and market boycotts within the jurisdiction of the Nationalist Government. For this reason, Xiong Xiling, premier of the State Council, delivered a speech at the newly established Nanjing Radio Station, saying that on the Shandong issue, the Nationalist Government will be consistent with the patriotic students in Beijing.

At the same time, Wang Zhenyu convened a meeting of the middle and senior generals of the army from this day on, and ordered the youth army, which had just completed its expansion, to enter a state of mobilization, with Xuzhou and Zhengzhou as assembly points, and a large number of youth army units and armaments began to move.

At the same time, Dai Li served as the head of the Shandong Station of the National Security Bureau, and a large number of agents entered the Shandong area to collect and sort out the local situation for the second time.

The Japanese side also expressed close concern about the outbreak in Beijing and began to put pressure on Zhang Zuolin frequently.

And Zhang Zuolin is obviously unlucky, and he is in a bad mood due to losing a lot of money, if it weren't for his subordinates to stop him, maybe he would have ordered all the students he caught to be shot. He is not a Qiu Ba, he is a bandit, and in the eyes of bandits, intellectuals are worthless stinky old nine.

Yang Yuting is the one who persuaded Zhang Zuolin bitterly: "Yushuai, those students can't be killed, as soon as you make a move, the popularity formed by our recovery of the Middle East Road will be gone immediately." With the support of the Japanese alone, we can't sit firmly in this city of Beijing, you can see how the south has expressed its stance in the past two days, and keep in line with the students in Beijing, if you kill these students, the people will give them all. ”

Zhang Zuolin was so angry that he died: "Then according to what you say, I can't help it, Qingdao is there, those southern Yankees want to really love their own country, grandma's, who wouldn't sit there and shout patriotism?" This bullshit central government, the tax revenue is not a few points, and the most important thing is that this bullshit sovereignty, what the great powers have freed up is all on my Lao Zhang's head. I knew that it was the situation I am in today, so it was better to stay in the Northeast and let my mother Sun Wen and Wang Zhenyu sit on the throne in Beijing, and now it's time for them to burn their butts......"

After scolding for a while, Zhang Zuolin looked at his subordinates and sighed and said, "Then you guys sum it up, what should you do now?" How can I cope with this situation? ”

Yang Yuting thought for a while, and came up with a solution that was not a solution: "Yushuai, for the sake of today, we can only release those students first, calm down the situation, and then let people come forward to mediate with the Japanese government to see if we can ease the situation, and at the same time, the Paris Peace Conference will fight again, Britain and France are really forcing us into the fire pit." ”

Qian Nengxun, who had already been infamous as a traitor prime minister, said with a wry smile: "Brother Neighbor Ge said that it was funny, how could Britain, France and Japan get along so well, not to mention anything else, this Shandong problem, when Yushuai entered Beijing, the Xiyuan loan was taken over in its entirety, and this loan was attached to Shandong conditions." Now that I don't want to do it, can the Japanese agree? ”

Zhang Zuolin remembered such a thing this time, slapped his forehead and shouted: "Oh, mom pulls a slap, and the little Japanese way is ......"