The days of 1908 turn page by page. Foreign observers who have watched the changes in China, an ancient eastern power, focused on the situation in Guangdong at the beginning of the year, but the once tense situation quickly eased.

The focus of the news has shifted to Shandong. On May 25 of the Western calendar, the new car rolling ceremony of Jinan Automobile Factory once again attracted the attention of the press.

On the same day, the Taishan brand car (which is completely the Chinese version of Ford Motor) jointly produced by Shandong and Ford Motor of the United States officially rolled off the assembly line. Although the engine, transmission mechanism and even the lights were shipped directly from the United States, they were produced on Chinese soil after all. The media warmly praised the event, and even the newspapers in Shanghai and Guangzhou reported on the grand occasion of the Taishan brand car off the assembly line, believing that it was a grand event in China's industrial circles, who said that we can't do it? Isn't this even the most fashionable car built?

The first batch of 100 Taishan cars was sold out at the off-line ceremony. Forty of them were bought by industrial leaders in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and even the German governor in Qingdao bought one. But he didn't spend any money. In view of the particularly good relations between Germany and Shandong Province, Shandong Automobile Company is willing to present a gift to His Excellency the Governor General to show the respect of the people of Shandong for the German Governor in Qingdao.

When the news came out, Zhang Shizhao's "Lu Bao" broke out and scolded it, saying that Shandong Automobile Company had shamelessly betrayed the country. Shandong Automobile is a private private company, and giving a foreigner a car is not enough to sell the country. As a result, the newspapers in Jinan fought for a few days.

Most of the cars were "digested" by Shandong Province, and every provincial senior official from the Shandong Automobile Company, which was generous, from the governor to the feudal platform to the academic administration to the admiral, gave one. This thing is good. But there are not many people who can drive, and even the driver has to be provided by Shandong Automobile Company, and the car is not interesting to use. Although Governor Liangbi took the car, the car was never used and was parked in his governor's compound.

Of course, Shandong Automobile did not forget to give gifts to the center. Twenty cars were sent to Beijing, and it was not a question for Shandong Automobile Company to consider who it would give to.

Shandong's manufacture of automobiles caused an uproar in Japan, and they suddenly felt that the strength of Shandong Industry seemed to have developed to a point where it was seriously underestimated.

The automobile trend has not subsided, and Shandong Zhongxing Industrial Group signed an agreement with Standard Oil of the United States on May 31 to establish a joint venture refinery in Qingzhou. The two companies will invest a total of USD 400,000. Each holds half of the shares.

This incident has once again sparked heated discussions in the press. Half of the newspapers are laughing. China is basically oil-free, and some only have some oil in the extension of the Loess Plateau and the Yumen Pass farther away, and the output is extremely low and difficult to exploit. What is ZTE doing to build an oil refinery in the hinterland of Shandong? What is the difference between shipping crude oil from overseas to Shandong and directly importing refined oil?

But there are also news people who say that this matter is remarkable, since Shandong has built cars (although everyone understands that Chinese people can't afford cars. Not to mention sedans. Even the carriage doesn't have much purchasing power). That thing drinks gasoline, so you have to build your own refinery, in case oil is found in Shandong? Wouldn't that make a lot of sense?

Only a few people know about it. Under the leadership of Huamei Machinery, ZTE signed a secret agreement with Standard Oil, that is, Standard Oil sent an exploration team to explore oil in Shandong, and if successful, Standard Oil would be responsible for the construction of oil wells and technical support, and the benefits would be shared equally between the two sides, and the risks would be shared by both parties.

Interestingly, Standard Oil bypassed the Shandong government and signed a resource agreement with an industrial group that was attached to Long Qian and promised strict secrecy.

At the end of July in the Western calendar, a mutiny occurred in Shandong, which once again attracted the attention of the government and the opposition.

The incident started because Liangbi, the new governor of Shandong, brought a group of officers from Beiyang in order to control the Shandong patrol battalion, and forcibly inserted them into the Shandong patrol army, serving as the regiment commander and battalion commander under the new establishment. Naturally, this incident aroused great dissatisfaction among the Shandong army, and the contradictions have always been very acute.

The incident was triggered by a clash between the officers and men of the 5th Regiment of the 2nd Shandong Brigade stationed in Yizhou and the new regiment commander, and the dismissal of two company commanders who refused to carry out the orders of the new regiment commander angered the officers and men of the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Regiment. And the guards brought by Ji Renjie from Zhili were even worse, their arms were discounted, and one of their calves was also broken by the barbaric soldiers with the butt of their guns.

When the news reached Jinan, Liangbi strictly ordered Wu Nian, the commander of the Second Brigade, to track down and severely punish the murderer. Wu Nian reported that the Yizhou incident was caused by Renjie's confusion and unwarranted punishment of soldiers, and the law did not hold the public accountable and could not be investigated. Liangbi, who had been unhappy everywhere for several months, was furious and ordered the dismissal of the commander of Wu Nian's Second Brigade and ordered Renjie to act as the commander of the Second Brigade. This incident caused protests from the whole Shandong army, and Ning Shijun and Ye Yanbing publicly accused Liangbi of being unfair and expressed great dissatisfaction. The senior officers of the Second Brigade (except for the officers installed by Liangbi) jointly wrote to the governor of Yamen, saying that the Second Brigade of Shandong would never accept the command of Ji Renjie, and if Ji Renjie dared to come to Yizhou to take office, he must be good-looking, let him come in standing and leave lying down!

Ji Renjie, who had suffered enough in the Fifth Regiment, would never dare to go to the brigade headquarters to take up his post. The commander of the second brigade is still Wu Nian. Even the fifth regiment was lost, and he took over a regiment at the beginning.

The news was poked out by the newspapers in Jinan, which immediately pushed Liangbi to the forefront. Shandong didn't report to the imperial court at all to ask for justice, and Liangbi was not easy to report, how could he say that he couldn't manage Shandong at all? Or risk a civil war to transfer the Beiyang Army into Shandong?

The imperial court also did not inquire about the Yizhou incident. It's pretty weird. But some of the discerning foreign media noticed the unusual implication that Liangbi was incapable of controlling the Shandong Army, and that the well-equipped force was out of the air. Whose command it obeys becomes an unquestionable question.

On August 15, a tabloid newspaper in Qingdao called Shandong Today published an article entitled "Who is in charge of the Shandong Army?" After reporting and analyzing the Yizhou incident, the author also listed the military strength of the Shandong Army, pointing out that the Shandong Army actually has six infantry standards (regiments), and artillery, cavalry, engineering, and baggage are all available. Especially artillery. It is definitely a terrifying existence, because of the purchase of the German fifteen-life super cannon, plus the Huayuan Gun Factory can already produce artillery of all calibers below seven and a half lives, and the Shandong army is equipped with more than one hundred and fifty cannons, which is no longer a target equipment!

If a troop with more troops than a new military town does not obey the command of the governor, then who is in command of it? Admiral of Shandong? The fact is that the Shandong Admiral has no right to intervene in any affairs of the Shandong Army, and Wang Huaiqing is an authentic puppet, not even a puppet. Because he couldn't even enter any of the barracks of the Shandong Army.

Shandong Today is a newspaper with a small circulation. But the publication of the article still caused a big uproar. The British, French, and even Russians were highly concerned about this, and several newspapers in Beijing reposted the article. The Qing court questioned the German minister about the origin and authenticity of the large-caliber artillery, and the German minister said that he did not know, and the artillery was also a commodity. Suppose the rest of China's troops spend money. You can also buy high-quality weapons from Krupp or Rheinmetall.

The imperial court eventually reacted. Due to the failure of the tax bank to be delivered to the household department in a timely manner. Chen Chao is hereby dismissed from his post as political envoy to Shandong, and his post is taken over by Yuan Shuxun, the left attendant of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. This Yuan Shuxun was once preparing to take over the post of governor of Yang Shixiang, but now he has only got a "executive vice governor". Apparently demoted used. Of course, it can also be said to be reused. Because Liangbi needs to really control Shandong's money and grain.

Chen Chao's official hat was only worn for more than a year.

People didn't expect that the imperial court's method of dealing with the Shandong issue was only to remove a feudal lord! For Ning Shijun, Ye Yanbing and other military generals did not move at all. People waited for Shandong to continue to break the news, but they were disappointed. Soon, the attention of the press was attracted by the introduction of the "Outline of the King James Constitution" by the imperial court.

In fact, in response to Liangbi's plea, the imperial court finally decided to settle Shandong by force. The War Department secretly formulated a plan to mobilize the second, third, and sixth towns of Beiyang to send troops to Shandong to completely solve the Shandong problem. It is easy to formulate a plan, but it is difficult to implement. When this plan was sent out by the spies of the Mengshan Army hidden in the Beiyang Staff Center, the Shandong Army had already received a warning that any of the Beiyang Army's assembly had not yet been completed, and the Sixth Town, which was intended to be used to attack Shandong, had actually transferred north to Shanhaiguan! In this case, the top brass of the Shandong Army, which closely monitored the movements in Beiyang, did not carry out mobilization -- they formulated a more detailed mobilization plan than Beiyang, and the summoning of reserve soldiers, the assembly and advance of troops, the deployment of materials, the selection of battlefields, and even the possibility of the loss of Jinan were all anticipated.

It is strange that not only was Shandong's plan strictly kept secret, but the imperial court, which had always been leaky, also did an excellent job of secrecy this time. There were no rumors in the market, and there was not a single report in the newspapers.

What kind of center delayed the military operation became one of the biggest unsolved cases in the late Qing Dynasty. After the incident, the parties did not understand the reason until 50 years later, when some of the files were publicly declassified.

With the establishment of local advisory bureaus and the introduction of the Outline of the King James Constitution by the Qing court in August, attention was no longer paid to the two provinces, and even the once-tense Shandong province faded out of the eyes of observers.

To be fair, it was an epoch-making event for the Manchu regime, which had developed China's 2,000-year-old history of autocracy to the extreme, and was forced to promulgate the "Outline of the King James Constitution" under pressure from inside and outside. The Outline clearly states that nine powers belong to the people, that is, the people, and that the subjects are allowed to be free of speech, writing, publication, assembly, association, etc., within the limits of the law; Subjects are not to be arrested, imprisoned, or punished unless they are prescribed by law; Subjects may request a judge to hear the case they have brought before him; The subjects shall be judged by the yamen as prescribed by law; The property and residence of the subjects, which are not disturbed without reason, have already taken on the rudiments of modern state politics.

However, such an "Outline of the King James Constitution," which had already made great concessions to the Manchu rulers, was not applauded by the ruling stratum, and both the revolutionaries and constitutionalists who were concerned with politics were extremely dissatisfied. The constitutionalists criticized the "Outline" for still not being able to shake off the stench of autocracy, because their political ideal was a constitution of civil rights rather than a constitution of monarchy. The revolutionaries even lashed out at it, saying that the outline of the King James Constitution was used in the name of constitutionalism to consolidate the foundation of 10,000 years of immorality.

The revolutionaries were not in favor of a constitutional monarchy, because what they wanted was to completely overthrow the Manchus and establish a republic dominated by the League. If the constitution succeeds, how will the revolutionary party deal with itself? Recognition of the Manchu monarchy? So, their position is not surprising at all.

The days slipped away day by day in quarrels and abuse, and the Chinese accustomed to the supremacy of imperial power, especially those who lived in the city and were literate Chinese were surprised to find that the world had really changed dramatically. Not only can the once sacrosanct court be openly denigrated in the newspapers, but in other ways, such as cutting off the braids that have been left for two hundred and fifty years, is not a big deal. Teachers and students of the new universities that have emerged since the New Deal have begun to cut their braids publicly, and there is no government to pursue them. The wealthy who lived in the concession area were even more unscrupulous, especially in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even Jinan, where it became fashionable to cut arguments. Many industries in Jinan are even more simply, all employees must cut their braids for safety reasons, otherwise you will resign and leave.

The autumn wind rises and the weather turns cooler. When the light entered the winter of 1908, suddenly came a shocking news that the Guangxu Emperor, who was full of tragedy in the hearts of the Chinese, died, and less than a whole day, Cixi, who had ruled China for forty years, also died! (To be continued......)