It's been another tiring day.

In the evening, Zhang Zhigao returned home with his wife Luo Sulan, and after breaking up the noisy children, the housekeeper came over and presented a thick letter.

Zhang Zhigao glanced at the sending address in the lower right corner of the envelope, picked up the letter a little puzzled, and asked the housekeeper to come over with scissors.

Luo Sulan tugged at her husband's arm: "The expression is wrong, love letter, right?" ”

"You'll be jealous, can't you think of something else?"

"Okay, think of something else, be careful, maybe there's poisonous powder in there, anthrax or something."

"Figure it out, it's 1904 and you're in the water......"

Luo Sulan's face turned horizontal: "What do you say!" ”

Zhang Zhigao's face straightened: "I mean, my brain is in water......"

"That's pretty much ......"

The butler wore a mask of "I didn't hear anything" and presented scissors.

Luo Sulan grabbed the letter and scissors, straightened his arm, cut the envelope as far as he could, shook it twice, looked left and right, and the anthrax or other poisonous powder did not appear.

Zhang Zhigao wrote the word "redundant" on his forehead, walked over and took out the letter paper, unfolded it, and his face was slightly distorted: "It's Mr. Wen." ”

Luo Sulan immediately reached out to grab it: "Bring it, I want to see it." ”

Zhang Zhigao quickly hid the letter behind his back: "No, if you're hungry, eat first." ”

The butler waved his hand with great interest: "Dinner is ready." ”

The three children rushed over at the right time: "Mom and Dad, eat, eat......"

"Big pigs and small pigs in a litter ......"

Luo Sulan muttered quietly, but still with a happy smile on her face, she was pulled to the table by the children.

After dinner, Luo Sulan asked a clever nanny to take the children to the yard to play, and then grabbed Zhang Zhigao to read the letter.

"Hey, don't be so excited, Mr. Wen's letter is so important to you."

Zhang Zhigao's words were sour.

"Nonsense, it's also important to you, don't change the topic, take it out and read it quickly."

Zhang Zhigao shrugged: "Of course it's important to me, because it's written for me." ”

Luo Sulan didn't bother to pay attention to him, rolled up her sleeves and was about to dig out her pockets, and the two maids next to her who were cleaning up the dining table couldn't help laughing.

Zhang Zhigao was not strong-willed, and immediately raised the white flag: "Okay, okay, surrender and surrender, go to the study, I'll read it to you." ”

With the smile of the goddess of victory, Luo Sulan escorted Prime Minister Zhang Zhigao into the study.

After pressing her husband on the rattan chair in front of the desk, Luo Sulan comfortably leaned back on the upholstered mahogany carved chair behind the desk, put her fingers in front of her beautiful nose, and ordered coquettishly and gently: "Read." ”

The Prime Minister began to report to the Empress.

"Zhigao: I've read all your letters, and I haven't replied until now, so please forgive me. I'm in Shanghai right now, and Shanghainese is especially damaging to my hearing. As you said, I didn't seem to dare to face the reality, so I escaped from the capital, but in fact, it was because I couldn't face the reality of that time and space, so I fled here. It's ridiculous, but I don't want to hide it in front of you. ”

"In the past few months, I have really wanted to live a life of idleness and wild cranes, but as instinct always, my nose has always smelled the spicy smell behind the glory of the bustle, so I have been running like a hungry wild dog towards the food in the garbage can."

"Around the Spring Festival, I visited rural areas in Guangxi, focusing on Yongning and the surroundings of Guilin. Its poverty and backwardness are not in your imagination. It is true that the land reform of the redemption system has enabled countless landlords to leave their cultivated land and enter the ranks of industry and commerce, but the organization of the new rural economy seems to be difficult to achieve in the mountainous areas of Guangxi, where villages are scattered. In Binyang and Guiping, the factories and businesses in the county towns did flourish, and to be fair, this mainly depended on the funds given by the state to a few landlords to buy land. When I came to the countryside, I saw the abject poverty of most of the villagers, the heavy state debt and taxes made them breathless, and many rural agricultural associations were established, but due to the lack of funds, the agricultural technology reform could not be carried out, the transportation was inconvenient, the information was blocked, and the education was backward, which made it impossible for these villages to develop organized commercial agriculture. In the countryside where transportation is not available, listening to other people's descriptions, it is really almost like a primitive tribe. In fact, we do know one and know the other, we do in the plain areas near Zhili generally guide the establishment of exemplary rural agricultural enterprises, but North China is the focus of our economic construction in the previous period, whether policy, capital, education or transportation construction has advantages over various places, North China's roads, railways, communication network density ranks first in the country, national education in North China is the first to develop and develop the best, North China's enterprises have also been supported by policy, which has a very considerable driving effect on the rural areas. But where this advantage is lacking, I am afraid that it is not fundamentally different from the mountain villages in Guangxi that I have seen...... I think the so-called rulers are fascinated by the prosperous scenes that are easily visible around them, and they are self-absorbed, even if they know the gloomy place and even see the erosion of the lower floors, once they return to the world where the high-rise buildings are towering and the song and dance are leveling, they will soon become more and more charming......"

“…… Since the land reform, many young and able-bodied people in the countryside have moved to the cities to make a living, which in turn has exacerbated the decay of some low-skilled villages, and in disaster years, the towns are filled with vagrants and beggars...... Since the pace of industrial and commercial investment has not kept pace with the concentration of labor, there has been a saturation of labor force in many places, unemployment has remained high, and the standard of living of working workers has not been improved by the existence of a large number of cheap unemployed labor force......

"In March, I visited some factories and mines in Hubei, and even the Hanyeping Group Company, which is known in the newspapers for having the best working and living conditions for its workers, has seen workers die of overwork in all factories and mines except the Hanyang Arsenal and the Iron and Steel Plant, and the workers in the Pingxiang Coal Mine are in the most miserable condition, working more than 14 hours a day for more than 14 hours a day, sometimes even working 17 or 8 hours a day for a week or two...... The workers' residential area is near the coal mine, and when you enter the whole grass shed, you can see that the family is shivering under a thin black quilt, and in the pot is a thin vegetable porridge that is almost pig food...... When asked a worker how often he eats meat, the worker said that he could only eat it once during the Spring Festival, so he could only buy a lump the size of his palm and make it into bacon and eat it until the Lantern Festival...... The investigation found that the monthly wages of coal miners are generally between three and four dimes, and according to the local price level, they are only enough to buy 60 to 80 catties of low-grade rice...... compared to such heavy labor."

"I think that's the case with the most 'benevolent' companies in the country, let alone anywhere else. This reminds me of Liu Yun's accusation against me, that the revolution brought about by poverty is not impossible......"

"We are not in the era of mature monopoly capital, our free capital still has a huge space for development, our industry is in a period of rise rather than stagnation, the domestic market is very broad, and at the same time has rich resources, the driving force of domestic trade on industry and the entire national economy is still very considerable, before the domestic market is saturated, there is no need to seize the colonies for the time being, but even if the domestic market is saturated, if it can far surpass foreign countries in terms of technical science and management science, It is not impossible to occupy the world by relatively peaceful means...... However, excessive disparities between the rich and the poor will inevitably limit domestic consumption and lead to the deformation of consumer goods production, saturating the domestic market too quickly, and causing serious social instability...... Before having the leading industrial capacity of the world, any attempt to challenge the hegemony of the world will bring great danger to the country and the nation, but the excessive disparity between the rich and the poor will provide a layer of soil for the development of militarism, and the military can take advantage of the situation to oppose the government, mobilize the poor against the rich, establish an authoritarian politics and state-run economy, deprive the upper class, give more benefits to the middle and lower classes, and then incite ultra-nationalism, with strong human resources with a certain industrial capacity, to carry out foreign conquest, Accordingly, to compensate for the inefficiencies brought about by authoritarian politics and the state-run economy, in order to win the support of the people......"

"In Shanghai, I witnessed a series of anti-war demonstrations and workers' strikes, in which thugs from the so-called Patriotic Association and the Populist Association rushed into the procession and carried out a series of violent acts...... I asked the striking workers' leaders, and they said that while prices were rising, wages were not rising, and working hours in the factories were increasing. A closer look reveals that it stemmed from the tax hike that had been put in place to prepare for the war spending, and although the tax hike was aimed at the wealthy, it was natural for the business owners to pass on the additional burden to the workers......"

"In my opinion, it is necessary to plan and carry out legislation within the party to protect the interests of the workers and peasants, and to start amending the constitution so that the workers' and peasants' classes and women will have the right to vote...... In Shanghai, I am pleased to see that the sprout of trade unions has emerged, but it is still far from perfect, and we should quietly guide and nurture them, and establish non-revolutionary trade union organizations whose task is to safeguard the practical interests of the workers, and once the workers are organized, with appropriate legislative support, they can continue to fight for the interests of the management, and at the same time avoid undue economic damage as much as possible......

"Our future path should be said to be center-left, the key is the economy, we must solve the disparity between the rich and the poor and the problems of the peasants, we must invest more funds in infrastructure construction, especially in the rural areas, but war and militarism will not make us have extra funds for this kind of construction......

Before twelve o'clock in the night, the lights were on in Zhang Zhigao's study.