When I walked into Ding's garden, I saw people standing on both sides of the road. When everyone saw Sun Yat-sen coming in, they all bowed and hugged their fists and said, "President Sun, I am fortunate to be there!" ”

"Mr. Nakayama, don't come unharmed?"

"I wish Superintendent Sun a peaceful and smooth sailing journey!"

Sun Yat-sen was also smiling and greeted everyone one by one.

When I came to the main hall, I saw a huge banner with a blue sky and a white rì flag and a red sè hanging in the middle, which read: "The alliance will be a farewell to Mr. Zhongshan!" "It turns out that the members of the League are gathered here today to hold a huge farewell party for Sun Yat-sen.

After Sun Yat-sen stepped down as the provisional president, he should have been unofficial and light, no matter whether he became a "Hawaiian Chinese" or a citizen of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai should breathe a sigh of relief. However, Yuan Shikai was still very suspicious of him. This reason is not difficult to understand: from ancient times to the present, which emperor has ever been at ease with the monarchs of previous dynasties? Although Sun Yat-sen only occupied half of the country and only reigned for a few months, after all, he was a great treasure and had a lot of appeal in the southern provinces.

As for how to deal with Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai also hesitated: let him into the cabinet, and there was nowhere to live; Let him be in the opposition, and worry about the demolition everywhere. As for Sun Yat-sen himself, he was naturally unwilling to bow down to Yuan Shikai, and he was even more unwilling to let go. Both weighed for a long time, and finally Yuan Shikai gave Sun Yat-sen an empty title of "National Railway Superintendent". This is also the reason why the members of the League just now called him "Supervisor Sun".

This "National Railway Superintendent" is nominally a position given by zhongyāng, but it is not in the official establishment of zhèngfǔ; It is said that it is not in the official establishment of zhèngfǔ, but it enjoys the huge salary allocated by zhèngfǔ. And so it goes. It not only satisfies Yuan Shikai's desire not to let Sun Yat-sen enter the zhèngfǔ and wants to restrain Sun Yat-sen, but also satisfies Sun Yat-sen's request that he does not want to bow to Yuan Shikai and wants to have a stable economic source. So Sun Yat-sen gladly accepted the position, and both sides were happy.

What does the National Railway Superintendent do?

Literally. It is the supreme commander of the construction of railways. But Sun Yat-sen did not have Sun Yuanqi's golden finger, second, he did not have any experience in building railways, and third, he did not have the team to build railways, so how could he supervise the railways? If you think about it, you can only look around the country first. As for what Sun Yat-sen will investigate and where he will eventually go, there is no complete and detailed plan now, everyone only knows that his first stop will be Shanghai in Shiliyangchang. So everyone held this feast for him in the garden of Ding's house.

Of course, in addition to bidding farewell to Sun Yat-sen, this banquet also had the meaning of sending Song Jiaoren and Wang Chonghui, the two heads of the League, to the north to take office.

Heads and minds have just sat down in the hall. Hu Hanmin, Song Jiaoren and others clamored: "Mr. Zhongshan, tell us a few words!" And the crowd agreed. Sun Yat-sen was familiar with this, and with a little humility, he walked to the front desk proudly. Began his speech:

"Think back decades. The Qing court suppressed the Hongyang Heavenly Kingdom, the East and West Twist Army and the Northwest Rebellion, and the government and the opposition all celebrated each other, thinking that after this disaster, the golden Ou was restored, and the prosperity could be expected, and ten thousand years could be waited. Hundreds of officials and gentry competed to advocate opening factories and mines, building railways, purchasing warships, building giant artillery, and training the navy. However, in this case, Qing zhèngfǔ was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War. In the end, he had to cede the land and pay compensation.

"At that time, Sun had not been standing for a certain year, and he first saw that the country was steaming. I also want to learn a skill and do my best for the people. Who knew that the country was so decimated, and even lost to the small country of Dongying! While humiliated and shocked, Sun began to reflect positively, trying to find the reason for the defeat. I remember that after the war, the famous Enlightenment thinker Fukuzawa Yukichi once commented that 'the war between the Qing Dynasty was the victory of civilization over barbarism'. Only then did I realize that under this flowery surface, Qing zhèngfǔ had already been terminally ill, and the so-called 'Tongguang Zhongxing' was nothing more than a return to the light. If China wants to stand tall again among the world's great powers, the only way is to drive out the Tartars and establish the Republic of China! So at the end of 1894, he went to Honolulu to raise funds to establish the Xingzhong Society, which was the beginning of the revolution.

"For nearly 20 years from the First Sino-Japanese War to the present, Sun has been traveling overseas and working hard with all his colleagues for the nation, civil rights, and people's livelihood. Thanks to the dedication of Comrade Plenum, we finally overthrew the Manchu Qing Dynasty and established the Republic of China, the national and civil rights struggle basically achieved its goal, and politically the revolution was fulfilled. However, the revolution has not yet been fully accomplished, and comrades still need to work hard! There is still a great deal of work ahead of us that will enable China to stand shoulder to shoulder with the great powers as a great power. The most urgent task now is to implement the principle of people's livelihood and to carry out the revolution in society. The social revolution is more important than the political revolution, because the main content of the social revolution is the equalization of land rights, and land rights have always been the foundation of national life.

In Sun's view, the best way to average land rights is to levy a land price tax and increase the price of land to the public. The so-called 'levy of land price tax' means that private land is valued and reported by the landlord, and the state levies taxes according to the price, and the tax is collected more on expensive land and less on cheap land; while 'land price increase is returned to the public' means that the part of land price increase in the future is owned by the state, and at the same time the state reserves the right to buy the land according to the reported land price, so as to prevent the landlord from underreporting the land price. Of course, land is the most important means of production in the traditional economy and society, and even if the means of levying land price tax and increasing the price of land are returned to the public, it is difficult to eliminate the dependence and attachment of the Chinese people on land in a short period of time. So we're going to have to work on something else.

"First of all, our alliance will carry out an enlightenment movement on the god jīng, actively promote the mercantilism of the West, let the people get rid of ignorance, broaden their knowledge, break through the ideological shackles caused by the imperial power and divine power in the past, reduce the people's infatuation with the land, and invest funds in industry and commerce, so as to rebuild our country. This work depends on all of you!

"Secondly, our alliance will lead by example in material terms, vigorously set up industry, so that the Chinese factories are everywhere, the machines are roaring, the chimneys are dense, the high-rise buildings are lined up, the trains pass through the north and the south, and the ships sail freely on the rivers and seas. As early as 20 years ago, when Sun went north to pay homage to Li Wenzhong Gong (Li Hongzhang), he proposed that the state should make the best use of people's talents, make the best use of their interests, and make the flow of goods unimpeded. Now that the revolution has been initially successful, it is the time to make great promises, and Sun also happens to have free time after stepping down as interim president, so Sun Mou should be responsible for this work!

"To tell the truth, China's economy is very backward, the industrial and agricultural foundation is very weak, and there are too many industries that need to be developed! Whether it is the processing of grain, cotton, oil, textiles, silk supplies, printing, silk, tea, etc., or the mining of coal, iron, petroleum, and other mineral deposits, or the manufacture of various raw materials such as steel, petroleum, machinery, cement, etc., our comrades need to make serious efforts. However, in order for all industries to develop healthily, it is necessary to build a vast railway system linking the coast, hinterland and frontier as soon as possible to ensure the smooth flow of goods and thus promote the prosperity of commerce.

"Yuan Xiangcheng gave us the vacant title of 'National Railway Supervisor', why didn't Sun know the meaning behind it? It's just that the railway is related to the national economy and people's livelihood and is of great significance, so we gladly accept it. Sun is willing to build 100,000 miles of railways for the country in ten years, and contribute to the prosperity of commerce and the development of the national economy. At the same time, we also use this living reality to tell the people of the whole country that we revolutionaries are not only good at destruction, but also good at construction! ”

As soon as the words fell, the cheers of "Long live the president" resounded in the garden of the Ding family.

Of course, if Sun Yuanqi had been there, he would have laughed at Sun Yat-sen's whimsical idea: Do you know what the concept of building 100,000 miles of railways in ten years is? One mile is about 1.61 kilometers, and 100,000 miles is 161,000 kilometers. With the strength of the whole country, after 100 years of development, by the end of 2012, the operating mileage of China's railways was only 98,000 kilometers, less than 60% of Sun Yat-sen's vision. And looking at all countries in the world, only the United States has met Sun Yat-sen's requirements! Sun Yat-sen did not have the golden finger to cross the public, nor did he have the huge financial resources of the American Empire, how could he build 100,000 miles of railroad in ten years?

If Sun Yat-sen's idea of building 100,000 miles of railways in ten years makes people laugh, then his railway plan, which was published in the "Strategy for the Founding of the People's Republic of China", is simply breathtaking!

It is said that the 100,000-mile railway planning map was a sketch drawn by Sun Yat-sen after consulting the railway engineering materials and inspecting the existing railway lines, but as long as anyone with a little geography and transportation knowledge could not plan Sun Yat-sen's great railway construction, and even with the current engineering technology, his grand blueprint could not be realized! Because that planning map is not so much a railway plan as a game of connection between large and medium-sized cities.

What's even worse is that no matter whether the two cities are surrounded by lofty mountains, wasteland deserts, or the Yangtze River, jungle swamps, Sun Yat-sen ignored them all and directly connected them with line segments, as if to prove that he had learned the axiom of "the shortest line segment between two points" in plane geometry. I believe that the construction workers have seen so many straight lines, and they have the mind to hang and throw themselves into the river!

Sun Yat-sen added: "However, it is not easy to set up an industry in today's China! For example, if the country is poor and has no capital, it will be impossible not to borrow foreign debts, but borrowing foreign debts will be slandered by some nationalists, who will suspect you of political cheating at least and attack you for betraying the country for profit. If you are not careful, you will end up in disrepute. It's hard!

"In addition, while building industry to enrich the country and strengthen the people, we must prevent the monopoly of the capitalists. The so-called capitalists, who exploit the common people for huge profits, are completely irresponsible for the suffering of the people. In a word: the capitalists are also the unconscientious. Therefore, we must exclude a small number of capitalists, so that the greatest number of people can enjoy the fruits of production and labor! (To be continued.) )