Volume 3, Frost Sky Dawn Corner

Since the successive return of foreign ministers to China last autumn, China has entered a period of great reforms: the bureaucratic system has been revised, the laws have been organized, and the constitution has been prepared...... The constitutionalists made a series of reform measures dazzling, and their purpose was nothing more than to make the Qing Dynasty rule for thousands of generations, but the result was that they aroused strong dissatisfaction from the old school and the ** faction, and they attacked and blocked all measures.

The conservative faction was mostly officials in the DPRK and China, who believed that the constitutional monarchy would overthrow the emperor and thus lose imperial power; The newly established prime minister is in charge of the government, and once the N dynasty program is revealed, he will carry out the actions of Wang Mang and Cao Co to change the dynasty. So desperately trying to stop it, there was a "Ding Weizheng" who attacked each other among court officials.

In order to be able to seize power for themselves, the faction was opposed to all measures that might consolidate the rule of the imperial court, regardless of whether they were beneficial to the people. Since the ** faction has no power and power, it has to resort to the most violent means to express its will: rebellion. The area south of the Yangtze River quickly became a barrel of fire: in December 1906, the Pingliuli Uprising broke out in Hunan; In June 1907, the Qinuhu Uprising occurred in Guangdong; In July, the Anqing Uprising broke out in Anhui; In September, the Qinlian Fangcheng Uprising broke out in Guangdong......

It was these two forces that brought to light that turned the precarious political situation at the end of the Qing Dynasty into a shaky one. This is like a wrecked ship on the sea, and a few discerning crew members noticed that the wind was not in the right direction and the hull was broken, so they persuaded the captain to turn the bow of the ship and repair the broken ship at the same time. As soon as he put forward his own opinion, some people immediately stood up against it: "The boat is left by the ancestors, and it cannot be moved; The direction is designated by the ancestors, and when the two factions are not allowed to spit and hold their own opinions, some people take out hammers and axes, and they are sabotage in the face of the broken ship, and express their views with actions: We should bring down everything and abolish the old and build the new

In this way, the broken ship, which could have been able to support for a few more years, circled in place under the wrestling of the three groups, and showed signs of sinking.

The North Korean and Central N Bureau is also reflected in Hubei:

The mainstream is the constitutionalists, represented by Zhang Zhidng, the governor of Huguang, and the most powerful. Although they advocated a constitutional monarchy, they were still inclined to ensure imperial power, so there was not much conflict between them and the old-fashioned royalists, but rather a confluence.

In addition to the rural gentry and old Confucian, the hardcore royalists also have them in the officialdom, but their influence is limited, after all, Zhang Nanpi has been in Hubei for so many years, and the officials who do not agree with him have long been swept away by him.

As for the ** faction, it is mainly the majority of new-style academy students, as well as the new army that has been organized and trained, which belongs to the undercurrent, and there is no sound at all on formal occasions. But in secret, it's stupid.

As a new young man born in the wind and growing up under the red flag, Sun Yuanqi is inclined to ** in his heart. But after coming to the Qing Dynasty for so many years, there have been some changes in thinking, and I have my own views on **: violence must occur under the leadership of outstanding people, within a controllable range, and cannot harm the interests of the country and the majority of the people; After the birth, the country should quickly stabilize and turn to economic construction and improve people's livelihood, instead of social movement and warlord warfare.

At the beginning of the year, Sun Yuanqi occasionally had an opportunity to see the strategy formulated by Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others in Tokyo in the autumn and winter of last year, in which the "Foreign Declaration" has the following articles: after the success of the first country, "all treaties concluded by China with other countries will continue to be in force", "the repayment of foreign debts will continue to be assumed as before, and will still be repaid by the foreign customs of all provinces", and "the vested rights of all foreigners shall be protected in one". Although Sun Yuanqi understood that this was a method that the party members had to adopt in order to gain the support of the foreign powers, he was still indignant and disappointed in the alliance.

Even if he was disappointed in the alliance, Sun Yuanqi still had some expectations for its future, hoping that it could shoulder the heavy responsibility of history, overthrow the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and establish **; Instead of hoping for the success of the Manchu government, the descendants of China will always be the servants of the Manchu emperor.

He inevitably had a depressed wait-and-see attitude towards the constitution, coupled with his bold restructuring of the school and the reduction of the content of scripture and learning, Sun Yuanqi became an alternative in Hubei officialdom. After Zhang Zhidng became a co-organizer of the university, he indirectly bypassed Sun Yuanqi, the Hubei envoy, and established an ancient school in Wuchang.

"Recently, the school has strange customs and can't bear to see it. For the sake of the country, there will be the scourge of revealing the ministers and thieves; For the sake of the world, it is especially difficult to overcome the worries of floods and beasts. I would like to set up an ancient school in Hubei Province, mainly based on scriptures, history, words, and exhibitions, supplemented by ordinary science, and the scriptures and training will not fall, so as to protect the essence of the country and expose n. ”

This almost pointed at Sun Yuanqi's nose and denied what he had done in the past year. Many people thought that Sun Yuanqi would roll out of Hubei in a short period of time, but who knew that it was Zhang Zhidng who would leave Hubei soon. However, he was promoted to a scholar and a minister of military aircraft, and his influence in Hubei was still there, which was enough to make some of Sun Yuanqi's reform measures hindered by either explicit or covert, so that some of them were struggling.

The political situation is unpredictable and unpredictable. According to the students' reactions, the ** party members of Jījin were even dissatisfied with their actions of reforming the school and improving the quality of education as maintaining the rule of the Qing court. If they had the chance, they wouldn't mind adding a boost to their assassination results, would they? According to the attitude of conservatives such as Zhang Zhidng, if you make an example to maintain the stability of the imperial court, you will not be stingy when you want to come to the Qing government, and you will not be stingy to dismiss your post and take up a scholar, right?

Sun Yuanqi was impatient to be an official, but after being criticized by Zhang Zhidng, he had the idea of going away. Who knew that the resignation letter had not yet been written, and Zhang Zhidng first asked the court for leave to recuperate. After that, it was Zhang Zhidng who went north and Zhao Erxun who came west. Taking advantage of the gap between the old and the new, Sun Yuanqi plans to make a major adjustment to the layout of primary and secondary schools in the province first, and by the way, rebuild the Ziqiang School into Wuchang University Hall.

It was at this time that he received a telegram from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry? As you can see from this award... : Rutherford's recommendation was not in vain; Orthodox scientists are still skeptical about the photoelectric effect, quantum mechanics, relativity, etc.; As a graduate student in the Department of Physics, Sun Yuanqi did not study chemistry in middle school.

Traditionally, the Nobel Prize is awarded on December 10 every year, and this year is no exception. With this justifiable reason, Sun Yuanqi decided to advance his departure date to mid-November. After thinking about it, Sun Yuanqi sent a telegram back to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in addition to expressing his gratitude, he also said that he was now an official and it was inconvenient to ask for leave to attend the award ceremony. In addition, he sent a telegram to Yale and MIT, saying that he would be free at the beginning of next year and hoped that they would use the US government to request a visit to the Qing Foreign Ministry.

Since Sun Yuanqi left in the fall of 1904, he has not set foot on the American continent for more than three years. Yale and MIT have been invited repeatedly, but they have been delayed for various reasons, until now. Although Yale and MIT sent many international students and researchers to China to discuss relevant research plans with Sun Yuanqi, China and the United States were thousands of miles apart and the experimental equipment was not complete, so there was always a feeling that the throat was not enough during the discussion.

Sun Yuanqi is very confident that Sweden and the United States will definitely invite him. After sending the telegram, he sent an excerpt to the imperial court requesting the vacancy to study abroad. Then, we quickly concentrated our energies on the great cause of educational transformation in Hubei. The transformation of the self-improvement school is relatively simple, and it only needs to be compared with the discipline setting of Jingshi University, and with the arrival of the new graduating students of Jingshi University, there is a lot of space for CO. The key is the layout of primary and secondary schools.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were 24 million people in Hubei, and according to the proportion of the population, the number of people who should attend primary and secondary schools was at least 4 million. Even if there are 400 students in each school, there should be 10,000 primary and secondary schools in the province. In reality, at present, there are only a few dozen students in each school in Hubei on average, and there are only 50,000 or 60,000 students in total, which shows that the situation is arduous.

Zhang Zhidng attaches great importance to education, and with his support, Hubei now has an annual education fund of 2 million taels of silver, which is second to none in the country. However, this silver is undoubtedly a drop in the bucket for the huge basic education project with more than 4 million people, not to mention that these silver also include various normal schools and industrial schools?

Sun Yuanqi is not a savior, and it is impossible to conjure up real money at once to build tens of thousands of primary and secondary schools. What he can do is to build a framework and use every penny to the ground, just like making a dojo inside a snail shell.

After discussing with Yang Du, Zhang Shizhao, Liu Shipei and other staff, it was decided to determine the number of public schools according to the population of each county: for every 100,000 people, two primary schools and one middle school should be established; less than 100,000 people, still two primary schools and one middle school; If there are more than 500,000 people, no more schools will be added. Local gentry are encouraged to run their own schools, and the scale of teaching exceeds that of public middle school scholars, and the prefectures and counties will be commended. In addition, Sun Yuanqi also asked Cai Yuanpei to set up two schools affiliated to Jingshi University in Hubei to reduce the pressure on the government as much as he could.

Public schools refer to the rules of the school affiliated to Jingshi University, divided into two classes, using the same teachers to teach, one for those with relatively well-off families, charging tuition; One is geared towards ordinary families and does not charge a fee. The last 20 students in the free class are eliminated each year and transferred to the fee-paying class; The 20 students with excellent grades in the fee-paying class are also able to apply for admission to the free class. In this way, we can not only take the rich and help the poor, reduce the financial pressure of the school, but also promote the competition of students, study hard, and select talented students.

There was no way, it was really limited in financial resources, so it had to adopt Spartan further training and choose elite priority education.

After coming up with a plan in mid-October, Sun Yuanqi sent all the personnel of the Ministry of Education to various prefectures and counties to supervise the establishment and renovation of public schools. He himself was no exception, he came to Tongshan, one hundred and eighty miles south of Wuchang Prefecture, and personally participated in the construction of Tongshan Public No. 1 Middle School and No. 2 Middle School.

As expected, Sweden and the United States successively sent notes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty, hoping to invite Sun Yuanqi to visit abroad; Coupled with Sun Yuanqi's own plea for the vacancy, the imperial court quickly sent an edict to Sun Yuanqi:

Sun Yuanqi, the right minister of the Ministry of Education, served as the first-class minister, and sent envoys to Sweden, the United States and other countries to investigate the affairs of the school, and was given a three-month vacation.