On April 8, 1913, the first National Assembly of the Republic of China was officially convened in Beijing, and the Provisional Senate was also dissolved on the same day.

In the past, there was only one Senate in the Provisional Diet, and the number of members was relatively small, so it has been borrowing the former site of the Qing Dynasty Wealth Administration Yuan. - Of course, this site was not originally owned by the Information Administration Yuan, but was the school building of the Beijing Normal Law School, because the Beijing Law School, the Beijing Law and Political Science School, and the Beijing Finance School merged to form the Beijing Law and Political College, and this school building was vacant, and it happened to be changed to the venue of the Information Administration Yuan. -- Now that there are two formal Congresses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the number of whom is approaching the 1,000-person mark, it is naturally impossible to hold meetings together any longer.

As early as last year's parliamentary election, some smart people thought of this, and after reporting to the Cabinet and the Grand Presidential Office for approval, it was decided that the smaller Senate would still use the former Qing Yuan to work. As for the House of Representatives, which has a large number of people, the former Treasury School building on the east side of the House of Representatives was converted into an assembly hall as the office of the House of Representatives. This is the place where the first day of the conference will be held.

On this day, the wind is light and the sun is warm, and the streets and alleys of the capital are hung with five-color flags, which has the atmosphere of the National Day in later generations. From 9 a.m., members of parliament, dressed in special dresses, arrived at the newly inaugurated venue of the House of Representatives. Sun Yuanqi, as the president of the Central Society and a celebrity, was also invited to attend the ceremony.

At 11 o'clock in the afternoon, the opening ceremony of the National Assembly officially began, and the Gong Guards fired a 108-gun salute to pay tribute. Subsequently, Shi Yu, chairman of the National Assembly Affairs Bureau, reported on the convening of the National Assembly, and on behalf of all the members, Yang Qiong, the oldest senator from Yunnan, was elected as the interim chairman of the meeting.

In other words, Yang Qiong is more interesting. He was born in the 26th year of Daoguang (1846) and is said to be an ethnic minority (Bai). I don't know if it was because I was obedient to the examination room, or if I realized it later, and I didn't reluctantly get admitted to the examination until I was forty-five years old. It is necessary to follow the current regulations on the recruitment of civil servants. Even if he had a Ph.D., he would be kept out of the threshold. Fortunately, the Qing Dynasty had a relatively lenient age requirement for civil servants, and he successfully entered the official career and served as a scholar in Jinning Prefecture.

But he soon left officialdom again and devoted himself to education. After the change of Gengzi country, the whole country set up education on a large scale, and he was nearly sixty years old. He was still ordered to go to Japan to inspect academic affairs, and graduated from the accelerated normal course of Tokyo Hongbun College, and returned to Yunnan to continue his education. If time permits. Sun Yuanqi would like to invite him to give a lecture at Jingshi University to talk about his study experience, so that students can truly understand what it means to "learn endlessly" and what it means to "grow old and strong".

Immediately afterwards, Liang Shiyi, a special representative of Yuan Shikai and secretary general of the Presidential Office, took the stage to congratulate and recited Yuan Shikai's eulogy. Claim: "The First National Assembly of the Republic of China was officially established. This is a great glory in the history of more than 4,000 years, and the happiness of 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Shikai is also a member of the people, and he should be deeply fortunate with all the gentlemen! At the end, he shouted "Long live the Republic of China!" Long live the Congress of the Republic of China! It seems that the proposal to temporarily close the parliament a few days ago is another person, which can't help but make Sun Yuanqi feel a chill.

Although the Diet has already been convened, you must not expect it to conclude in more than 10 or 20 days, as in later generations. In real history, this session of the National Assembly officially completed all the agendas from the opening of April 8 to the election of Le Yuanhong as vice president on October 7. It took six months. In this half a year, they just elected the speaker of the parliament and the vice president of the Republic of China. The cabinet list was adopted.

What kind of election is this? It's clearly a boiling eagle!

Throughout China's history, it is estimated that only the co-optation of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is known as the "first delay in history", can compete with the current Congress in terms of procrastination. Since 1991, the co-optation of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has become the norm, with co-optation held every two years, and co-opted elections are held in odd-numbered years. The election was not announced until December from the date of the issuance of the notice of nominating candidates, and it took a full year to wait until December to announce the election after four links: nominating candidates, selecting the centralized departments, evaluating academicians, and electing. Then I have to take a year off. It's as if every co-optation hurts the muscles and bones, and it takes a year of recuperation to recover. It shows how much it drags!

At first, Sun Yuanqi repeatedly called on his party members to actively promote the process of the meeting, but soon he turned to thank the delay in the parliamentary election, because the next three major events made him fully realize how challenging it was to be the prime minister of the cabinet in the early years of the Republic of China!

Chronologically, the first major event was the intensification of the Blanc rebellion in late April and early May.

At the end of last year, Zhang Zhenfang, then the governor of Henan, left the provincial capital Kaifeng to go to southwest Henan to supervise the army to exterminate the Bailang rebels in order to avoid Sun Yuanqi. It turned out that it was a complete mistake to put a military governor in command of the counterinsurgency.

Bai Lang took advantage of his speed advantage in riding mules and horses and without baggage, and fought in the vast hilly area from Yuzhou in Kaifeng Prefecture in the north to Tongbai Mountain in the south, and even once cut into the Suizhou boundary of De'an Mansion in Hubei along the defense line of the First Mixed Brigade in Hubei under Jiang Zuobin, and was so frightened that Duan Qirui, who was busy reorganizing the army, was in a cold sweat. In the face of the erratic rebels, Zhang Zhenfang did not fight steadily and step by step, but according to the bandit situation reported from various places, he ordered the troops to follow behind the butt of the Bai Lang bandit army to surround and intercept him, so that the Beiyang Army and patrol battalions involved in the encirclement and suppression were exhausted, and some of them were wiped out by Bai Lang from time to time. Zhang Zhenfang failed to suppress the bandits, but instead became the captain of the transportation brigade, and the weapons and ammunition he gave made the Bailang rebels stronger and stronger.

In April and May of this year, the Bailang rebels got rid of the suppression of the officials and troops of Henan and Hubei provinces, suddenly moved north, and used long-distance raids to conquer the two county towns of Tanghe and Yuzhou in one fell swoop. At this time, Bai Lang's army had expanded to five or six thousand people, and half of the soldiers had fast guns, and even a batch of machine guns and six cannons. As the momentum of the team became more and more huge, a large number of disaster victims, stragglers, and heroes from all over the country joined in one after another. According to Sun Yuanqi's information, even the Japanese and the Southern Revolutionary Party secretly sent people to negotiate with Bai Lang, and although the details are unknown, the purpose of the cooperation is clearly revealed.

Seeing that the Bailang rebels were sitting in western Henan, they were plundering on a large scale. Henan Provincial Councilor, who was attending the National Assembly in Beijing, solemnly raised a motion of inquiry to Yuan Shikai. Now that the presidential election has not yet been completed, Yuan Shikai naturally does not dare to make extraneous branches, so he has to ignore the double tension of military strength and finance. The Beiyang strong brigades in the two provinces of Shandong were dispatched to carry out large-scale encirclement and suppression of the Bailang rebels.

The second major event was that the government of the Republic of China was facing huge financial difficulties.

By April, the treasury of the Republic of China government had reached the point of exhaustion, and not only could the loans be exhausted, but there was no collateral for the loans, and there was not even a suitable excuse to be found. On 10 April, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of the Navy borrowed £1,200,000 and £2,000,000 respectively from the German company Swiss-Kee and the Austrian Lower Austrian Securities Company in the name of ordering ships. In fact, what kind of ship to buy? It's that the treasury has no money, and the finances are on the verge of collapse. Borrow this name to borrow some money to help.

As a last resort, the government of the Republic of China had to restart the large-scale loan that Tang Shaoyi had negotiated with the bank group of the six countries. Perhaps Yuan Shikai wanted to settle it once and for all, and the amount of the loan was as high as 25 million pounds. It is because of the huge amount of borrowing. The conditions put forward by the six countries are extremely harsh, such as the sale of bonds at a 9% discount, the purpose of borrowing is earmarked, and the borrowing must be deducted in advance from various reparations. Guaranteed by the balance of the national salt tax and customs duties. For audit purposes, foreigners must be hired as consultants, etc. The so-called "people are poor and short-minded, horses are thin and long-haired", no matter how harsh the conditions are, Yuan Shikai can only grit his teeth and admit it!

I don't know if Yuan Shikai was worried about the long nights and dreams, and wanted to complete the matter as soon as possible, or he was worried that the Congress would obstruct it, so he deliberately bypassed the Congress and signed such a huge loan contract without the consent of the Congress! Moreover, the contract stipulates that foreigners should be hired as financial advisers. However, at present, Russia is instigating foreign independence, and the whole country is trying its best to reject Russia. Yuan Shikai wanted to go against the grain and hire Russians, how could he not provoke a strong reaction from the congressmen and the people of the whole country? What is even more unfortunate is that on the day after the signing of the agreement, a third major event occurred, that is, Song Jiaoren, who had just been elected chairman of the Senate, was mysteriously assassinated in his apartment.

As soon as the news of Song Jiaoren's assassination came out, the whole country was shaken, and Sun Yuanqi couldn't help but sigh at the powerful inertia of the wheel of history. The Senate and the House of Representatives were even more furious, regarding it as the most serious and egregious provocation to the authority of the Congress, and ordered President Yuan Shikai and Premier Zhao Bingjun to investigate and handle the case within a time limit and give an explanation to the Congress and the people of the whole country. Sun Yat-sen, who was inspecting the railways in Japan, was also very sad when he heard the news, and immediately sent a telegram from Nagasaki to the Kuomintang headquarters in Beijing and the Ministry of Communications in Shanghai, so that the party members could work together to find out the murderer of the assassination of the Song family, so as to seek revenge. As for why he only called the party and not the presidential palace, the State Council, and the parliament, it is worth noting why he made a phone call.

What is strange is that just when Zhao Bingjun was anxious to solve the case, the two murderers were arrested in the Japanese Concession in Tianjin and Shanghai, and the confession pointed directly at Yuan Shikai and Sun Yuanqi. The arrest in the Japanese concession in Tianjin was a young man, believed to be a student at Jingshi University and a member of the New China Party, who claimed that in order to remove the obstacles to the New China Party's ruling power and repay Mr. Sun's great kindness, he secretly contacted comrades and joined forces to shoot Song Jiaoren. Sun Yuanqi really wanted to go to Tianjin to see the student, but before he could leave, the student died in prison. There was a lot of discussion in the newspapers, some people said that he committed suicide in fear of crime, some said that he died of serious injuries due to torture to extract confessions, and some people speculated that Sun Yuanqi killed people and killed people.

In Shanghai, it was Youzi, a veteran soldier from Beiyang, who had just been cut off from the army. He participated in the murder of Song Jiaoren because Song Jiaoren conspired to plan the second revolution and overthrow the central government, so he wanted to remove this culprit for 40,000 compatriots. As the interrogation deepened step by step, the correspondence and telegrams between him and Hong Shuzu, the secretary of the prime minister, discussing the assassination of Song Jiaoren, gradually surfaced.

Soon, the confessions of the two murderers and the correspondence and telegrams exchanged with Hong Shuzu were sent to the presidential palace, the Senate and the House of Representatives, the State Council, the governors of various provinces, the civil governors, and major newspapers as the main evidence in the case. The Kuomintang newspapers published the full text, while the New China Party and the Beiyang media tried their best to refute the rumors, and further pointed out that the murder of Soong Jiaoren was a result of the Kuomintang internal strife and the death of a fratricidal victim. The reaction of the people across the country is that if the evidence is true, then Zhao Bingjun and even Yuan Shikai will be inextricably linked; As for Sun Yuanqi, he should not be involved in this matter, even if the student is really the murderer, it is a personal act and has nothing to do with Sun Yuanqi.

Perhaps, that's the benefit of a good name, right?

After the evidence was announced, Sun Yat-sen immediately interrupted his visit to Japan, quickly returned to Shanghai, and held a meeting at the Shanghai Ministry of Communications of the Kuomintang, strongly advocating the use of force to defeat the north and avenge Song Jiaoren; He also understood Yuan Shikai's large loan for the aftermath as an attempt to expand the Beiyang army and attempt to solve the southern revolutionary forces by force. The Kuomintang should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and strike first.

But there was no unity of opinion within the KMT, with Huang Xing, for example, favoring a peaceful solution. In his opinion, with the armed forces now in the hands of the Kuomintang, the Northern Expedition had no chance of winning at all. Now that the National Assembly is convening, and the evidence of the Song case is in our hands, if we really want to avenge Song Jiaoren, then carry the evidence north to impeach Zhao Bingjun and even Yuan Shikai in the Congress, wouldn't it be more effective and more secure?

Of course, the legal faction headed by Huang Xing and the political party faction centered on Kuomintang members of the National Assembly were mercilessly branded as "pro-Yuan faction" by Ju Zheng, Ma Junwu, Li Liejun, and others because they advocated solving the problem by legal means, severely criticized them, and even threatened to expel them from the party!

As for Premier Zhao Bingjun, after being splashed with sewage, he had to issue a telegram to defend himself. Unfortunately, it had little effect. Under the strong pressure of public opinion, he had to submit his resignation to Yuan Shikai.

Hearing that Zhao Bingjun submitted his resignation, Sun Yuanqi became nervous: These three things are mixed together, and it is completely the rhythm of the government's military, financial, and political collapse! If Yuan Shikai approves Zhao Bingjun's resignation and nominates himself as prime minister, will he be able to cope with such a complicated situation? (To be continued.) )

PS: Hey, do you still have tickets for the "Best Work of 2013"? Can you borrow it? Thank you first!