There are many reasons for Sun Yat-sen's trip to the north, but in the final analysis, it has to do with the current political situation and Sun Yat-sen's personal perception of the country's development.

The current political situation is that Tang Shaoyi's cabinet has reached the point of exhaustion, what should we do next? The League, represented by Song Jiaoren, made a wild advance and proposed that the cabinet should be a purely political party cabinet in the future. The Republican Party, on the other hand, has taken a-for-tat counter, proposing that the cabinet must continue to adopt the current mixed-party cabinet system. Although the intentions of the other major party, the New China Party, are not clear at present, a split in the Senate has already been seen.

The Republican Party is currently the largest party in the Senate, and the League has a tendency to catch up, and either side has the ability to prevent the bill from passing. If the two are divided and opposed in the Senate, the most direct consequence will be that no matter who forms the cabinet in the future, the proposed list of cabinet members will not be approved in the Senate. Once the current Tang Shaoyi cabinet collapses, the new cabinet list cannot be approved, and the country will fall into anarchy for a long time.

What's worse is that the League clearly has the color of the Southern Revolutionary Party, while the Republican Party has the color of the Conservative Party of Central and North China. The dispute between the two parties' political views can easily turn into a regional struggle and a power struggle between the north and the south.

For Yuan Shikai, he has just sat on the throne of the provisional president, and the country's financial resources are exhausted, and there are foreign powers persecution, and the situation is precarious, but if you want to change, you must first unify the whole country; His plan to gradually unify the provinces had only just begun, and his control over the situation in the whole country was still very weak, and the problem could not be solved in a moment. Whether out of selfishness or public intentions, Yuan Shikai does not want the country to be in chaos now.

Yuan Shikai's ideal political system is the presidential system of the United States, that is, there is no cabinet premier, and the heads of various departments are directly responsible to the president. But there are allies who will get in the way. His ideals could not be realized for a while, so he had to settle for the next best thing and use his hands and feet on the responsible cabinet system, at least not the pure party cabinet that the League wanted. He thought that he could not convince Song Jiaoren, who was not entering, so he had to set the target of his lobbying on Sun Yat-sen, who would have a huge influence on the alliance but did not have much discipline. Therefore, he strongly invited Sun Yat-sen to go north to discuss the state of the country.

And what about Sun Yat-sen? After the success of the revolution, he became an economist, and felt that the two doctrines of nationality and civil rights had been realized because of the abdication of the Qing court, and that the most important issue now was to carry out economic revolution and solve the problems of people's livelihood. At present, the country is weak, the people are poor, and external troubles are continuous, and the situation is like a mess, and whoever is in power will be at a loss. If there is a vain attempt to deal with it by political means alone. It's only going to get worse! How to solve this problem? He is a half-baked economist who believes that the state should vigorously develop industry and fundamentally solve the problem of a weak country and a poor people, so that the people's livelihood will be abundant and the country will be rich and strong, and then political problems can be solved. To put it bluntly, this is the distorted expression of the Ma sect leader's "economic base determines the superstructure".

However, at present, there is a conflict between the north and the south, and a conflict between the parties. In the turmoil in China, how can there be a suitable environment for industrial development? When he received a telegram from Yuan Shikai inviting him to go north to discuss the country, Sun Yat-sen felt that the opportunity had come!

In addition, there are two small reasons: First, the political parties in Beijing have reached a critical moment of division and unity, especially the League, which has negotiated good conditions with the United Republican Party, the Kuomintang Communist, the Kuomintang Progressive Association, and the Republican Practical Progressive Party, and is preparing to hold a merger ceremony. It was reorganized into the Kuomintang that became famous in later generations. At this critical moment of major changes, as the boss of the alliance, Sun Yat-sen naturally cannot be absent.

As for the second reason, Sun Yat-sen was lonely. Among the so-called "Five Giants of the Early Republic of China", Yuan Shikai is the provisional president, Li Yuanhong is the vice president, Sun Yuanqi is the chief of education, and Huang Xing has just retired from the post left behind in Nanjing. The National Railway Supervisor, who only served as a nominal airspace salary, almost disappeared from the political arena except for a few speeches and interviews in major cities in the south. If he doesn't brush up on his presence at the political center, he'll be marginalized.

However, the response to the meeting of the Big Five has also been mixed. Yuan Shikai and Sun Yat-sen are one singing and one harmony, one pay and one answer. Appears unusually enthusiastic. Sun Yuanqi himself was in Beijing, and he agreed with the main purpose of the conference on reconciling the north and the south, avoiding conflicts, and developing industry, but he was very suspicious of Yuan Shikai's sincerity and was wary of his methods. Li Yuanhong is in Wuchang, and he is optimistic about the success of the meeting and is happy to see its results, but if he wants to leave Hubei to participate in the meeting, then he can only thank him! The fiercest opposition was Huang Xing.

Huang Xing's opposition to the conference is not without reason. When he was staying in Nanjing, there were assassins who attacked him several times, but fortunately he was overwhelmed. He suspected that it was a killer sent by Yuan Shikai. Because Yuan Shikai admires strength very much, he thinks that empty theorists like Sun Yat-sen are not very harmful to him, and it is his own doers who are difficult to deal with, so he desperately wants to get rid of himself. It's a pity that there is no definite evidence to prove that this deed was done by Yuan Shikai. Moreover, at that time, Huang Xing was drastically reducing redundant troops in Nanjing, and it is also possible that those officers and soldiers who were dismissed were disgruntled and sent people to shoot black guns to vent their anger.

Although there was a reason for the incident and there was no evidence, this made Huang Xing more vigilant. Then the Zhang Zhenwu case broke out, which couldn't help but make Huang Xing's heart tremble: If he was unlucky before, would he have died tragically like Zhang Zhenwu? Therefore, he was even more suspicious of Yuan Shikai and the cooperation policy between the League and Yuan Shikai. After leaving Nanjing and staying behind, he wandered to Shanghai, neither going south to meet with other revolutionaries, nor going north to participate in the "Big Five Conference" convened by Sun and Yuan.

But Sun Yat-sen doesn't care whether Huang Xing is willing or not, just like what was said in a certain sketch: Anyway, if you want me to come, if you don't want me to come, if you want to come, I will come with sincerity! He took more than a dozen people, including his family members and cronies, to the north by boat, and arrived at the Tanggu Wharf in Tianjin on the day the impeachment motion was filed by the Senate.

After the news of Sun Yat-sen's departure to the north was issued, Yuan Shikai found out that Sun Yat-sen liked to be concerned, ordered a grand welcome with the courtesy of welcoming the head of state, and also sent Zhao Bingjun, chief of internal affairs of the State Council, and Liang Shiyi, secretary general of the presidential office, to the dock to wait. Sun Yat-sen was really overjoyed when he saw such a battle, and when he spoke to reporters, he also began to make a lot of nonsense: "Before Sun went north, many people came to dissuade him, thinking that President Yuan was not very reliable, since he dared to kill Zhang Chunshan before, and then he dared to kill Sun Yat-sen. Sun didn't think so, President Yuan Da is the pillar of the country, how can he be unreliable? So I'm going to go north myself and test my vision.

"Facts have proved that Sun's vision is still very accurate! Although Sun has not yet met President Yuan, I have already felt the sincerity of his fists and feel that he is absolutely not loyal to the Republic of China. Therefore, the people of China and others must also be considerate, and must not be suspicious of President Yuan, speak falsely and attack him, undermine the overall situation of national unity, and hurt President Yuan's good intentions. As long as the people of the whole country are united, there will be endless hope for the future of the Republic of China! ”

As soon as the words fell, a reporter asked: "May I ask Mr. Sun, what do you think of the murder of Zhang Zhenwu?"

Sun Yat-sen replied: "The root cause of the murder of Zhang Chunshan is that Vice President Li had no choice but to kill the first meritorious hero out of the mind of the overall situation of Hubei's security; President Yuan Da had no choice but to sign the executive decree with the unity of the north and south of the country in mind. Although both of them are at fault, their intentions are excellent, and they can be described as flawed. And now that the deceased is gone, even if all the relevant personnel are strictly investigated, the deceased cannot be brought back to life, so why intensify the conflict? According to Sun's opinion, it is better to vigorously commend Zhang Zhenwu's meritorious deeds and think that he will be reconciled, so as not to make a big fuss and delay the important government. ”

Then another reporter asked: "Mr. Sun, it is reported that one of the main purposes of your trip to the north this time is to attend the reorganization ceremony of the League and assume the position of chairman of the board. As we all know, the League has always advocated the implementation of a purely political party cabinet, in fact, it is the general minister of the cabinet that Song Dunchu wants to be the prime minister. Now that the League will be reorganized, it will become the largest party in the cabinet, and it is just around the corner for General Song Dunchu to become prime minister of the cabinet. Recently, there have been rumors in the newspapers that General Song Dunchu intends to nominate you as president.

Sun Yat-sen's face changed slightly, but he still replied with a smile: "Sun went north this time to consult with President Yuan, Vice President Li, Chief Baixi, Mr. Keqiang and other virtuous people, and the topics raised were mainly respect for the Senate, the inseparability of the north and the south, the urgent need for reunification of the overall situation, and the rapid development of industry. As for participating in the reorganization ceremony of the Alliance, it was just a casual move.

Since his retirement, Sun has devoted himself to building 100,000 miles of railways, hoping to contribute to commercial prosperity and national economic development. If you don't want to be in politics, but want to be a free citizen, how can you covet the position of president? The press is misleading people with false rumors! It seems that there is another topic for Sun's meeting, that is, to strengthen media supervision and create sound political discourse. ”

Immediately, another reporter asked: "Mr. Sun, Mr. Huang Keqiang just issued a statement in Shanghai a few days ago, saying that he will not participate in this meeting; Although Vice President Lai, who is stationed in Wuchang, praised the talks, he showed no signs of going north. Will there only be three people attending this five-person meeting?"

Sun Yat-sen nodded: "I have also heard the two pieces of news you said, but Keqiang and Song Qing are both great men who created the Republic of China and have a decisive and huge influence among the people, so this meeting cannot be missed; They are all loyal and righteous people who are worried about the world and love the country and the people, and this meeting has a bearing on the future of the Republic of China, and they will not fail to come. So, they will definitely come. ”

After a pause, he waved his hand vigorously and emphasized again: "Yes, they will definitely come!"