Not long after Lu Zhengxiang took office as foreign minister, the Kuomintang radical newspaper Minquan Bao suddenly published a long commentary on the front page, putting forward sharp views on the current major national policies. The general meaning of the article is:

"In the past month or two, the Kulen Rebellion has been very loud, and the whole country has been hotly discussing the matter of using force to conquer Outer Mongolia. It is true that counterinsurgency by force is an effective means of resolving the rebellion in Outer Mongolia, but the people do not know that there is a more effective way to resolve the rebellion in Mongolia than to counter the rebellion by force, and that is the parliamentary election. Because it is the beginning of the Republic of China, whether it is to quell the rebellion internally or to resolve diplomatic disputes externally, we must first consolidate the national foundation. Whether the national foundation is consolidated or not, this election is the first decisive factor! Anyone with lofty ideals knows this. - Meaning, if you haven't realized it, you're out. And you are no longer a person with lofty ideals, but a small crowd of onlookers who don't know the truth.

"At present, the people in China often blame the government for not being able to resist foreign aggression, but they do not know that the people in the government are taking advantage of the border crisis to fool the people and divert the people's attention from domestic affairs, especially the congressional campaign, so that they can use their hands to sow them. Therefore, although the patriotic people hope that the border will be pacified as soon as possible, the government is reluctant to send troops, and the root cause is that they do not want the border to be pacified. This kind of mentality is as if the great powers want to take advantage of the chaos in China's internal affairs to achieve their aggressive intentions.

"We should not be tempted by the government, but concentrate on the National Assembly campaign, elect political parties and members who meet the will of the people, and then form a government that meets the will of the people. Quickly put down the rebellion internally and realize a democratic republic; Settle diplomatic disputes with other countries and build good-neighborliness and friendships. In this way, peace will follow, and prosperity can be expected! ”

This argument is very similar to the tone of the People's Boiled Persimmon Oil Party at the later forum.

In their view, universal values are a panacea. As long as democracy and freedom are realized, all the problems that China now faces will be solved: the powers that used to be aggressive and salivating over Chinese territory will immediately be transformed into gentle, well-informed and civilized gentlemen, who will not only quickly withdraw their troops, but will even spit out the land and indemnity payments they had received in the past. And those local tyrants and warlords in the country will also be gentle and frugal, as long as the Congress gives an order, they will immediately "disarm 140,000 people".

What the. What about the famine? Cut, I really don't know! As long as democracy is free, the sky will crack and automatically drop milk and bread. How much and how much there is, and how can there be a famine? - Of course, if you only like ignorant and backward porridge steamed buns, and you are not used to noble and cold milk bread. That's a different story.

Although in Sun Yuanqi's view, the editorials of the "Civil Rights Daily" have a conspiracy theory flavor. However, it has effectively diverted the media's attention back to domestic affairs. Journalists also seem to be tired of a group of politicians sitting in the meeting room talking about the poverty of lamas, princes and herdsmen thousands of miles away in the barren land, and they have begun to care about the parliamentary elections that are taking place around them.

As Le Pen points out in The Rabble, the crowd is unconscious, impulsive, impatient, irrational, judgmentless and uncritical. Under the conscious guidance of the media, public opinion suddenly changed, and everyone suddenly forgot about the frontier crisis brought about by foreign independence and began to hotly discuss the election of members of the National Assembly. And the congressional election is really exciting, definitely enough for fifteen people to watch for half a month!

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the New Deal was implemented, the Information Administration Yuan was established. There are 200 members of the Senate, appointed and democratically elected. Among them, the members of the King James include 16 princes and princes of the clan. There were 12 Manchu and Han dynasty lords, 14 foreign vassal princes, 6 clan Jueluo, 32 officials of various ministries, 10 masters and 10 Confucians, and 10 people who paid more taxes, all of whom were appointed by the emperor. In addition, there are 100 elected legislators, although they are called "elected by the people", but they are actually elected by the provincial advisory bureaus, most of them are local gentry, and a few are returned from studying abroad. To talk about such a large-scale "popular election", the congressional election in the first year of the Republic of China is really the first time in the world.

It is precisely because this is the first time that it has become more lively, and various means are endless.

For example, the parties make full use of their own party's public opinion organs, newspapers and magazines to carry out extensive propaganda; Forming "election assistance groups" to give speeches in various places, putting up posters, slogans, and leaflets to advocate the views of the party and show off the prestige and authority of the party's candidates; Evening schools are held, business cards are distributed to candidates, and voters are taught to fill in the names of candidates from their own party. These are commonplace.

What really interests journalists and readers are the shady illegal methods such as cheating on ballots, voting irregularities, fraudulent ballot casting, monetary bribery, unfair adjudication, government interference, etc., which are reported in newspapers almost every day. But to say that the most exciting and eye-catching thing is the election campaign. In this field, the Kuomintang has the highest appearance rate.

In addition to the large number of candidates on its own side and the deliberate exaggeration of rival newspapers, the KMT's show of face is also due to the fact that its predecessor, the League, has a strong tendency to violence, and even senior party leaders often fight with each other because of disagreement. For example, in April 1912, Sun Yat-sen, Song Jiaoren, Cai Yuanpei and others deliberated in the Nanjing Provisional Presidential Palace, because Song Jiaoren agreed with Yuan Shikai to take office as president in Beijing, and Ma Junwu thought that he was acting as a lobbyist for Yuan Shikai, betraying the Nanjing government, and wantonly verbally crusading against Song Jiaoren. Song Jiaoren was young and vigorous, and he couldn't hold back his temperament, so he slapped Ma Junwu. Ma Junwu immediately returned the color and punched Song Jiaoren in the face, Song Jiaoren's left eye was immediately injured and bleeding, and the wound barely healed after lying in the hospital for more than half a month.

Of course, Ma Junwu has always been brave and good at fighting, and the glorious deeds of public brawls are often scattered in wild historical anecdotes. If he is brave and combative for the intellectuals of the Republic of China, he will definitely be among the best. In addition to Song Jiaoren, who was destroyed by his hot hands, there were also Li Zhaofu, who was the chairman of the Provisional Senate Committee, and the famous poet Su Manshu.

In terms of violence, the female members of the League are also women, especially Tang Qunying. On March 20, 1912, Tang Qunying and others attempted to break into the Provisional Senate of the Nanjing Government because of the issue of women's suffrage, and the Senate ordered a ban on entering. Tang Qunying was angry, and smashed the window glass with his fist, and his palm was injured and blood was overflowing. When the guard stepped forward to stop her, she unceremoniously "kicked the ground" with her foot.

Tang Qunying's most glorious achievement was the beating of Song Jiaoren. Because Soong Jiaoren abolished women's suffrage in the party platform, Tang Qunying publicly beat Soong Jiaoren at the founding meeting of the Kuomintang on August 27, 1912. According to the newspaper description at the time, Tang Qunying "raised his hand to grab his forehead, twisted his beard, and criticized Song Cheeks with his slender hands, and the crisp sound shook the roof tiles."

The Kuomintang (League) treats its own people like this, and naturally it is even more capable of dealing with the enemy party. In 1907, Liang Qichao established the Political News Society in Tokyo, and on the day of the inaugural meeting, hundreds of people from the revolutionary party, led by Tao Chengzhang and Zhang Ji, came to smash the field with walking sticks. As soon as Liang Qichao said a few words, Zhang Ji scolded in Japanese: "Baga! (Japanese "馬鹿", meaning stupid) and then shouting, "Hit!" The revolutionaries raised their canes and began to sweep through the thousands of troops, while Liang Qichao and others ran away with their heads in their hands. Liang Qichao will never forget this incident, and since then he has always called the revolutionaries a violent faction and a mob politics.

Kuomintang members not only beat people, but also took pride in beating people. For example, Cheng Mengyu, the chief writer of "China Daily," slapped Shi Yu, director of the Legislative Affairs Bureau, twice for no reason, and the next day he proudly published the beating incident in the newspaper, thinking that he was very heroic. And Liu Wendian, a master of Chinese culture who claims to know "Zhuangzi" best, is also complacent about kicking Chang Kaishen in his life, but whether he kicked or not, whether he kicked or not, is still two words.

In the crowded elections at the beginning of the Republic of China, on the one hand, there was the vigor of the initial implementation of the popular election, and on the other hand, the black miasma of all kinds of ugliness, but the two seemingly opposing atmospheres were organically intertwined, brewing a kind of noise and decadence similar to a midnight bar.

According to Yuan Shikai's order on the date of election of the first House of Representatives announced in September, the primary elections for the members of the House of Representatives of various provinces and Mongolia, Tibet and Qinghai were scheduled to be held on December 10, 1912, and the re-election was scheduled for January 10, 1913. Throughout the month of December, the same tragicomedy was played out everywhere, and some people were elected to the provincial council by chance, and suddenly it was as if Fan Jinzhong was in the middle of the move, and houses, fields, slaves, and goods flocked to them; Others ran out of money, ran bankrupt, and ultimately failed to do so, so much so that they hanged themselves.

In the completed provincial primaries for the House of Representatives, the KMT is firmly at the top of the list, accounting for 36% of the share; Although the New China Party was defeated by the Kuomintang, it also had 28%, temporarily ranking second; The Republican Party, with a 24 percent share, came in third. Although there are still many variables between the results of the primary selection and the final results, the changes are not too drastic.

Such a result is a good performance for the New China Party, which makes Sun Yuanqi, Tang Shouqian, Yang Yongtai and others all breathe a sigh of relief with satisfaction; However, for the Kuomintang and the Republican Party, such an outcome is unacceptable. With regard to the Kuomintang in particular, although they have secured the throne of the largest party in the National Assembly, their advantage is not obvious enough, and it is difficult for them to achieve the goal set by Soong Chiao-jin at the beginning of his election campaign of "winning more than half of the seats in the National Assembly and then forming a one-party responsible cabinet in the DPRK."

Sun Yuanqi had been running around the country for two or three months at this time, and the hard work can be imagined, but fortunately, the results were very satisfactory. After a short rest in Shanghai, he flew back to Beijing.

There, he will face a special election. (To be continued.) )