The glazed tiles shine brightly in the sun, and the palace is tall and majestic, shocking people's souls.

In the Renshou Hall in the Summer Palace, the old top scholar Zhang Jian was receiving the summons from Cixi. Faced with Cixi's inquiry, he made a frank statement about the chaos of the official system and the inefficient administrative efficiency, as well as the dilemma of raising funds for the implementation of the new policy, the dilemma of the national finance, the aggravation of tax revenue, the exploitation of officials, and the complaints of the people.

Cixi is 70 years old. Although her waist is straight, her ears are already a little back. Who knows that she has entered the fifth year of her life?

After hearing what Zhang Jian said, she was speechless for a while, and then sighed, "I haven't heard you for a long time, and I don't want political affairs to be corrupted like this. You can ask the emperor, now, no matter how big or small, even county officials are summoned. When did I use words to inspire my conscience and ask them to do their work seriously? Unexpectedly, I was completely moved!"

"The country is weak, and overseas students are also dissatisfied with the officials and the constitutional process, and they support the revolution one after another. It is shocking to have a disintegration of the people." Zhang Jian continued: "If you want to win over people's hearts, you must establish a constitution."

"Duan Fang, the governor of Liangjiang, Cheng Dequan, the governor of Heilongjiang, and others also sued the court to persuade the court that the anti-Qing revolution is getting higher and higher. We should quickly follow the hearts of most people who hope to establish a constitution to eliminate the minority of the rebellious parties who aroused the rebellion." Cixi paused for a while and said cautiously: "The court also had the intention of sending ministers to overseas to investigate politics. Now it seems that we should hurry up. By the way, are you from Tianjin?"

"When I returned to the Empress Dowager, I came to Beijing from Tianjin." Zhang Jian replied truthfully.

"Have you ever met Yuan Shikai?"

Zhang Jian, who had rich experience, immediately understood Cixi's intention and replied calmly: "I am called to invite the saints and worship the emperor. I have not dared to go anywhere else before I met Tianyan."

At that time, the power of local officials was growing, especially the self-protection actions of officials from southeastern provinces when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, which made Cixi, who fled to Xi'an, very angry. Therefore, she had to rely on and secretly be wary of Yuan Shikai, who was the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang. Her attack-style questioning was to learn whether local officials had formed gangs and strengthened their private forces under her nose.

Cixi seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and asked, "Chen Wenqiang, who emerged from Shanghai, is very popular. Do you have any relationship with him? What kind of person is he?"

"When I returned to the Empress Dowager, I had a relationship with Chen Wenqiang, and I looked at it according to my opinion. When I traveled to the West to study, the science of what I know and gained may have surpassed that of the foreigners in some aspects." Zhang Jian remarked: "He is also talented and has endless ideas. If we talk about the skill of the Westernization Affairs, I have never seen anyone in the country who can match it. The construction of Lujiawan is changing with each passing day. When the factory is powered on, the situation is not inferior to the concession."

"Then which side does his political tendency mean?" Cixi asked worriedly.

"I am foolish in my opinion, most of those who have huge industries want to have a stable social and political environment, fear of unrest and strive for stability..." Zhang Jian used his own judgment and said his own judgment.

Why are most of the business operators in the business world constitutionalists actually the reason Zhang Jian said. Because social stability is the primary condition for whether their careers can develop and whether they will be destroyed. Therefore, they hope that reforms can be made, but they hope that such reforms can be transitioned as smoothly as possible.

"Because he is skilled in the Westernization Affairs Bureau, he has done several major things that foreigners admire. The court wants to establish the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, can he be appointed as an official?"

"I think the court can first praise it, and then see if he is willing to join the court as an official." Zhang Jian said in contemplation: "The new medicine he invented can save millions of lives, and it is highly praised internationally. I heard that there is a prize in Sweden called the Nobel Prize, which is very noble and noble, and I also want to award it to him. For such talents who boost our country's reputation and promote our people's ambitions, the court should not hesitate to praise it to show the sincerity of the new reform."

"What you said makes sense." Cixi nodded, "This Chen Wenqiang is very successful, making foreigners dare not laugh at me. I am no one in the Qing Dynasty. Well, go back and tell him that he will be loyal and diligent, and do more to share his worries for the court. This high official and generous salary are indispensable to the court."

"Yes, I have recorded it." Zhang Jian replied respectfully.

After the Westernization Movement, the Qing court realized that industry and commerce were the foundation of a strong country; after the Boxer Incident, Empress Dowager Cixi also realized that to boost the country's strength and win back the hearts of the people, it was necessary to choose the path of reform, so she announced the implementation of a new policy, including running new schools and training new troops.

However, it costs money to implement the new policy. The Qing court, which suffered from the financial burden of paying the Boxer Indemnities, was of course very embarrassed. Therefore, donating officials became a source of funds. Not only domestic businessmen, but also their attitude towards overseas Chinese businessmen also changed by 180 degrees, and they began to encourage them to return to China to invest in public welfare and develop industries. Even Cixi put down her airs and summoned Zhang Rongxuan, an overseas Chinese businessman from Sumatra Island in Nanyang, to serve as an official position, hoping to drive Chinese businessmen back to China to invest and donate blood to support the court's new policy.

Businessmen are also willing to gain step by step in political status by donating huge sums of money. For example, Zhang Rongxuan used money to open the way and his official position was also promoted again and again. He was first awarded the title of Tongzhi of Fujian, and then promoted the title of third-rank Huafeng, and re-used the title of magistrate in Jiangxi until the second-rank Huafeng was the top-rank Huafeng, and re-used the Tao first in Guangxi.

It is undeniable that the change of the Qing Dynasty during this period was beneficial to industrial and commercial people, as well as overseas Chinese. For example, the Qing court set up a consulate in Nanyang and began to pay attention to protecting the interests of local Chinese; it also relaxed policies for merchants, and railways such as Shanghai-Nanjing, Shanghai-Hangzhou, Chaoshan, etc., undertaken by domestic merchants and overseas Chinese merchants were all completed and opened to traffic.

However, due to the obstacles of officials and conservative forces, the new policy was mainly due to lack of funds, and it was repeated. The cost of implementing the new policy was undoubtedly levied into taxes, which increased the burden on the people, forming a vicious cycle in which the more reformed the people were, the more resentful the people were. On the contrary, the "New Deal" prepared the revolutionaries with basic forces that could be mobilized by the new army and new intellectuals, and prepared the public publicity of civil rights ideas during the constitutional period and the practice of previous congressional petition movements, and provided conditions for the creation of the Republic of China.

In addition, there are too many historical debts, and the privileges of the bannermen and oppression of the Han people over the past century are essentially unlikely to succeed in constitutionalization. Unless the Qing nobles delegated power with the greatest sincerity and the most courageous and courageous delegating power, they will have a little hope. But this is impossible.

After the audience, Zhang Jian walked out of the Summer Palace and took a carriage to his residence. Along the way, he was thinking and his expression changed constantly.

This time I went to Beijing to have an interview, one was called; the other was to apply for the right to issue banknotes from the Qing government branch to establish a joint venture bank; the third was a little difficult to resort to. After Cixi asked, Zhang Jian hesitated even more whether he would continue to act according to his original ideas.

Yuan Shikai, the Beiyang minister of Tianjin, had an unusual entanglement with the last top scholar Zhang Jian. In name, Zhang Jian could also be called Yuan Shikai's teacher. Until in 1884, after Yuan Shikai turned to the political tycoon Li Hongzhang, he "exposed himself to show his own talent" without any hindrance. This made the old master Wu Changqing embarrassed and his mentor Zhang Jian exterminated! For this reason, Zhang Jian wrote a letter of breaking up with friendship and cut off his mats. The master and apprentice were not familiar with each other for twenty years.

Before coming to Beijing, Zhang Jian wrote to Yuan Shikai and demanded his re-interpretation of diplomatic relations. This required great courage at that time, and this courage came from the needs of political struggle. Because Yuan Shikai is no longer the same as before, he is no longer an unknown deputy battalion in charge of the camp affairs office, but a political official who is the governor of Zhili and a minister of Beiyang. Zhang Jian was running around for the movement and constitutional establishment at that time, and was eager to win Yuan Shikai's support.

As a result, the light of political ideals melted the ice of personal grievances. Zhang Jian wrote to Yuan Shikai, hoping that he would follow Japan's Hirobu Ito and "preside over the constitutional establishment." Yuan Shikai also replied in a timely manner, although it would take some time, he was "willing to be the forefront."

I didn't want the court to be so suspicious of Yuan Shikai. Zhang Jian thought about it over and over again, thinking that it was not appropriate to have direct contact with Yuan Shikai for the time being to avoid suspicion of the court and Cixi. The two only communicated through letters and did not reveal the matters they had already contacted. One was in the court and the other was in the wild, and they called for constitutionalism at the same time, which should have been better.

After his thoughts were settled, Zhang Jian let out a long breath and felt much more happy. With the support of Cixi, there was basically no problem with the right to issue the banknotes. And taking the opportunity to ask Chen Wenqiang for rewards was an unexpected gain. In his opinion, it was sooner or later that Chen Wenqiang had established a foundation in Shanghai and was won into the constitutionalist faction. Such a young and promising talent and his reputation grew, he could become his help or take over his successor to the constitutional banner.

………………………….

Tocqueville once explained a law in "The Old System and the Revolution": For a bad government, the most dangerous moment is usually the moment when it begins to reform... The revolution does not happen because people are getting worse and worse. The most often is that people who have always complained without complaints, as if they are not tolerated the most unbearable law, and once the pressure of the law is reduced, they will forcefully abandon it.

In layman's terms, Tocqueville's Law is actually a "loose collapse theory", which denies the "brutal collapse theory" as traditional wisdom calls it. That is to say, when the monarch is cruel, it usually does not collapse, but when it is loose. Its reason is that when the monarch is cruel, people often do not have the ability to resist and cannot see the dawn of revolutionary victory; once the monarch is loose, on the one hand, free action brings people the opportunity for revolution; on the other hand, the handcuffs are broken, the existence of shackles becomes more intolerable.
Chapter completed!