Yuan Shikai had little experience in local governance, but he was not very interested in the theories of Tang Shaoyi and Cai Shaoji's "separation of powers", "judicial independence", and "private property is sacred and inviolable". He was also indifferent to these topics, but at this time he felt that the two people said that overseas Chinese were "sudden, and their demise was also erect." This was a bit too arbitrary.

Yuan Shikai has seen the [Outline of Land Reform System] released by overseas Chinese and the [Celestial Celestial Field System] of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. There are indeed some similarities in the contents. For example, they all advocate collecting land and soil as state-owned and then distributing it to achieve the goal of "the land that tiles have their own land", but there are also great differences. Although Yuan Shikai could not tell what the different method was, he instinctively felt that the [Celestial Celestial Field System] of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was basically a piece of paper and could not be done at all. Of course, in the [Celestial Celestial Field System], it was very vague and many systems were not feasible at all.

For example, the [Tianchao Land Acre System] advocates that "land is divided into three levels, upper, middle, lower, and ninth grades according to the annual output, and then good and bad fields are matched with each other, and half of the good and bad fields are distributed equally according to the population." But what is the standard for the good and bad land, and who determines it? Moreover, "land is distributed equally by population", what population does this population refer to? Is it the national population, the population of a province, or the population of a prefecture and county? Although Yuan Shikai's experience in local governance

Not much, but I also know that China has a large land and abundant resources, but the situation of each land is different. Generally speaking, the yield of land in the south is higher than that in the north. Good land in the north may only be considered middle fields when it reaches the south. Moreover, with roughly the same population, some provinces have more arable land, while others have less. For example, the Two Lakes Province, Sichuan is a large arable land province, while Fujian and Jiangxi have much less arable land. Therefore, this absolutely average land allocation method is simply impossible to achieve.

[Celestial Dynasty Land and Acre System] advocates distribution method: "Everyone in the world is not private, and the things belong to the Lord", that is, each household has enough food, and the rest belong to the Holy Cube. When each family encounters marriage, funerals and childbirth, they go to the "Holy Cube" to collect the fees according to the prescribed fees, so as to "everyone in the world is even and everyone is full and warm." This seems to be fine, but Yuan Shikai knows that this is impossible. Although Yuan Shikai does not understand the concepts of "absolute egalitarianism" and "imaginary socialism", he also knows that people are greedy for selfish interests. After solving the problem of obtaining food and clothing, he hopes to get more and gain more private property, not to mention this "full" and "surplus", among which the elasticity is very large and there are loopholes. When it is truly implemented, there will definitely be more productive reports, hidden production, hiding, private division, etc. This cannot be solved by strict investigation and rigorous audits.

In fact, after the founding of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the [Celestial Dynasty land system] was only truly implemented in some areas, while in most areas, a more realistic method of "paying grain and paying taxes as usual" was still implemented.

However, the [Outline of Land Reform System] issued by overseas Chinese is much more reasonable in these details. First of all, it is clear that the land is divided into villages. In terms of the distribution system, as long as the grain tax is paid in full, the rest belongs to farmers' private ownership. From these two points alone, the [Outline of Land Reform System] is indeed much more clever. Of course, Yuan Shikai has not found out the problem of [Outline of Land Reform System]. Yuan Shikai believes that the biggest problem is prohibiting land sale and buying. But overall, the [Outline of Land Reform System] is obviously much more feasible than the [Outline of Land Reform System].

After another day of itinerary, Yuan Shikai and his team arrived in Qingdao. Qin Zheng came forward and Yuan Shikai and his team arrived. This also surprised Yuan Shikai because he knew that Qin Zheng was the second-rate overseas Chinese, and that he would welcome him was very considerate. I heard that Li Zhongtang came forward to greet him.

Qingdao has no city walls, but Yuan Shikai still ordered the army to be stationed outside Qingdao and only brought a small number of troops into Qingdao urban area. The traveler specially allocated a house for Yuan Shikai and his accompanying personnel to live in. All the guards were soldiers brought by Yuan Shikai, leaving only five staff members responsible for communication.

At this time, Li Hongzhang had not arrived in Qingdao, so that on that night, Yuan Shikai and Qin Zheng had a talk.

Qin Zheng and Yuan Shikai sat opposite each other, Shang Qisong accompanied him in the side seat. Yuan Shikai first said: "The former is the brother's subordinate Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others lead the army privately to fight against you. Although it is not the brother's intention, there are also mistakes. This time, I came to apologize to you. Now my brother has been punishing Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others, and I will compensate you for all the losses."

Qin Zheng shook his head and said, "Governor Yuan, please rest assured. We do not plan to pursue this matter any more. Let the past be passed, and there is no need to mention it in the future. Everyone will be optimistic about it."

Yuan Shikai was a little surprised when he heard this. He thought he wanted to slander, and overseas Chinese would take the opportunity to make things difficult for him, even asking for a lot of prices. He knew that they would be so easy to talk to, and he took all the words with him. However, Yuan Shikai was not an innocent boy, and of course he would not believe that overseas Chinese were really easy to meet. There must be something to say later. Therefore, Yuan Shikai hurriedly bowed and said, "I admire you very much brother, but compensation is still inevitable. This time my brother brought 100,000 taels of silver. I wonder if it is enough."

Qin Zheng smiled and said, "I will mention the compensation matter next. However, there are some things that we need to understand. Therefore, we hope that Governor Yuan can answer our questions truthfully, but this is not to hold Governor Yuan accountable, but I also hope that Governor Yuan will not mind."

After hearing this, Yuan Shikai was a little confused, but he also understood that the real goal of overseas Chinese was here, so he said: "Just ask, brother, I will definitely speak out and I will never hide anything."

Qin Zheng nodded and said, "Do you dare to know Wang Kexing or your brothers? Maybe they didn't use this name, but two young men in their 30s, with Shandong accents, are from this province."

Yuan Shikai thought about it seriously, shook his head, and said, "There does not seem to be such two people among the people who know each other."

Qin Zheng didn't agree and said, "Okay, then this time, let Sun Zhongkui and Wan Kun lead troops to join the armed forces of the landlord alliance to attack Menbu Village, is it Governor Yuan's own decision or is it someone else's advice to Governor Yuan?"

After hearing this, Yuan Shikai waved his hands repeatedly and said, "Political Commissar Qin, this matter is definitely not what I mean, but the private actions of Sun Zhongkui, Wan Kun and others. I really don't know..."

Qin Zheng interrupted him and said, "Governor Yuan, I have said just now that we are not going to hold you accountable, but we just want to find the true appearance of things and we must not end in a confused way. Therefore, there is no need to say anything about these scenes. I hope you can answer our questions truthfully, which is very important."

Yuan Shikai couldn't help but look a little embarrassed when he heard this, because the other party's words were too straightforward, which made Yuan Shikai, who was used to talking around the Qing government, feel a little uncomfortable. However, he fully understood what Qin Zheng meant. In fact, after the incident in Menbu Village, Yuan Shikai only thought about how to deal with his relationship with overseas Chinese, and had no time to think about the cause of this incident. After all, the incident had happened, and it would not make much sense to investigate the cause.

Now that Qin Zheng raised this question very seriously, Yuan Shikai couldn't help but calm down, think about it seriously, and then slowly said: "To be honest, this matter was originally brought up by a Japanese military adviser under my command."

After hearing this, Qin Zheng couldn't help but look at Shang Qisong. It seemed that Shang Qisong was really guessing. This matter was indeed related to the Japanese, so he said: "Governor Yuan's subordinates have Japanese consultants? Can you say more details?"

The Beiyang New Army was formed in an imitation of the German Army model, so it hired a large number of German military advisers, but some of the United States and Japan military advisers hired American consultants because the United States has a lot of commercial interests in China. Compared with other countries, the United States was quite friendly to the Qing court. It did not send troops to attack the Qing court, nor did it ask the Qing court to cede land and pay compensation, and even the concession was not needed. Therefore, Yuan Shikai and the Qing court also hoped to establish good relations with the United States.

The background of choosing a Japanese military adviser is much more complicated. In fact, from the heart, Yuan Shikai did not have any good feelings for Japan, because Yuan Shikai was ruined by Japan in North Korea and suffered the first setback in his life. However, after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Japan intended to improve relations with the Qing court and also made some good moves. On the other hand, although Japan beat the Qing court to the ground for titling in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, China did not have much hatred for Japan in this era, at least its hostility towards Japan would not be above other countries. After all, the Qing court had been beaten too much, not many with Japan, and not without Japan. The social sensation caused by the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was mainly due to the face, and it would be fine if it was beaten by Westerners. Now even a small country around him could not beat him, so he naturally could not beat him.

At the same time, there are some people who look at Japan from another perspective. Because the national conditions and cultures of the Qing Dynasty and Japan were similar, the starting point of the Qing Dynasty was much higher than that of Japan. After all, it was a big land and a wealth of resources. However, after more than 30 years of Meiji Reform, Japan had surpassed the Qing Dynasty and achieved prosperity and strengthening military strength. However, it was precisely because of the national conditions and cultures of the Qing Dynasty and Japan that Japan could do it, and the Qing Dynasty could do it, and the path Japan took to achieve prosperity was naturally suitable for the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, a trend of learning from Japan was formed in China. Later, the reformists who led the reform of the Hidemi-1998 asked the Qing Dynasty to imitate the Japanese reform. Even during the Hidemi-1998, the Qing Dynasty also hired Hirofumi Ito as an advisor to the reform.
Chapter completed!