At noon the next day, Yuan Shikai sent Cao Kun to lead a team of soldiers to pick up Wang Sheng, and Luo Yue had already led the army to Jinan City to meet Wang Sheng. Therefore, the two led the army and set off with Cao Kun and others to Deshenglou Restaurant.

Deshenglou Restaurant is located beside Jiangjia Pool on Jiangjiachi Street, west gate of Jinan City. It is a two-story building. It is built next to the water. The scenery is quite beautiful and is especially famous for making fish. Customers come upstairs and look down at the fish swimming in the pond. They can select the fish in the pond on the spot and cook it immediately. Therefore, it is more popular among old Jinan diners and their business is very prosperous.

When Wang Sheng, Luo Yue and others came to Deshenglou Restaurant, Yuan Shikai had received a notice and was waiting downstairs. Seeing that they were coming, Yuan Shikai immediately came up and said, "Director Wang, Battalion Commander Luo, you are here. All the gentry from Jinan have arrived. They are waiting for you upstairs. Come with me to go upstairs."

Wang Sheng nodded and smiled, "It's a blessing to Governor Yuan." Then he introduced Luo Yue to Yuan Shikai, and the two greeted each other. Luo Yue ordered the soldiers to guard the four sides of the Deshenglou Restaurant, and took the guard platoon into the building with Wang Sheng. He ordered two guard squads to guard the stairs and bring a guard squad upstairs. Yuan Shikai had no objection to this.

At this time, only five tables were placed on the entire second floor, four of which were full. There were eight people in each table, and only one table was left with a few empty seats. Yuan Shikai led Wang Sheng and Luo Yue to the table to take their seats. The eight soldiers from the guard squad were lined up, standing behind the two, accompanied by Xu Shichang, Zhao Bingjun and Tang Shaoyi, and the other two were Liu Peihe and Du Xinshan, the two owners of Deshenglou Restaurant. These two were both locals and were also considered local squires.

After taking the seat, Yuan Shikai introduced Wang Sheng and Luo Yue one by one to everyone present. All the people who came here were famous local celebrities in Jinan, such as the shopkeeper of Ruifengxiang silk cloth shop, the owner of Longxiang cloth shop, the owner of Puhua shoe shop, the young owner of Yongsheng Dongmaozhuang, the owner of Lao Maosheng Candy Village, the head of Ma Xingsheng Shanguo Laoxing, etc. Although most of them have their own business operations in Jinan City, they are also big landlords. The land in their family is at least over a thousand acres, distributed in villages around Jinan City. In addition, there is also a single table full of bannermen. Although many bannermen have gone bankrupt by this time, some bannermen are good at management, or because they are admitted to the imperial examination and become officials, they still have a lot of land and wealth. In addition, the political privileges of bannermen are still a force that cannot be underestimated.

Whenever one person is introduced, both sides will be polite to each other and say "Looking for a long time", but each of them has different expressions. Some deliberately welcome them, some do not show their emotions, some do not smile, and some do not hide their hostility. However, Wang Sheng is neither humble nor arrogant, and treats each other with remedy.

However, after an introduction, Wang Sheng actually didn't remember a few people. But after all, all the etiquettes arrived, so everyone got back to the seat. The owner Liu Peihe and Du Xinshan ordered the wine and food to be served.

After the wine and food were served, Yuan Shikai took the lead to raise the glass, representing the gentry to meet Wang Sheng and Luo Yue, and everyone accompanied him. Wang Sheng and Luo Yue also raised their glasses and drank the glass of wine with everyone.

When many people were picking up food and drinking, Wang Sheng stood up. Everyone thought that Wang Sheng was going to raise his glass to persuade him to drink. But Wang Sheng did not raise his glass, but said: "Everyone invites us to the banquet, of course we will not just drink and have fun together. I know that everyone is the leading figure in Jinan, and even in the entire Shandong Province, with a large family and a large number of industries. They may have some resistance to the land reform we are promoting in Jiaoao. Since we are here today, we are not busy drinking. If you don't visit, let's explain this matter clearly."

Wang Sheng was so straightforward to the point, which made the gentry feel a little uncomfortable, because according to Chinese habits, he always had to drink for three rounds and slowly brought the words to the point. However, Wang Sheng did not play according to common sense, disrupting the normal banquet procedures. Therefore, everyone was at a loss for a while. After a while, someone stood up and said, "Director Wang, after Guizhong took over Shandong, will he forcefully expropriate everyone's land like Jiao'ao?"

Wang Sheng smiled and said, "First of all, we want to clarify that we are not trying to expropriate everyone's land, but just expropriate excess land. The standard content of the whole is included in the [Outline of Land Reform System] we published. I think you should have read it. If not, you can go to our office to collect it for free. But one thing is certain, that is, after we take over Shandong, we will definitely promote our land reform system within the Shandong region."

The gentry said, "The expropriation of excess land is actually the expropriation of the land of our gentry."

Wang Sheng nodded and said, "You can say that too."

After Wang Sheng finished speaking, the gentry immediately spoke in a low voice. In fact, this answer was already expected by everyone, but Wang Sheng said it in such a firm tone, which still brought a considerable impact to everyone.

At this time, another gentry spoke: "Your people were originally overseas residents, but they are descendants of China. You should know Chinese etiquette. You should act like a robber, and you can convince the public in this way."

As soon as he finished speaking, someone immediately echoed and said, "That's right, aren't you joining the Qing Dynasty? Now that I have been granted the title of my Qing Dynasty, I should respect the laws of the Qing Dynasty. My Qing Dynasty still has the laws of the king, so how can you let it go?"

"Yes, we are all kind people. We don't steal or rob, and we keep our guard. Why do you want to seize our land? Is there any law of heaven and king?"

"Hmph! I want to collect our land, but there is no door. I'd better go back to your overseas as soon as possible."

Everyone talked, and they started talking and talking, and Wang Sheng and Luo Yue were silent and listened quietly. After everyone was almost done, Wang Sheng said: "First of all, I want to correct one of your statements. It is true that we expropriate land, but we do not expropriate these land for our own interests. Instead, we distribute all the land to landless farmers to farm. We have more than 6,000 overseas residents, but none of them collected acre of land as our private property. If you don't believe it, you can check it out and see if what I said is true or false."

After hearing this, everyone was at a loss for a moment because seeing Wang Sheng's tone and decisive look, it was indeed not like a lie. And according to the information we know, we only heard that overseas Chinese have acquired land but did not occupy land. Therefore, some people couldn't help but feel strange that overseas Chinese have collected all the land, but they don't want them to all the landless farmers. Isn't this full?

Only a few people with clear minds and keen political sense know that overseas Chinese are clearly a move to win over the people. From this point of view, overseas Chinese have a very small ambition.

Wang Sheng continued: "Why should we distribute all the land expropriated to farmers? Because there are too many landless farmers. The land survey we conducted in Jiaozhou, Gaomi and Jimo counties, the result is..." Wang Sheng took out his tablet computer and read out the relevant data of the survey. Generally speaking, Jiaozhou, Gaomi and Jimo counties only account for less than 20% of the farmers, while nearly 80% of the farmers have no land, or have a small amount of land but cannot meet their basic survival needs. However, the landlords who account for less than half a percent of the total population occupy more than 80% of the land.

"Although we are only conducting a survey on the land situation in Jiaozhou, Gaomi and Jimo counties, we believe that the situation in other parts of Shandong is similar. If the person who thinks that the land situation in Shandong is very different, and most of the farmers have their own land, then let us know if they don't visit."

Naturally no one answered this question. Firstly, the data listed by Wang Sheng was detailed, and secondly, based on their daily experience, everyone felt that the situation in Shandong was indeed the same. There were not many farmers with land there, and most of the land was indeed concentrated in the hands of a few landlords. I wanted to find a place where most farmers had their own land, but I really couldn't find it.

But someone immediately reacted and said, "Whether the farmers have land or not, what does it have to do with the gentry like us? Why do you want to collect our land and distribute it to those grass-roots people?"

This rhetorical question immediately aroused a lot of responses.

Wang Sheng nodded and said, "This question is very good. So I ask you a question. If the farmers have no land, then how can they survive? There is only one way to go, that is, rebellion, the Yellow Turbans at the end of the Han Dynasty, the Yellow Turbans at the end of the Tang Dynasty, Li Zicheng at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong and others, those who did not climb high and shout, follow the crowds, hundreds of thousands of troops, siege cities and land, eventually causing the dynasty to change dynasties, and how could there be a complete egg after the suppression? A peasant riot occurred. Do you think you can be spared? I just now All of them are talking about the previous dynasty. Let’s talk about this dynasty. I think even if you haven’t experienced the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom 40 years ago, you should have heard from the old man. The Boxer Rebellion that happened last year was initiated in Shandong. Although the initiators and leaders of these incidents may have unspeakable ambitions, most of the followers are farmers who have lost their land and cannot survive. If there is a way out, who is willing to do rebellion? I don’t think you want to experience the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or the Boxer Rebellion again.”
Chapter completed!