Master Yuan, start!

It has nothing to do with me.”

After hearing this answer, Yuan Xiangcheng was speechless for a moment and didn't ask any more questions.

Mingye seems to hate the Korean label on himself. Even though he was born in North Korea and speaks Korean dialect, he has always insisted that his ancestral home is in Suizhou, Hubei.

This is also the place where our ancestor Ming Yuzhen was born.

Walking to the table, Yuan Xiangcheng picked up the pile of documents in front of Ming Ye, glanced at them briefly, and asked:

"What's the progress of the Vladivostok immigration issue?"

After the China-Russia negotiations, what was recovered was not only the port of Vladivostok, but also the land within a radius of hundreds of kilometers around the city.

Starting from the southernmost tip of Lake Khanka, all the way south along the hills to the Sikhote-Sukhot Mountains in the east of Vladivostok, the Chinese name has now been changed to "Whale Sea Mountains".

This line is the border between today's Chinese territory and the Far East Autonomous Region.

After taking back Vladivostok, in order to facilitate the management of such an area of ​​about 2 square kilometers, Yuan Shikai established a government here and placed it directly under the jurisdiction of the central government.

As for the prefect, it was Xu Shiguang, the prefect of Longjiang who had made great contributions in the anti-Russian war.

When asked about immigration, Mingye pulled out a telegram about immigration to Vladivostok and answered word for word: Six

"Before October, we could transport about 10 people ashore on two ships every day. After November, the number gradually decreased to only one ship with more than 2 people ashore every day. In December, blizzards raged, the port froze, and transportation stopped.

At present, only a small number of people are rushing to the vicinity of Vladivostok by land.

"Chief Instructor, we've only landed 5 people near Vladivostok this year. If we want to reach our goal of 20, we'll probably have to wait until next spring when the ice and snow melt."

"Let's just start spring," Yuan Xiangcheng took a deep breath and asked, "By the way, what's the percentage of immigrants in Vladivostok?"

"Half of the immigrants from mainland China travelled by sea, and about half of the North Korean immigrants travelled by land across the Tumen River."

Hearing that the Vladivostok immigration plan was progressing steadily, Yuan Xiangcheng couldn't help but applaud softly.

For immigrants to the Northeast, two major policies have always been implemented in parallel.

The first is to relocate as many people as possible from inside the Great Wall to outside the Great Wall to reduce the burden on the interior and enrich the population in the border areas.

The second is to relocate as many North Koreans as possible from the Korean Peninsula to dilute the North Korean population within the peninsula.

During these 10 years, some people from the mainland moved to the three northeastern provinces, and some moved to the Korean Peninsula.

With official encouragement and public support, nearly 300 million Koreans migrated to Fengtian, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

About half of them are concentrated near the basin at the former border between China and North Korea, and the rest are scattered across the vast Northeast Plain.

The Korean Peninsula, which originally had a population of tens of millions, now has a total population of only over 900 million.

Among them, there are only about 700 million Koreans, and the rest are more than 200 million Han people who migrated from various places.

They gathered on the west coast of North Korea, near the coastal plain between Pyongyang and Seoul, and reclaimed wasteland with soybean fertilizer produced in the northeast.

After Vladivostok was recovered, Outer Manchuria became the third destination for Han and Korean immigrants.

Yuan Shikai made the Koreans migrate everywhere, not with the intention of discriminating against or abusing them, but simply to minimize the probability of future incidents.

Although North Koreans now have the status of co-founders of the Republic, no one can guarantee that there will not be any unexpected problems in the future.

Yuan Xiangcheng always believed that we should not expect too much from the wisdom of future generations.

When your generation is capable of solving the problem, don't leave it to the future.

In his view, immigration is something that brings suffering to the present but benefits to future generations.

North Koreans have in fact become Chinese citizens. They are no longer North Koreans, but people of Haidong Province.

Therefore, we cannot use force to force them to leave their hometown.

We can only rely on various soft measures to force North Koreans to leave the peninsula like ants moving house every day, every month, and every year.

Since there is an opportunity to change the demographic structure on the Korean Peninsula, it is far better to do it now than to remedy the situation when problems arise in the future.

After all, a Korean Peninsula where Han and Korean people live together is far more reassuring than a Korean Peninsula filled with Koreans.

However, although Yuan Shikai deliberately "took care" of the Koreans, he actually treated all the immigrants equally.

Regardless of the Han Dynasty, those who are willing to migrate to the southern part of the Northeast Plain will be exempted from taxes for three years on wasteland they reclaim; and for five years on land in the north.

Those who are willing to join the farmers' association under the Sino-Korean Border Reclamation Corps will be provided with seeds and farm tools free of charge, and each person will also be provided with 3 mu of cultivated land.

Anyone willing to go to the area south of Lake Khanka to the port of Vladivostok to cultivate the land that originally belonged to Russia will be given 10 mu of arable land for free, and there will also be no tax for five years.

"It's been very cold this winter. Have these immigrants been given winter clothes?"

While asking questions, Yuan Xiangcheng walked slowly to the new stove.

He picked up the tongs, opened the lid, gently picked up the burnt grayish-white honeycomb coal ball, and then picked up a brand new pure black coal ball and put it in the stove.

"It's been distributed, it's been distributed. Everyone, regardless of age, has been given a winter coat made of cotton wool." Ming Ye put down the documents and walked forward to sweep the gray-white coal briquette residue beside the stove into the slag bucket.

Yuan Xiangcheng hummed, then closed the top of the furnace cover and slightly opened the fire-sealing cover at the bottom to allow more air to enter the furnace.

The flames suddenly became huge, and Yuan Xiangcheng smiled with satisfaction as he watched the coal balls burn red in the blink of an eye.

"The coal briquettes produced by the Shijingshan Honeycomb Coal Factory are of good quality. We asked them to send people to the outside of the Great Wall to help build a few more honeycomb coal factories in the area.

Honeycomb coal is a good thing, let the people who come to Guandong use it too!"

The Yantai Glass Factory, founded by the wealthy Nanyang businessman Zhang Bishi, has started production.

A small honeycomb coal briquette processing plant was also built near Shijingshan.

China at the end of the 19th century is becoming more and more like later generations!

Chapter 356 Unexpected Counterattack

Beijing is a little too cold during the New Year holidays.

The Siberian high pressure carries cold air from the Arctic Circle southward, and strong winds ravage North China.

Even though Beijing is located at the southern foot of the Yanshan Mountains and is blocked by mountains, it cannot withstand the severe cold.

Fortunately, the population of the capital has decreased significantly this year, and many houses have been vacated. In addition, staff from the Republican government distribute free honeycomb coal at Caishikou every day.

This winter, the number of people freezing to death on the streets is visibly much less, and the frequency of carts carrying corpses out of the city has decreased.

But at the same time, the number of people who died from "carbon poisoning" soared rapidly.

Almost every morning, people in Beijing would find that their neighbors, with whom they were chatting happily yesterday, had their doors and windows closed today.

After receiving no response for a long time, they would break into the house and often find the whole family lying neatly on the bed or on the floor, having died of poisoning.

On the first day after the New Year holiday, at 8:38 in the morning, Zhang Jian had just arrived at Xiangluan Pavilion in Zhongnanhai, preparing to attend a meeting that would be held soon, when he heard the anxious voice of Prime Minister Xu Shichang.

"Haven't we repeatedly stressed the importance of opening windows for ventilation when distributing coal?"

Xu Shichang took over another list of people who had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Looking at the dozens of newly added names, he couldn't help but whispered:

"Why are more and more people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning?"

Xu Shichang originally planned to use honeycomb coal to provide welfare to the people in Beijing, but he never expected that this honeycomb coal would become a weapon to take his life.

He looked at the two chart reports in his hands and couldn't help but sigh.

The practice of using specific data in charts to report to superiors was introduced by Yuan Xiangcheng into the daily work of the Red Confucian Society.

Because it intuitively and simply shows the changing trends of different data, it quickly spread among the staff of the Red Confucian Society.

Xu Shichang had two line graphs in his hands. One showed the number of people who had frozen to death in Beijing since the beginning of winter, and the other showed the number of people who had died of poisoning since the distribution of honeycomb coal.

Since the free distribution of coal, the number of people who died of freezing has dropped sharply, but the number of people who died of poisoning has reached new highs.

Seeing this, Gong Baotun, the chief of the Beijing Police Department, wiped the sweat from his forehead and explained quickly:

"Prime Minister, perhaps too many people who received honeycomb coal have never burned charcoal for heating on a daily basis, let alone used honeycomb coal.

Every day, there is a constant stream of people coming to the vegetable market to receive free honeycomb coal, and the noise is deafening. Even if the distributors repeatedly emphasize the need to set up a pipe and pay attention to ventilation, I'm afraid not many people will remember it.

In addition, it was extremely cold this year, and people probably forgot to open the windows for ventilation when they went to bed at night, which led to the tragedy.

"If we don't distribute coal, people will freeze to death. If we distribute coal, people will be poisoned to death." Xu Shichang looked at the data in his hand, not knowing what to say.

Minister of Commerce Zhang Jian saw that Xu Shichang was a little worried and tried to persuade him:

"Brother Juren, isn't giving away free coal a step too far? I know you want to show that the Republican government cares about its people, but the number of deaths from coal poisoning is increasing day by day. This isn't a solution."

"Forget it, let's put the coal distribution matter on hold for now." Xu Shichang waved his hand and finally decided to change his approach.

"Gong Baotun, find a few large houses in various places in Beijing, light stoves, and prepare mattresses on the ground. Let all the people who cannot afford to keep warm stay there for the night.

In addition, we need to find someone to patrol the area at night to ventilate the area and prevent reproducible poisoning. Got it?"

Changing decentralized heating to unified heating was the solution Xu Shichang came up with.

Those who have a family background and can withstand the severe cold will not, for the sake of face, sleep on mattresses on the floor with ordinary people.

For the people who really need to keep warm, now that they have a unified heating area and dedicated personnel to manage it, the probability of dying from carbon monoxide poisoning will surely be greatly reduced.

"Yes!" Police Chief Gong Baotun received the order and went out.

After Xu Shichang dealt with the matter, some military and political personnel from the Red Confucian Society arrived.

"Brother Juren, is Li Hongzhang still unwilling to accept the position of commander of the South China Military Region?" Yuan Xiangcheng asked as soon as he sat down.

"I'm afraid so," Xu Shichang replied. "We haven't received any telegrams from Guangzhou in several days."

"I don't know what this old fox is up to," Duan Qirui said, shaking his head. "Yang Changjun has already sent a telegram to the entire nation from Lanzhou, claiming his obedience to the central government and taking up the post of commander of the Northwest Military Region. How much longer can Li Hongzhang and Sichuan's Liu Bingzhang delay this?"

"You can't say that. If I were Li Hongzhang, I wouldn't be willing to swallow this breath." Tang Shaoyi on the side sighed:

"It's true that Yang Changjun was appointed commander of the Northwest Military Region, but that was because his inner circle was unstable.

In the west, Xinjiang is in turmoil; in the east, the Ma family in Ningxia obeys orders but not decrees; even Lu Chuanlin in Shaanxi is at odds with him.

If he doesn't obey the central government, what pretext can he use to suppress the four directions? Is it just relying on the remnants of the Chu army, which number less than 10, that he has under his command?"

"Comrade Shaochuan is absolutely right." Yan Fu nodded and said, "Lu Chuanlin announced his inauguration as Deputy Commander of the Northwest Military Region the day after receiving the telegram regarding the division of military regions.

Yang Changjun must be worried that if he delays too long, he will lose his position as commander of the Northwest Military Region."

What several people were discussing was the follow-up of the division of military regions.

Years ago, after the Republican government issued a telegram dividing the country into eight military regions and appointing commanders, reactions from all regions varied.

First, in the areas controlled by the National Revolutionary Army, Feng Guozhang issued a telegram in Jiangning, announcing that he would obey the government's orders and take office as the commander of the Jiangnan Military Region.

Sheng Fei issued a telegram in Xuzhou, announcing that he would take office as commander of the Central Plains Military Region.