Master Yuan, start!

I have to say that people always have two sides. What kind of Shangguan Qi is, you will often encounter what kind of subordinates he is.

Meeting a "comrade" like Song Qing who is smooth and sensible is really a love-hate relationship.

In contrast, the young members of the Red Confucian Society who came from the North Korean political work system, although full of righteousness, also lacked a bit of spirituality.

Yuan Xiangcheng shook his head, putting these thoughts behind him, and slowly exhaled, saying, "Comrade Zhu San, please tell me in detail."

"Let the person who witnessed this incident tell the story." Song Qing took a half step back, revealing the person who had been following him.

Yuan Xiangcheng looked closely and saw that this man was the strong man who had just presented the Yellow Sun cloth.

Before Yuan Xiangcheng could react, the strong man knelt down and prepared to kowtow.

Yuan Xiangcheng immediately stopped him: "Now that we have a republic, kneeling is no longer accepted. Stand up and speak."

"Yes, I obey your command."

"What's your name?" Yuan Xiangcheng asked with interest.

"Commoner Xu Baoshan."

"Xu Baoshan?"

Hearing this somewhat familiar name, Yuan Xiangcheng was a little surprised.

Xu Baoshan was a famous salt smuggler and bandit on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in the original time and space. It is said that he was a very loyal person and gathered 7 to 800 ships and tens of thousands of brothers in a short period of time.

After hearing that Guangxu was imprisoned by Cixi, he proclaimed himself the Grand Marshal of the Liangjiang and Lianghu Armies, intending to lead troops to attack the Jiangsu government office and eliminate the Jiangning Governor appointed by Cixi.

Later, during the Xinhai Revolution, he participated in the anti-Qing movement and cut off the escape route of Zhang Xun, who was left behind in Nanjing.

But later, because he was inclined towards Yuan Shikai, he was assassinated by the revolutionary Chen Qimei.

However, it seems that Xu Baoshan at this time was not yet the big figure who dominated the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

Thinking of this, Yuan Xiangcheng put the information on the table and asked, "Where did the canal tycoons of the Grand Canal come from?"

Upon hearing this, Xu Baoshan said respectfully, "In reply to the President, the Cao tyrants are canal borers who collude with coastal forces, deceive their superiors and abuse their subordinates, and enrich themselves.

To the north of Shandong, the grain transport tycoons mostly colluded with the imperial envoys sent by the Qing court to supervise the canal currency; to the south of Shandong, the grain transport tycoons mostly colluded with local salt merchants and local people.

群崎

These people either coerce or bribe lower-level ship owners to force them to join their fleets.

After they gathered a large number of ships in this way, they used it as a leverage to charge sellers high shipping fees.

However, after the canal shipping fees were collected, only half or even 30% was often given to the ship owners, causing the ship owners along the way to suffer losses in transportation and suffer terribly.

Some of the shipowners had reported the case to the authorities, but the local officials and the transport tycoons were in cahoots, like snakes and rats in the same nest. One day they reported the case, and the next day the shipowner was found dead floating in the river.

Xu Baoshan spilled the beans and told all the evil deeds he knew about Caoba.

In fact, if history had developed according to the original timeline, Xu Baoshan, who is currently "loyal, brave and righteous", would gradually transform into such a bully in the future.

However, who can know what the future will be like if something hasn’t happened yet?

If Wang Jingwei had successfully assassinated Regent Zaifeng on the streets of Beijing in his early years, he would have been beheaded by the Qing court.

His name may not be absent from the monuments in the squares of later generations.

You have to know that Wang Jingwei failed to assassinate Zaifeng and was imprisoned in prison.

All of China called him the second Ahn Jung-geun, and even the Japanese were quite concerned about this matter.

"Singing with passion in the streets of Yan, calmly serving as a prisoner of Chu. Drawing the sword into a single piece, I will live up to my youth!"

Who could have imagined that the revolutionary hero who risked his life to assassinate the Qing princes and left behind this tragic song to express his will would eventually become a traitor?

So, looking at the information handed over by Song Qing, Yuan Xiangcheng showed a look of satisfaction.

With a knife, it will be easy to take action against these Cao bullies.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that canal workers were often “the livelihood of millions” in history and had the image of being honest and hardworking people.

But human beings are creatures with all sorts of personalities when their number exceeds 10, not to mention the number in the millions.

Therefore, among the millions of canal workers who made their living from the Grand Canal, there were honest boat trackers and naturally there were also evil canal tyrants.

Yuan Shikai knew clearly that solving the problem of grain transport could not be achieved by simply showing favor.

It is also necessary to use drastic measures to clean out a group of parasites who rely on the canal transportation, so that the initiative of replacing canal transportation with iron transportation can be implemented smoothly.

Moreover, Henan and Anhui successively carried out land reforms.

In Yuan Xiangcheng's view, it was time to start land reform in Jiangsu.

In fact, whether in Anhui, the land of the rich families was divided up in the name of clan land;

Still in Henan, land was distributed in the name of reclaiming the lands enclosed by Manchu nobles;

Or perhaps it's the land reform movement that's about to take place in northern Jiangsu, in the name of cracking down on the Cao tyrants.

In essence, all the land occupied by local tyrants and evil gentry, including the ownerless wasteland, Manchu enclosures, illegally contracted farmland, and land occupied by the grain transport authorities, was counted and completed.

Once everything is ready, the state-owned farms in the Yellow River flood area can be put on the agenda.

In Yuan Xiangcheng's view, if China wants to become a world power, an important indicator is agricultural modernization.

What is agricultural modernization? It is nothing more than the scale of cultivated land, intensive organization, and mechanization of agricultural tools.

Large-scale arable land can reduce the cost per unit area;

Organizations such as agricultural cooperatives or state farms can quickly promote agricultural technology;

Harvesters and seeders can greatly save human resources.

However, China has too little arable land and too many people, making it impossible to implement large-scale farms and large-scale mechanized agriculture like the United States across the country.

The United States' Great Plains have a total area twice that of China's three largest plains combined.

Moreover, the land is vast and the population is sparse, so the whole country can grow crops!

However, even in China's three most famous plains, namely the Northeast, North China, and Changzhong and Xia plains, there are very few places where agricultural modernization can be carried out.

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River plain are densely covered with water networks and are not suitable for mechanized farming at all.

The North China Plain is densely populated, with scattered arable land and fragmented fields, making it unsuitable for large-scale mechanized farming.

Only the Northeast Plain, with its sparse population and uniform and continuous arable land, is suitable for promoting agricultural modernization.

This is indeed the case. In later China, the area with the most state-owned farms was the Northeast Plain.

But the Northeast at the end of the 19th century was not yet the northern granary of later generations.

At present, the Red Confucian Society is not capable enough to organize millions of citizens to reclaim the Sanjiang Plain and fight against the permafrost and swamps that have existed for thousands of years.

Moreover, the level of machinery and fertilizer technology has not reached the level of development that it reached in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Even the most basic synthetic ammonia fertilizer did not mature until the early 20th century and the early days of World War I.

The fertilizer used by the Northeast Agricultural Reclamation Corps today is still largely made from soybeans.

Therefore, in Yuan Xiangcheng's view, the majority of the land in the Northeast Plain is currently undeveloped.

Therefore, this granary can only serve as a reserve for the future.

At present, it is very necessary to cultivate a granary in the vast heartland of the Central Plains, on the loess land that has been cultivated for thousands of years.

The land in the Yellow River floodplain is flat and open, covered with Yellow River silt and has fertile soil.

Moreover, after the "cleaning" of the Yellow River, there are no longer so many complicated field relationships that have been entangled for hundreds of years.

In addition, the "land reform" that has been implemented or is about to be implemented in eastern Henan, northern Anhui, northern Jiangsu and other places

This 6 square kilometer Yellow River floodplain, approximately the size of the Ningxia Autonomous Region in later generations, was the chosen place in Yuan Xiangcheng's mind for the Central Plains Agricultural Reclamation Corps.

Xuzhou coal and iron industry, Beijing-Hangzhou railway construction, and Yellow River flood area farm plan.

Industry, transportation, and agriculture.

Yuan Shikai has already prepared all the necessary conditions for the economic rise of the Yangtze River Delta region between the Yangtze River and the Huai River.

Starting with the agricultural land reform in Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces;

The Xuzhou Coal and Iron Industry in the Six Coal and Five Iron Industry Plan will serve as an auxiliary;

The conversion of the Grand Canal from canal to iron was used as a booster.

Land reform, coal and iron, and railways each have their own role to play.

But when combined, they can take a three-pronged approach to promote the commercial development of Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

This is the development plan for Jiangsu and Zhejiang envisioned by Yuan Shikai.

It can be said that the Yangtze River Delta region at this time and place has laid a more solid foundation than the later reform and opening up.

As long as the local forces in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are willing to cooperate, they will definitely be able to achieve a bigger and stronger scale than the original time and space.

Moreover, the key to this foundation, "grain from the Yellow River flood area + coal and iron from Xuzhou", is in the hands of the central government rather than the local governments.

In this way, when transferring money, there is no need to worry about the local forces becoming too powerful and difficult to control.

Yuan Xiangcheng believed that if this continued, the "British and American Jiangsu and Zhejiang Consortium" that originally started out as compradors and had inextricable ties with foreigners would

It will eventually gradually become China's "People's Jiangsu and Zhejiang Consortium"

Chapter 363: Weishan Lakeside Big Case Receives Red Envelope

After proposing a solution to the water transport problem, Yuan Shikai rode his horse across the Yellow River to Jining, then boarded a ship again and sailed south along the Grand Canal into Xuzhou.

Yuan Xiangcheng put one hand on the small window in the cabin and looked out.

With the arrival of spring, everything on the shores of Weishan Lake begins to wake up, and the lake water appears exceptionally clear and sparkling under the sunlight.

The reeds by the lake began to sprout tender green buds, swaying gently in the wind, creating a beautiful contrast with the mountains in the distance.

Occasionally, a few water birds fly over the lake, either flying low over the water or circling in the air, their calls clear and pleasant.

Yuan Xiangcheng looked at the green gradually emerging on the land of North China in March, and at the Weishan Lake in the distance with its rippling blue waves under the setting sun, and couldn't help humming softly.

"The sun in the west is about to set.

It is quiet on Weishan Lake.

Play my beloved pipa and sing the touching ballad."

The song "Play My Beloved Pipa" sung by Yuan Xiangcheng comes from the famous anti-Japanese drama Railway Guerrillas.