Master Yuan, start!

But ordinary people today don’t know much about unions and labor knowledge, and were unwilling to pay at first. It was not until the union brought staff and resolved several incidents of withholding wages and beating and scolding workers that people were willing to pay.

However, those who paid the money once regarded the union as a traditional "gang" or "guild", and believed that joining the union and paying dues were the same as the protection fees collected by the gang.

When they have conflicts with others, they often ask the union comrades to come forward to solve the problem. When the union comrades say they cannot solve the problem, they turn around and report the existence of a "secret society" to the Incheon local government.

After learning about this, the Incheon president of the Red Confucian Association was at a loss for words and could only order the membership fees to be refunded first, and then posted a notice at the dock explaining what a trade union was.

At the same time, the Red Confucian Society organized people to perform operas and crosstalk in their spare time to build closer ties with the dock workers.

After a few visits, the dock workers became familiar with the grassroots staff of the Red Confucian Society, knew what the union did, and were willing to join it.

In their words: "The young brothers from the union come to tell us crosstalk every day. After listening to so many performances, we can't be stingy people who are reluctant to spend money. It's just a small amount of money, so we give it to them.

Besides, we were unfamiliar with Korea and were often bullied by our bosses at the beginning. It was common for us to deduct our wages and not provide food. Before we boarded the ship, we had agreed in Tianjin that we would be paid 3 taels of silver a month, including food and accommodation.

But after we got here, not only did we work ourselves to death every day, but they would also find excuses to deduct our wages at every turn. How many of us actually received the full three taels of silver every month?

If it weren't for the Red Confucian Society standing up for us, how could we have the life we ​​have now?"

"Brother Lu, you're both right and wrong." A Red Confucian Society staff member corrected him, "The Red Confucian Society doesn't just stand up for the workers at our docks, it also stands up for the workers at the mines and for the people in the countryside."

During the break in the dock work, Li Siming, chairman of the Incheon branch of the Red Confucian Society, sat together with the dock workers to build closer ties.

"Ah, yes, yes, Master Li is right." The leader of the dock workers, known as Brother Lu, said perfunctorily.

"Brother Lu, I've said it countless times. You can call me Chairman Li or Comrade Li, but don't call me Sir. We in the Red Confucian Society don't use that.

Our Red Confucian Society advocates respecting Confucianism and ancestors, and promoting universal peace and harmony! All people are the same, there is no distinction between great and small!"

"Yes, hi! Look at my memory, I forgot about it, but now I remember it!" Brother Lu slapped his forehead, indicating that he just remembered it.

"That's exactly what our Confucian ancestors said thousands of years ago. Confucius talked about benevolence, and what does it mean to be kind to others? Mencius talked about benevolent government and people of heaven. What is benevolent government? It means that officials should do good things for the people, and employers should do good things for their subordinates. What is people of heaven? It means that no matter what one's birth status is, whether one is a prince or a commoner, they are all children of heaven and earth, and there is no distinction between high and low.

Only when everyone learns from the Confucian sages can China become a harmonious world."

"But when I was in Tianjin, I heard storytellers say otherwise. Doesn't the book say the ruler is the leader of his subjects, and if the ruler wants his subjects to die, they have to die, right?

"Yue Fei was clearly on the verge of conquering Huanglong, but despite the Song Emperor's 12 golden orders, he was forced to return to the capital and ultimately died unjustly at Fengbo Pavilion," someone nearby asked in confusion.

"Yes, yes, they say that there is no distinction between the rich and the poor, but we are born into a world of want, unlike the gentlemen in the city who are born with a silver spoon in their mouths and never have to worry about food and clothing."

"This just shows that the meaning of the Confucian sages has been tampered with! People have done wrong for thousands of years, which has led to our country becoming what it is today." Li Siming heard this and replied in a serious voice:

"Just like the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues, the Three Bonds of Confucian sages refer to models and examples, and the Bonds refer to role models.

The ruler is the leader of his ministers, which means that superiors are role models for their subordinates; the father is the leader of his sons, which means that parents are role models for their children; and the husband is the leader of his wife, which means that the husband is the role model for his wife.

It is absolutely not the case that the king is the master of his subjects, the father is the master of his sons, and the husband is the master of his wife!

If the monarch does something wrong, the ministers must point it out. If the monarch is a tyrant, then the ministers can refuse to recognize this example!

If the father is uneducated, smokes opium and gambles every day, then the children can naturally point out their father's mistakes.

Think about it, if a tyrant emperor were to ask you to murder an innocent family, would you be able to do it? Is this the example a monarch should set?

"But, hasn't it been like this since ancient times?" Some people around were puzzled.

"Has it been right since ancient times?!" Li Siming stood up and looked around at the dock workers sitting in a circle.

"Take the case of Prince Yue as an example. Emperor Song wanted to kill Prince Yue. Was Prince Yue wrong?" Li Siming asked.

"No!" Yue Fei's story was widely circulated in the Qing Dynasty, so almost everyone knew about it, and everyone knew that Prince Yue died unjustly.

"Then Prince Yue is right, brothers, think about it, isn't it the Emperor Lin who issued 9 gold medals in a row who was wrong?" Li Siming asked again.

"No, the Song Emperor was deceived by treacherous ministers. The one who was wrong was the treacherous minister Qin Hui!"

"Yes, it's the traitor Qin Hui!"

"That's right! It's this treacherous minister. I'm from Hangzhou. I even kicked his iron statue at the City God Temple during the temple fair last year!"

"But without the consent of Emperor Song, could Qin Hui have issued 12 golden medals in a row?" Li Siming stopped them with just one question.

This is a common topic in later generations, but it is still fresh in today's era.

For a long time, whether it is historical novels or storytelling operas, Qin Hui has been portrayed as a treacherous minister, Yue Fei as a victim, and the key figure, Song Gaozong, has been hidden.

"Li Da... President Li, are you saying that these 12 gold medals are the intention of Emperor Song?"

"Whose could it be if not his?"

"Is it the Emperor's fault?"

The crowd found it hard to believe this inference. How could the emperor be wrong?

"The emperor is also a human being, how can he not be wrong?" Li Siming asked back.

"Nonsense! The emperor is clearly the true dragon emperor, the reincarnation of a god from heaven!"

"How can a god die? If he is a god, why do emperors change every few decades and dynasties change every few hundred years?" Li Siming pressed on.

Seeing that no one spoke, Li Siming continued to talk about the Red Confucian Society theory he had learned.

“That’s why it’s said that the ruler is the leader of his subjects. If the ruler does something wrong, his subjects are not required to obey.

General Teacher... You should also know about the treatment of the Jiashen Right Army under Lord Yuan. Although he was strict with his subordinates, he never beat or scolded soldiers for no reason. On the contrary, if Lord Yuan had no miscellaneous matters, he would go to the Jiashen Right Army camp every day to train and practice with them and eat at the same table with them.

It was precisely because Lord Yuan set an example for the soldiers that the Jiashen Right Army was able to rally as one.”

"I understand. This is how I am. Just listen to me, Brother Li!" A young boy who was only sixteen or seventeen years old spoke impatiently.

"Ever since my mother died five years ago, my father has gone crazy. He spends every day either gambling or smoking opium. When he's really out of money, he writes IOUs and forces me to borrow money from him.

I disagreed, so he beat me and banged my head against the wall. It hurt so much that I pushed him back, but I didn't expect him to push me into the corner of the table and I hit him to death.

"When the neighbors saw someone die, they reported it to the police. The bailiffs wanted to arrest me, so I ran to the foreign concession and hid for a few days. Then I followed Brother Lu to Seoul." The young man said excitedly to Li Siming.

"What Li Siming, Big Brother Li, means is that if a father treats his son well, the son should listen to his father. If he treats his son badly, then the son doesn't have to listen, right?"

Li Siming gave the young man a look of approval: "That's right, the meaning of the Confucian sages was misinterpreted by those who came after them, which is why it became a joke.

The reason why the Qing Dynasty was bullied by foreigners was because they believed in the tampered Three Bonds. Even if the superiors did something wrong, they did not allow the subordinates to speak out. As a result, they suffered more and more defeats.

Tell me, after winning the war they still had to cede territory and pay compensation. What kind of example are they setting?

Going further back, the reason why the early Ming Dynasty lost the world was that Emperor Chongzhen failed to set a good example. He executed all the ministers sent to quell the rebellion, setting a bad example.

The ministers below were afraid of losing their lives and dared not offer any more advice, which led to the situation in the country getting worse step by step."

After Yue Wangye finished his story, the people around him seemed to understand what Li Siming said, but they nodded subconsciously.

Li Siming continued, "If we want to revive the situation now, we must bring out the true words of Confucian sages. We can no longer use the words of scholars and officials that have been tampered with throughout the ages. Only by using true Confucianism to unify people's hearts can the world avoid sinking."

However, Li Siming's words did not resonate with everyone. Except for the young man who accidentally killed his father and stared at him, the others were a little drowsy.

"President Li, we are all unsophisticated people. We don't understand what Confucianism or ancient sages you are talking about.

But we know who is good and who is bad, and this Red Confucian will speak for us brothers, so that's right. As for the rest, hey, it's still more practical to listen to crosstalk."

Seeing the people at the dock waving at him, Brother Lu patted his butt and stood up.

"Oh, they have to work over there again. President Li, the brothers are going over first. We can talk later."

Seeing this, Li Siming had no choice but to give up his plan to continue the theory and watched the dock workers go away.

At this moment, he remembered what the head instructor had said to them in class:

"Comrades, not everyone cares about who the emperor is or who the governor is. They are more concerned about the immediate harvest and the wages for today's work.

When you are mobilizing the grassroots, don't instill long-winded ideas and opinions, but choose practical words to say.

They were willing to listen to stories about kings, princes, generals and ministers, so I told them stories about them and incorporated the principles of the Red Confucian Society into these stories.

You must let them know that only by respecting Confucianism and honoring ancestors can the world be united, and only when the world is united can they benefit. Only when the people see the benefits will they be willing to follow you.

Besides, they don’t understand any complicated theories, and it even disgusts them!”

Looking at the workers working hard in the distance, Li Siming was stunned and finally believed what the chief instructor said.

At the beginning, he helped the workers collect their monthly wages and let them listen to crosstalk as a starting point, and he easily became one of them.

But when he tried to further elaborate on the Red Confucian ideas, the workers suddenly lost interest.

However, he still firmly believed that the Three Bonds that had existed for thousands of years had been tampered with, and it was the chief instructor who clarified the true Three Bonds of Confucianism for thousands of years!

Chapter 99 Waiting for the opportunity

Yuan Xiangcheng calmly inspected the expanded Incheon Wharf accompanied by Li Siming, chairman of the Incheon branch of the Red Confucian Society.

Industrial and mining expert Kuang Chunhua has already led a team to the United States to purchase equipment. Counting six days, they should have arrived in San Francisco by now.

With the Qing court's approval to allow the construction of the Northeast Railway, the construction team that had been prepared long ago also set out from the Yalu River to lay a railway to Shengjing in the Liaodong hills.

Yuan Shikai planned to start the construction of the railway from the Yalu River to Shengjing first, which was expected to be completed in more than two years. As for the railway from Lushun to Shengjing, he would wait until steel production increased.

At that time, the Qing government would use silver to buy the rails in his hands, which would not only prevent the Qing government from being ripped off by foreigners, but also allow him to make a profit.

In order to cope with the upcoming small steel boom, Pyongyang Coal Mine is also increasing production in an orderly manner. More and more miners are coming from Kaiping Coal Mine. The treatment here in Pyongyang is good, and there are no foremen who withhold money and food. They also bring their families to North Korea. Of course, it is not entirely due to economic reasons. The increasing chaos in Zhili area is also one factor.

At this moment, Yuan Xiangcheng was discussing with everyone how to settle the increasing number of people who were crossing the sea.

Zhili has not been peaceful since the Chinese New Year, and there have been more and more civil conflicts. Since the Germans, Dutch and French successively occupied the land, more and more missionaries have come to the north.

In the past, people would find a house in the city, spruce it up a bit, put a big cross on the roof, and at most paint the tiles white, and that would be a small church.

However, after leasing Taiwan, the foreigners became more and more arrogant, and the churches were no longer hidden. Even religious believers began to openly enter the city and build churches more than ten meters high without avoiding the eyes of the people. In addition, the number of missionaries coming to China with political purposes was also increasing.

After the First Opium War, the Vatican simply divided China into three major dioceses: the North, the South, and Macau.

After 1879, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples of the Roman Curia issued an order dividing the Qing Dynasty into six major dioceses. The first diocese included Zhili, Northeast China, and Mongolia; the second diocese included Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, and Gansu; the third diocese included Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi; the fourth diocese included Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Tibet; the fifth diocese included Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Hong Kong; and the sixth diocese, due to Portugal, only included Macau.

The form of missionary work in the South was clearly better than in the North. This was partly because the South was the first to come into contact with foreign influences, and partly because the invasions of the South by European powers such as Britain and France were the most extensive.

There are also two different trends in the forms of missionary work in the north and south.

The Catholic forces in the south entered the country earlier and also obtained certain economic privileges in the port areas by relying on unequal treaties, so the form of missionary work was relatively mild.

Most of them used soft missionary methods such as doing good deeds, persuasion, and deception, such as establishing charitable organizations and carrying out medical relief work, as a means of missionary work to infiltrate the people at that time.

Some believers mainly congregate in churches in cities. They also establish church newspapers and open teaching schools, advocating "education for the benefit of the Lord." Therefore, most churches are quite popular among the poor people in the South. At least the people are not overly hostile to foreigners.

Therefore, a considerable number of religious believers in the community believe that they are deeply blessed by the "grace of the Lord" and have joined the religion.

As missionaries from the north arrived later and did not have the same strong economic foundation as their southern counterparts, they often resorted to robbery to expand churches.

82295 one

After the Second Opium War, French missionaries repeatedly took advantage of loopholes in the Sino-French Treaty of Beijing to forcibly seize public and private land in Zhili, Shandong and other places through forced purchases and sales, which annoyed officials and the people.