Jagged Warlord

In order to build momentum, Li Mohan quickly announced the second batch of public enemies of the country list, but all warlords who participated in the previous independence and did not cancel the independence after he came to power are all on the list.It is still the old rule that whoever snatches the property of these public enemies of the state will own it, and whoever kills them or captures them can replace them. In short, any method can be used to deal with public enemies of the state.

This trick is very heartbreaking, making the warlords from all walks of life always feel uneasy, feeling that their subordinates will betray themselves at any time.The warlord himself was suspicious, and his subordinates were naturally panicked. They were all worried, lest they would be blamed.Therefore, the warlords of the Beiyang faction who rebel against the Yangtze River have always had concerns about sending troops to the north, for fear that if they leave, someone will take their place behind.

However, after all, someone still became the first person to eat crabs, and this person was Bao Dequan, Zhao Ti's subordinate.Baode's full name is Zirui, a native of Chaoyang, Rehe, Mongolian nationality, a Mongolian horse bandit who was once powerful in the late Qing Dynasty. After 1903, after being appeased by Zhao Ti, Ren Yijun commanded Zhao Ti's subordinate officers.

And this Bao Dequan was the target code-named No. [-] bought by the Military Intelligence Department. After Li Mohan raised his troops to go north, Duan Qirui ordered Zhao Ti to attack Shangqiu, which was Li Mohan's old den, with Li Mohan's factories and warehouses.

Zhao Ti was next to Shangqiu, so he naturally knew about the prosperity of Shangqiu. Zhao Ti asked some of his confidants Bao Dequan, Ding Xiangling and Wan Youtian to discuss attacking Shangqiu.

All of Baode's residences are closest to Shangqiu, so Zhao Ti said to Baodequan: "Zi Rui, when Bailang was wiped out, I was going to recommend you to be the envoy of Eastern Henan, but Li Mohan got in the way. Now The opportunity has come, Shangqiu is a rich place, I plan to let you take the lead in defeating Shangqiu, the post of guard of Eastern Yu must belong to you."

Bao Dequan was overjoyed, and quickly thanked him, saying that he must be so heartbroken that he would never forget the kindness of the commander-in-chief.After the meeting was over, Bao Dequan went to a crooked-neck tree behind Yangliu Street in Kaifeng, stuffed a wax pill, and then broke off one branch of the crooked-neck tree.After finishing all this, Bao Dequan walked around in the small alley for a few more times, and finally left Kaifeng and returned to his residence in Kaifeng.

A few hours later, a man in a short coat came to the crooked neck tree. He looked at the broken note, and then found the wax pill from under the tree. He crushed the wax pill and put the words on the note inside. After looking at it, I destroyed the wax pellets and paper strips.The man also walked around in a nearby alley for quite a while, and disappeared into the night after making sure that no one was following him.

That night, a [-]-level encrypted telegram was sent from a private house in the eastern suburbs of Kaifeng to the Beijing Military Intelligence Department. Ten minutes later, the telegram was decrypted and appeared on Jiang Fangzhen's desk.Jiang Fangzhen read the contents of the telegram at a glance, immediately folded the telegram and put it in his pocket, and rang the electric bell on the table.

"Come here, prepare the car, and go to the Prime Minister's Office." Jiang Fangzhen put on his coat and went out.

It happened that Li Mohan was discussing the future government structure with Liang Qichao and Tang Hualong after dinner. Li Mohan believed that all levels of departments and roads had been abolished, and that officials had a place to go after being screened. Compared with the Qing court, the organization has been greatly simplified, and the power of the county has increased a lot, but the government is more awkward, and it is difficult to do things in the middle.Li Mohan's argument is to simply remove the prefectural level and directly implement the province to manage the county.

Local establishment has always been an important issue in Chinese history.The crux of the problem is that the decision-making criteria and mechanisms of local establishments have always been inappropriate.The rulers of the dynasty only proceeded from the stability of the royal power itself, and weakened local power by manipulating administrative divisions.In today's view, their reasons are of course inadvisable.

Coincidentally, some scholars today also believe that increasing the number of provinces can weaken the power of the provinces and prevent provincial leaders from "challenging" the central government and challenging the central authority.This reason is also not justified enough, because the power conflict between the local and central government should be judged from the perspective of constitutional separation of powers, and should not advocate weakening local power a priori from the standpoint of maintaining the authority of the central government, let alone The vast majority of large provinces with concentrated agricultural populations do not have the resource advantage to challenge the central government.The proper standard to measure the provincial system is not the governance convenience at the highest level, but the efficiency of provincial governance and regional fairness.

From the experience of the United States and other countries, the number of provincial units below the central government can be controlled between 50-60, and the number of county-level units below the province should be controlled within 100.If China doubled the number of provincial units, the average number of counties in each province would be only about 50, clearly within the capacity of the provincial government to effectively govern.

Li Mohan said: "My idea is that the prefecture level will be abolished, but the county level will be established at the township or town level. Generally, rural areas will naturally form townships, and markets with a population of a certain number will set up towns. It’s over in the county, and the local tyrants and evil gentry are allowed to mess around. Even if the capital formulates good policies that benefit the country and the people, they will be misrepresented by the crooked monks in the villages. We have to reverse this situation. Establish each county, select a few pilot sites, and make sure this matter is done well. Of course, both the township head and the town head should belong to the establishment of national public officials. In this way, the county is directly managed by the province, and the command should be It is more satisfactory. In addition, the county is not only under the direct jurisdiction of the province in administration, but also has exclusive jurisdiction. The county head should set up another agency to be responsible for financial, civil affairs, education and other affairs by category. In addition to being responsible to the county magistrate, each branch should also be responsible to the various ministries in the province. Dual leadership is not only conducive to communication and implementation, but also can effectively prevent the county magistrate from covering the sky with one hand."

After hearing what Li Mohan said, Liang Qichao felt that it made sense, so he turned his head to look at Tang Hualong, and asked, "Jiwu, what do you think?"

Tang Hualong smiled lightly and said: "The more I get in touch with Mohan, the more I feel that Sun Wen's people are superficial. Sun Wen's people think that as long as there is no emperor, all problems will be solved by themselves, but in fact, governing a country is far more than he imagined. It's going to be difficult."

Tuk Tuk Tuk

Jiang Fangzhen lightened the door panel at the door, "Chairman, there is an urgent military situation."

Liang Qichao and Tang Hualong wisely wanted to get up and leave, but Li Mohan stopped them and said, "You are all high-level managers and decision makers in this country, and you should also have the right to know this."

Jiang Fangzhen took out the telegram from his pocket and said, "The Military Intelligence Department received information from Henan No. [-] that Zhao Ti intends to attack Shangqiu."

"Number one?" Liang Qichao asked

"That's an informant we placed beside Zhao Ti." Li Mohan said

"Informant?" Tang Hualong smiled

"Informants are eyes and ears, and they work carefully." Jiang Fangzhen said

Li Mohan said: "Okay, let's get to the point."

Jiang Fangzhen said: "Judging from the news from the Military Intelligence Department in Kaifeng, No. [-] intends to accept our plan, and he is contacting Wan Youtian and Ding Xiangling during his official career."

Tang Hualong said: "As far as I know, in order to consolidate his dominant position, Zhao Ti recruited a lot of troops, formed an army, and expanded his strength. Zhao Ti has two sets of armies in Henan, one is the army he personally controlled, that is, the original Yi army, Because he was named General Hongwei by Yuan Shikai, this army was called the Hongwei Army. Zhao Ti himself was also the commander of the Hongwei Army. Army Commander."

There are three brothers Zhao Ti, he is the eldest, the second is Zhao Jun, and the third is Zhao Jie.Zhao Ti's mother loves her youngest son Zhao Jie very much, and hopes that he can become a high-ranking official like his eldest brother Zhao Ti, and become a successful official.When Zhao Jie was young, he was brought to the army by Zhao Ti for training, and then sent to the lecture hall to study military affairs.After Yuan Shikai became president, in order to win over the governors of various provinces, he transferred a relative of the governors of each province to Beijing to serve. Zhao Jie once worked as a military attache in Yuan Shikai's presidential palace.Later, Zhao Ti appointed Zhao Jie as the division commander.Zhao Jie rose through the ranks and became the commander of the Hongwei Army, and also became the person Zhao Ti relied on most to expand his strength.But Zhao Jie has a bad style, he is a prodigal son who only knows how to collect money, eat, drink, have fun and smoke opium. Under his leadership, the Hongwei Army has loose military discipline and poor combat effectiveness.

Another set of troops under Zhao Ti is the patrol battalion established by each county with its own funds. In fact, the patrol battalion is controlled by local tyrants and evil gentry from all over the country, and it is armed for Zhao Ti's local area in Henan Province.Zhao Ti's second brother, Zhao Jun, became the commander of the patrol battalion in Runan and other ten counties.

After Zhao Ti took control of the military and political power in Henan, he immediately set out to search for wealth.He changed the original tax collection method in Henan, and implemented the so-called "change to two levy yuan", that is, the original tax levy of one tael per dicing was changed to two yuan and two cents of silver.In order to implement the "reform of the two levy yuan", Zhao Ti used both soft and hard tactics, coercing the provincial assembly to pass the bill.With this change alone, the growth rate of taxation has increased by more than [-]%, which has added a heavy burden to the people of Henan.Zhao Ti later set up an additional tax in the name of the establishment of the Hongwei Army and the Patrol Battalion, which needed more military equipment and food, and the burden on the common people was even heavier.

In order to plunder money faster, Zhao Ti set up a Tongyuan Bureau in the Ordnance Bureau.He recruited the uncle of "Mrs. Westinghouse" to be the director of copper coins, and carried out illegal activities of casting copper coins privately.The copper coins cast by Henan Tongyuan Bureau are not only of poor quality, but also of insufficient weight.This illegal casting of copper coins has caused confusion in the market in Henan Province, rising prices, and the people of the whole province have suffered greatly.From this alone, Zhao Ti earns millions of dollars every year, and a large amount of wealth flows into the Zhao family's wallet.

Zhao Ti collected a huge amount of wealth.Part of the money was deposited in the Bank of England, and part of it was stored in the underground treasury he secretly set up.Zhao Ti built a large-scale residence on Xueyuanmen Street in Kaifeng, and built a large basement under the house. This is his secret treasure house, which is filled with smoke paste, gold bars and silver bars, gold and silver ingots and Silver dollars etc.

Li Mohan smiled and said, "Compared to him, No. [-] will not be much better. But right now, we must use him."