Chapter 362: Minister of Rites (20)
Yu Qian won a great victory in Fuzhou and broke through the city of Fuzhou in one day. From the Fuzhou general down, all the Manchus in Fujian and their relatives were captured.
When the news reached Huo Chong, all the generals expressed great appreciation, whether they were sincere or not. Huo Chong really wanted to see who would jump out and continue to oppose the Ministry of Rites leading the army. In the end, no one dared to say so.
Huo Chong turned his attention to the summary report of the Sixth Division. The purpose of the Ministry of Rites was proposed by Huo Chong, "science, democracy, and liberation." Therefore, the Ministry of Rites was not a political group loyal to Huo Chong, but a group with a strong learning program.
In this case, there must be a summary meeting after each battle. Especially this time it is an attack on Fujian, there must be more valuable points. Huo Chong actually gave Yu Qian an order a long time ago, "Even if there is nothing to summarize, at least this battle history can be completed."
Huo Chong was waiting for this summary. Huo Chong could ignore the evaluation of the Ministry of Rites by people outside the Ministry of Rites. However, as a member of the Ministry of Rites, Huo Chong must pay full attention to the construction of the Ministry of Rites itself.
The news from Fujian was not a summary. Yu Qian made a request, "There are many prisoners in Fuzhou. Please send a navy to transport them away. Otherwise, we will have to shoot them all or sell them to human traffickers."
Huo Chong was a little surprised at first that his little apprentice could write such plain words, but after thinking about it, he couldn't help laughing.
Yu Qian was so cute when facing this difficult situation. How is her reaction different from that of the little white rabbit?
Since Yu Qian had raised the point, Huo Chong immediately ordered the Jiangsu-Zhejiang War Zone to send ships to transport people. Zhejiang was next to Fujian, so it was not difficult for ships to travel back and forth. Especially after the use of paddle steamers, the ocean currents could no longer stop the ships from sailing.
In just half a month, the captured Manchus were sent to the vicinity of the Qing army camp in Wuhu.
Jiangning General Fu Cha Fu Qing heard the news from the people sent by the Huaxia Army, and was surprised to find that he was not surprised at all. Logically, this shouldn't happen. But Fu Qing just didn't feel surprised. There was nothing he could do about it.
Since the people were delivered, Fu Qing ordered his men to pick up the captives. Sure enough, the leader was General Qi Min of Fuzhou. When Qi Min saw General Fucha Fukang of Jiangning, he immediately knelt down and cried, "These bastards actually humiliated us so much. Next time we fight them, we will fight to the death!"
Fu Qing nodded slightly. This feeling was easy to understand. Because in the last battle of Jiangning, Fu Qing also had such an impulse. Regardless of everything, he commanded all the elite troops in his hands to fight to the death with the Chinese army in Jiangning City. Either the Chinese army died, or Fu Qing died.
At that time, Fu Qing's emotions were exactly the same as those of the Fuzhou general who had just been released. They both felt that death was not important at all.
Seeing Fuzhou General Qi Min's eyes bulging, venting his excitement with foam flying at the mouth, Fu Qing advised: "Why not count the troops first, if everyone is fine, it's good."
Qi Min, however, acted as if he hadn't heard anything and continued to howl and vent. Fu Qing felt a little sympathetic and suspected that Qi Min was crazy.
But it's not surprising to go crazy after such a change. Just as I was thinking, I suddenly saw Qi Min's body shaking, and suddenly he fell to the ground. He actually fainted on the ground.
Fu Qing called the deputy general of Fuzhou Mancheng to ask about the process. The Chinese army used extremely vicious weapons when attacking the city, and could directly fire shrapnel onto the top of the city.
The Eight Banners of Fuzhou were really prepared to die in battle before the battle, but shells kept falling on their heads and exploding around them. Seeing their comrades being blown to pieces and hearing their groans and screams before death, somehow the Qing army naturally withdrew from the city walls.
When the general and the deputy general discovered that something was wrong, the situation changed from the Qing army defending against the attack of the Chinese army outside the city on the top of the city to the Chinese army occupying the top of the city and starting to encircle and annihilate the Qing army inside the city.
Fu Qing sighed, "You have worked hard too."
Hearing Fu Qing's words, the deputy general was a little frightened and quickly replied: "General, we have lost Fuzhou this time. We need you to say a few good words for us in front of the emperor."
Fu Qing immediately replied: "Of course. The brothers in Fuzhou have done their best."
Having said that, when writing to Hong Zhou, Fu Qing found himself unconsciously writing his dissatisfaction with the Fuzhou general into the memorials several times.
Fu Qing certainly felt that he should be dissatisfied. However, what the Qing Dynasty wanted at the moment was to unite the Manchus and make them work as hard as possible. If they wanted to kill Huo Chong, the Qing Dynasty would need at least several million elite soldiers.
The Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty had no more than a few million people at most, and even these more than 3,000 bannermen could be used to supervise the war.
However, Fu Qing did not know at this time that Emperor Hong Zhou of the Xi'an court was leading the army in person. He passed through the sparsely populated area outside the Great Wall, arrived at the city of Shengjing, and launched a fierce attack on Shengjing.
Lao Ba shook off the guards' obstruction and went straight to the top of the city wall. As soon as he got there, he heard a loud noise from the left wall. He turned around and saw that something that was shot onto the top of the city wall had exploded.
Just as he was about to give the order, he saw another thing being shot onto the top of the city wall. It jumped a few times on the ground at the top of Shengjing City and then rolled to a lower place.
The soldiers guarding the city were so frightened that they left in a hurry. Lao Ba immediately shouted, "Whoever throws this thing out of the city will be rewarded with 500 coins!"
Hearing this, some nearby soldiers were moved. But no one dared to move. One of Lao Ba's guards rushed out, ran to the cannonball, and picked it up. But because it was too hot, he had to put it down. The man took off his yellow jacket, covered the cannonball, ran to the edge of the city and threw it down.
Not long after, a loud noise was heard from below the city. It was the shell that was ignited by the internal fuse and exploded.
If someone dared to take the lead, Lao Ba would raise the reward to one or two taels of silver. Now people from all the city defense units volunteered to take the lead.
Lao Ba looked at it a few more times and had an idea. He ordered people to make a tool. It was a thing with a bell-like head. Its function was to prevent burns.
When Lao Ba finished these things, the princes of Shengjing praised him loudly. However, Lao Ba was not happy at all. As a former important official of the Qing Dynasty, Lao Ba knew that the Qing Dynasty did have a similar thing. It was to install a fuse inside a cannonball, and then ignite it to fire the cannonball.
The shell falls on the enemy's side, and when the fuse ignites the gunpowder inside the shell, it explodes directly.
However, after a long time of research, no reliable weapon has been developed. But Hong Zhou dared to use it in large quantities in combat. When he was on the top of the city wall, Lao Ba was lucky enough to see a gunner under the city blow himself and his gun away due to careless operation.
The princes could see that something was wrong with Lao Ba's expression, so they asked tentatively, "Eighth Master, why are you so unhappy? Does Hong Zhou have any more tricks up his sleeve?"
Lao Ba could only reply: "Hong Zhou has no tricks, but Hong Zhou wants to fight us to death this time!"
When the princes heard that they were only going to fight to the death, they were no longer nervous. Someone even laughed and said, "Even if Hong Zhou doesn't want to fight to the death with us, we will fight to the death with him! As long as the troops in the south come back, we will go out of the city and fight Hong Zhou!"
When Lao Ba heard this, he was a little dissatisfied, but he did not object. The most urgent task at this time was to gather the troops and fight with Hong Zhou.
The Qing army was in a civil war, and the Huaxia army's troops heading north obviously felt relieved. There were not many people in Liaodong, and the Qing army had transferred a large number of troops to the north. Those villages and even strongholds were not capable of fighting the Huaxia army. This allowed the Huaxia army to board ships at the designated location and head east, crossing the Bohai Sea from the Liaodong Peninsula to Hebei.
The Chinese army actually knew that it didn't need to go through so much trouble. However, after Huo Chong ordered the explosion of the northern bank of the Yellow River and forced the Yellow River to return to the north, a super wide Yellow River appeared in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. Although the river channel took over the Jishui River and the direction was from west to east, it formed many tributaries on the loess plain and there was no way to cross this yellow flood area.
The reason for jumping around in the Bohai Sea was entirely for the safety of the troops.
The 50,000 troops landed safely and began to head west. Scouts soon came back to report that there were actually several Qing troops marching in the opposite direction of the Chinese army, but they were located a little to the north of the Chinese army.
The commander thought about it and made up his mind, "Those people are going to help the battle outside the pass, don't worry."
After hearing this explanation, some people felt relieved, while others just couldn't believe it completely.
But the coach has made the decision and there is nothing to say but listen.
Things turned out just as the commander had expected. The Qing troops had indeed gone out to reinforce. When the Huaxia army arrived outside the capital, the few defenders inside the capital could not hold on and immediately fled.
The originally important location was captured so easily by the Chinese army.
The commander immediately sent troops to seize Shanhaiguan and also sent people to block the passages of the Eight Passes of Taihang.
Only then did he send a letter to Huo Chong in Xuzhou, reporting the progress of the situation in Daxia.
Huo Chong just shook his head after reading it. These guys, once they get a chance, they want to dominate the situation.
What was the purpose of sending this letter? Naturally, it was to hope that Huo Chong would send troops to follow up and completely seize Hebei. As long as Huo Chong did this, whether he could gain a firm foothold in the end or not, the commander would have contributed to the capture of Hebei.
Huo Chong could not say this. He could only keep it to himself. At the same time, he asked about the progress of the National Representatives Conference of the Ministry of Rites.
Hearing that Huo Chong was still so concerned about the Ministry of Rites at this time, Gong Yu secretly called Weber and Kong Bugeng to meet together.
There were originally four of them, and one was Zeng Jing. At this time, Zeng Jing was completely devoted to land work. In Gong Yu's opinion, Zeng Jing was probably useless.
When the three of them met, Weber immediately asked, "Brothers, do you think His Majesty will really adopt an election system?"
Kong Bujie looked at his nails to see if they were clean, and replied, "It's a graded election. Not a full election. Your Majesty said that this is called a representative system. It's not a one-person-one-vote democracy."
Gong Yu laughed when he heard this. Weber was unhappy and said, "No matter what system it is, whether it is direct democracy or a democratic system, Your Majesty is determined to do so. Or will he not do it if he encounters any resistance? I am not very knowledgeable and need your advice."
"Old Kong, what do you think?" Gong Yu asked Kong Bugeng directly.
Kong Bugeng put away his clean hands and replied nonchalantly, "I thought your majesty would do it to the end. After all, things have come to this point, it would be strange if he didn't do it to the end."
Weber had wanted to ask for advice, but after hearing what Kong Bugeng said, he became interested and retorted, "If we do this, won't the old brothers be angry? Now is not the time to turn against the old brothers."
Kong Bugeng did not answer, but raised his hand again and looked at the gap between his nails. He simply took a thin bamboo stick and started shaving the gap between his nails.
Weber was very unhappy, but Gong Yu advised: "I was the one who asked everyone, Brother Wei is not angry. I think what Lao Kong said makes sense. Your Majesty talked about the representative system and the one-person-one-vote system. It can be seen that Your Majesty completely disagrees with the so-called direct democracy!"
The so-called direct democracy is based on the overlap of the identities of rulers and the ruled. Citizens, as masters of the country, directly manage their own affairs without intermediaries or representatives.
Direct participation, direct elections and referendums all have elements of direct democracy, but they do not constitute institutional direct democracy. Direct democracy in the strict sense refers only to direct democracy in the state system.
Direct democracy has two meanings: one is to make decisions on specific issues in a direct democratic way, but the dominant system of the whole country may still be indirect democracy. Direct democracy on specific issues is just a supplement. The other is direct democracy in the system of the whole country, such as ancient Greek democracy. The typical institutional arrangement of this kind of direct democracy is that the citizens' assembly is the highest legislative body.
Listening to Gong Yu telling Weber about this knowledge, Kong Bugeng sighed and said, "Brother Gong, His Majesty did say that this model can be said to be a voting model. Because legitimacy only lies in the votes, and the legitimacy is the only way. As long as the final result of the vote is that the sun is a triangle, then the sun must be a triangle. Whoever thinks otherwise is breaking the law and should be killed!"
Gong Yu was not particularly impressed by this remark. As for whether it was said by Huo Chong, Gong Yu felt that this was sarcastic and indeed had the flavor of Huo Chong.
But what matters is not "democracy" or "voter". Gong Yu has sensed Kong Bugeng's intention and agrees with Kong Bugeng's view. Huo Chong will not adopt direct democratic means in the construction of the new Ministry of Rites.
If direct democracy is not adopted, then it is representative democracy. The key point of representative democracy is that a small number of representatives make major legislative and administrative decisions through discussion or debate in the political system and form of government organization.
These representatives of the Ministry of Rites represent the opinions of members of branches at all levels of the Ministry of Rites, and ultimately these people speak for them.
Gong Yu was sure that this was the system, even though he had thought about it a long time ago. But he was still a little disappointed. Although Huo Chong showed amazing innovation, he was surprisingly conservative in the specific implementation. It made it difficult for anyone to easily find fault with Huo Chong. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but sigh: "Your Majesty formed a party himself, but I don't know if His Majesty will agree if someone else wants to form a party in the future."
Kong Bugeng snorted, "Tsk! In every dynasty, forming a faction is a capital crime. How could Your Majesty form a faction!"
When these words were spoken, the two who heard them laughed. Yes, this was Huo Chong's cleverness. Although it was clearly a clique, he also used a very effective method. He used the shell of the "Ministry of Rites" to cover it up, making the clique look respectable.
Just as he was laughing, Kong Bugeng continued, "All dynasties have regarded forming a clique as a capital crime, because forming a clique is nothing more than two things. One is to seize power, and the other is to seek personal gain. If the Ministry of Rites can really abandon these two things, what does forming a clique mean?"
When Weber heard this, he couldn't help but sneer, "Haha! Without these two things, who would be willing to work so hard? I don't believe that the Ministry of Rites can do that."
Gong Yu felt that Weber was right, but he also felt that Kong Bugeng's view was strangely absurd. If others did such a thing, they would definitely change it. However, if Huo Chong did such a thing, he might be different!
Finally, Gong Yu asked the other two a question, "Who do you think can become the Minister of Rites?"
"Qian Qing." Weber replied.
Kong Bugeng thought about it and said, "If it depends on the election, I don't know what will happen. But if it really depends on the election, Luo Yiren will have a chance."
Weber immediately retorted: "If Luo Yiren is selected, then it is His Majesty who is manipulating the matter. In terms of reputation and qualifications, why can't it be Qian Qing?"
Gong Yu then realized that it was Weber who believed that this time the Ministry of Rites election was really based on elections.
Kong Bugeng shook his head in confusion, "If Qian Qing had married His Majesty, she would definitely not have been chosen."
Seeing these two people like this, Gong Yu tried to ask: "Shouldn't Your Majesty be the one to be chosen?"
"Your Majesty cannot hold an official position!" Kong Bugeng and Weber answered almost in unison.
The ministers were thinking about the affairs of the Ministry of Rites, and Huo Chong was even more concerned. Moreover, according to historical experience, once the party rules the country, the party leader must focus more on the theoretical construction of the party rather than simpler practical affairs.
Huo Chong could only do this for the time being. After doing this, he realized that things were really not simple. Theoretical construction has never been that easy. If you only base your opinion on wishful thinking, you can still have a set of views on a certain part or a certain stage. But for the whole world, it is different.
The state is a tool of class rule, and the ruling class realizes its will through laws.
This is the foundation of political science, and Huo Chong agrees with it very much. But he also finds that it is rather dry when it comes to specifics.
Simply speaking, it is not easy to analyze the difference between direct democracy and representative democracy.
Pure representative democracy has less advantages than direct democracy, and both have certain limitations. Today's representative system in the West is a "liberal democracy" combined with the rule of law of ancient Rome. The government under the representative system is a responsible government. At the same time, under a liberal democracy, the parliament occupied by elected representatives does not have supreme power, but the basic law has supreme power. The laws enacted by the parliament must comply with a higher-level basic law, namely the constitution, so as to protect individual freedom from being violated by the immediate wishes of the "majority" or "minority". The basic law does not rely on referendums or "public opinion". The German Basic Law and the Japanese Constitution after World War II were not democratically produced; the United Kingdom simply does not have a written constitution, and the spirit of the constitution is reflected in previous cases, and there is almost no chance of being changed by people's representatives.
Compared to pure democracy, liberal democracy has less democracy but more rule of law to protect individual freedom.
When liberal democracy has established its mainstream status, referendums have become an embarrassing matter. Countries that strongly advocate democracy do not adopt this most democratic means. The US federal government never adopts referendums. For example, the US war in Vietnam was not the responsibility of the American people. The president and Congress of the United States were responsible for it. Therefore, the president and congressmen of the United States cannot shirk their responsibilities in the name of "what the people want" or "representatives of public opinion."
