In early October 1940, the Imperial Army was ready to attack the Soviet Union, and the Air Force was also drawing its main force from the east to the northwest as planned. Under such circumstances, Zhao Tingzhu could launch the "Thunder Plan" to attack the Soviet Union in Omsk at any time.

This will be the second time that Zhao Tingzhu has launched a war here.

Before this, in order to prevent the possible large-scale military attacks by the Imperial Army, the Soviet Union had already drawn the 6th Tank Army back to the Chelyabinsk area, and once again stepped up the recruitment of more troops across the country. A large number of soldiers who had not received any training were directly put on the battlefield. Apart from the number of troops, the Soviet Union had no other advantage.

Germany has been negotiating with the empire, especially through Poland's relationship, trying to reach a new agreement before the empire sends troops. However, overall, Germany still welcomes the empire to send troops, but does not want the empire to steal the fruits of Germany's victory.

The news that the empire may attack the Soviet Union and liberate Kazakhstan made the British Empire mixed. The good news is that the struggle between China and Britain in South Asia will definitely slow down. The bad news is that China will not hesitate to go to war with the Soviet Union and promote the Kazakhstan region. This itself is enough to prove how firm the Chinese Empire's anti-Asian colonization position is. Sooner or later, the spearhead will be aimed at the British Empire.

For Japan, this is just symbolic good news.

China has enough strength to start two wars at the same time. In addition to the air force, which is subject to the number of pilots, the Central Army of the Empire did not draw troops from the Japanese battlefield to support the Northern Alliance. Everything was done step by step, and the Empire did not have a tense situation because it wanted to start two wars at the same time.

The huge population base and industrial capacity can prove how great the military potential of the empire is.

This is incomparable to both the Soviet Union and Germany, let alone Japan and the United Kingdom.

...

Those who know history can roughly remember that in the summer of 1910, a tragedy that shocked the whole country occurred before the Changsha Uprising. An ordinary family was unable to raise their children because of soaring food prices. In the end, four of them jumped into the river and committed suicide. This incident directly led to the Changsha riot and the subsequent New Army uprising, which also kicked off the founding of the Chinese Empire.

Thirty years later, a tragedy that shocked the whole country in Changsha in 1940 once again occurred, an incident that made the whole country angry.

In June 1940, Huguang area encountered a major flood once in 50 years. At this time, the main projects of the national water conservancy project had been completed. People were not particularly worried about this. As a result, in late June, a landslide suddenly occurred in the Oujiang Reservoir in Changsha. The flood immediately flooded 14 surrounding counties and towns, which not only caused major economic casualties, but also caused thousands of deaths.

After this incident, the central cabinet and the Hunan Provincial Government responded quickly. The whole country's efforts were drawn to carry out disaster relief as soon as possible. However, in the subsequent investigation, it was found that the Oujiang Reservoir had a large number of corner cuts during the construction process, and even there were a number of unreasonable matters during the bidding process.

The seriousness of the case and the special resistance encountered by the Hunan Provincial Government’s Integrity Bureau and the procuratorate’s agency to handle cases, the Central Bureau of Investigation began to cross the central cabinet to conduct large-scale investigations of the officials involved in the case and enterprises. The final result was shocking. From 1930 to 1937, when Li Shucheng, the current Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Central Cabinet, served as the director of the Hunan Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, there were 17 major water conservancy projects in Hunan Province that had serious corruption problems, involving more than 250 million yuan. Li Shucheng’s personal embezzlement was about 20 million yuan.

This is not only the largest corruption and bribery case in the history of the founding of the Empire in the 30th year of the founding of the Empire, but also a replica of the Yuan Shikai case that year. Both are very close to the means and amount of corruption in the case.

What is worse than the previous one is that many construction companies involved in this case have the background of the Qinggang community. During the handling of the case, two members of the Hunan Provincial Integrity Bureau were murdered, and many other staff members were retaliated and hijacked.

Due to the seriousness of the case, Emperor Song Biao, who had not been concerned about political affairs for many years, also arranged for the Crown Prince Yuhua to personally investigate the matter as the deputy director of the Central Investigation Bureau. The inner court also led by the Chief Chen Jiayou to Changsha twice on behalf of the emperor and the Royal Chinese Charity Federation to appease the angry people.

During this period, due to the serious involvement of the Qing Gang, many groups of villagers who went to the provincial government to petition were beaten by members of the Qing Gang on the way, resulting in many deaths again.

Things have come to this point. With the intensive attention of the national media, it not only has a great impact on the 40-year election of the Restoration Party, but people have also begun to truly pay attention to China's illegal societies. As the nominee of Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources Li Shucheng, Prime Minister Gu Weijun also encountered the biggest crisis of trust in history.

With unprecedented great affair in the election, Song Jiaoren, chairman of the Democratic Party and prime minister elector, invited the inner court to arrange time to meet Emperor Song Biao on September 10 of the year.

In the past few years, Emperor Song Biao and Song Jiaoren have only met twice. The relationship is no longer as close as before, but the relationship is still well maintained.

There are always special circumstances in the world, and Emperor Song Biao also needs to leave a way out for himself. If Song Jiaoren leads the Democratic Party to successfully run for election, becomes the largest party in the Central Congress, and successfully elects the prime minister, Emperor Song Biao will continue to maintain cooperation with Song Jiaoren.

Therefore, as the Democratic Party gradually achieved some partial election success over the years, Emperor Song Biao has maintained a certain political distance from both parties, and has not easily attacked one side or supported one side.

Emperor Song Biao was actually very clear that China's liberation revolution had been successful, and people are now considering more of a new democratic revolution, which is also the reason why Song Jiaoren's reputation has increased greatly among the people, especially among the middle class in recent years.

There will always be many problems when social development reaches a certain level. There are not many problems in China on the surface. Whether it is Sovietism, populism, illegal societies, corruption, anti-war, gap between the rich and the poor, it is not particularly serious in the handling of the Restoration Party's multiple cabinets.

It is also undeniable that the long-term rule of the Restoration Party has caused borers to exist in some local provincial governments. The major cases of corruption discovered by the General Administration of Investigation in the past decade are mostly concentrated at the provincial government level, and especially in inland provinces such as Hunan and Hubei, where local media is underdeveloped and democratic parties are not prosperous.

The Democratic Party has been able to rule the provincial government in Fujian, which is on the coast in recent years, especially in Guangdong Province. It won three consecutive elections. In the Guangdong Provincial Parliamentary elections the previous year, Wang Zhaoming, chairman of the Restoration Party, personally took charge of Guangzhou. In the end, he failed to help the Restoration Party's electorate Qiao Zhengliang be elected. He lost the election with a huge gap of 1.14 million votes, which made Wang Zhaoming almost resigned within the party and apologized.

Now it's Gu Weijun's turn to do this.

According to the Imperial Constitution, the election of Congress is three months earlier than the Prime Minister. The list of new members of Congress is determined in October, and then the members of Congress jointly elect the new imperial prime minister. Once the election is successful, the prime minister's term will be five years, and only if more than 70% of the members of parliament vote through the distrust case will the prime minister end his term early.

The constitutional rule that 50% of the votes can be elected and 70% of the votes can be removed makes the central cabinet of the empire very stable. In addition, the Restoration Party has achieved excellent results in governing the country, and the candidates for the three prime ministers are outstanding, and indeed there are very few major poll fluctuations.

This time is obviously an exception.

After Democratic Party Chairman Song Jiaoren submitted a request for an interview, Emperor Song Biao hesitated for several days before approving the meeting. Since he decided to meet, he should be more generous.

Emperor Song Biao asked the inner court to arrange an afternoon to meet Song Jiaoren in Xuanzheng Garden, and arranged a dinner to entertain Song Jiaoren's family.

The empire has two Xuanzheng Gardens. One is Xuanzheng Garden in Zhongnanhai, which has become part of the Empire's National Museum, and the other is Xuanzheng Garden in the Central Palace, which is different from Cizheng Garden. Most of the Xuanzheng Garden is used to meet members of Congress and people from various parties.

That morning, Song Biao was still handling affairs of the Central Military Department. When he returned to the Central Palace in the afternoon, he arranged for Song Jiaoren to visit Xuanzheng Park.

Kyoto is still hot in September.

Xuanzheng Park is a newly built imperial palace after 1935, with a plumbing system. The temperature is adjusted through the water flow in the copper tubes between the floor, walls, and copper columns, and cools down in summer and rises in winter.

Compared with the central air conditioner used by the General Office of the Central Palace, Xuanzheng Garden is more comfortable. Emperor Song Biao has also liked to handle state affairs in Xuanzheng Garden in the past two years, and even met foreign guests.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Emperor Song Biao took an hour's nap and washed up before going to Xuanzheng Garden for afternoon tea. At this time, autumn was hot and dry, so it was always a good choice to drink a cup of herbal tea in the afternoon.

Song Jiaoren waited carefully here for nearly ten minutes before seeing His Majesty the Emperor.

After meeting Song Jiaoren, Emperor Song Biao seemed very ordinary. After Song Jiaoren bowed and saluted, he recruited Song Jiaoren to sit down and have tea with him.

Time is forbidden.

Song Jiaoren was also a gray-haired man over 60 years old. His former style was still there. During these years, he no longer served in the cabinet and has been actively promoting reforms within the Democratic Party. Zhejiang Governor, who had run for election from 1930 to 1935, was easily elected with his extremely high personal reputation, and also opened the curtain for Zhejiang Province to become the alternating rule of the Democratic Party and the Restoration Party.

Under Song Jiaoren's reform, the Democratic Party changed the past situation of confrontation with the Restoration Party and adjusted its policies toward the middle class, which led to the Democratic Party's support rate in coastal cities rising steadily, but in inland areas, the Democratic Party still failed to have a solid foundation for public support.

Competition between the two parties is always inevitable, and Wang Zhaoming is a person who likes to make a fuss on paper. He attacks that the Democratic Party only has populism and no real democracy. True democracy should be a nationalism that enjoys the welfare of the whole people. Song Jiaoren criticized the Restoration Party for being mixed, inseparable, manipulating local institutions and other illegal matters, as well as despising the middle class and ignoring the reform of the social welfare system.

Only with criticism can we make progress. The problem is that the Restoration Party is rooted in its roots, and the election can always win a great victory, and there is no motivation for internal reform. This is not a situation that Gu Weijun can reverse by himself.

If it comes to party support, without the support of Emperor Song Biao and the royal family, Song Jiaoren's Democratic Party would have been difficult to support until today, but the meeting between the two today was a bit embarrassing.

Song Biao drank tea silently and chewed walnut kernels, as if Song Jiaoren beside him was not present.

Song Jiaoren was still wearing a black suit and a blue tie today, while the emperor was still wearing his casual clothes as usual, with a dragon robe with a white background and a red patterned dragon robe, looking very quiet.

Red, white, yellow and black are the most favored by Emperor Song Biao among the emperor's dragon robes. But red and white do wear more.

democracy.

Emperor Song Biao has been thinking about this matter.

He carefully studied democracy and capitalism. For special countries like empires, he believed that the most difficult problems that democracy and capitalism can bring are two. One is regional populist separatism; the other is the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.

The empire still strictly prohibits land annexation today, and strictly provides the most basic guarantee for all farmers in the "Farmers Protection Act" - as long as they are farmers, they must have at least 15 acres of land in principle.

If you compare the Republic and India in the 21st century, you will find that the only benefit of the Republic is that under the same population and arable land conditions, the Republic can guarantee that all farmers have more than ten acres of land, while in India. Even in the 21st century, most of the land is in the hands of landlords, and very few ordinary Indian farmers own their own land. Under the pressure of land rent and taxation, it is common for Indian farmers to commit suicide collectively in the form of dozens of households.

No matter how the world boasts about the Indian system, Emperor Song Biao always believed that if this system was at the cost of hundreds of millions of farmers' livelihoods rather than death, it would have no meaning. Conversely, even if another system has various disadvantages, if it can be forced to ensure that all farmers have at least the farmland needed to survive at the basic level, it would definitely have existential value, and this "all" is as large as one billion people.

This is really not easy.

This is very important.

Among Emperor Song Biao's support for the Restoration Party, the most important point is that the Restoration Party strongly fulfilled its requirement, ensuring that all farmers have the lowest land in the form of taxes, state subsidies and national laws.

The method adopted by the Restoration Party was very simple, that is, the government directly held a large part of the land and rented it to farmers at a low price. Moreover, the land is absolutely not allowed to be transferred, and farmers can sign agricultural management rights for more than 60 years at one time.

Local rural cooperatives and agricultural cooperatives will participate in the coordination work within the countryside to ensure that every farmer has land to plant. In most cases, farmers can actually own more land, but there are indeed many farmers selling their land and then renting public fields from the county government at a low price.

This public land policy is the focus of the Democratic Party's attack, which is normal because the middle class represented by the Democratic Party has special interests in this regard, requiring the ban on public land and allowing more free circulation of land.

Emperor Song Biao hated this very much. Even though many farmers are now actively asking the government to approve this proposal, the government should protect not these wealthy farmers or these short-sighted farmers, but more poor farmers.

To be precise, Emperor Song Biao did hate Sovietism, but in all systems, he must also admit that the collective land policy in this system could meet the needs of him and Chinese farmers.

China has too many populations.

It is very difficult to ensure that every farmer owns land.

At this time, Emperor Song Biao was very worried that one day, the situation would change, land annexation was allowed, and farmers began to lose the land on which they depend for survival. There were only two ways to solve this problem. One was to open up the territory of the empire and expand the territory of the empire on a larger scale; the other was to reduce the population of the empire, whether through birth control methods and policies, or large-scale immigration to foreign countries.

If we look at it from this perspective, the Empire has been doing this for the past thirty years.

Today, when the empire's population exceeded 500 million, about one-fifth of the citizens live outside the traditional territory, and the reclaimed land from the Soviet Union and newly occupied land alone solved the living space of about 40 million people.

Therefore, expansionism must be a long-term national policy for the empire.

The Democratic Party is precisely the main camp of domestic anti-war forces.

Emperor Song Biao can only say that Song Jiaoren spoke without a pain in his back. This is also the main reason why he has reduced his support for the Democratic Party in the past few years and refused to receive Song Jiaoren.

As he grew older and became more and more conservative, he became more and more disgusted with Song Jiao-in's Democratic Party. In his opinion, both the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party supporters seemed too selfish.

After almost drinking the entire cup of tea, Emperor Song Biao put down the teacup and asked with Song Jiaoren calmly: "You have been running around in the past few years and petitioning for the people. You are very tired. You should be able to hold on, right?"

This greeting made Song Jiaoren very helpful. Because he knew that the emperor was usually not a person who would greet others, he replied happily: "Report to Your Majesty, I must have no problem with my health. The busier I am, the stronger I am."

Emperor Song Biao sighed: "That's good. Let's talk about some serious things. As the ruling party, there are more and more problems within the Restoration Party, and we need to teach a hard lesson. I really want to know, in your opinion, what are the problems with the Restoration Party at this stage?"

Song Jiaoren thought about it and answered truthfully: "The issue of the Restoration Party is actually simple. It is nothing more than a party dominance and being too arrogant to listen to other political parties' opinions on participating in politics and making decisions. He is arbitrary and the situation of the central government is better. At the local provincial government, it is simply a group of bastards in power, and it is outrageous."

Although he did not like the Democratic Party's policy orientation, Emperor Song Biao still maintained the principle of party neutrality as much as possible, and encouraged Song Jiaoren: "They are arrogant bastards, that is your opportunity. Just seize the opportunity."

Song Jiaoren replied: "That's right, but the Restoration Party is also an old political party that can fight election wars. They have the advantage of ruling. They firmly grasp two large vote warehouses and one large money warehouse when the election period comes. One is the peasant association and the other is the trade union. The last big money warehouse is of course the Far East, Jiangnan, and Nanyang. For example, the Chinese Business Association does donate a political donation to us every year. But the share of the Restoration Party is more than ten times that of ours. Now, the money is supporting the scene in the election war. Each of them has strong financial support behind the election and can handle the work on the media. This really makes us helpless."

Song Biao sighed with a smile and said, "The so-called democracy is just like this, isn't it the United States and Britain?"

Song Jiaoren could only nod and admit it.

He actually knew very well that every time it came to a critical moment, the major consortiums controlled by the royal family would still stand behind the Restoration Party without hesitation, and the public land system maintained by the Restoration Party has always been able to seize this large bank of farmers' associations in various places.

This is the case with the democratic system of the empire. The provincial parliament decided on the governor, and the provincial parliamentarians were selected by each county. This means that political parties with strong funds and deep relations could always win in most counties and finally finalize the majority of seats in the provincial parliament.

The election of the provincial parliament generally lags behind the election of the national parliament for one year, which means that once the central cabinet is established, the central ruling party can influence the election at the provincial level. For the most important and exemplary economically developed provinces and provinces with large populations, Prime Minister Gu Weijun and former Prime Minister Tang Shaoyi, including other cabinet ministers, will also go down to assist in the election in person.

For example, the 1936 Jiangsu Provincial and Shanghai Provincial Parliamentary Elections were originally the Democratic Party to have a certain poll advantage, but at the last moment, Prime Minister Gu Weijun suddenly inspected Shanghai, Nanjing and other places, and made a bold statement and ambition to continue to support the economic construction of the Yangtze River Delta in the form of support from the central government. As a result, Jiangsu and Shanghai turned the tables at the last moment, and instead, the Restoration Party occupied more than 70% of the seats in the provincial parliament.

In short, Song Jiaoren and his Democratic Party have also been struggling and have been suppressed.

Emperor Song Biao was very satisfied with this situation. In fact, he also knew that there were still many problems within the Restoration Party, but if there were no restraint from the Democratic Party, there would be more problems. The party struggles in democratic politics can not only pull you back, but also capture all kinds of disasters on the other side and curse them, forcing the opponent to make improvements and make progress together.
To be continued...