1905: Beer Hall Speaker

Page 14

But they had nothing. After the Manchus abolished the imperial examination system, they became completely shameless. Those incompetent Manchu nobles did nothing but seize high positions and rule the country. What were the countless Han people who believed that "all other professions are inferior except for studying"?

All of you here are now officials, but these official positions cannot be inherited. If you die, your descendants will not even have the path to take the imperial examinations. What will happen then? Will all the officials be Manchus?

Such a thing is unacceptable; it violates the last line of the entire Han official class!

Zhao Yan continued, "All of you here have spent ten or even twenty years studying hard and climbing the ranks step by step to become capable officials. Am I right?"

Who could refute that? Even if you were a corrupt official, you would have to go along with Zhao Yan's words at this point. Who doesn't care about saving face?

"But as you climb up step by step, you find that the officialdom is a triangle. The higher you go, the fewer positions there are, but the more power you have, and the more likely you are to realize your ultimate ideal of self-cultivation, governing the country, and bringing peace to the world."

At first, everyone probably thought that as long as they were capable and willing to work hard, they could enter the central government, right? Everyone probably naively believed that positions in Beijing were reserved for the virtuous, right?

"But after struggling for more than ten or even decades, you will find that there is an invisible ceiling that is blocking your path to progress. No matter how capable you are, you can't compare to those Manchu royal relatives and nobles."

They do nothing, yet they seize high positions simply because of their shameless origins and despicable lineage. Can anyone accept such a thing?

"Now I assure you all that after the success of the Revival Party's revolution, we will restore a system similar to the imperial examination system, and we will implement a civil service examination system!"

If the revolution succeeds, the new government's civil service examination system will no longer only admit a hundred or so Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations) each year; we will admit tens of thousands of people every year!

The new government will expand its official ranks, creating numerous new positions. We will govern the country with a modern and scientific political system. In short, we will provide opportunities for all talented individuals to advance!

After criticizing the Qing Dynasty, it was time to offer our own benefits. The imperial examination system was so stingy, only admitting one or two hundred people every two or three years. Look at mine, we hold exams every year and admit tens of thousands of people every year. We also continue to expand the number of officials. Everyone has a chance to advance. Aren't you tempted?

The officials present here may not have confidence in anything else, but they are certainly skilled at urging their children and grandchildren to take exams. This is a natural talent, and these abundant opportunities are clearly meant for them!

Even if you don't care about yourself, you should at least think about your descendants, right?

After discussing the future, Zhao Yan began to talk about the present.

"Everyone, please open your eyes, stand up, and take a look at this world. Is this the world we want? If this world cannot satisfy us Han people, I think this world has no reason to exist!"

For nearly three hundred years, we have been oppressed and humiliated, constantly retreating and yielding. But although China is vast, we have nowhere left to retreat!

If we retreat any further, the Han people will face utter annihilation. Wake up now, rise up and fight, stand up and resist!

Can you tolerate those good-for-nothings riding roughshod over you and pointing fingers? How can you govern a country with those vermin around?

I want everyone to promise that as long as the revolution succeeds, there will be no more ceilings for us Han Chinese officials. As long as you have the ability, ruling the country will no longer be a dream!

All the officials, including Zhang Mingqi and Lu Zhaoxuan, became incredibly excited. What was this? This was a promise to share the world with the emperor!

"Oh!"

Zhao Yan slammed his hand on the table, then looked at everyone present with an extremely ferocious expression, and said, word by word.

"Now that I've finished speaking, I ask everyone, who agrees and who disagrees?!"

As soon as Zhao Yan finished speaking, the entire audience stood up in silence, each person raising their fist: "Revolution! Revolution!"

Zhao Yan nodded in satisfaction and raised his fist as well.

"Revolution, officials!"

Chapter 24 This glory, I will never keep to myself!

December 28, 1905, Changsha, dawn breaks!

In the early morning in Changsha, as dawn breaks and the winter temperature approaches zero, a group of enthusiastic men are engaged in a noble cause.

Zhao Yan successfully persuaded all the officials in Changsha. After a rousing speech, the officials who had previously been forced to submit out of fear of the revolution were now all enthusiastic and began to support the revolution from the bottom of their hearts.

After Zhao Yan finished his persuasive work, he released all the officials so they could return to their posts and continue performing their duties.

The revolution was already unstoppable, but while carrying out the revolution, Zhao Yan was also doing his best to maintain political stability. The purpose of the revolution was to replace the incompetent rulers, not to completely destroy the order.

Throughout history, the most successful uprisings or rebellions were not necessarily those with the strongest fighting force, but rather those that were most capable of stabilizing the situation and bringing order.

Now, Zhao Yan's goal is to maintain social stability and political order to the greatest extent possible while carrying out the revolution. Those who should be killed must not be spared, but those who cannot be killed must not be touched.

They even went so far as to appease and win over more people's support, gradually transforming the gains from revolutionary violence into a supplement that could be used to immediately strengthen themselves!

No revolution can succeed simply by blindly killing its way through. You must not only kill but also bury the dead. A revolution that is all violence and no order is nothing but pure destruction.

With a large number of officials now energized and dedicated to the city, Changsha returned to normal as soon as dawn broke. Zhao Yan ordered the lifting of martial law in Changsha, and all citizens were allowed to move freely again.

But the revolutionary movement was still ongoing, and Zhao Yan wanted to openly and honestly show the entire process of the revolution to all the people so that they would understand what a revolution really was.

On the south training ground, having dealt with the officials, Zhao Yan had to immediately begin ideological work with the soldiers. Compared to the officials, these soldiers who had dedicated themselves to the revolutionary cause were the core and the most important.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"—Zhao Yan has never forgotten this saying.

The overnight coup went incredibly smoothly. The New Army and the Green Standard Army are now all under the command and control of the Revival Party. All key locations and core areas, except for Manchuria, have been taken over by the revolutionary forces.

The Restoration Party has taken control of all of Changsha's vital systems, including its military, grain reserves, treasury, communications, and transportation. Now, without the Restoration Party's permission, no one, no telegram, and not even a bird can leave Changsha.

After daybreak, the only officers and soldiers of the New Army and the Green Standard Army who had been brainwashed by Zhao Yan... cough cough... should be those who had undergone revolutionary baptism, namely the governor's personal guards, Green Standard Army soldiers, and prison guards.

Under the organization of Zhao Hao and Wang Dingyun, these people took over the city gates and other core facilities. The remaining New Army and Green Standard Army soldiers, totaling more than 7,300, were all assembled at the drill ground to listen to the spiritual baptism and instructions of Zhao Yan, the leader of the Revolutionary Party.

Everyone agreed that only those who had heard Zhao Yan give a speech were qualified revolutionaries. It was like Christian baptism; if you hadn't been baptized by Zhao Yan, you would be considered unreliable and not entirely one of them.

After all, everyone acknowledges the power of Zhao Yan's words. Anyone who has heard him speak once, unless they are deaf or mentally challenged, can basically be "baptized" by his words.

Zhao Yan didn't rest at all from beginning to end. His only break was when he fainted once along the way. He was also injured, but even so, Zhao Yan could only grit his teeth and continue working.

At this point, Zhao Yan had nowhere to retreat. Everyone else could rest, but he couldn't. Without his mouth's support, the revolutionary forces' fighting power would immediately disappear by more than 80%.

The South City Training Ground was very spacious. Zhao Yan had ordered the removal of all fences and the complete opening of the training ground. In addition to the more than 7,000 revolutionary soldiers, the people of Changsha could also come to listen to the lecture.

With the strong encouragement of officials at all levels, in addition to more than 7,000 soldiers, more than 100,000 people flocked to watch the spectacle.

Prefect Lu Zhaoxuan urgently obtained a loudspeaker from a merchant, set up a podium on the city wall, and temporarily installed several loudspeakers.

It wasn't until noon, when everything was set up and everyone had arrived, that Zhao Yan once again took to the podium.

Zhao Yan originally wanted to postpone the speech until the next day, but his subordinates were unwilling. They believed that the sooner the better, as unity was essential to continue advancing the revolution.

No one feels comfortable joining without Zhao Yan giving them a thorough baptism!

Zhao Yan was also hanging on by a thread. He was so seriously injured that he hadn't had time to go to the hospital. He only managed to grab a quick meal around 10 a.m. and drink three large bowls of ginseng soup before he had the energy to keep going.

Standing atop the city wall and on the podium, Zhao Yan faced the gaze of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. He showed no nervousness whatsoever. Life is like a play, it all depends on acting skills. As long as you are fully engaged, the number of listeners doesn't matter. There's no difference between one person listening to your speech and hundreds of thousands listening to your speech.

"Ahem, hello everyone, I am Zhao Yan, the president of the Revival Party, a revolutionary, and the commander of the ongoing revolutionary movement!"

Zhao Yan coughed twice to test the volume and found that the amplification equipment these days was terrible. He had to shout and speak slowly and deliberately to get the speech going.

"I know you are all confused and helpless right now, not knowing what has happened, and even less clear about the earth-shattering changes that will come after today."

You all probably don't know what revolution really is, or what it's all for.

After the speech began, Zhao Yan, as usual, raised a variety of questions, all of which were of most concern to the audience.

A qualified speaker will never leave the audience confused or unclear about what they are saying. Excellent speakers will always proactively raise the questions that all the audience cares about most and then provide explanations.

Make sure everyone understands your intentions and your propositions, and then they will support all your actions.

Zhao Yan began to slowly tell everyone the story of the stone carvings in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Zhang Jiao uprising, using the trope of using the past to satirize the present, drawing the audience into the story.

If you start by criticizing the Qing Dynasty, most of the people present will probably run away, since the Manchus ruled China for nearly three hundred years and their influence still lingers.

If you had made it clear from the beginning that you wanted to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, how could ordinary people have dared to do that?

But with a layer of preparation, it's a completely different story.

The story Zhao Yan told was not a fictional tale for any of the people and soldiers present who had suffered oppression and humiliation at the hands of the Manchu Qing dynasty; it was a fact they had personally experienced.

After telling the story of the Eastern Han Dynasty and stirring up the emotions of the soldiers and civilians, Zhao Yan began to settle accounts with everyone. This time, with the information revealed by Zhang Mingqi and other former insiders, Zhao Yan's calculations were much clearer.

After discussing the stone inscriptions from the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhao Yan proceeded to calculate the "stone inscriptions" of the Manchu nobles.

"First of all, there was the witch Empress Dowager Cixi. The scene of her meals would immediately cause an uproar among hundreds of thousands of people. Each meal consisted of at least 120 dishes, including bear paws, shark fins, bird's nest, and all sorts of good things."

Even a plate of green vegetables for breakfast has to be covered in gold leaf, so bright it's blinding.

Hundreds of eunuchs and palace maids served the meals, and the people who served the dishes had to walk more than 300 meters each time they went out!

A single meal, including labor costs, ingredients, and various long-distance transportation expenses, would cost at least a thousand taels of silver!

It's one thing to just have the Empress Dowager, but there are also the Emperor, princes, and various nobles and bannermen. In just one day in Beijing, those Manchu imperial relatives, nobles, and bannermen would spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of taels of silver just on food.

How much would that be in a year? Please do the math! Even the accountant probably couldn't figure it out!

"But I ask you all, where does all that money for their food come from? Ah!"

Have you ever seen those princes and nobles do any work themselves? Have they paid taxes? Have they ever farmed the land?

"In the end, this money came from everyone's pockets; it was our money!"

"If it were just about eating, that would be one thing, but they also want to build palaces and gardens!"

“Repairing the Forbidden City even once costs hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, and building a new palace would cost millions of taels of silver!”

"Does anyone know how much it cost to build the Yuanmingyuan, the most beloved garden of the Qing emperors and empresses? A whopping 500 million taels of silver! 500 million taels!"

“This money was all contributed by everyone here, penny by penny, and it was all used to build a garden. Just think about it, if this money were used to sell grain, how many people could be fed? If it were used to buy medicine, how many people could be cured? If it were used for education, how many years could your children study?”

"But in the end, it was all used to build gardens. And that would have been one thing, but the foreigners burned it all down! Five hundred million taels of silver, just because the Qing Dynasty couldn't hold onto it, it was burned down by the foreigners!"

"In the end, the Qing Dynasty still had to pay the foreigners 400 million taels of silver in reparations, and this money came from every single one of you present here!"

"Do you agree? Are you willing?"

The tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians on the drill ground were in an uproar, followed by a roar like a tsunami.

A day's meals cost tens of thousands of taels of silver, repairing the palace cost millions, and repairing the garden cost fifty million. In the end, it couldn't be protected and was burned down, leaving the owner to pay an additional forty million.

The problem is that everyone has to chip in to pay for this, but they won't contribute a single penny. Is that something a human being would do?

Hearing the deafening roar from the crowd, Zhang Mingqi and Lu Zhaoxuan both smiled knowingly: This time it's definitely going to work, there's potential!

Zhao Yan continued to fuel the flames: "Therefore we must have a revolution, we must stand up and fight bravely, and resolutely smash the old world!"

"This is the purpose of our Revival Party revolution, this is the truth of the revolution! We are not rebelling, we just want to take back what rightfully belongs to us!"

"We demand that the Manchus return what they took from me and spit out what they ate from me!"

"The world belongs to the Han people, the future belongs to the Han people, and everything belongs to the Han people!"

On the drill ground, the crowd was ignited once again. The more than 7,000 soldiers were originally confused, and most of the officers and soldiers were uneasy. But now, they were all roaring, their eyes were full of flames, and their revolutionary will was so strong that it was almost overflowing.

However, mere incitement is not enough. While passionate rhetoric is necessary, tangible benefits must also be provided. Relying solely on ideals and beliefs is far from sufficient.

Zhao Yan shouted into the microphone: "I hereby announce the formal establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China and the Chinese Revolutionary Army. The Revival Party will uphold revolutionary ideals and lead everyone to create a new world that belongs to us Han people through revolution!"

"Gentlemen, though the night of revolution is short, its glory will last forever!"

"I, Zhao Yan, will never enjoy this glory alone! I, Zhao Yan, will bear all the blame!"

"Go to battle, defeat all the invincible, conquer all who dare to defy you!"

Chapter 25 Cutting Off the Braid and Changing the Flag

After Zhao Yan finished his speech at the training ground, he could no longer hold on and had to be helped back to the governor's office to continue receiving treatment.

The reorganization of the revolutionary army on site was carried out by Wang Dingyun, the Minister of the Armed Forces Department of the Revival Party, and his father, while Zhang Mingqi and Lu Zhaoxuan continued to return to their residences to draft proclamations and revolutionary announcements to be widely distributed to the various prefectures under their jurisdiction.

After Wang Dingyun took over the command of more than 7,000 officers and soldiers at the drill ground, his first order was to cut off their queues!

He didn't care whether ordinary people cut their queues or not, but all soldiers within the revolutionary army's establishment had to cut off their queues to prove their revolutionary stance.

Cutting off your queue is much better than wearing a black cloth on your left arm. Once you cut off your queue, you're one of our own. Even if you want to go back on your word and defect to the enemy later, the Qing army won't accept you.

Wang Dingyun kept exclaiming, "Who invented this braid? It was so damn useful during the revolution!"

The simple act of cutting off braids can eliminate countless steps; once it's cut off, you're one of us, one of us with absolutely no way out.

With Zhao Yan's impassioned speech, the soldiers, who had already been stirred up and were now shouting, did not hesitate to pull out their knives and cut off each other's braids, and everyone simply shaved their heads.

They put away their military caps. Anyone who showed a bald head was one of their own. If someone wasn't bald but still wearing a military uniform, they could just be shot.

Outside the drill ground, tens of thousands of people had also voluntarily cut off their queues, and many young men shouted that they wanted to join the revolutionary army.

Wang Dingyun immediately ordered people to set up a table to register all soldiers and young men who had joined the army. In just one morning, a revolutionary army of more than 16,500 people was reorganized.

Regardless of their combat abilities, sheer numbers are all that matter.

Wang Dingyun immediately broke up the 25th Mixed Brigade of the New Army, which had the strongest combat power. Using this mixed brigade as the backbone, he incorporated Green Standard Army soldiers and newly enlisted young men to form a basic framework.

Wang Dingyun's father, Wang Chongshan, as a senior high-ranking officer of the 25th Mixed Brigade of the New Army, cooperated with his son's actions throughout the entire process. He was even sidelined, with all the military power below him firmly held by his son's group of revolutionaries.

But Wang Chongshan had no temper at all and could only cooperate fully. What could he do? Wang Dingyun was his own son, and his legitimate son at that! When his legitimate son rebelled, he, as the father, couldn't escape. He could only go along with him.

As for what Zhao Yan said, Wang Chongshan listened to it all. The revolutionaries were telling the truth, and the revolution was indeed beneficial to everyone. There was no reason to oppose it.

After the situation stabilized, the gates of Changsha were opened, and black and red flags representing the revolution were raised everywhere. The yellow dragon flags that originally represented the Qing government were all taken down and burned.