Xiao Ruxun was very clear about this.
The enlightenment and popularization of education would inevitably give birth to the first, second, and third batches, as well as endless scholars from the bottom of society.
They would have culture, knowledge, and ideas. Their ideas would gradually spread to the whole country, covering the whole country, and then produce a new trend of thought.
They would take the initiative to question the idea of divine monarchical power, and they would doubt things that were taken for granted in the past.
It was just like the doubts about religion in the Middle Ages in Europe.
Daqin did not need a renaissance. Daqin needed the popularization of literature and art. It wanted the unattainable Wang Xietang Qianyan to fly into the homes of ordinary people, so that everything that seemed unattainable could be possessed by ordinary people.
Xiao Ruxun pursued a centralization of power. It was a rule that treated all people equally under the leadership of the central government. It did not allow the emergence of local forces that opposed the central power under the framework of a government.
This was an important foundation for him to build the Daqin government.
This foundation was embodied in the imperial power going to the countryside.
This model was not impregnable.
Now everyone was still poor, not completely full, not completely illiterate, and not completely developed ideas. Everything was the same as in the past. Therefore, the government's orders would be easily issued.
Once people had their own independent ideas, with the awakening of ideas, the local people would inevitably have their own ideas. All kinds of doubts and even resistance against the central government would continue to appear along with the central government's suppression of the local areas.
It did not appear now, but it would definitely appear in the future. When the means of transportation and communication had not been developed to a certain extent, when the power of the state was not strong enough to ignore the resistance army, it was the most dangerous.
No one knew who was controlling this resistance force. Was it people who really wanted autonomy, or was it the local forces who manipulated behind the scenes, using various ways to slander and discredit the central government to achieve the goal of seizing power.
It was just like the so-called "bourgeois democratic revolution" in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.
The root cause was only the continuous development of the local forces brought about by the continuous weakening of the central power. When the local forces developed to a certain extent, the central government did not give them power, and the contradictions would inevitably intensify.
The local forces would seize power violently, overthrow the centralized Qing government, and set up a completely small government. Then everyone would happily share the fruits of the revolution.
Wearing the label of anti-feudalism, anti-national oppression, and anti-colonial exploitation, this struggle of local forces overthrowing the central government, which had no revolutionary significance subjectively, immediately became lofty.
Objectively, it might have a little bit of a motivational effect. After all, the decadent Manchurian government was overthrown by Yuan Shikai, and the "revolutionaries" created the shell of the Republic of China. As for the inside, most people did not care.
But after the revolution, did the revolutionaries really realize their slogans and goals?
Has the country become stronger?
Had the people awakened?
Did the peasants get their land?
Do workers receive benefits and guarantees?
Have the unequal treaties been abolished?
Has the country's science and technology developed?
Has China become a superpower and gained full sovereignty?
No.
The most direct result of the 'revolution' was that only the landlords and high-ranking officials were satisfied. They happily divided the power that they had seized and returned to their hometowns to happily become local tyrants without oppression. They happily lived their peaceful lives and left behind a pile of chicken feathers.
So there was a series of historical events that followed.
As soon as Xiao Ruxun thought of this, he felt that this kind of thing was very likely to happen again to the Daqin that he had established. So, he had to leave this case behind to warn future generations no matter what.
In the process of land reform, in the process of reading history books and reflecting on history, and in the more than 20 years of governing the country, Xiao Ruxun understood a lot of things.
He began to focus on the history of the struggle of the people to save the nation during the period when China was in deep suffering.
He suddenly thought of the character Sun Yat-Sen.
In the 1920s after the fall of the Qing government, he experienced a series of failures and betrayals such as the Revolution, the Second Revolution, the War of Law, and so on. He was exiled overseas several times, and especially after the Chen Jiongming rebellion, Sun Yat-Sen's thinking changed.
He gradually realized that the root cause of his repeated failures in saving the nation was not his wrong revolutionary goal, nor was it his wrong revolutionary name.
His biggest mistake was that he did not have control over the 'revolutionary base.'
His base did not exist, it was just an illusory concept.
He realized that everything he had was a castle in the air, and with a gentle push, it would collapse.
He realized that his revolution always relied on the help of local forces, local warlords, local gangs, and various big mouths, and they all had their own interests and demands. They focused on the local area and never paid attention to the world.
It was okay to use the name of Sun Yat-Sen to stir up trouble in the local area, but once he left the local area, these local forces would not follow Sun Yat-Sen to the world. The risk was too great.
The 'joint provincial autonomy' that Chen Jiongming agreed with was the ideal political state of the local forces at that time. Since it was put forward earlier, this kind of thinking was very popular in the local area at that time. Among the revolutionaries and reformists at the end of the Qing Dynasty, a considerable number of them used this as a way to save the nation.
Without power, they still played democracy, thinking that democracy was a Dali pill to save the nation. This was a classic case.
The Qing government was corrupt and incompetent, but it was a unified big government, and could not be swallowed in one bite. A small provincial government was much easier to swallow, and could be swallowed in one bite.
Sun Yat-Sen finally realized that his decades of relying on local forces to resist the local forces was the root cause of his failure. Overthrowing this and overthrowing that were all for the benefit of others, and became the weapons in the hands of the local forces.
They did not want to save the nation at all, they only wanted to make themselves more comfortable.
Unification was the real way to save the nation.
He realized that he had taken a detour for many, many years, and was miserably tricked by others.
However, in the twilight years of his life, he reflected and finally understood what he should do the most.
So he began to look for a new way of revolution, and so he came in contact with the Soviets, and came in contact with the Soviet-style centralization of power. He found that this seemed to be a feasible path.
So, Sun Yat-Sen abandoned the local warlords and gangs, and chose to unite with the Soviet Union to help him establish the foundation of a big government. On this basis, he promoted the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, reorganized the Kuomintang, and established the Whampoa Military Academy.
Unfortunately, history did not give him more time. He awakened too late, and he did not have time to see the results before he passed away, and he could not do more.
After Sun Yat-Sen passed away, some key members of the National Government in Guangzhou, who inherited his ideas, continued to try to transform the National Government from a small government to a big government with the help of the Communists.
They went on a northern expedition, and at the same time, they carried out a land revolution, and established political power in the villages and towns, trying to turn the weak local government into a national big government with the qualifications to unify the whole country.
This was the only feasible and correct path for China, which was surrounded by the great powers at that time.
They really worked hard, united the knowledgeable people in the National Government, and carried out this National Revolution with vigor.
If this process continued, the National Government in Guangzhou could truly achieve national unification and smoothly transform into a big government.
But this was not possible. Revolution was not a meal, it was a redistribution of interests, and it had to see blood.
But it was already very late when Sun Yat-Sen awakened.
He knew that he did not have much time, so he immediately took action without delay. He reorganized the Kuomintang.
In the name of reorganization, it was actually to expel the local forces and gangs from the party.
Sun Yat-Sen tried to establish a political party with the idea of establishing a national unified government, but he had too many local elements and comprador elements around him, so he actively recruited Communists who had no local background and interests to join the Kuomintang to take real power and unify the Kuomintang.
But there was not enough time. There were still a large number of local forces, pro-European and American elements, opportunists, or simply fooled people in the National Government and the reorganized Kuomintang.
Sun Yat-Sen did not have time.
And those people could not stand a government that took back the power they had won with great difficulty.
They could not stand the efforts of the Communists to overthrow them and help the peasants to step on the heads of the elites.
The young Communists were indeed radical. Under Sun Yat-Sen's strategy of seizing every second, they did not have time to do more work. They used violent methods to carry out land reform and build a grass-roots government. They even hurt many innocent people and greatly stimulated the local elements and comprador elements.
The revolutionaries, who did not have more cooperative forces and did not even have their own armed forces, obviously underestimated the madness of the local elements and comprador elements.
They were not mature enough, and even somewhat weak and compromised.
And the local elements and comprador elements, under the instigation of experienced Europeans and Americans, actively prepared and looked for suitable spokespeople.
So, a bald man who had been to the Soviet Union for an inspection, was trusted by Sun Yat-Sen, had a bit of status and reputation, and had great ambitions and great ideas stood out and became the spokesperson of all the forces.
The efforts of the people of the two parties came to an abrupt end in 1927, and the practical nature of the construction of the big government was bloodily stopped.
Ideology was used as a weapon, and the Communists were used as spokespeople for the interests of the Soviets. The awakened people were slaughtered, and the chaotic people were confused. A counterattack by the local forces against the revolutionary forces ended in the nature of 'purging the party.'
Many people wondered why the bald man wanted to kill a large number of his own people in those years.
Not only did he kill the Communists, but he also killed the Kuomintang people, even the grass-roots Kuomintang people. He cut off his own arms and destroyed the Great Wall. Under the name of purging the party, the most people he killed were the Kuomintang members. Wasn't this stupid?
Did the Kuomintang have so many 'leftists'?
Was the communist ideology a flu virus?
Was it so infectious?
Could it really change the ideology of the entire Kuomintang in just a few years, and even swallow up the largest party in the country that was dozens of times larger than them?
No.
No.
Mr. Chen did not have that much power. This could be seen from his performance in 1927. At that time, the Communists were very young.
It had nothing to do with party disputes.
This was the bald man's purpose!
This was his fundamental purpose!
He wanted to kill those grass-roots Kuomintang people to meet the requirements of the local forces who supported him to seize power and become the number one person!
What the local forces wanted was a weak and powerless small government. What they wanted was a small government that did not go to the countryside and stopped at the county level!
Not a big government that could suppress them!
This incident was not because of the difference in ideology between the two parties. The root cause was a life-and-death struggle between the local forces and the forces of the revolutionary government over the country's resources, population, and territory. It was a life-and-death duel for the future of the country!
The bald man wanted to take the revolutionary unified Kuomintang, which Sun Yat-sen had painstakingly reorganized in the last few years of his life, back to the miscellaneous party full of local forces, speculators, and comprador. He wanted to satisfy his ambition and desire to become the number one person!
He did not even care about the fate and future of the country!
At that time, the Soviets had the desire to rope in China to fight against the blockade of Europe and the United States to help China.
Because it was far from opening up in Eastern Europe at that time, it was extremely isolated and faced many internal and external crises. It urgently needed to change its living conditions around it.
At that time, the Soviet Union had more help and roped in China. It was basically sincere, and of course, it also included its own interests. At that time, compared with the harm that the European and American powers had done to China, this kind of interest was almost equivalent to free aid.
There was no need to hesitate at all to choose the lesser of two evils.
And the European and American powers only hoped that China would be as chaotic as possible. The more chaotic it was, the more in line with their interests.
When they saw that Sun Yat-sen's political philosophy had changed fundamentally, they found that the Guangzhou National Government and the Kuomintang had the goal of unifying the whole country and creating a big government. There had been a revolutionary change, and they immediately realized that things were not good.
Sun Yat-sen had prestige, and the young Communists had the ability to execute. The combination of the two suddenly set off a wave of revolution.
This would not do. If this continued, China would really achieve great unification. Wouldn't their interests be finished?
The internal local splinter forces and the external colonial forces hit it off. They looked for the bald man who was trusted by Sun Yat-sen. In 1927, the vigorous National Revolution completely failed. They slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.
However, this was not the end.
God bless China.
Soaked in the blood of failure, a batch of real revolutionaries of different backgrounds, who were basically literate but had deep sympathy and concern for the people at the bottom of the class, and who had the idea of saving the nation and saving the nation beyond the consciousness of class, were reborn in the fire.
Under the slaughter of steel knives and guns, bathed in blood, shed all immaturity, and shed all compromise and softness. These revolutionaries who had betrayed their own class abandoned their last illusions, and with noble ideas, walked towards a new life.
Twenty-two years later, China was reborn.
And the bald man, saying that he was a counter-revolutionary was not wrong at all. Really, it was not wrong at all.
He betrayed an era, and betrayed the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people.
China's most feasible experiment in saving the nation in the early 20th century ended just like that, and few people knew the cause and the cause of its end.
To this day, those heroes who sacrificed their lives for the fate of the country and the future of liberation were still being slandered.
The executioners who ate human flesh and drank human blood were praised as' pioneers of democracy 'by those who were liberated.
Of course, history was neutral, indifferent, emotionless, and not biased towards any side. Facts could not be tampered with, and the direction of history could not be changed.
In the end, the bald man paid a painful price for his betrayal.
He was restrained by local forces all his life, and his representative government, which was full of local forces, could never unify the country. It was impossible.
No matter how he established the central department, no matter how he shouted the name of the principal, no matter how he shouted the title of national leader, and even pursued a democratic political system to improve his situation, he did not really control the country.
How could a government composed of local elements tolerate a unified president?
Born of deception, will die of shame.
He was talking about him.
How could his small government, full of local splinter forces, opportunists, and compradors, be a match for a strong, unified, revolutionary, and united most of the people at the bottom of the class?
His failure was the failure of a small government against a big government, the failure of splinter against unity, the failure of the gentry and powerful landlords against the strong core of the revolutionary regime!
It was the only complete revolution in China's history that involved every single person, regardless of whether they were illiterate or not. Fortunately, the revolution succeeded.
It succeeded in an extremely thrilling way.
During the decades of the revolution, they faced the danger of total destruction several times, but they survived it all by the skin of their teeth. Every detail was carefully picked out and studied, and every detail could make people break out in cold sweat.
Even if there was only a small and insignificant deviation in any of the links, it could bring extremely terrible changes to the future history.
It was that thrilling.
Too lucky.
God bless China.
Really, China's luck still existed.
After surviving a disaster, there was bound to be good fortune, and its revival was only a matter of time.
This period of history, from beginning to end, was simply too dramatic.
Xiao Ruxun learned a lot of lessons from it.
He realized that once the local forces rose, it was very easy to use the idea of democracy and freedom to resist the central forces.
They were good at building themselves into fighters for democracy and freedom, infinitely magnifying the disadvantages of the central government, infinitely elevating their own advantages, creating an illusory utopia.
The people at the bottom of the class needed to know that the local forces and the central forces were incompatible. The local forces oppressed the people at the bottom of the class, and resisted the central forces, shaking the foundation of the country.
Once it became a trend, the country's situation would be turbulent, and foreign enemies would quickly intervene, unscrupulously plundering interests, and the people who would suffer would be the people who lost the protection of the government.
The rich had no borders. With money and means of production, they could go anywhere to live a good life, go to the so-called countries that protected the interests of the rich, and live a life like heaven.
And those without money could only wait for death.
The Soviet Union was a living example, an eternal negative example.
A large government that could suppress the local forces and maintain the stability of the country could protect the interests of the people at the bottom of the class to the greatest extent.
Even if it didn't look so "democratic and free," even if it didn't look so "human."
But it could guarantee you the greatest degree of security and enough interests for you to survive, as long as you were willing to work, diligent enough, and would not use reaping without sowing as the standard for survival.
People who tried to reap without sowing, unless they were lucky, would be buried with grass five meters tall wherever they went.
The rich didn't care about this, and even disliked and despised it, wanting to overthrow all this, but the ordinary people who always occupied the majority really needed it.
The interests and composition represented by a large government and a small government would inevitably bring about such a difference.
This was Xiao Ruxun's biggest worry. He was really worried that the Daqin he established would once again follow the old path of the former Ming Dynasty, and follow the old path of those countries that were once prosperous but eventually lost to him.
In this world full of competition and hostile forces that implemented the law of the jungle, to protect the survival of the people, a large government was essential.
The reason why all the countries that were or had been strong must be because of the leadership of a large government, and its decline was bound to be accompanied by the rise of elitism and the rise of local forces. Even if it was a long time, even if the family was rich, it would not be able to withstand squandering.
The gradually deteriorating small government and the country it represented would definitely fail, defeated by the large government of a powerful country.
Just like in ancient China, the strength of dynasties and empires was due to the autocratic and powerful monarchs, and the weakness and demise of dynasties and empires was due to the decline of imperial power and the central government. The empires were not autocratic enough, and thus were defeated by the more centralized and autocratic central country.
Democracy or not was never a necessary factor in whether a country was strong or not.
But it was an excellent weapon to cause the decline, division, and chaos of a powerful and unified country. Once it was implemented, it could push the country into a bottomless abyss, and it would no longer be able to fight against a powerful enemy.
Once democracy or not became a political correct, the unified government would inevitably be at a disadvantage in public opinion and lose its righteousness, and those ambitious people who used the so-called democracy to make a lot of money would become the real winners.
And the pitiful thing was that most people didn't even know that the democracy they pursued was just a fictional idea from the beginning. It didn't exist at all, in the past, present, and future.
Fortunately, Xiao Ruxun could say that he didn't have to worry about this while he was alive.
But unfortunately, Xiao Ruxun didn't know if his descendants could understand his idea, and thus turned the good situation into a mess, causing the good Central Empire to fall apart and disintegrate beyond recognition.
He began to realize that the imperial system was not the best and most suitable system for this country. He began to realize that if he wanted to maintain this situation, it was not enough to have a single emperor.
There were smart people, but there were also fools. It seemed too dangerous to pin the rise and fall of the world on one person.
The Empire could not maintain a strong state forever, and the Empire would inevitably decline.
So, what should he do?
In the third year of Xiao Zhenbang's reign, in the second year of Yongxing of the Daqin, Xiao Ruxun peeped into the secrets of history in the Wanshou Palace.
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