The Birth of the National Flag

  "Don't be too tired, take a rest."

  Yang Shuo Ming looked at his wife's rosy face and nodded. He pulled her hand, letting her sit in his arms.

  "I really can't believe you were able to come up with the plan so quickly." Huang Yunzhi flipped through Yang Shuoming's development plan, marveling at it. "And it's so detailed too."

  Yang Shuo Ming just smiled slightly and didn't say anything after hearing his wife's praise.

  He certainly couldn't tell her that much of the content in this detailed development plan was actually completed with the help of his "Super Computer Eye", and with the "Super Computer Eye", he spent a lot less effort on data analysis and specific planning.

  "If all these plans are realized, I have no idea what this place will become." Huang Yunzhi said while looking at the plan book, "It's really unbelievable."

  "You'll see." Yang Shuo Ming smiled slightly, "I guarantee it."

  For this plan book, for Yang Shuo Ming, it is just the starting point of his changing history!

  "Master, madam, old master and Mr. Wu have arrived." Silver Phoenix came in to report.

  Hearing her father had arrived, Huang Yunzhi immediately broke free from Yang Shuoming's arms and stood up.

  "You two are sneaking off into the mountains again, what are you up to?" Huang Shi-yao's laughter echoed from the doorway, "Didn't you find some rare treasure again?"

  Yang Shuo Ming and Huang Yunzhi exchanged a knowing glance, Yang Shuo Ming winked at his loving wife, and Huang Yunzhi smiled and replied to her father: "Of course, Dad, and it's priceless."

  "What? What treasure? Let me take a look." Huang Shiye smiled and lifted the beaded curtain, walking in.

  Yang Shuo Ming and his wife got up to welcome Huang Shi Yao and Wu Jie. Yang Shuo Ming moved chairs for the two of them, letting them sit down. Huang Yunzhi then took out the backpacks they had brought with them when they came up the mountain, carefully taking out a large piece of natural rock salt crystal from inside, handing it over to her father.

  Huang Shiyao held up this crystal of rock salt, his eyes wide with wonder, as if he didn't dare to believe it was real.

  "I've heard that ordinary people call this 'salt root', a precious spiritual medicine, which can cure any disaster or illness if you eat just a little bit." Wu Jie looked at the rock salt crystal in Huang Shi-yao's hand and smiled, saying "It's indeed priceless."

  After listening to Wu Jie's words, Huang Shi Yao used his fingers to pinch some salt powder from the bottom of the rock salt crystal and carefully put it in his mouth to taste. He couldn't help but nod repeatedly.

  "Good stuff, good stuff."

  Looking at Huang Shi Yao's excited appearance, Yang Shuo Ming secretly smiled in his heart.

  He knew that his father-in-law had been completely moved, and next, it was how to put the plan into practice.

  "This is a plan I've drafted, please take a look," said Yang Shuo Ming. "Due to the huge upfront costs of these projects, I plan to raise funds through a shareholding system, that is, by establishing a comprehensive joint-stock company." As he spoke, he handed the plan over to Huang Shi Yao.

  "Joint-stock? Good! Good!" Huang Shiyao handed the crystal of rock salt in his hand to Wu Jie, and took over the plan book and couldn't wait to take a look.

  Wu Jie watched Huang Shi Yao's movements, a faint smile flashing at the corner of his mouth.

  After discussing the details and sending off the enthusiastic Huang Shi-yao, Yang Shuo-ming lay on the bed to rest. Huang Yun-zhi was packing their things, and after locking some important items in the cabinet, her gaze fell on the brocade box containing the "Ganxi Town Guardian Seal" when she became somewhat dazed.

  She thought for a while and then found those blank powers of attorney again, looking through them one by one.

  Yang Shuo Ming noticed her movements, but he didn't think much of it. Perhaps due to the exhaustion from making plans, he felt an inexplicable fatigue and fell asleep quickly after lying down on the bed.

  Yang Shuo Ming's slight snoring brought Huang Yunzhi's thoughts back, she put down the book in her hand, got up and came to Yang Shuo Ming's side, gently covering him with a quilt.

  Looking at Yang Shuo Ming's face, which was as handsome and lovely as a child, Huang Yunzhi's eyes flashed with an unprecedented eagerness and firmness. She seemed to have made some important decision, turned around and returned to the table, found the blank appointment letter of "Ganxi Town Guardian" among the empty ones. She took a look, confirmed that there was no mistake, took up a pen, and wrote Yang Shuo Ming's name in the blank space for the appointee's name with beautiful regular script.

  After completing this filling, Huang Yunzhi picked up the "Ganxi Town Guardian" appointment document that was no longer blank, carefully read it again, and then carefully put it away with the brocade box containing the seal, locked it in a hidden compartment of the cabinet.

  When Yang Shuo Ming woke up, it was already somewhat late.

  Yang Shuo Ming sat up straight in bed and the first thing he saw was his new wife's smiling face.

  "Look at you sleeping so soundly, that's why I didn't wake you," Huang Yunzhi said. "Are you hungry? What do you want to eat?"

  "It doesn't matter what you eat." Yang Shuoming said, wanting to get out of bed. Huang Yunzhi helped him bring over his clothes. Yang Shuoming smiled wryly and shook his head slightly as he looked at her serving him.

  As a traverser who came from the future and had been living independently for a long time, this kind of life where food comes with opening one's mouth and clothes come with stretching out one's hand was still somewhat unaccustomed to him.

  "Do you have anything to draw with?" Yang Shuo Ming suddenly asked.

  "Really? You want to draw?" Huang Yunzhi looked at him with some surprise.

  "Yeah, I want to draw something." Yang Shaoming nodded.

  "Alright, after dinner I'll find it for you." Huang Yunzhi said with a smile, "It just so happens that I get to see your masterpiece."

  After dinner, Huang Yunzhi brought painting tools for Yang Shuoming and helped him set up the painting table, laid out the rice paper, adjusted the watercolor, prepared the pen and ink, and then stood aside like a little servant girl, quietly watching him, waiting for him to start drawing.

  Yang Shuo Ming picked up his brush, took a deep breath, and under the gaze of his loving wife's admiring eyes, he drew an enormous square frame on the pristine rice paper with a brush dipped in thick ink.

  Huang Yunzhi looked at the rectangular frame, then glanced at Yang Shuoming, blinked her beautiful big eyes, and a hint of puzzlement appeared on her face.

  Yang Shuo Ming continued to draw a few strokes inside the frame, and soon a large hollow "person" character appeared inside the frame. The entire frame was also divided into two parts by a horizontal line.

  "What is this?" Huang Yunzhi looked at Yang Shuoming in surprise and asked cautiously.

  Yang Shuo Ming looked at his loving wife's puzzled expression, smiled slightly, and began coloring inside the frame.

  Yang Shuo Ming quickly painted the top half of the square blue and the bottom half red, then painted the character for "person" yellow. When he finished coloring, Huang Yunzhi, who was clever as ice and snow, already knew what he had drawn.

  "What flag is this?" She looked at the painting her husband had just finished, vaguely sensing the profound meaning behind it.

  "We're going to call the company we founded 'Renhe' Company," said Yang Shuoming, "This is the company's flag."

  "People-oriented, harmony brings wealth, I guess this is the meaning behind the company name you chose." Huang Yunzhi's eyes showed admiration again, "Then what does this flag mean?"

  "I want to let the people on this land live under the blue sky!" Yang Shuo Ming stared at his own flag pattern, and a determination he had never seen before flashed in his eyes. "I want every person on this land to become a true Chinese who stands tall and proud!"

  Huang Yunzhi understood the significance of Yang Shuo Ming's design for this flag and couldn't help but nod repeatedly.

  "This flag can actually be used as a national flag." Huang Yunzhi looked at the flag design drawn with water ink on the table, raised her head, glanced at Yang Shaoming and said softly.

  Yang Shuo Ming turned around and met her gaze, the couple exchanged a smile, without saying anything else.

  Just as Huang Yunzhi guessed, the original intention of Yang Shouming's design for this flag was not to serve as a signboard for the "Renhe" company, but to make this flag become China's national flag!

  The meaning he gave to this "red blue yellow tricolor flag" has far exceeded the relevant designs of this era and later generations.

  At that time, China had various designs and uses of national flags. The flag used by the revolutionary army in the Wuchang Uprising was the "Iron Blood Eighteen Star Flag" of the Gong Jin Hui, with eighteen stars representing the eighteen provinces of China at the time (although some sources say there were twenty-one provinces, including the three eastern provinces, which were considered as one province and were thought to be a dowry brought by the Manchu people when they entered the pass, so some revolutionaries excluded this province from the Chinese map! This shows how narrow-minded and biased their thinking was, not much different from the "angry youth" of later generations). When Shanghai and Jiangsu declared independence, they used the "Five-color Flag" advocated by Song Jiaoren and Chen Qimei, with red, yellow, blue, white, and black representing the five major ethnic groups in China, symbolizing the idea of "five ethnic groups living together". Guangzhou used the "Blue Sky White Sun Flag" designed by Sun Yat-sen when it declared independence. When Chen Jiongming launched an uprising in Huizhou, he used the "Jingzi Flag", which took the meaning of "equal land rights" from the well-field system of the Zhou Dynasty. In addition to these, there were also flags with white (meaning "to cleanse and purify") and "Golden Melon Axe Flag" (representing "military strength").

  After the founding of the Republic, the Senate had a fierce debate on the national flag. In the end, the five-color flag used by the Shanghai Military Governor's Office was adopted as the national flag, the Iron-Blood 19-Star Flag (with an additional star due to strong protests from representatives of the three eastern provinces) as the army flag, and the Blue Sky White Sun Three-Color Flag as the naval flag.

  Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the revolution, had always been resentful that the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag he designed could only be used as a naval flag and not as a national flag. However, in Yang Shuo-ming's view, the design of the Blue Sky with a White Sun flag was actually very unsuccessful.