Chapter 12: Buying the Hearts of the People (Part 1)

  In just six days, the Revival Army took down the entire northern Anhui, and with a speed that was faster than the thunder, occupied the entire Anhui and northern Jiangsu region.

  The territory occupied by the Revival Army is vast, but its momentum is not great.

  Because Xiang Army did not have telegraph lines across the country, while Wuchang had already sent out telegrams nationwide to announce the establishment of the Republic of China, it instantly became the target that Qing court was eager to eliminate.

  The only big movement of the Restoration Army was to occupy the county seat of Shanghai, where information spread the fastest. As soon as Shanghai was recovered, the revolutionary party immediately jumped out to pick up the peaches.

  However, the Restoration Army was not in the least bit concerned and instead acted like a swarm of locusts, sweeping away everything from the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, including its workers, who were all forcibly sent aboard ships to be transported to northern Jiangsu.

  However, the subsequent news was shocking. After Fuxing Army captured Anqing, they killed Anhui Governor Zhu Jiabao, and soon after, the news of Anhui and Subei falling also came out one after another.

  The Revival Army quickly annihilated and captured the new army of a town in Anhui, as well as the new army of a town in northern Jiangsu. The entire Huai River region was left with only one brigade of the new army that could be mobilized by Cheng Dequan.

  Immediately afterwards, Jiang Yu telegraphed the whole country from Subei, declaring Anhui and Subei as an independent republic. The telegram expressed support for the Wuchang Revolutionary Government and recognized the establishment of the Republic of China.

  Cheng Dequan was shocked, and then he received a letter from Su Bei, written by Jiang Yu himself, stating that he hoped Cheng Dequan would prioritize national righteousness and the stability of the local people, and declare his support for the Republic.

  At the same time, Zhang Cuo also rushed from Nantong to Suzhou. Yu Xianjia, the president of the Suzhou Chamber of Commerce, organized the Suzhou gentry to propose a suggestion to Cheng Dequan to support the Republic.

  Cheng Dequan, under the instigation of a group of gentry, sent an ultimatum to the Qing government, hoping that the Qing government would immediately change its policy. However, this telegram was not taken seriously by the Qing government, and Cheng Dequan declared Jiangsu's independence on October 25.

  Cheng Dequan, who declared Jiangsu's independence, received support from Jiang You, and at the subsequent meeting to form the Jiangsu government, Jiang You strongly supported Cheng Dequan as the governor of both Huaiyang.

  The title of Governor is just an empty name, what's most important is to actually control the territory. Jiang Yu supported Cheng Dequan in establishing himself politically on one hand, and on the other hand, he quickly digested and occupied the territory with a swift and decisive attitude.

  First, dispatch administrative personnel to various county towns in Anhui and northern Jiangsu to establish local governments, courts, police stations, tax bureaus, chambers of commerce, agricultural bureaus, water conservancy bureaus, civil affairs bureaus, and education bureaus. At the same time, immediately invest financial resources to expand the military, with this expansion aiming to form an army corps consisting of two divisions.

  Simultaneously train a detachment of armed police, with one battalion stationed in each county town. These armed police are not all stationed in the county towns; they also need to be stationed in rural areas, with 100 stationed in the county town and 30 stationed in rural areas.

  With the addition of the armed police force, the strength of the Fuxing Army will increase to 450,000, with the armed police accounting for half. These armed police are also temporary and cannot be downsized before thoroughly digesting the territory. After digesting these territories, the scale of the armed police can be reduced, and at that time, they can be withdrawn to maintain law and order in new territories.

  In addition to the police force, the personnel will exceed 500,000.

  Such a large-scale recruitment has lowered some of the recruitment requirements, but the regular army's requirements have not been reduced at all.

  At the same time, Jiang Yu's faction sent people to universities across the country to publicize and openly recruit local administrative personnel.

  Managing a country is not something that soldiers can do. After soldiers finish fighting wars, they should go home and enjoy their retirement. Governing the country should still be left to university students.

  The administrative personnel appointed by Jiang Yu were all young, had not been in contact with the officialdom, and had not contracted the bad habits of the officialdom. They were ambitious, passionate, and full of energy and drive.

  The problem of corruption is actually easy to solve. As long as the top level is not rotten and there are perfect regulatory systems, it is impossible for large-scale corruption to occur.

  Jiang Yu fully employed young people as administrative personnel, who had not been tainted by officialdom and had not formed a corrupt atmosphere. With the establishment of a supervisory system, it was impossible for officials to form a corrupt party. As long as officials did not form cliques, there would be no so-called "officials protecting each other". If an official was corrupt, they would be "exposed to light and die". Even if there was corruption, it could only be done secretly, which would not affect the overall situation.

  The most frightening problem is that some officials embezzle money openly and then are not punished, which leads to very serious consequences. Other officials will follow suit, thinking "if you can be corrupt, why can't I?" As a result, everyone becomes corrupt, and once they do, they immediately form cliques, creating a network of corrupt power that grows more entrenched with time, ultimately becoming unstoppable.

  Apart from county officials, Jiangsu and Sichuan also dispatched administrative personnel to the township level, while the village level implemented a council system, where a village director was elected, followed by the election of a dozen or so village councillors.

  At the same time, a "General Administration Bureau" was established, and Jiang Yu became the director of the bureau. As for whether this administration bureau is legitimate or not, others' opinions don't count, only the gun counts.

  Even if the central government sends officials, what can they do? As long as the troops don't come in, we can render the central government's officials useless. When giving them face, we can accommodate them; when not giving them face, we can directly drive them away with sticks and clubs.

  Once Jiang Yu's administrative system is established, Anhui and Subei will be firmly under his control.

  The Deputy Director of the Administrative Bureau is actually in charge of operations. Jiang Yu didn't have much time to put into the specific implementation of administration, he only took charge of controlling the direction.

  The candidate for the deputy director was soon determined. Jiang Yu selected a person with the most outstanding ability from the administrative personnel trained, who was a 25-year-old university student named Zhao Haizhou. Zhao Haizhou's writing skills were not outstanding, but his administrative ideas were very clear and his execution ability was strong, and he quickly emerged in the administrative training class.

  "Subordinate thinks that the most important thing at present is to win over the hearts of ordinary people, and then we can carry out further local reforms. If we move to touch the interests of landlords without winning over the hearts of the people, the locality will fall into chaos." Zhao Haizhou suggested to Jiang Yu, who nodded and said: "That's right, what do you think?"

  "The first is to rectify the miscellaneous taxes, currently there are over a hundred kinds of miscellaneous taxes in various places, almost everything is taxed, and the common people are complaining. The second is to stabilize prices, mainly grain prices, which are what urban residents care about most, but not so much for rural villagers. The third is to reduce rent, but this will affect the interests of landlords, and since autumn harvest has passed, it can be delayed until next year. However, we can first cancel usury, many rural tenant farmers' high-interest loans have been owed for generations and still cannot be repaid. The fourth is to suppress bandits and gangsters, especially those local tyrants who bully villagers, and eliminate them to bring joy to the people. Eliminating bandits can maintain social stability. The fifth is to provide relief to the people who are struggling to make ends meet, winter is coming soon, we must ensure that no one in our territory starves or freezes to death."

  Zhao Haizhou made five suggestions in a row, and Jiang Yuen nodded, then took out a detailed plan.

  Rectification of the li tax is necessary, but increasing fiscal revenue is also necessary. Therefore, while abolishing the li tax entirely, Jiang Yu proposed a "tobacco and liquor monopoly" system. Tobacco and liquor are not necessities for the common people, so monopolizing them will not cause any problems. Zhao Haizhou responded: "In the past, the Qing court had issued a ban on wine, but what was prohibited was long-distance transportation, not hotels brewing their own wine for their own use. As a result, ordinary people did not have wine for sacrificial rituals, and later, ordinary people brewed their own wine, which led to even more severe grain consumption. One of the main reasons why there is not enough food to eat is due to winemaking. The Jiangnan region was originally a grain-producing area, but as a result, large areas were planted with glutinous rice, leading to a situation where even grain could not be self-sufficient."

  "This is a big problem, so let's ban hotels from brewing their own wine. We'll set up several large wineries ourselves and increase the efficiency of wine production." Jiang Yu decided, his one sentence made those hotels lose a traditional profit-making project, but it had no impact on the lives of ordinary people.

  Apart from tobacco and liquor monopolies, Jiang Yu also plans to let the Huadong Group monopolize production. Monopoly can concentrate wealth for use and create fewer billionaires. When there are too many rich people (i.e., those with some money but not too much, numerous as cow hair covering the ground), they will inevitably compete with ordinary people for scarce social resources, leading to intense social contradictions.

  Tobacco and alcohol don't need innovation themselves, they can be suppressed by private capital merchants to whatever extent they can.

  The grain price issue, Jiang Yu decided to let the Huadong Group be involved in grain sales. As the saying goes, whoever controls the grain controls the people, and whoever controls oil occupies the continent.

  Of course, controlling grain sales is not enough, we must also control grain production, processing and supply. Of course, rice has to be eaten mouthful by mouthful.

  Jiang Yu decided to invest 10 million yuan in importing grain, first ensuring the grain supply in Anhui and northern Jiangsu, so as not to have a problem of insufficient grain supply.

  At the same time, large-scale rice processing plants and flour processing plants should be set up in various places, and breeding bases should also be established, which is also a project that Huadong Group will be involved in on a large scale.

  Apart from grain, Jiang Yu decided to give away salt for free to win people's hearts and also to cooperate with the Civil Affairs Bureau. Those who registered their households at the Civil Affairs Bureau could receive salt according to the number of people in their household, thus abandoning the traditional tax on salt.

  Salt is a necessity for people's lives, but many times ordinary people are forced to not be able to afford salt, can only eat bland food, and even have to eat nitre salt.

  The production cost of salt is very low, and the extraction cost of rock salt in Huaiyin is lower than that of sea salt. Giving away some free salt does not require much money, but it can achieve a very good effect and benefit rural people.

  Furthermore, the problem of usury was rectified. To severely crack down on this, the Administrative Office issued the "Loan Regulations", abolishing all high-interest loans with interest rates higher than 23%, and allowing borrowers to not repay the principal. Later generations defined interest rates exceeding 30% as usury, while Jiang Yu defined interest rates higher than 23% as usury.

  There is also the issue of relief, Jiang Yu came up with two sets of plans. One is to set up a shelter, and first place those vagrants, elderly people and children who have no one to support them into the shelter, while for beggars, they will be forcibly taken in.

  After entering the shelter, if they are physically fit and have labor ability, they will be arranged to work in a factory. Those who do not have labor ability will be supported by the government. Orphans will be uniformly arranged to work as child laborers in factories and receive education at the factory school.

  At the same time, Jiang Yu immediately allocated 300 million yuan to invest in infrastructure construction, which was used for the construction of highways, railways and water conservancy projects in Anhui and northern Jiangsu. In this way, ordinary people can go to work on construction sites, have a mouthful of food to eat, will not starve to death, and can also keep their own factories operating.

  Of course, investing in water conservancy projects that do not generate income is the government's responsibility, using government funds. Currently, the administrative office only has 35 million yuan, and still needs to borrow from the China Eastern Group.

  The railways and highways were built by the Huadong Group, controlling the railways and highways is an important link in monopoly, because there are toll stations on the highways and railway freight. Similarly, as a commodity, Huadong Group's goods can be sold to the market at extremely favorable transportation prices, while competitors have to pay relatively expensive transportation costs.

  It can also absorb some private capital, but it must ensure that Wanda Group has absolute control.

  As for eliminating bandits and gangsters, that's a must. The captured bandits and ruffians can be sent to dig mines, they are free labor forces.

  There are also those serious criminals who have violated the law, executing them would be too much of a waste, taking them to dig mines would instead create benefits.

  At this time, Jiang Yu was like a wealthy landlord, meticulously managing the finances and making detailed calculations to increase revenue, but for now, there were no significant achievements in terms of reducing expenditure.

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