Chapter 26: The Rebel's Sleepless Night

  Up all night making revolution

  Yao Wenhui lay there deep in thought, his body numb, and could only roll over to continue thinking: "To change a country and make it progress, one must reform its social practices. The Qing dynasty was an agricultural society, and the main social practices were also four points:

  One is farming, which was the most basic and almost the only mode of production in ancient society, and it was the most basic social practice.

  Second is reproduction, which is the basis of social continuation, involving various aspects such as marriage.

  Three is education, the fundamental of ancient education is to serve the ruling and fooling people, it's better to say it's indoctrination rather than education. The Manchu Qing dynasty took enslaving education as its guiding ideology, while modern scientific knowledge education in Western style was completely non-existent.

  Fourth is religious activity, which is an important means of ruling for the ruling class. Through a series of hierarchical rituals, there are very strict regulations on how to worship and how to offer sacrifices. In the process of seeking God's guidance, seeking protection and benefits from God, it can strengthen the severity of class rule, spiritually enslave the people, and repeatedly reinforce the idea of slavery.

  How can I thoroughly transform the social practice of the Qing Dynasty and establish a more advanced mode of production, and on this basis establish a new and more advanced production relationship?

  "Alright, let me smash everything and rebuild it!"

  Yao Wenyue became more and more annoyed as he thought about it, unable to fall asleep: "In the end, I still have to solve a problem of social logic and national logic."

  The national logic of the feudal dynasty is simply a blood relationship, and all purposes are motivated by maintaining imperial rule. However, because this blood relationship is extremely complex, it cannot be effectively enlarged, and forcibly enlarging it will lead to the expansion of family members' ambitions and rebellions to seize power. Therefore, it is impossible to transform the blood relationship rooted in the family model into a feudal ruling regime with an incredibly vast territory and an incredibly large population.

  Therefore, the rural areas of the Qing Dynasty mainly adhered to social logic and did not care about national logic. The focus of social logic is on agricultural production, commodity transactions, good public facilities such as local roads and bridges, family population growth, and other social benefits closely related to life. The concept of the state is too far away from farmers and scholars, they cannot think about problems with national logic.

  The modern concept of national logic is basically divided into nationalist logic and ideological logic. These two logics are also divided into moderate and radical types, with the moderate type advocating coexistence and the radical type promoting exclusion.

  But the Qing dynasty belonged to a minority ruling over the majority, with consolidating power and fooling the people as its top priority, in order to maintain this kind of slave-like autocratic rule. Therefore, its national logic is extremely distorted and backward compared to the 19th-century civilized powers, and it is actually a product of the intersection of hierarchical bureaucratic rule and Manchu aristocratic class rule, using Confucianism's loyal monarchist ideology as a tool for ideological control.

  A thorough analysis of reality does not necessarily mean being able to solve problems. Yao Fang suddenly sat up from bed, a pair of ambitious eyes piercing through the darkness in the room.

  "In the 2011 that I am in, China's revolutionary pioneers were young and vigorous when they did great things and lost their lives at a young age, creating a modern national regime with a highly unified national logic and social logic. They initially completed the integration of people's democratic form of social logic and state capital logic. However, in 1875, how should I reform the social logic? Or should I utilize this inherent old logic to first achieve control over the social structure and reform of social practice, and then come back to improve the social logic?"

  For someone who has received higher education, thinking about society is a pleasure. But if you start from the point of rebelling against it, it's a torture.

  Yao Weng finally felt the kind of nervous and anxious feeling that the Chinese people who studied dragon-slaying techniques throughout history had. However, those ancient Chinese people couldn't jump out of the cycle of historical law, so their research direction in dragon-slaying techniques was basically following the path of political change, serving high-ranking officials. Until the October Revolution sounded its first shot, bringing Marxism to China, and only then did the Chinese people find the true dragon-slaying technique for the first time.

  If one does not have a clear theory to guide oneself, then it is really impossible to launch a revolution like a headless fly. Is it enough to just stage an armed uprising? Is it enough to just throw off the feudalistic air that clings to one's body?

  Yao Fan really couldn't smell any special scent of a king on himself.

  So that night, Yao Wenyuan did not sleep all night, and in theory, he deduced the steps of rebellion, the focus and the main grasp, the guiding ideology and program for each step, the destruction and construction that should be done. The next morning, he jumped out of bed with red eyes, wrote down "On the Historical Inevitability of the Victory of the Chinese Revolution" after grinding ink, as a result of this night's plan.

  Yao Fan faced with the impending disaster, had to make an advance plan for rebellion. He had no confidence in the system engineering that he was about to launch.

  Third sister saw Yao Fang getting out of bed and hurriedly went out to prepare breakfast, but didn't know that Yao Fang was also preparing breakfast... No, rebellion!

  From that day on, Yao Fan quickly took action and began to take the road of rebellion step by step. He had no confidence in success at all, but he knew he had to do so.

  Because of Yao Fang's last instructions before leaving, He Wan Nian had already helped Yao Fang find a large mansion. Although it did not reach the level of those royal palaces in Beijing with left, middle and right wings and more than ten or twenty courtyards, it still had nine interconnected courtyards stretching over three rows. Against the back wall of the courtyard, there was also a stable that could accommodate livestock, which was quite large and could easily hold five or six horses.

  "Brother Yao, this house is the property of the Yang family in Jimo. Previously, it was divided and rented out to small workers and vendors from the city for residence. Although the house is big, the rooms are very simple, and the price of 280 taels is a bit high." He Wan Nian saw that Yao Fang had already taken a liking to it, and somewhat reluctantly advised him.

  "It looks okay to me, buying it and finding workers to renovate it will be fine."

  He Wan Nian slightly shook his head, apparently not thinking that this business was very profitable. He continued: "Brother Yao, last time you asked me to find a place outside the city to buy land and build a warehouse. I've already inquired about it with the real estate agent. The area north of the city, including Shi Tan salt flats and Bei Ling Mountain, totals 5,660 mu. These saline-alkali lands, sandy lands, and Bei Ling Mountain all belong to the Zhou family. Last time I visited the Zhou family, I mentioned that I was interested in this useless wasteland and asked if they were willing to sell some of it. Old Man Zhou Shouxiong was very straightforward, saying that as long as it's Shi Tan salt flats, he would sell it at market price of 1.5 yuan per mu. We can have as much as we want, but the deed tax must be paid by us, and the Zhou family won't contribute a single penny."

  Yao Fandao: "That land has too much sand and gravel, and it's also a saline-alkali soil. The Zhou family can't grow grain there either. Usually, they just let the livestock graze there. Since it doesn't count as arable land, we don't have to pay taxes on it. It would be perfect for building warehouses. You go tell the Zhou family that I'm taking all of it!"

  "All for nothing!? 5,660 mu! This is 56 hectares of useless wasteland! What does Elder Shang want with so much barren land?! Building a warehouse doesn't require that much land!"

  Yao Fandao: "I want to build a private villa."

  He Wan Nian smiled and said: "Brother Yao, now that the estate is built, I must take a good look at it. How did you manage to use up so much land?"

  Yao Fang smiled but didn't speak, in his heart he was eagerly looking forward to the early completion of his rebellious base.

  In Yao Fang's mind, this piece of land was worth only over 8,000 taels of silver, but in the future, he could build warehouses and bases here, completely independent of Qingdao City's geographical location, allowing him to do some shady dealings that couldn't be seen by others.

  He Wan Nian then went to help Yao Fan Zhang buy land and houses.

  Luo Guanqun and Wang Chuannian were sent to Tai'an by Yao Feng, asking which family was willing to help Yao Feng record his genealogy and what the specific price would be. Before leaving, Yao Feng instructed the two that as long as the other party was willing to let him join their household registration, they could negotiate a good price without being stingy.

  In the next few days, Yao Weng wore a new wig with a hat on his head and carefully observed He Wan's operation of the general store of Early Dawn Business Firm. From handling official documents to arranging apprentices to set up branch stores in various places, contacting merchants from all over, and dealing with business firms that came to place orders, he was busy but happy. After observing for a while, he also roughly understood how commerce worked during the Qing dynasty.

  In just a few days, Yao Fang's land and house purchase transactions were also completed, and the deed tax was paid.

  That week, the Zhou family sold a lot of wasteland and were very happy. They also felt that the gift Yao Fang sent through someone last time was very generous and worth befriending, so they intentionally wanted to make friends with him and asked their servant to invite Yao Fang to come to the Zhou's house to watch the temple fair the next day.

  Yao Fangan was initially reluctant, but Sun Maowen said this was a great opportunity to get acquainted with local gentry and insisted that Yao Fangan go in person, so Yao Fangan had no choice but to agree.

  Cicadas chirp and willows sway, a refreshing breeze blows by.

  Yao Fan thought that the business was already on the right track and there were no problems, so he asked He Shicheng to bring a few partners to the warehouse to take out the bicycles. Yao Fan began teaching his partners how to assemble them in the spacious backyard of the store.

  Three bicycles were assembled under the patient guidance of Yao Fang, and one of his apprentices had already memorized the process.

  "You're quite good! What's your name?" Yao Feng asked that nimble fellow.

  "If I go back home in the east, on the fourth of next week, at home I'm also the fourth in line, with three older brothers ahead of me. Just call me Little Fourth."

  Yao Fanzan said, "Little Fourth, you're clever and handy, from now on just follow me. I'll tell He Zhuangzhu to hire someone else later."

  These days, Zhou Si knew that Yao Fan was a very easy-going person, without any airs, and extremely generous to the people around him. Now, hearing that Yao Fan wanted to take him in as a partner in his household, how could he not be delighted? He immediately bowed: "Zhou Si is willing to listen to Master's instructions, from now on I will definitely do my best to serve Master."

  Yao Feng instructed: "You all continue to pretend, pretend for twenty more vehicles, then I'll teach you how to ride a car."

  In the backyard, a group of apprentices heard that Yao Fan was going to teach them how to ride bicycles and suddenly became excited, opening one by one the paper boxes containing the bicycles and assembling them together. Each box had its own simple assembly tools, which were carefully collected by Yao Fan. He thought that although these tools were insignificant in 2011, they would be a great help in this era. From now on, every bicycle sold would come with these tools, making it convenient for the buyer to disassemble and repair their bicycles at any time.