Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 248

The French dream was that French Indochina would become France's base for expansion and a source of wealth in the East, equivalent to the role of the Indian subcontinent in the British Empire. The Guangzhou Bay concession treaty signed between China and France in 1899 marked the most brilliant moment of this French dream in the East.

However, after driving away the weak Chinese officials, the French found that they could not deal with the Chinese farmers in the countryside who were defending their land. The French tried to replicate their colonial policy of seizing land in Vietnam, but it did not work at all in Guangzhou Bay. As a last resort, the French had to compromise with the local farmers and recognize their ownership and management rights over the land.

Unable to obtain free land from Guangzhou Bay, the French had to spend real money to develop the area, hoping to plunder the wealth of the local countryside through commercial power. However, the French encountered a formidable opponent here: the British, who controlled Hong Kong Island, had long held a geographical advantage and established a commercial network connecting to the mainland using the Pearl River system. The French, whose domestic industry was not well-developed, were naturally at a disadvantage against the British industry, which relied on cheap raw materials from India.

The French attempt to unify Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan into a single economic and trade entity failed from the outset. Furthermore, France's military strength was also hampered in the East following the escalation of Franco-German tensions and the outbreak of the Far East War.

After France acquired the territory on the east bank of the Mekong River from Siam in 1907, Siam sided with Britain, forcing France to halt its expansion in Southeast Asia. Thereafter, France focused its efforts on Vietnam, attempting to use Cambodia, Laos, Guangxi, and Yunnan as buffer zones against neighboring powers.

After the formation of the Asian League, French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies naturally became the League's primary targets for liberation. The Germans were naturally pleased to see Japan and China advance southward and dismember French Indochina. This led to the Asian League's support for the national independence movements in French Indochina.

As early as the establishment of the Wuhan Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Committee, Vietnamese national independence activists had already taken notice of this rising revolutionary force in China. At that time, it was also a period when the old Vietnamese loyalist party had failed and the Vietnamese national independence movement was in a low ebb. Therefore, some Vietnamese national independence activists came to Wuhan to learn from this experience.

The learning experiences of these Vietnamese intellectuals in Wuhan greatly promoted the transformation of the Vietnamese national independence movement into a capitalist democratic movement. Phan Bai Chau, who had studied in Wuhan and Tokyo, Japan, reorganized the Duy Renewal Society after returning to Vietnam, abolished the constitutional monarchy program, established a democratic constitutional program, and renamed the Duy Renewal Society the Restoration Society.

Although Phan Pei Chau believed that the Wuhan regime established by the Workers' Party was powerful, he thought that the members of the Vietnam Reform Society were unlikely to agree with the land reform policy. This was because most members of the Vietnam Reform Society were driven by a hatred of the French occupation of Vietnamese land and a belief in national independence. In other words, the main members of the Reform Society were from landlord families.

Therefore, Phan Pei Chau was more in line with Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People. After learning about the Tongmenghui's program in Tokyo, he went to Guangzhou to meet with Sun Yat-sen and incorporated Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People into the political propositions of the Vietnam Restoration Society.

Of course, Sun Yat-sen could not provide the Restoration Society with support beyond its ideals. With the rise of Wuhan, the Japanese army had little hope for the independence of Manchuria and Mongolia. The importance of Sun Yat-sen and the Tongmenghui to Japan was also declining, especially after the Beiyang Army and the Army came together. Japan's support for Sun Yat-sen had become almost a formality.

Although the Guangdong branch of the Tongmenghui, led by Sun Yat-sen, consistently attempted to consolidate its power and establish a stable base in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Fujian, the Tongmenghui itself was not founded on shared political ideals. It was a reluctant alliance formed by the Japanese on the condition of financial aid and with the common goal of overthrowing the Manchus and the Qing dynasty.

With the abdication of Emperor Guangxu and the reduction of Japanese funding to the Tongmenghui (Revolutionary Alliance), the alliance could no longer function as a unified entity. Under the new republican system, the political ideologies of the various Tongmenghui branches could no longer be aligned. The Northern Tongmenghui had almost completely disintegrated. After the end of the Qing Dynasty, these northern intellectuals began to support the Beiyang government or the Wuhan government, focusing on a force capable of unifying the country and protecting their own interests.

Unlike the northerners, the Southern Tongmenghui did not feel the threat of external enemies as deeply. They were more inclined to support local forces to protect their own interests. Therefore, the orders of the Guangdong Tongmenghui headquarters could be implemented with some discount in Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi, but they had almost no effect in the southeast and southwest regions.

Sun Yat-sen was already preoccupied with domestic politics, so how could he possibly have the energy to help the Vietnam Restoration Society achieve independence? And Phan Phet Chau also realized after the Bali incident that Southeast Asia could not escape European colonization without Japan and China, especially the Asian alliance established with the support of Japan and China.

Thus, despite their differing political views with the Workers' Party, the Vietnam Restoration Society re-established close ties with Wuhan in 1911. While Lin Xinyi was in Wuhan, other high-ranking members of the Restoration Society, including Phan Bui Chau, were also there, requesting assistance from the Workers' Party and the Alliance regarding Vietnam's independence.

The Germans were interested in the Vietnam Restoration Society's request, but they believed the Society should fully comply with the Alliance's instructions in formulating the uprising plan. The Germans' true intention was to have the Vietnamese launch an uprising while Europe was at war, which would obviously help to distract the French. However, the Germans lacked the capability to smuggle weapons into Vietnam. Without Chinese support, both Germany and Japan would find it difficult to accomplish this, as the French were now very wary of German and Japanese merchant ships operating in Vietnamese ports.

The French maintained strict control over Vietnam's foreign trade because Vietnamese resistance had not ceased. From February to May 1908, a massive peasant movement against forced labor and taxation erupted in Central Vietnam, spearheaded by Phan Chau Trinh, Tran Quy Thu, and Hoang Thu Kang. This peasant movement directly led to the Hoang Hoa Than uprising. Although the French suppressed the main force of the uprising due to betrayal by landlords, Hoang Hoa Than continues to wage guerrilla warfare in central Vietnam to this day.

Vietnam's land area was clearly advantageous to the French colonialists in suppressing peasant uprisings. However, the French could not block the land routes into northern Vietnam from Guangxi and Yunnan. Therefore, for the Vietnamese national independence movement to succeed, it had to rely on Guangxi and Yunnan as logistical bases. The French blocked the Vietnamese insurgents from receiving external support by sea, leaving the Vietnamese independence activists with no choice but to rely on Chinese aid.

Although the Germans made many promises, Phan Bui Chau knew that most of them were unfulfillable. Therefore, what the Vietnamese ultimately valued was contact with the Chinese Workers' Party.

While the Workers' Party expressed support for Vietnam's national independence, there were differing opinions on how to support it. Some advocated for Vietnam to endure until the Chengdu-Kunming Railway and the Xiang-Gui Railway were completed before supporting Vietnam's national liberation movement. In particular, the completion of the Xiang-Gui Railway would connect Wuhan and Zhennan, making it much easier to support Vietnam's independence.

Another group of party members advocated for immediate aid to Vietnam's independence, and also for the recovery of the operating rights of Guangzhou Bay and the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway. They argued that the revolution could not wait and should be acted upon at the opportune moment. Given the current tense situation in Europe, supporting Vietnam's independence would be much easier. Waiting for the railway to be completed would take at least ten years, at which point the confrontation in Europe would end, and China would be able to independently face the pressure from France, but the cost of that would be much greater.

In Lin Xinyi's view, the debate within the Labour Party actually indicates that the party is shifting from a revolutionary party to a ruling party. A revolutionary party only needs to consider how to defeat the opposition, while a ruling party also needs to consider whether the people in the areas under its control can withstand the pressure brought by the war, since not all people are supporters of the revolution.

This internal party dispute ultimately ended with the victory of Lam Tan Nghia's proposed democratic revolution route in French Indochina. Prior to the Bali incident, Lam Tan Nghia had already proposed a peaceful struggle route for French Indochina, but at the time this route was not accepted by the Vietnam Restoration Society and some members of the Workers' Party.

The reason given by the Vietnam Restoration Society and some members of the Workers' Party for their opposition was that peaceful struggle was tantamount to recognizing French rule in Indochina, which was clearly a compromise rather than a revolutionary path.

However, by the time Lin Xinyi arrived in Wuhan, the political climate had shifted. The radical faction within the Workers' Party realized that the Restoration Society's revolutionary line, which advocated for the complete overthrow of French colonialism, did not include recognizing the independence of Cambodia and Laos. In other words, after driving out the French, the Vietnam Restoration Society claimed that Vietnam had the right to accept all the powers of French Indochina.

This assertion by Vietnamese nationalists naturally provoked anger among Cambodian and Lao nationalists, even though these two countries were far less economically developed than Vietnam and their anti-French movements were much milder. This did not mean they recognized the right of the Vietnamese to represent them.

In fact, even setting aside the historical invasions of Laos and Cambodia by Vietnamese dynasties, during the establishment of French Indochina, the French administration of Cambodia and Laos also involved the recruitment of a large number of Vietnamese to serve as low-ranking officials, thereby using the Vietnamese to suppress Cambodian and Laotian resistance.

National independence activists in Cambodia and Laos were willing to accept Lin Xinyi's peaceful struggle approach. They believed that they could not take the path of violent revolution on their own. The peaceful struggle approach could not only force the French to relinquish some power, but also change the backwardness of the two countries and awaken more people.

However, the revolutionary line of the Vietnam Restoration Society could not gain the support of Cambodian and Lao national independence activists. According to the Restoration Society's plan, the Cambodian and Lao people should cooperate with Vietnam's anti-French armed struggle to drive out the French, and then the former French Indochina would become the Greater Vietnam Republic.

How could the Cambodian and Lao independence activists accept this plan? If so, they might as well not resist the French. After all, compared to the French, the Vietnamese officials who worked for the French were actually more hateful. Without the restraint of the French, wouldn't the Vietnamese be even more unrestrained in their country?

Radicals within the Workers' Party, of course, could not accept the Vietnam Restoration Society's propositions. They saw them as far removed from the revolutionary struggle they envisioned, merely transforming the judges into Vietnamese masters. The conservatives within the party were even more opposed to the Restoration Society's plan for a Greater Vietnam Republic. Would this Greater Vietnam inherit France's ambitions for Guangxi and Yunnan?

During his two months in Wuhan, Lin Xinyi coordinated with all parties and ultimately forced the Restoration Society representatives, led by Phan Pei Chau, to accept the democratic struggle route and recognize that Cambodia and Laos had the right to independent anti-French independence. The Republic of Vietnam would not force the two countries to join the Greater Republic of Vietnam. As for whether the three countries would form a federation after independence, that could be discussed later.

With the help of the Workers' Party and the Alliance, Cambodian and Lao national independence activists subsequently established independent political parties in Wuhan, thus resolving the lack of organization in their domestic revolutions. Before Lin Xinyi left Wuhan, the three national independence parties concluded an agreement on an anti-French alliance, acknowledging mutual support in the anti-French independence movement.

Shortly after Lin Xinyi arrived in Qingdao, news came from Europe that Serbia and Bulgaria had signed an anti-Turkish alliance treaty. Upon hearing this, Lin Xinyi remarked to those around him, "The war between the Yugoslavs and the Turks is about to begin. It seems that Italy's challenge to the Turks has stirred up anti-Turkish sentiment among the Yugoslavs."

However, the situation in Asia was still stable at this time. The Emperor's condition fluctuated, which led Japan's foreign policy to tend to be more relaxed. As for China, it was also focused on domestic construction. The Tianjin-Pukou Railway, which Yuan Shikai built after taking office as Chairman of the State Council, was nearing completion. This railway was built by the Beiyang Group with loans from Britain and Germany to avoid Wuhan controlling the north-south transportation artery. It cost more than £900 million.

However, this railway can be considered the first achievement of the Beiyang clique after taking power. Although it was shorter than the railway line built in Wuhan during this period, it connected the transportation between the coastal areas of East and North China, thus initially forming the pattern of two major transportation lines in the north and south. Yuan Shikai's loan of £1600 million from the four-nation banking consortium was finally approved by the National Assembly. According to Yuan Shikai's plan, this huge sum of money would be used for transportation and water conservancy construction in North and Northeast China, and as the principal for currency reminting.

Yuan Shikai was most concerned about two projects: the Shijingshan Iron and Steel Plant and the water conservancy construction in the Huanghuai region. In his view, once these two projects were completed, the Beiyang government would have the resources to rival Wuhan in terms of industry and food security. While the struggle for control of Shandong remained unresolved, Wuhan held an advantage in Qingdao and along the Jiaozhou-Zhongshan railway, putting considerable pressure on the Beiyang group.

After arriving in Qingdao, Lin Xinyi focused primarily on promoting the development of Qingdao's port and industrial base. In his view, the previous establishment of an oil refinery in Jiujiang was entirely out of necessity, as Wuhan lacked a safe haven along the coast. However, with the establishment of the Asian Alliance, Shandong had effectively become a semi-safe zone suitable for industrial development. As long as war did not break out between Japan and China, the Shandong Peninsula would be safe, and the British would not be able to provoke conflict in Shandong before the peace between Japan and China was broken.

Once Shandong's industrial base was established, relations between China and Japan would become more peaceful, as Japan would be unable to attack the Shandong Peninsula, which already had an industrial base, especially in an era before the aviation industry was fully developed. Therefore, although Lin Xinyi's main responsibility was to promote the construction of the Combined Fleet, he devoted most of his time to integrating Shandong's resources and industrial planning.

With the German government returning Jiaozhou Bay, German capital investment in Qingdao actually increased, as they no longer needed to accept administrative orders from the German government and only needed to consider economic interests. Especially with the outbreak of the Moroccan crisis, tensions between Britain and Germany escalated, manifesting not only in mutual attacks in European public opinion but also in the Far East.

German merchants who had originally invested in Shanghai soon felt the exclusion they faced from British and French businesses. The Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce rejected applications from German expatriates, clearly demonstrating British hostility towards the Germans. Consequently, German merchants began shifting their investments from the Shanghai concessions to inland China or Qingdao, thus mitigating the risks associated with the outbreak of war in Europe.

End of this chapter

Chapter 780

On June 21, 1912, a fleet of ships anchored outside Qingdao Harbor, including four warships sold by the Japanese Navy to China. The former Russian battleship Poltava, with a displacement of 11,685 tons, was renamed the Shandong by the Chinese Navy; the former Russian ship Letvitzan, with a displacement of 12708 tons, was renamed the Shannan.

In addition to these two first-class cruisers, there were also the former Russian ships Varyag and Parada, with a displacement of seven to eight thousand tons, which were renamed Wuhan and Chengdu. With the addition of these four main warships, the Chinese Navy finally escaped the predicament of relying on the Haitian and Haiqi ships to maintain its presence.

The Combined Fleet mainly consisted of three sub-fleets: Japan, China, and the Pacific. Other countries could only serve as subordinate to these three sub-fleets. However, compared to the German and Japanese sub-fleets, the main ships of the Chinese sub-fleet were rather lacking.

While the German ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau may not be much compared to dreadnoughts, as new ships completed in 07 and 08, they were already considered top-tier warships in the Far East.

In order to avoid being outmatched by the Pacific Squadron, the Japanese Navy even deployed the battleship Katori as the flagship of the Japanese Squadron. Of course, as a pre-dreadnought design, the Katori, although a new ship, had its status in the eyes of the Japanese Navy greatly diminished, which is why it was used to put pressure on the Germans.

Thus, right on China's doorstep, the Chinese fleet was the weakest of the three allied fleets, a situation that naturally caused great embarrassment for the Chinese. This refers to the situation in Wuhan, where the Beiyang Fleet and its commanders had become accustomed to their status as non-powerful and considered it natural for their navy to be inferior.

The only difference between the Beiyang Army and the navy was that the Beiyang Army had given up and no longer wanted to compete for naval power, while the navy was still thinking about acquiring a few warships and regaining some control over its home turf. However, Yuan Shikai didn't have much faith in the navy's courage. After all, during the Boxer Rebellion, the army merely maintained neutrality, while the navy directly surrendered to the British and Japanese.

In Yuan Shikai's view, spending a little money to maintain the navy was not a big deal, after all, with such a long coastline, it was obviously impossible to do without a navy. However, there was no need to vigorously develop the navy. On the one hand, the navy had lost its courage after the First Sino-Japanese War and only asked the government for money to buy ships, without any plan on how to safeguard China's maritime rights. On the other hand, the Fujianese in the navy were too xenophobic, and he was ostracized when he wanted to send some northerners into the navy.

The Beiyang clique shared similar views with Yuan Shikai regarding the navy. They believed that the navy's main adversaries were actually the Western powers, and since China was not yet unified internally, what right did it have to confront the Western powers? Furthermore, the Beiyang clique was already at a disadvantage on land against Wuhan, and if resources were diverted to the navy, the army would receive even fewer resources.

Unlike another timeline where the Beiyang Fleet held a land advantage over the south but lacked the ability to quickly mobilize troops to advance south, the current situation is that the Beiyang Fleet only wants to hold onto North China, East China, and South Manchuria. The navy has become a liability, so Yuan Shikai is naturally unwilling to allocate any more resources to its development.

However, the situation in Wuhan is different. With Wuhan now in control of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, it is eager to regain full control of the Yangtze River basin and coastline. This is also a security guarantee for Wuhan's national economic development. Without national defense security, it is impossible to invest on a large scale in unprotected coastal areas. If the powers were to disrupt this area with warships, the national economy would regress by several years.

Therefore, it was ultimately Wuhan that was willing to foot the bill for the naval expansion plan, and the Japanese Navy, after announcing the performance of its dreadnoughts, lost interest in the outdated warships captured from Russia. As Lin Xinyi argued at the naval conference, all-heavy-gun battleships and petroleum fuel were the core technologies of modern warships.

The cruiser Chikuma, which accompanied these repaired Russian ships, is a newly launched experimental ship of the Japanese Navy. It adopts a large number of new technologies, especially in terms of power and communication, showing a completely different layout from the old warships. It is also the first kerosene-oil powered warship designed by Japan itself.

From the perspective of the Japanese Navy, the Chinese Navy is merely attempting to restore some paper figures, while Japan is truly embarking on a path of confrontation with advanced naval powers. The few warships the Chinese Navy possesses pose only a theoretical threat to the Japanese Navy; in a real confrontation, the Chinese Navy, lacking reserves, would lose its combat capability after one or two battles.

By transferring these aging warships to the Chinese, these ships could still cooperate with the Japanese navy in expanding its power under the guise of the Asian Alliance, but the Japanese wouldn't have to pay extra for them, which would significantly reduce naval spending. Furthermore, when securing domestic budgets, the navy could leverage the size of the Chinese navy to demand the construction of a new generation of battleships—a win-win situation.

Since Wuhan had paid the money, it was natural that the navy would not completely control these warships. Li Yuanhong was transferred to the navy to lead this squadron. Wuhan also sent Luo Zhaosheng, the party representative of the Yangtze River Fleet, to serve as the party representative of this squadron. In fact, this meant that although the squadron was officially under the Chinese navy, it was actually led by the Workers' Party.

Li Yuanhong accepted the appointment because the Wuhan regime was maturing, and the past blurring of lines between military and civilian affairs had been corrected. The Nanjing region no longer needed a Qing dynasty governor-general who held both military and civil administration. Xu Xilin's East China Bureau had stabilized the region during last year's major flood in Anhui and subsequently gained control of the government systems in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, significantly reducing Li Yuanhong's influence in government affairs.

Wuhan gave him two choices: either resign from his military post and work for the government, or resign from his government position and focus on military affairs. Li Yuanhong ultimately chose the latter because the East China Bureau led by Xu Xilin was based at Datong School, and the teachers and students of Datong School were controlling the local administrative power in Zhejiang and Jiangsu.

Datong School was originally the foundation of the Restoration Society, but the Restoration Society had two branches: one was the Datong faction led by Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin, which mainly focused on education; the other was the secret society faction led by Tao Chengzhang. When the Workers' Party established the Wuhan regime and the revolution reached its climax, Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin believed that they should join the Workers' Party to promote the victory of the revolution, while Tao Chengzhang preferred to retain the independent status of the Restoration Society.

Tao Chengzhang's supporters were mainly enlightened gentry from Jiangsu and Zhejiang within the party, including prominent figures like Cai Yuanpei. Their opposition to joining the Labor Party was not because they wanted to compete with the Labor Party for power, but because they opposed many of the revolutionary propositions put forward by the Labor Party, believing that these propositions did not conform to their own wishes.

However, Datong Academy was, after all, a school. Although it taught revolutionary principles, it ultimately aimed to establish a new order after the revolution. The Restoration Society, on the other hand, only talked about the revolution and did not discuss how to establish a new order after the revolution, which made it difficult to unite people's hearts. Even the Tongmenghui in Guangdong, led by Sun Yat-sen, had more cohesion than the Restoration Society.

Faced with the Workers' Party's systematic proletarian revolutionary theory, the teachers and students of Datong Academy quickly sided with the Workers' Party, and with the addition of these young students from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, the Workers' Party's influence in Southeast China greatly increased. Previously, the gentry of Southeast China believed that the Workers' Party was only strong militarily, and not necessarily outstanding in governance and economics. However, with the economic development of Wuhan and the relief efforts following the 1910 Yangtze River flood, the people of these regions began to favor Wuhan's administration.

The aftermath of the 1910 floods severely damaged the authority of the Beiyang clique in Anhui. Unable to provide relief to the disaster victims, Beiyang generals intercepted and sold off relief supplies in order to maintain their military presence in Anhui. This greatly disappointed the people of Anhui, who had previously worried that Wuhan's rule would take away their land. However, under Beiyang's rule, they had no way to survive. As a result, the people of Anhui began to support Wuhan's complete takeover of Anhui's provincial administration.

The Beiyang Army's loss of control over Anhui was tantamount to abandoning Nanjing. Previously, the Beiyang Army could at least rely on its garrison in Anhui to contain Wuhan's activities in Nanjing. Now that Anhui was lost, Nanjing naturally fell completely under Wuhan's military control. Li Yuanhong knew he couldn't become a warlord in the areas directly controlled by Wuhan, and he didn't understand Wuhan's industrial layout. Therefore, he chose to remain in the military and quickly accepted a new position in the navy, where he at least had expertise.

When these four warships joined the Chinese Navy, the strength of the Chinese Navy experienced a qualitative leap. For Britain and France, the combined Asian fleet, with its three squadrons, had greatly disrupted the maritime balance of power in the Far East. Although the French Far East Fleet was not smaller than the Chinese Navy in tonnage, its flagship warships were only equivalent to second-class cruisers and were outdated designs from the last century. In terms of performance alone, the French Far East Fleet was inferior to the Chinese squadrons.

As for the British Royal Navy, while its naval power in the East surpassed that of the German East Asia Fleet, it was still inferior to the main force of the Japanese Navy. The British order in the Far East was effectively maintained not by the Royal Navy, but by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. However, the Asian alliance disrupted Britain's regional order in the Far East.

Although Japan did not continue to expand its fleet after the Russo-Japanese War, the rise of the Asian Combined Fleet was still a major problem for the Royal Navy. The commander of the Royal Navy's China Fleet expressed concern about the expansion of the Chinese Navy, telling a report to London, "The Royal Navy will be in trouble if a country like China, with its long coastline, tries to assert its maritime rights."

The Englishman's choice of words was quite interesting. He saw the Chinese attempt to defend their coastline as a threat to the Royal Navy. In other words, he knew that the Royal Navy was present in Chinese territory, and that when the Chinese power increased, they would naturally demand that the Royal Navy leave.

Regardless of Britain's and France's concerns about the purpose of establishing the Asian Joint Fleet, their activities in East Asia were restricted after its formation. The French ceased their attempts to claim freedom of navigation in the Yangtze River and north of its estuary, and the British began to emphasize that the waters south of the Yangtze River to Luzon Island were international waters and could not be considered the sphere of influence of any particular country or alliance.

The Dutch East Indies government has begun opening up oil leasehold rights to the United States and Japan, after the Dutch had been trying to exclude oil capital other than Anglo-Dutch capital from the East Indies.

On the morning of July 30, Lin Xinyi had just gotten up and washed when Toyota Teijiro rushed into his room and shouted at him in a fit of anger, "Your Majesty, His Majesty has gone."

Lin Xinyi calmly put down the towel, glanced at Toyota silently, and only after he had calmed down a bit did he say, "Where did you get your information? When did His Majesty go?"

Toyota said, "It's a telegram from Tokyo. It was sent early this morning. General Shibayama ordered everyone to assemble in the conference room. He's going to announce the contents of the telegram from Tokyo."

Lin Xinyi straightened his shirt and said to Toyota, "Have you notified everyone else? Then go to the conference room. Tell everyone to stay calm and not lose their composure."

Toyota Teijiro's initial panic gradually subsided, and he continued to notify the others as instructed by Hayashi Nobuyoshi. Hayashi Nobuyoshi walked out of the room, glanced at the sun outside the window, and muttered softly to himself, "The Meiji era has finally come to an end."

Meiji's illness was no secret to the people. His condition suddenly worsened after the military parade last autumn, which had already given the people some hints. This spring, he developed uremia, indicating that the higher-ups already knew that Meiji's life was nearing its end. On July 20, the Imperial Household Ministry issued a cryptic statement hinting at the Emperor's health. Today's news is simply the final confirmation.

However, for ordinary people who are far removed from the Emperor, the Emperor's death was indeed like a bolt from the blue. In their view, the Meiji era was inseparable from the Emperor, and with the Emperor's death, this era came to an end. So what should Japan do?

Unlike the anxieties of ordinary citizens, the death of Emperor Meiji brought the possibility of a political reshuffle to the army's high command. While there were those in the army like Nogi who were blindly loyal to the emperor, there were many more soldiers like Yamagata who only considered issues from the army's perspective.

After Emperor Taisho ascended the throne, Yamagata proposed at the Genro Conference to grant Katsura Taro and Oyama Iwao the status of Genro, attempting to expand the army's influence in the conference. After considering the matter, Ito Sukeyuki immediately stated that Yamamoto Gonnohyōe was also qualified to become a Genro, and Ito and Inoue also nominated the name of the current Prime Minister, Saionji Kinmochi.

Ito and Ito insisted, forcing Yamagata to accept the proposal to add four more elder statesmen. Thus, on August 13, the newly enthroned Emperor Taisho issued an edict to Ito Hirobumi, Yamagata Aritomo, Matsukata Masayoshi, Inoue Kaoru, Ito Sukeyuki, Katsura Taro, Oyama Iwao, Yamamoto Gonbei, and Saionji Kinmochi, saying: "You have served the late Emperor for many years and received His Majesty's decrees. Now that I am carrying on the legacy of the late Emperor, I will need your assistance again."

However, although Yamagata did not achieve the desired result on the issue of elder statesmen, he tried to persuade Saionji Kinmochi to join his side, namely to revise the national policy of limiting military buildup. Yamagata's request was rejected by Saionji.

Yamagata then instructed Katsura Taro and Tamura to overthrow the government. At this time, although Japan's domestic development was progressing steadily and its voice in East Asian affairs was gradually increasing, the contradictions between Japan and the United States were deepening.

The issue of the Hawaiian Islands had already sown seeds of discord between Japan and the United States. Japan missed the opportunity to annex the Hawaiian Islands due to its preparations for the Sino-Japanese War, and the Japanese have always believed that the Americans violated the agreements between the two sides and unilaterally disrupted the status quo of the Hawaiian Islands. Initially, the Americans argued that the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States was a democratic outcome and stated that they would not interfere with Japanese immigration to Hawaii. However, after the United States gained control over the internal affairs of the Hawaiian Islands, it immediately enacted laws restricting Japanese immigration, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the Japanese.

Besides the Hawaiian Islands issue, Japanese immigration to the west coast of the United States also alarmed Americans. In 1910, California's population was 2377549, of which 41356 were of Japanese descent. Faced with the rapid increase in Japanese immigration, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 589 in 1907, prohibiting Japanese residents from immigrating to the United States illegally, thus triggering a crisis between Japan and the United States. The two sides finally reached a gentleman's agreement the following year, barely resolving the issue.

However, Japanese diplomacy then began to shift, not only defending the rights of Japanese immigrants in the Americas, but also stating that people of color had the same rights as white people, and began to interfere in American affairs. The Mexican Revolution further triggered the Asian Union's concerns about the living conditions of Asian immigrants in the Americas, thus once again arousing anti-Japanese sentiment among Americans.

Under the influence of white supremacy in the United States, some US lawmakers began advocating for the abrogation of the Japan-US Gentlemen's Agreement and demanding that Japanese people be classified as unwelcome Asians and governed accordingly. The Saionji Cabinet adopted a compromising stance on this issue, attempting to uphold the Japan-US Gentlemen's Agreement, which Katsura Taro considered a clear insult to national dignity.

End of this chapter

Chapter 781

Lin Xinyi returned to Tokyo at the end of November, firstly to report to the Ministry of the Navy on the construction of the Combined Fleet, and secondly to take a vacation back home. At this time, the naval leadership was focused on domestic politics, and for a time, even the southward expansion strategy was somewhat neglected.

This situation is actually understandable. When Emperor Meiji was alive, there was still someone in the army and navy who could make decisions, so no one dared to break the rules too much. However, Emperor Taisho was young and lacked authority, not to mention his intelligence was not enough to distinguish right from wrong. If it weren't for Ito Hirobumi being able to maintain the overall situation, the army and navy would have already broken off relations.

Ito Sukeyuki, Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, Kawahara Yoichi, and Saitō Makoto—these high-ranking naval officers, whose relationships were not previously harmonious, united under pressure from Yamagata Aritomo. As Yamamoto Gonnohyōe stated, "The army's roots in the country are too deep. Even the Imperial Household Ministry has forces close to Yamagata. Without the Emperor's suppression, the army is trying to issue orders to others in the Emperor's name."

Yamamoto Gonnohyōe's resentment towards Yamagata and the army forced him to set aside his dislike for Ito and Kawahara. Ito and Kawahara, knowing the urgency of the situation, chose to cooperate with Yamamoto against the army. After all, Yamagata was too senior. Although the elders appeared to be equal, in reality, only Yamagata and Ito were capable of making decisions unilaterally without regard to the opinions of other elders.

Fortunately, there was Ito who could veto Yamagata's arbitrary opinions; otherwise, the council of elders would have become a one-man show by Yamagata. Even Inoue, an elder from the Choshu faction, could only restrain Yamagata's infringement on government power, not stop Yamagata's expansion of the army's authority.

When Hayashi Shin-yi returned to Tokyo and met with Ito Sukeyuki, the naval elder said to him, "The army now wants to change national policy and increase the proportion of fiscal expenditure on defense. Saionji Kinmochi is still acting like a court noble and cannot refuse the army's demands outright, which allows Yamagata to press on step by step at the council of elders."

Hayashi Shin-yi knew why Ito complained. If Saionji Kinmochi hesitated at the government level, then Yamagata, who was already powerful in the elder statesmen council, would naturally become even more radical. This would intensify the struggle among the elder statesmen, which was obviously not conducive to the stability of the Japanese political situation. After all, the elder statesmen council was a place for compromise among various factions, not a place for battle.

When he met with Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, the former prime minister was also spurred on by the army's actions and felt eager to try it himself. He believed that it would be better to let the navy spend the fiscal surplus first rather than let the army benefit, so as to avoid the army's incessant demands for an increase in the defense budget. At present, Japan's biggest defense is naturally the navy, not the army.

Yamamoto Gonnohyōe has clearly not given up on his grand fleet plan. Feeling that the government cannot stop the army's demand to increase the defense budget, he has begun to plan to revive the navy's grand fleet plan. This is also the obsession of the Saitō faction. After all, under the current naval policy, the Saitō faction has actually been marginalized in naval power. If they want to return to the core of the navy, they have to bring the navy back to the path of fleet expansion.

Politically, the army also began some subtle maneuvers. Katsura Taro courted reformists within the Kuomintang and the Democratic Party, and with funding from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, established a new party to counter the Seiyukai's influence in parliament. After Emperor Meiji's death, the previous period of political repression began to end, as no one was willing to endorse repressive politics anymore, thus ushering in a period of relaxation in party politics.

Not only did Katsura Taro attempt to form a new party, but the Liberal Party also experienced great growth during this period. The two newly established parties even engaged in a talent war, but in essence, it was still a competition between the Kanto and Kansai zaibatsu, and a struggle between large capital and small and medium-sized capital.

For example, Wakatsuki Reijiro was lured over by Katsura Taro, but Goto Shinpei, who has always been close to the army, did not join Katsura Taro's new party, but continued to support the Liberal Party.

Heikichi Ogawa and Yoshimichi Hara were also quite troubled by the changing political situation in Tokyo. During Shin-Yi Hayashi's return to Japan, they met with him several times to discuss the current situation. Their opinion was that they should maintain cooperation with Taro Katsura's new party instead of simply confronting it. After all, many people in their faction had been swayed by Katsura, mainly because the Liberal Party's political ideology was too radical and difficult for these politicians to accept.

If Ogawa Heikichi and Hara Yoshimichi hadn't known that the Liberal Party was backed by Hayashi Shin-yi and the Navy, they would have both wanted to distance themselves from the Liberal Party. As Ogawa said, "The party policies proposed by Abe Isoo and Oi Kentaro of the Liberal Party are simply too offensive to the zaibatsu."

Heikichi Ogawa's assertion that the Liberal Party's party ideology offended the zaibatsu (financial conglomerates) is not entirely unfounded. The Liberal Party itself contains many social reformists who were originally socialists. Although they abandoned violent revolution, they believed that protecting workers was an inevitable path to social progress, which was also the proposition of the Fabian Society in Britain and American progressives.

The farmland reform in Chiba Prefecture and the planning of the Chiba Prefecture industrial base greatly promoted the urbanization and industrialization of Chiba Prefecture and the Tokyo area. When Hayashi Shinji returned to Tokyo in 1912, the population of the suburbs of Tokyo had caught up with the population of the urban areas, and three cities had emerged in Chiba Prefecture. All of this indicated that industrialization brought about a population agglomeration effect.

However, behind this urbanization and industrialization was the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. In 1912, Japanese capitalists still believed that they could obtain excess profits by forcing workers to work longer hours as much as possible. The cotton textile factories operated on a two-shift system, with each shift lasting 12 hours, and the night shift system was the most criticized.

Textile workers can lose 5 kilograms after working five night shifts, and then only make up for half of the weight lost during the night shifts after working five day shifts. As a result, textile workers are generally in poor health, especially those who have worked for more than three years. Their chance of getting tuberculosis is three times that of the general population.

As for steelworkers, they often work more than 12 hours a day. This kind of heavy physical work is prone to accidents. Therefore, government-run steel mills are larger than private steel mills. This is because government-run steel mills are more compliant with the rules and have a lower worker accident mortality rate. Skilled workers are unwilling to work in private steel mills.

Therefore, after the Sino-Japanese War, as Japan's industrialization increased, the number of struggles between workers and capitalists continued to rise. However, because the number of workers was relatively small, the Meiji government was more concerned about rural issues, since there had been too many peasant uprisings.

Since its formation, the Liberal Party has been promoting improvements in working conditions and wage increases for workers. Previously, its social reform proposals were merely formalities, but now they have become organized political actions to fight for the interests of the working class. In particular, Kojiro Matsukata has taken a positive stance in supporting the Liberal Party. The president of Kawasaki Shipbuilding not only pioneered the eight-hour workday at Kawasaki Shipbuilding, but also formulated a series of labor protection laws in his capacity as Minister of Commerce and Industry.

The cooperation between the Liberal Party and Commerce Minister Kojiro Matsukata naturally impacted the major zaibatsu (financial conglomerates). Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Yasuda, and Sumitomo, among others, believed the Liberal Party's political stance was creating labor-management conflict and inciting workers to disrupt normal factory order. These zaibatsu advocated maintaining the old order, as it was the successful path they had taken to grow from the Meiji Restoration era. They had no desire to risk raising worker welfare and wages, thereby creating operational difficulties.

Yasuda Zenjiro severely criticized Matsukata Kojiro's implementation of the eight-hour workday at the Kawasaki Shipyard, emphasizing that "Japan is poor in resources and technologically inferior to Europe and America. For Japanese products to compete with European and American products internationally, they rely on the hard work of the Japanese people and the protection of the Imperial Army."

However, Yasuda Zenjiro's criticism of Matsukata Kojiro only resonated with large conglomerates like Mitsui and Mitsubishi. Even "patriots" who opposed the labor movement and excessive liberalization of the people could not agree with Yasuda's words. They criticized Yasuda, a big capitalist, for acquiring a lot of wealth through usury, which became capital for private enjoyment and did not give back to society. What right did he have to talk about workers' hard work and dedication being patriotism?

The only supporters of Matsukata Kojiro were the small and medium-sized enterprises in Tokyo led by the Shibusawa Foundation. These enterprises had made a small fortune during the Russo-Japanese War, but after the war boom ended, they fell into business difficulties. They had no market for their products, could not pay the interest on bank loans, and faced the squeeze policies of large capital.

Kojiro Matsukata's Asian trade cooperation opened up Asian markets for them. While improving worker welfare and reducing working hours led to increased operating costs, it reduced the intensity of market competition and worker mobility. Meanwhile, the anti-monopoly actions promoted by the Liberal Party curbed the hostile takeover attempts of large capital on these small and medium-sized enterprises.

Therefore, two economic models emerged in Japan: one was a market economy monopolized by large conglomerates, and the other was free market competition protected by national laws. The latter was far more dynamic and gradually broke down the conglomerates' monopolistic practices in emerging markets.

Faced with this free-market economic model, the large conglomerates, accustomed to relying on power and capital for monopolies, were clearly threatened. They shifted their stance from supporting domestic economic development to supporting domestic economic development under their leadership and opposing the enactment of national laws restricting monopoly capital.