Sun Yat-sen fulfilled his promise made during the peace talks between the North and the South and resigned as provisional president, and Yuan Shikai ascended to the grand stage of the Republic and swore allegiance to the Republic. (Photo credit: Public Domain)
The birth of the Republic of China was an unprecedented event for the Chinese nation. After the Qing court announced its abdication, revolutionary Sun Yat-sen fulfilled the promise made during the peace talks between the North and the South by resigning as interim president and Yuan Shikai took the stage of the Republic of China, swearing allegiance to the Republic.
China in 1912 made a historical leap overnight. For many, Yuan Shikai would bring stability and order to the new Republic, and there was no doubt about his ability and little doubt about his sincerity, with Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing, the founding fathers of the Republic, placing high hopes on him.
In August of that year, at Yuan Shikai’s repeated invitation, Sun Yat-sen came to Beijing and stayed for a month, during which they met 13 times, often from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. or even 12:00 p.m. Three or four times, the more they talked, the more speculative they became, and they even talked about 2:00 a.m. later.
On one occasion, Sun said to Yuan in excitement that he wanted Yuan to be responsible for training the army of 1 million and himself to build 200,000 miles of railroads. Yuan smiled and said, “You are sure about the road, but if you train a million soldiers, I am afraid it will not be easy.” This is how this famous reply came about.
Whenever Sun and Yuan met, Yuan always dismissed his attendants, leaving only Liang Shiyi, the secretary general of the presidential office, present. Liang was called the “God of Wealth” and had been Yuan’s close friend, and he and Sun were from the same town in Guangdong, so Yuan wanted him to get closer to Sun and make good friends. Yuan was the president and Sun was the most prestigious political leader in the opposition, so of course their talks had a great deal to do with the future of the country. 13 conversations, involving the country’s general policy, economy and finance, diplomacy and so on, were the most detailed that only Liang Shiyi knew, but he did not disclose them to the outside world for the next 20 years.
Until 1932, he was already 64 years old, he intended to write down his life experience in politics and compile it into a book, he once said to a secretary at his side: Sun and Yuan met, can be compiled into a special book, when I have time to tell. The next year he passed away, and the conversations he remembered between Sun and Yuan became a “song in the sky”. His disciples still felt sorry for him when they compiled his chronicle.
In his later years, he only told people around him about two incidents, which are recorded in the chronicle. Late one night, he sent Sun Yat-sen back to his residence, and Sun said to him, “I have talked with Xiangcheng (i.e. Yuan Shikai) and have seen slightly the same thing. My political views, he can also understand most of them. But there is one thing I still have doubts about, so you can explain it to me!” He asked what it was. Sun said, “China was founded on agriculture. If we cannot find a complete solution for the peasants themselves, it will not be easy to innovate. If we want to solve the problems of the peasants themselves, we have to give the cultivators their own land. When I mentioned this policy, I thought that Xiang Cheng would oppose it, but he not only did not oppose it, but also took it for granted, which I did not understand.” He replied, “You have traveled around the world and seen the exploitation of the big landlords, and having grown up in the south, you have seen the suffering of those who share the land. Xiang Cheng grew up in the north and never crossed the southern part of the river, but in the north there were mostly subsistence farmers and few tenant farmers. Sun listened to the sudden realization, laughing.
Sun Yat-sen then asked: “I think the coin and paper money are price representatives, easy to weight to light, why not? If the political force to promote the seemingly not difficult to do. But you say you must first win the trust of the people, how is the method? I would like to hear your advice!”
When Sun and Yuan met once to talk about reforming the national economy, his words left a good impression on Sun. This is the area he is most familiar with and good at, he mastered the “transportation system” from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, has been the bull’s eye of China’s finance and finance for many years, Yuan relied on him, this is one of the important factors.
He replied, “The currency system is the representative of the price of goods, hunger can not be eaten, everyone knows. The Chinese coinage system has been heavy and light for thousands of years, from coarse to fine, but all of them are based on coins. If all of them are replaced by paper money, it is worried that the form is not easy to follow, so there must be a way to win the trust of the people first.
The government should first organize a sound central bank and implement a unified currency policy. For example, if you want to issue 50 million paper money, you should first melt 15 million silver dollars in cash and make a silver mountain outside the Chinese gate to tell the people that this is the country’s reserve.
The more banknotes issued, the bigger the extra silver mountain minted. When the credit is established and the habit becomes natural, in time, what is so difficult about a paper that is popular throughout the country? The key is to gain the trust of the people first. The first thing you need to do is to get the right information. This is an episode outside the meeting between Sun and Yuan.
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