Chapter 486: Republic of China: Starting from the First Class of Whampoa Chapter 496 Putting Hats on Them!

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Protagonist:

Lv Muzhi

News that Emperor Bao Da was exiled in Bangkok and had restored himself reached Zhongnan State.

Inside the Prime Minister's Office in Hanoi, Fan Jing rubbed his temples and immediately sent for Lv Muzhi to discuss countermeasures.

With the military region commanders absent, Lv Muzhi and the Youth Army became Fan Jing's mainstay.

"General Lu, Emperor Bao Da has indeed restored himself; he calls on the remnants of the former dynasty in Zhongnan State to overthrow us, and I fear those landlords will rise up in revolt!"

Lv Muzhi nodded: "I have already established the Land Reform Work Team. To prevent big landlords from threatening Zhongnan State's regime, we must eliminate the big landlords first!"

Fan Jing raised his hand and reminded him: "Land reform must proceed immediately, but after all, the Unity Party is not a red regime. In this matter of land reform, we must absolutely not take steps too hastily."

"If the methods are too violent, I fear it will provoke the landlords into direct rebellion."

"I wonder if we could take a moderate route? Have the state step in to buy landlords' land at low prices, then redistribute it to the peasants."

Lv Muzhi smiled after hearing this: "Prime Minister Fan, rest assured, I have this in hand. The Youth Army will certainly handle it clearly and transparently for you!"

——————

A few days later, on the Red River Delta plain in northern Vietnam.

Land reform was in full swing.

Lv Muzhi and Sun Liren changed into civilian clothes and personally went to the countryside to inspect the progress of land reform.

The first work method Lv Muzhi set for the Youth Army Land Reform Work Group: put hats on them first!

The first thing the work group did upon entering a village was not to rush to distribute land, but to dig up old historical accounts.

After entering the village, the land reform work group first visited households within the village, investigating whether the landlords had historical crimes.

Afterwards, they directly gathered the big landlords from several nearby villages and towns together, summoned all the farmers nearby, and item by item settled the crimes of the landlords who had helped the French colonists oppress the common people back then.

In Lv Muzhi's eyes, among the landlords on this land, almost none were clean.

A Zhongnan State officer assisting the work stood on the speaker's platform, holding a loudspeaker, and declared to the hundreds and thousands of farmers who had gathered around: "These landlords, each has their own crimes!"

"The Youth Army came here at the request of the Unity Party and the people of Zhongnan State, specifically to uphold justice!"

"This one is Chen Bao, charged with: land encroachment and trafficking in people.

He used armed coercion and high-interest loans to occupy the land of forty-two bankrupt farmer households, directly or indirectly causing the deaths of over sixty people.

Not only that, he also sold bankrupt farmers to French plantations and coal mines as labor..."

"This one is Huang Gongrong, an evil comprador of imperialism.

The French, in order to dump alcohol and opium, colluded with Huang Gongrong.

Whoever dared to brew alcohol privately at home, Huang Gongrong's lackeys would immediately smash their pots and arrest them, sending them to prison.

To buy alcohol, one could only buy the French's expensive alcohol from Huang Gongrong's hands.

In the area under his jurisdiction, he opened one hundred and sixty tobacco and alcohol sales outlets in one breath, specifically selling opium and French wine."

"There is also this one, Fan Mingde, an executioner of imperialism.

For many years he bloodily suppressed peasant uprisings, his hands stained with the blood of Unity Party members.

When the European War broke out, Fan Mingde, in exchange for a medal awarded by the Governor-General of France,

deceived and plundered over a thousand young people, sending them into the French army to serve as cannon fodder and coolies.

Of these eight hundred plus people, fewer than half returned alive! The rest all died abroad..."

As one bloody crime after another was read out, the farmers below heard one familiar name after another, their eyes turned red, and they pointed at the landlords bound to the gallows, cursing them vehemently.

For those bully landlords with blood on their hands and immense public resentment, the Youth Army also showed no mercy, executing them by hanging on the spot.

The landlords' family property and fields were all confiscated, measured and distributed on the spot to poor farmers with no land or little land.

During the days when land reform was being carried out, the prestige of the Youth Army among the people reached its summit.

On the rural roads of northern Vietnam, scenes of military-civilian mutual aid could often be seen.

The Youth Army's ten-wheel truck got stuck in the mud; without the driver needing to speak, passing farmers put down their hoes and came up to help push the vehicle.

In the eyes of these farmers who had received land through land reform, the Youth Army wearing German steel helmets on their heads were simply saviors.

The Youth Army all came from Xia Guo and had not a shred of interest entanglement with the local landlords.

This made the local common people trust the Youth Army even more, without worrying that their reports would bring retaliation.

However, the smooth advancement of land reform also moved certain people's cake.

In the early days of Zhongnan State's founding, there were indeed some representatives of the landlord class within the system.

They assigned some well-known scholars to publicly publish articles in the number one newspaper, Unity Daily, attacking the land reform process as too brutal:

"The Youth Army's action goes too far. When the French invaded back then, many landlords also heroically resisted the French, serving as vanguards against the French, and were meritorious subjects to the state! Large-scale struggle against landlords easily injures meritorious subjects by mistake!"

After this article came out, it caused no small stir in the intellectual circles of Hanoi.

After Lv Muzhi saw the newspaper, he immediately took up his pen to write, and finally published a response article on the front page of Unity Daily:

"Big Landlords Are the State's Tumor"

Tumors are divided into benign and malignant, and landlords also have good and evil distinctions.

A benign tumor, if not intervened, will transform into a malignant tumor, eventually forming an incurable cancer.

You must know, no matter how noble a landlord is, he will not refuse the peasants' rent and land.

No matter how patriotic a landlord is, he will, through every rent collection, intensify the bankruptcy and displacement of the lower-class people.

No matter the size of the landlord, once they see the people resisting the feudal system, they will turn their guns on the people.

For Zhongnan State's tomorrow, for the livelihood of the majority, the land of big landlords must be limited, regardless of good or evil!

Lv Muzhi wrote an article of over two thousand words, directly declaring all-out war on behalf of the Youth Army against the landlord class of Zhongnan State.

As soon as the article was published, Sun Liren gave a thumbs-up: "Commander Lu, your article is so high!"

"How high?"

Sun Liren scratched his head: "About as high as the chimney of the Steel Mill!"

Lv Muzhi laughed and shook his head, regarding the land reform work of Zhongnan State.

Considering that the Unity Party was not a red regime, Lv Muzhi actually did not overthrow all the landlords in one fell swoop.

When carrying out land reform, Lv Muzhi also left not a little property for those landlords whose crimes did not deserve death:

The hard indicator set by the Youth Army was: each landlord household could keep at most forty mu of paddy fields, or eighty mu of dry land; if the population was too large, the indicator could be adjusted upward as appropriate.

Land exceeding the indicator would be forcibly acquired by the Zhongnan State Government.

But the government had no money to acquire land, and Lv Muzhi could not possibly pay this money on behalf of the government.

He came up with an idea: use an equal amount of state capital stock to offset the payment for acquiring the land; as for what "equal" meant, how much land corresponded to how much stock, the right of interpretation lay with Lv Muzhi.

Those landlords without great crimes lost most of their land, but received shares in state-owned textile mills, mines, and rubber plantations, with annual dividends, so it could not be said that Lv Muzhi took their land for nothing.

With such a relatively mild operation, Zhongnan State would not be regarded as too red and be hostile to all the great powers in the international community.

When land reform had been implemented for two months, an alarm came from the Hue region.

The counterattack of the landlord class finally came!

Thailand was secretly fanning the flames, colluding with the big landlords around Hue.

Hue was the former imperial city, a proper imperial city at the foot of the imperial city root.

The big landlords' evil hearts were not dead; using the pretext of Bao Dadi's enthronement in Bangkok, they incited the ignorant villagers and launched the so-called "Royalist Movement."

"Overthrow the traitorous Unity Party!"

"Welcome Bao Dadi back to the Old Capital!"

——————

Facing the restoration of the emperor, the big landlords of Hue rebelled one after another.

To this, Lv Muzhi could only say it came at a good time.

It was just right for spending money that had nowhere to go; put a rebellion hat on that group of landlords, and take both people and land away in one pot!

Taking this opportunity, Lv Muzhi once again spoke on behalf of the Youth Army on the front page of Unity Daily: The emperor is the biggest landlord class! To protect the hard-won land, launch an all-out war against the big landlords!