Wang Sheng shook his head and said, "No need, they are the first to take charge of the matter now. Even if they want to make peace, they should ask them to ask for peace from us. Then we have the reason to take the initiative to find them. Since they want to fight us, it will be as they wish."

In fact, Wang Sheng understood that if Lu Xiangming was asked to go with Xu Chang, Jiang Mingyi, Zhao Pinghe and other five people, Cheng Mingming, he would be very sure that the five people surrendered and bowed to the Jinan government. However, this surrender was not due to their sincerity. They would not really convince in the hearts of these five people. Moreover, their strength was still there. As long as there was a chance, if the East China government and the Qing court turned against each other, they would immediately counterattack. Even if they did not dare to rebel easily, it would inevitably involve the East China government using a lot of energy to prevent it.

Or they are bought by external forces and become the leader. Since these five people are powerful and powerful in Jinan and have considerable power among the people, if they are really bribed by external forces, it will pose a significant danger to the East China government. Therefore, keeping them will always be troubled, and they will not have enough power to other local forces. After all, there is no real operation, and the meaning of power will be greatly reduced. It is better to take this opportunity to completely eliminate these five people, not only to eliminate future troubles, but also to truly threaten other local forces, so that they will not dare to easily become enemies with the East China government from now on.

Jiang Feng slapped his thigh and said, "Yes, that should be the case. It seems that the people we killed on the first day were not enough, and the power was not enough, so someone dared to challenge our bottom line. We should be more ruthless again until we subdue the local forces in Jinan. When we take over other places in Shandong in the future, no one dared to resist us."

Lu Xiangming had a sudden blow in his heart, and he understood that overseas Chinese were planning to take the opportunity to completely suppress the forces in Jinan. It was not just focusing on Jinan, but looking at the entire Shandong Province, and it was also conceivable that more people would fall to the ground. Although Lu Xiangming said that he would never want to see such a result, he also knew that he was powerless to do anything about it, and he didn't even make any sense to blame overseas Chinese, because as Wang Sheng said, this battle was completely initiated by the local forces in Jinan that were overestimating their own abilities. In the end, they could only blame these local forces in Jinan for being self-destructive and unable to survive.

However, Lu Xiangming still hopes to try his best to save many people, and does not want the local forces in Jinan to be slaughtered by overseas Chinese. Therefore, he said: "The five leaders, Xu Chang, Jiang Mingyi, Zhao Pinghe, etc., are not aware of the current affairs and take the initiative to be enemies with the leaders. Naturally, the crimes cannot be forgiven. However, as far as the officials know, not all the gentry and other people in Jinan are interested in opposing the leaders. They are only threatened and coerced by these five people. They can only wait and see for a while, and let the officials persuade these people, so that they can abandon the darkness and turn to the light as soon as possible. In this way, it also seems that the leaders are, follow the heavens and respond to the people, and those who have attained the Tao will help them."

Wang Sheng thought about it and knew that Lu Xiangming wanted to save more local forces in Jinan, but what he said was not unreasonable. After all, the purpose of the Jinan government was to shock the local forces and make them be honest, and always remember to make trouble for the government, but he could not kill all local forces. After all, the Jinan government still needs to build Jinan, which also requires the cooperation of local forces.

So Wang Shengdao: "Well, according to the advice of Lu Tong, you can persuade the gentry who are still watching. However, no one who works in brothels, pawn shops, casinos, or tobacco shops shall contact them. Do you understand?"

Lu Xiangming was also stunned. What does Wang Sheng’s decision mean? Is it difficult for overseas Chinese to intervene in brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco shops, etc.? So they have to deal with all the gentry in Jinan Prefecture. As an official with more contact with grassroots, Lu Xiangyun certainly knew that brothels, pawn shops, casinos, and tobacco shops are all very profitable businesses with great profits. It is reasonable for overseas Chinese to intervene. The same is true for the officials of the Qing court. However, the reputation of these businesses is not very good, and most of them are controlled by local forces. Therefore, the government will not intervene directly. Usually, they use joint forces with local forces to get a piece of the pie and get rich benefits without having to bear bad reputations. Do overseas Chinese people don’t care about their reputation?

In fact, time travelers certainly know that although these industries are profitable, they are not only bad in reputation, but also have great harm to society. Someone has proposed to cancel all these industries. However, although the final decision can be made to retain brothels and pawn shops, strict supervision and restrictions must be carried out to minimize their harm to society. Casinos and tobacco shops must insist on banning them, because they are tobacco shops, which are actually places where opium sells.

After the two Opium Wars, all countries obtained the qualification to sell opium legally in China, so they became more rampant in the import of opium to China. By 1879, the import of opium into China reached a peak of 104,900 stones. Although after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, foreign capitalist exports to China increased greatly, opium was no longer a means to balance the trade deficit. In addition, the strong condemnation of international public opinion, the amount of opium imports in China was gradually decreasing. By 1899, it had dropped to 59,000 stones, which was only more than half of the peak.

However, the opium business is extremely profitable after all. At the same time, a large number of private opium were grown in Sichuan, Yunnan and other places in China, and the legal operation of opium was not cancelled. It still attracted a large number of foreign merchants to engage in opium business activities. It combined with the comprador forces in China to form a huge network of interest chains, which caused a large number of opium chains in China to spread and become more and more intense. Almost every city has several opium dens. Although the Qing court officials knew the harm of opium, they were powerless in the face of such a huge network of interest chains. At most, they only restricted their subordinates from smoking opium.

No one knows the harm of opium better than the time traveler, so it is absolutely unconditional to ban opium in its own ruling area. This is a consensus within the time traveler, whether it is a radical or a conservative position, it is consistent on this point.

The big cities occupied by time travelers, such as Tianjin and Beijing, have just experienced wars, and the entire city is in a state of military control. The brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco and other industries have shrunk significantly, and Tianjin has almost been destroyed. Jiaozhou, Gaomi, Jimo are all counties, with economic development and urban scale not large. Qingdao and Weihai are colonies. Britain and Germany have relatively strict rules and management. Therefore, the time travelers strictly control brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco and tobacco in these places, and the opium trade is strictly prohibited, and all of them are going smoothly.

However, Jinan took over peacefully without war. Moreover, the city is huge and has a developed economy. There are nearly dozens of brothels, pawn shops, casinos, and tobacco shops in the city. Moreover, people who operate brothels, pawn shops, casinos, and tobacco shops are all powerful and powerful. They are extremely powerful in the local area and control the economic lifeline of Jinan. Although there are only more than 10 tobacco shops in Jinan, ordinary brothels, casinos, high-end restaurants, teahouses, theaters, and other high-end shops often provide opium services. Therefore, the proliferation of opium has almost penetrated into the entire society.

The situation faced by time travelers in Jinan is of course much more complicated than other cities before. Therefore, after taking over Jinan, the time travelers did not immediately handle and rectify the brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco and other industries, but instead planned to stabilize the situation first and then slowly adjust it to avoid causing major turmoil to the social economy.

However, local forces have mainly challenged the Jinan government, which has forced the Jinan government to change its safe strategy, but intends to use radical means. On the one hand, these local forces that have taken the lead in challenging the Jinan government are almost all related to brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco shops and other industries. They are the leaders of these industries. Therefore, cracking down on these local forces will actually cause a heavy blow to Jinan brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco shops and other industries, and will also seriously affect Jinan's economy. But on the other hand, this struggle with local forces will definitely have a considerable impact on the social economy. So you might as well take this opportunity to carry out a comprehensive rectification of Jinan's brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco shops and other industries, and simply get it done in one step and slowly restore Jinan's economy.

Of course, there is no need to explain these principles to Lu Xiangming, and it is not something that can be explained clearly in one or two sentences. Therefore, Wang Sheng just refused to let Lu Xiangming find local gentry personnel engaged in brothels, pawn shops, casinos, tobacco shops and other industries, and did not explain it to him.

After Lu Xiangming left, Jiang Feng said: "What should we do next? Should we arrest all these people immediately?"

Wang Sheng thought about it, shook his head, and said, "I don't think it's appropriate to attack everyone immediately now, because such a blow is too great, and we have no reason to arrest people. After all, they have not blatant opposition to us. In addition, these five people have great families and industries. Not only have industries in Jinan City, but also a large number of farms and real estate outside Jinan City. There must be a group of evil slaves under their command. Now we only have a regiment of troops in Jinan City, and there are only 5,600 policemen, so we may not be able to capture all of these five people in one fell swoop. Moreover, these five people are just representatives who oppose us. Behind them, there are quite a few local forces. If the turmoil caused to Jinan is to be minimized, then if you don't take action, you must completely destroy the hostile forces in the same area, at least you have to fight them without the ability to resist."
Chapter completed!