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At the end of the Xuantong period of the Qing Dynasty, in order to welcome the German crown prince who visited China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Qing Dynasty built a guesthouse on the former site of Baoyuan Bureau. The guesthouse was specially used to welcome state guests, which was equivalent to the current state guesthouse. It was the most luxurious hotel in Beijing at that time.

Western Architecture. After the Wuchang Uprising broke out, the Qing government began constitutional reforms. Yuan Shikai was appointed as the prime minister of the Qing government. After coming to Beijing from his hometown in Henan, Yuan Shikai set up the cabinet government in the Shidaren Hutong Guesthouse. Soon thereafter, Yuan Shikai moved his family

He was brought to Beijing and stayed at the Yingbin Hotel with him.

On March 10, the first year of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai was sworn in as the interim president of the Republic of China in Beijing, and Shi Daren Hutong Guesthouse became the interim presidential palace. On August 24, the first year of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen arrived in Beijing to meet with Yuan Shikai. In order to show respect, Yuan Shikai moved

He went to live at the Ministry of War in Tieshizi Hutong and used the Shidaren Hutong Guest House as Sun Yat-sen's temporary residence. On September 18, 2011, Sun Yat-sen left Beijing, and Yuan Shikai ordered the Beiyang Government and Foreign Affairs Department in Dongtangzi Hutong to be moved to the Shidaren Hutong Guest House. From then on,

Shi Daren Hutong was renamed Foreign Ministry Street.

Just after the Spring Festival in the fourth year of the Republic of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs located in the Guest House moved out of the Guest House at the request of the President. The Guest House once again returned to its original appearance - the Guest House. Just a few months later, the Guest House was renamed again.

——Official Residence of the Prime Minister.

In the early morning, when the pigeons chirped over the capital, Li Zicheng got up very early in the living room on the second floor of the Prime Minister's official residence. After eating a simple breakfast, he walked along the stairs to the first floor.

The office is located on the first floor, facing the Western-style back garden of the official residence. Both the official residence and the garden were designed by Western designers. Compared with the Chinese-style garden, this French-style garden is more comfortable.

Sometimes, when he has free time, Li Zicheng will even sit on a lounge chair in the back garden and bask in the sun.

Of course, the hot weather now is not suitable for basking in the sun. In this midsummer, Li Zicheng prefers to stay indoors. Under the influence of the central air conditioner, the indoor temperature is only 26 degrees, which is a very pleasant temperature.

Because of this, many people feel that working in the Prime Minister's official residence is a kind of enjoyment in itself.

Just as Li Zicheng was standing by the window, looking at the back garden and drinking a cup of tea, Zhang Yilin, Secretary-General of the Prime Minister's Office, came in at the right time and said:

"Your Excellency, Director Li Siqin of the Secret Service has arrived. The American Minister will meet with you around ten o'clock this morning."

The Secret Service was an agency announced by the new Minister of Finance at the same time that Li Zicheng was sworn in as Prime Minister and appointed the State Council team to "combine the manufacture of counterfeit currency." The reason for its establishment is very simple: "Domestic

"Foreign-made" and "privately-made" copper coins are flooding." Although foreign-made counterfeit copper coins have gradually withdrawn from the market at this time, they are far from comparable to privately cast copper coins. First of all, the main circulation scope of "foreign-made" copper coins

It is the coastal area from north to south. Secondly, the cost of "foreign private casting" is still higher than that of private casting in China. What's more, the circulation scope of "private private casting" covers most provinces in the country, and counterfeiters are also present in most of the country.

In some areas.

However, due to the limited efforts of the government to crack down on counterfeiting, there are no typical cases for the organizers of private forging, and because the counterfeiters are very hidden and often collude with local officials and powerful people, it is difficult to make a clear judgment. This situation became more serious during the Republic of China.

, because the warlords themselves are often supporters, participants, and profiteers of counterfeiting. Moreover, the producers of domestic "private and private goods" are mainly businessmen, powerful landlords, underworld organizations, and local warlords. There are often thousands of connections between them.

strands of mutual relationships.

As early as last year, the central government promulgated national currency regulations, allowing old copper coins to remain temporarily as auxiliary coins for a certain period of time. It is planned that the mint, together with the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications, will exchange them for raw copper prices based on the pure copper they contain.

After Li Zicheng became Prime Minister, he immediately used the "National Currency Regulations" to sign an order for the Ministry of Finance to establish a "Secret Service" to combat domestic "counterfeit currency."

Due to the previous establishment of intelligence measures, the Treasury Secret Service, which had only a few hundred employees, cracked six major "private coining" cases on the third day after its establishment was announced, involving amounts of millions of taels, and directly

As a result, the Ministry of War was forced to dismiss one of the division commanders and three brigade commanders involved, and confiscate the illegal gains through the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Finance obtained as much as 4.8 million taels of "illegal gains", and this money was directly transferred to

Li Zicheng invested in Qian'an Iron and Steel Company in the name of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

In the eyes of outsiders, "crack down on counterfeiting" was the first thing Li Zicheng started after taking office of the State Council. Of course, they have also seen that due to the "counterfeit currency case", there have been as many as 100,000 people in Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Henan, Shandong and other provinces.

Dozens of local officials were removed from their posts by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and investigated. The Ministry of Internal Affairs then bypassed the local areas and directly appointed local officials, and most of those local officials were local National Socialist Party members.

"Cracking down on fakes is fake, and robbing officials is real!"

Many outsiders commented on this, but in the face of these remarks, Li Zicheng just laughed it off. In the eyes of outsiders, they only saw the cooperation of various ministries of the State Council, but did not see anything other than cooperation, such as "the Secret Service of the Ministry of Finance"

”, although this agency was established by the Ministry of Finance, its director is directly responsible to the Prime Minister.

It was only two months after its establishment. With the help of the "Combating Counterfeit Currency", the Secret Service of the Ministry of Finance has set up branches in every province in the country. At the same time, it has grown from less than 500 employees at the beginning to more than 2,000 people now. Now, the Secret Service

It has become an intelligence agency directly under the State Council.

This was the first intelligence agency established by the State Council. It completely bypassed the Longhai Company Security Department and became a "national" intelligence agency, although most of its personnel were "recruited" directly from the Security Department.

"Okay, let Director Li come in."

As soon as Li Siqin, who looked a little thin, entered the office, he took out some information from his wallet and spread it out on the Prime Minister's desk. He briefly summarized the intelligence collected in January:

"In the past two months, in accordance with your arrangements, the Secret Service has not only concentrated its efforts on counterfeit currency manufacturing, bandits, and local forces in various provinces in the country, but we have also strengthened our surveillance of counterfeit money, bandits, and local forces in various countries, especially Britain, the United States, and France.

The embassies of Russia and Japan in China are conducting surveillance, but so far, no noteworthy trends have been discovered.”

It seemed that Li Siqin was helpless about this result. The monitoring of the embassies of various countries could only rely on one method, which was the deciphering of telegraph codes. Although the training school of the Ministry of Security had opened a cryptography major as early as two years ago,

We also recruited mathematics experts from China to learn code-breaking and established a relatively effective code-breaking team.

After the establishment of the Secret Service, the Sixth Division of the Ministry of Security was directly integrated into the Secret Service. However, many technical problems were still encountered in deciphering diplomatic cables from various countries. The most important problem was the shortage of deciphering personnel.

The problem cannot be solved in the short term.

In order to solve this problem, at the request of the Secret Service, Li Zicheng approved a plan just half a month ago.

"On August 1, at the banquet of the diplomatic corps, Gu Weijun, the Foreign Affairs Minister of the State Council, revealed his intention to "revise the new covenant". Subsequently, the embassies of various countries obtained the contents of the "reformed new covenant" formulated by the State Council through various channels...

"

When mentioning this matter, Li Siqin slightly raised his eyes and looked at the young master. Without the support of the young master, the State Council would never leak the contents of the "New Covenant", even though it knew that the contents of the "confidential document" contained many falsehoods.

However, the "leakage" undoubtedly revealed part of the State Council's bottom line and its plans. But now, what is frustrating is that although the plan was successful, it failed to obtain sufficient returns.

"Subsequently, as planned, the embassies of various countries immediately sent encrypted messages to their own countries after obtaining the intelligence. Because the content was set by us, we have now mastered more than 90 diplomatic codes of the embassies of various countries in China, and have mastered the U.S.

All diplomatic codes."

When mentioning the "success" of the Secret Service, Li Siqin not only showed no joy, but became increasingly worried. The response from various countries was beyond his initial expectation, and this change was not something he was happy to see.

"But at present, various countries have not made much response. According to the intelligence already available, various countries are skeptical about the State Department's involvement in diplomacy!"

Li Siqin's report made Li Zicheng frown and ask:

"You mean they doubt that the State Council cannot lead the "new covenant" and they think this is false?"

Fake!

Their mentality is that they regard China as a normal country. In their eyes, China does not even have the courage to propose "reformation of the New Covenant", let alone the "division of government agencies". They are contemptuous, regardless of

Their attitude toward the country, the State Council, and themselves is full of contempt.

"They believe that the State Department is trying to test the bottom line of each country. It is just a test of language, not substantive action."

After a moment of silence, Li Siqin added.

"Prime Minister, maybe we should hold a meeting with various countries on this matter and tell them directly our demands and hopes. At the same time, we should also reach an agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

After thinking for a while, Li Zicheng looked at Li Siqin and said.

"Continue to pay attention to the situation in the embassies of various countries. Well, how is the arrangement going?"

Looking at Li Siqin, Li Zicheng had some expectations in his eyes. For the State Council and for himself, that matter can be said to be the top priority of this year's work. Once it succeeds, the "disadvantage" of the State Council's current situation

” will fundamentally change.

"We have selected a target and are now arranging agents to infiltrate the target!"

Li Zicheng nodded and lowered his voice slightly.

"This matter must be kept confidential. It involves many things, including our future and that of the country. Do you understand?"

When referring to "the future", Li Zicheng deliberately emphasized his tone. That matter was too important, and the operation of that matter involved too many interests and would even harm the interests of many aspects. This required the Secret Service to

We must do a good job in keeping secrets. If we do not do a good job in keeping secrets, then all our efforts will be in vain. Even if the situation is serious, I, the Prime Minister, may have to "step down".

"Prime Minister, please rest assured that this matter will be kept strictly confidential!"

Confidentiality. For the Secret Service, what they are best at is keeping it fully confidential. Just like now, Li Siqin can say with certainty that no information about the Prime Minister’s residence will be leaked unless he is willing. The Secret Service is not only responsible for directly

He is also responsible for the security work of the Prime Minister's Official Residence and the five ministries of the State Council. He is very familiar with confidentiality work.

"Um!"

Nodding, Li Zicheng had no doubts about the Secret Service. Seeing that there was nothing more to explain, he waved his hand and said.

"Okay, Ah Si, you go back first, the American minister will be here soon."

After Ah Si left the office, Li Zicheng stood up and stood by the window again. While looking at the grass outside the window through the glass window, he was thinking about the suggestion made by Ah Si in his mind.

Send them a signal?

Obviously Ah Si's suggestion is to suggest that he directly make a request for "revising the New Covenant" to the ministers of the great powers. Unless he puts it forward directly, they will not take it seriously at all. If they cannot take it seriously, they will not take it seriously.

It is difficult to obtain further information.

Without access to intelligence, it is impossible to grasp the attitudes and bottom lines of various countries towards China's "new treaty". If we cannot grasp these bottom lines, then after proposing a "new treaty", at least the basic conditions can only rely on speculation, although whether it is the Foreign Affairs Office of the State Council

Or the diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are all professional diplomats who are "cunning and difficult to deal with" in the eyes of ministers from various countries. However, this kind of negotiation related to the fundamental rights and interests of the country cannot tolerate any mistakes. Any mistakes may lead to

I will regret it for the rest of my life!

Think of a way!

"Rui Enshi..."

Suddenly, Li Zicheng thought of the upcoming meeting with Rui Enshi. Today's meeting was originally for another matter, the "Loan for Huaihe River Control." Since the "Jiao'ao Incident", the "Loan for Huaihe River Control" has been misappropriated by Yuan Shikai as a compilation agent.

However, this misappropriation was carried out with the consent of the United States. Now, the purpose of meeting with Rui Enshi is to discuss with him the restoration of the "Huaihe River Control Loan" so that it can be earmarked.

Maybe we can use today's meeting to reveal a signal to Rui Enshi, or even express his attitude directly, thereby testing the attitude of the United States. If I remember correctly, in history, the "New Testament Revision" movement more than ten years later

, the Nanjing government achieved the success of the "Revise the New Testament" movement by means of distant diplomacy and close attack, using the United States as a breakthrough point.

It seems that this matter will be postponed!

"Yilin, let's see where Minister Rui is. I'll greet him personally outside the residence!"

…
Chapter completed!