1928: The rise of giant merchants

The principal's New Life Movement was a great success. His speech was even recorded on a record, and radio stations across the country were required to help promote it.

Not long after the Lantern Festival, the Asia-America Radio Station under Ye's investment began to broadcast the principal's New Life speech every day: "We want to reform society and revive a country and nation. We can't succeed by force. How can we succeed?

Simply put, the first is to make the general public have national morality, and the second is to make the general public have national knowledge. Germany was able to revive in less than 15 years. They just lost the war and they can stop paying the indemnity in a few years. They can refuse to pay the debt if they want to. But we still pay the indemnity every year for decades or even hundreds of years.

In short, Germany is also a country, and we are also a country. Germany can be equal to other countries without military force, but we still cannot seek equality even though we have military force. What's the reason? There is no other reason, it is entirely because the knowledge and morality of our general public are not as good as theirs."

Well, the general meaning of these words is that the citizens of this term are not good, not that the Jinling National Government is ineffective.

So the principal launched a vigorous New Life Movement.

First of all, we should start with the people's clothing, food, housing and transportation. People should eat at the table in a proper manner, and they cannot squat anywhere to eat; they should not expose their chests and abdomens when wearing clothes, and their buttons must be buttoned up properly, and their hair should not be messy.

The principal also said, "The spirit, thoughts, knowledge, and morality of a person or a country's citizens can all be expressed in the way of basic life."

He compared the way the people of the Republic of China and the Japanese ate and washed their faces, and came to a very interesting conclusion that the Japanese were more disciplined and had better national qualities than the people of the Republic of China.

He said, "We don't have to charge into battle with the Japanese in the rain of bullets. We can know the difference in strength and weakness by comparing our daily lives."

Soon, major newspapers across the country reported on the "New Life Movement" one after another, and the Jinling National Government also issued an order to designate the first week of April as the "New Life Movement Propaganda Week."

The whole country was in chaos. The KMT action team wore red armbands and went from street to street to catch those who were disheveled, dressed strangely, and had messy hair. They were fined or detained.

Each street was divided into areas. If the hygiene conditions were not up to standard, all businesses and residents in the area would be punished.

The rickshaw drivers were very depressed. They were sweating profusely while carrying customers, but they didn't dare to unbutton their clothes to cool down.

Because if they were caught not buttoning their clothes, they would be fined immediately, and the income they had worked hard for half a day would be gone.

The citizens of Shanghai used to like to sit at the entrance of the alley to eat dinner while listening to radio programs.

Now they don't dare to do it at all, because meals must be eaten around the table, and eating on the roadside is not in line with the instructions of the New Life Movement.

Fortunately, it was just a gust of wind. Just like the ban on Spring Festival and other behaviors, after the "New Life Movement Propaganda Week" was over, the KMT action team was not so strict, and everyone could do what they should do.

Only those who are unlucky and happen to meet the inspectors will be fined. Anyway, they just think they are unlucky.

However, the "New Life Movement" of the Republic of China was a long-term activity, which lasted for more than ten years.

During this period, new content would be added every now and then, such as prohibiting wasteful weddings, funerals, birthday banquets, prohibiting the wearing of strange clothes, prohibiting men and women from sitting together in the bathroom, prohibiting primary and secondary school students from having long hair, prohibiting women from perming their hair and bare legs, prohibiting smoking in cars, theaters, meeting places, and forests, advocating punctuality, persuading people and animals to live separately, advocating relief and comfort for wounded soldiers, and promoting drug and gambling prohibition, etc.

Most of the content is good and very helpful to improve society.

But some content is too strict, such as some places prohibiting perming and bare legs, so that women dare not even wear skirts.

The most terrible thing is that it is a waste of money and labor. By 1935, when the New Life Movement reached its peak, there were more than 60,000 related practitioners across the country.

The main work of these tens of thousands of people was to promote the New Life Movement, wasting a lot of financial expenditure.

Not only that, due to the poor control of local areas, many local officials took chicken feathers as a token of authority.

"What's going on with the principal?" Ye Hao said speechlessly.

Once this gust of wind blew, the most affected company among Ye's investments was Ye's Security Company.

Ye Hao's company gathered all kinds of people, most of whom did not comply with the rules and regulations of the New Life Movement. Once they were caught, they would be fined. Once they were fined, he, the boss, had to come out to rescue them.

Throughout February and March, Ye Hao had been on the road of rescuing people.

Ye Luo smiled and said, "The principal is building up his own prestige."

In Ye Luo's view, the principal's original intention of the New Life Movement was to show his presence and promote his Confucian ideas during the implementation process.

This is an ideological movement that opposes all kinds of messy doctrines and advocates the four virtues (propriety, righteousness, integrity and shame) and the eight virtues (loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, faith, justice and peace), so as to unify the ideology and morality of the people.

Of course, another point is to militarize the whole people to facilitate conscription in the future full-scale war of resistance.

The principal also knew that there would be a war between China and Japan, but he did not dare to shout anti-Japanese slogans directly, so he quietly incorporated preparations for the anti-Japanese war into the New Life Movement.

In his original words: "The ultimate goal of the New Life Movement is to make the lives of the people uniform. What does the word "uniform" mean? It is what most people now call militarization. New The life movement is a militarized movement.”

However, it was of no use. The common people were strictly controlled, and the officials continued to engage in eating, drinking, whoring, gambling and smoking.

That's why Feng Yuxiang said: "New life is a lie."

Xiang Meili, a good friend of the principal's wife, commented: "The New Life Movement is a national joke."

A foreign friend was more direct, commenting that the New Life Movement was “a national rejuvenation movement based on toothbrushes, mouse traps and fly swatters.”

Anyway, Ye Luo was too lazy to comply with the principal's spiritual instructions, and he didn't see any short-sighted guy who dared to come over and twist him to demand a fine.

"Ignore the New Life Movement for now," Ye Hao said in a low voice, "You have to take care of the editorial department of "The World". There was a problem with the content of the last issue of the magazine. A friend who is engaged in news censorship reminded me that the boss I am dissatisfied with some of the magazine’s comments.”

"It's okay, those reports were approved by me." Ye Luo smiled.

"Anyway, don't go too far, otherwise we will be implicated." Ye Hao reminded.

The "excessive" content Ye Hao said was that the new issue of "The World" reported the establishment of the Northeast Anti-Resistance Alliance and Yang Jingyu's leadership of the Northeast Anti-Resistance Alliance to win its first victory. The Northeast Anti-Resistance Alliance was established under the leadership of an underground organization. Both the Jinling National Government and the Kwantung Army hated it.

Ye Luo even received a telegram from Deng Wenyi, the principal's secretary, telling him not to mention the Northeast Anti-Resistance Alliance again, otherwise "The World" would be banned directly.

"Sigh, it's a lot of trouble to run a newspaper these days." Ye Luo had to intervene, and he could no longer let the members of the underground organization in the editorial department mess around. (End of chapter)