While Kita Ikki was immersed in his own thoughts, Umekawa Kamiyoshi, who was also at the cadre school, burst into the dormitory excitedly. "Kita-kun, there's a New Year's gala tonight. Hurry up and get ready; let's go."

"Eh?" Kita Ikki was taken aback by these words and this burst of enthusiasm. He asked with some reproach, "Umekawa-kun, Mr. Kōtoku has been murdered; do you have no sense of mourning?"

"Mr. Kōtoku had the Sekihōtai before him, and we have descendants of the Sekihōtai within the People's Party too. Don't be so affectatious. Eat what you should eat, drink what you should drink, and focus on labor when you should labor. If we mourned the way you do, we wouldn't have to do anything else all day." Having stayed in the base area for these few years, Umekawa Kamiyoshi's style of speaking and acting had drifted further and further away from Japanese reserved customs.

Faced with this, Kita Ikki had to admit that the People's Party's assimilation ability was terrifying. Most Japanese members of the People's Party, including Umekawa Kamiyoshi, no longer habitually said "*Hai*" while nodding, nor did they respectfully lower their eyes. They now held their heads high and chests out, looking straight into the other person's eyes—neither provoking nor avoiding.

"I still don't really want to go," Kita Ikki said.

"Discipline states that everyone must participate in collective activities. You can't let personal emotions affect the entire collective," Umekawa Kamiyoshi said.

Since Umekawa Kamiyoshi had brought up discipline, Kita Ikki couldn't very well refuse. Organizational discipline could not be broken; if he stayed in the dormitory alone, someone would have to stay behind to accompany him. Even setting aside the People's Party's discipline, Japanese culture did not allow an individual to drift outside the organization. Japanese culture had a peculiar trait where the sense of good and evil was not very strong, but the regard for others' evaluation was extremely high. In terms of "dying of a broken heart under the accusation of a thousand pointing fingers," Japan was far ahead of China. Before becoming a revolutionary, Kita Ikki was first and foremost a Japanese. Being spoken to like this by Umekawa Kamiyoshi, he stood up unhappily and followed Umekawa Kamiyoshi out.

Dinner was the New Year's Eve dinner. The staple food was naturally dumplings. Organized by squads, each squad had a set of "Eight-Color Steamed Bowls." It was just ordinary chicken, duck, fish, and meat, fried and then steamed in bowls. Of course, cabbages, a vegetable easy to store, were also present in abundance. If one wanted an extra dish, they had to pay for it themselves. After swallowing a few mouthfuls of greasy, savory dishes, Kita Ikki felt his depressed mood improve significantly.

The canteen was bustling with noise and excitement. Upon meeting, everyone smiled and exchanged "Happy New Year" greetings, then sat down at their tables to eat happily. The People's Party was like this—full of vigor and vitality at all times, while also maintaining strict discipline.

After finishing the meal, everyone washed their own bowls and chopsticks, then gathered to watch the New Year's gala. Although called a gala, there was no opera troupe; instead, a stage play was performed. This time, traditional plays like *The White-Haired Girl* and *Put Down Your Whip* were not staged. Everyone could see the difference from the stage set. Before the opening, the announcer told everyone that a newly rehearsed song-and-dance play, *Brother and Sister Opening Up Wasteland*, was to be performed.

The content of the play was very close to real life. A brother and sister were allocated land. Because their family was originally poor and they had rented a landlord's land to farm, under the pressure of a heavy life, the brother had gradually lost confidence in life. After the land reform in the base area, although the brother was happy, he didn't know how to arrange his life. The play was divided into four acts. First, the brother buried himself in hard work, and the sister also labored hard alongside him. In the first act, because they were allocated new farm tools, the sister could also do physical work. However, lacking her brother's experience, she encountered many problems. With her brother's help, the sister overcame her delicacy and willfulness, began to learn seriously from her brother, and finally became a labor expert.

The drama was full of the most ordinary things in labor: blisters on hands, a sprained ankle, delayed cooking due to excessive fatigue. The brother cherished his sister, taking on more work while teaching her how to work better. The comrades in the audience had all gone through this; they felt their hearts warm up seeing the affection between the brother and sister.

In the second act, the brother put his mind entirely on his own land and refused to learn the new agricultural techniques promoted by the base area. The sister, however, not only learned from her brother but was also willing to learn from and communicate with comrades from the agricultural technology department. The brother was very dissatisfied, thinking his sister shouldn't show her face in public and talk to strangers. He also harbored considerable doubts about the agricultural techniques his sister hoped he would learn. Only under his sister's persistent pleading did he reluctantly agree to try the new agricultural techniques on three small patches of land.

In the third act, the performance of the three small patches was mixed. The brother thought these techniques were unreliable, and the brother and sister launched into a fierce argument. The sister thought she hadn't done enough; the brother thought there was really a problem with the agricultural techniques. Faced with a common local agricultural problem, the brother thought this place "was just fated like this; it's impossible to solve." The sister insisted on the concept of "learning science and using science" learned from night school. Under the sister's manifold persuasion, the brother reluctantly attended agricultural technology training with her. After studying, the brother realized that his methods were indeed not scientific enough. Of the two cadres from the agricultural department, one appeared somewhat smug, while the other sincerely asked comrades to seek truth from facts and analyze specific situations specifically. Finally, the brother and sister, along with the agricultural cadre, asked an old peasant for advice while conducting scientific research, and finally solved a common local agricultural problem.

In the fourth act, the brother was willing to take the initiative to join the Peasant Association and also joined the night school. He not only farmed his own land well but also labored in the township factory during the slack season. With more income, life became better.

There were no clowns in *Brother and Sister Opening Up Wasteland*, nor was there any romance between men and women. There was only the longing for a better life and the debate on how to live a better life. The language was colloquial, telling of things everyone encountered frequently. The comrades were completely captivated by this song-and-dance play. Even Kita Ikki, whose mood had been low for a time, had his mind completely seized by this play. When the curtain fell, the comrades responded with thunderous applause and cheers. Kita Ikki applauded and cheered enthusiastically along with the comrades.

Back in the dormitory, the comrades discussed it animatedly. Those in civil administration thought they should learn how to communicate with the common people from it; those in agriculture highly praised the close integration with the masses. Umekawa Kamiyoshi was in agriculture; he thought the play's depiction of comrades starting to get cocky once they had some achievements was extremely vivid.

Kita Ikki actually didn't care about these specific lives of the common people, nor did he plan to care. It wasn't until he watched this play and heard the comrades' enthusiastic discussion that he couldn't help but praise, "If it can really be like this, this is the Kingly Way and Earthly Paradise."

"What does this have to do with the Kingly Way and Earthly Paradise?" someone immediately retorted. "Where does a happy life come from? It relies on labor to create it."

"The foundation of the base area's socialist system is science and democracy."

Kita Ikki never expected that his sigh, full of Japanese style, would meet such a rebuttal. He felt somewhat embarrassed. However, Kita Ikki was also a young man; he couldn't help but retort, "The socialist system can certainly be called the Kingly Way."

This defense triggered even fiercer opposition. "Chairman Chen has repeatedly emphasized that terminology must be correct. The broad laboring masses are the ruling class of the base area. Where does this 'Kingly Way' talk come from? Who's going to be this King? Kings and princes are stuff of the corrupt exploiting class. Among our base area cadres, such words must absolutely not be used."

Seeing Kita Ikki's face looking worse and worse under the criticism, Umekawa Kamiyoshi hurriedly came up to smooth things over. "Comrade Kita is also using a habitual expression; he will pay attention."

Kita Ikki was also very smart. He knew it was time for "criticism and self-criticism." He hurriedly guaranteed that he would pay attention in the future and try not to use such vocabulary that could easily cause misunderstandings. Since Kita Ikki had made a self-criticism, the comrades didn't pursue it relentlessly.

The cadre school had no plan to stay up for New Year's Eve. Because they attended the New Year's gala, the rest time was much later than usual, and the comrades already felt somewhat sleepy. Not long after washing their faces and feet, the lights-out bugle was heard. Everyone lay down and went to sleep one after another. Although Kita Ikki wanted to think for a while longer, drowsiness quickly dragged him into dreamland, giving him no time to think at all.

Chen Ke did not sleep. This time, the army was promoting equality education, and many comrades raised the issue of married senior officers living with their wives. Although no special result came out of this discussion in the end, the number of bachelors among People's Party cadres, especially military cadres, was huge, and married cadres were really too conspicuous. On ordinary days, comrades in the troops slept in dormitories, while married cadres went home to sleep with their wives; this really couldn't be justified. Although no one dared to direct the slightest criticism at Chen Ke, Chen Ke himself couldn't just go home carelessly. Recently, with the New Year involved, he simply moved to the military camp to live.

The situation in various places had been okay recently, only there was quite a lot of intelligence from Japan. The "High Treason Incident" involving the execution of Kōtoku Shūsui and others made Chen Ke somewhat understand why the communist movement in Japan never really took off. The hostility towards communism within Japan was extremely strong. In terms of slaughtering communists and striking at the workers' movement, Japan definitely didn't start only from the militarist era.

Chen Ke knew that Japan was about to enter the "Taishō Era," which was recognized as a relatively open period in Japanese politics. Even in this period of relatively party-democratic Japanese politics, the Japanese government's slaughter of socialists was actually so merciless.

However, these were small matters. Chen Ke was very concerned about several other pieces of news. Japan was contacting the Yuan Shikai government, hoping to reach an agreement on the coke-for-ore issue. Originally in 1899, Zhang Zidong had signed the "Coal-Coke-Iron Ore Mutual Sale Contract" with Japan. Part of the Hanyang Iron and Steel Works' ore was sold to Japan, while Japan, as the largest seller of coal and coke in Asia at the time, sold coke to the Hanyang Iron and Steel Works.

When the People's Party seized the Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, it was exactly the period when the Works' operations were extremely difficult. Chen Ke couldn't understand this "Coal-Coke-Iron Ore Mutual Sale Contract" at all. However, he later understood: Hanyang Iron and Steel Works used iron ore from Daye and coal from the Pingxiang Coal Mine in Jiangxi. These had to be bought with money. The People's Party's use of force against Jiangxi was partly due to the coal mines.

Since there was a cheaper source of raw materials, this "Coal-Coke-Iron Ore Mutual Sale Contract" naturally terminated. This had a significant impact on Japan. It was naturally impossible to engage in industry without steel. Even though the People's Party imported mechanical equipment on a large scale, it also invested enormous strength in steel development. The Hanyang Steel Group, Hefei Steel Group, Zaozhuang Steel Group, and the Ma'anshan Steel Group currently under construction—in 1911, the annual steel output of these four major groups had already reached 450,000 tons. This was even higher than China's total steel output in 1949. Moreover, it was estimated that in 1912, steel output would reach the level of 600,000 tons.

Chen Ke didn't have any special feelings about this; this output was merely one-thousandth of that 100 years later. Moreover, these steel varieties were single, and the quality was very unstable. The People's Party attempted to expand synthetic ammonia production capacity, but the base area couldn't produce the high-temperature, high-pressure reaction kettles used as core components, nor even high-temperature, high-pressure pipes. The base area's steel pipes could only be used on some very ordinary normal-temperature, normal-pressure equipment.

Technological progress required accumulation, but economic problems were more realistic. Chen Ke had participated in a discussion on a forum once. At that time, a "Republic-blackening" girl brought out face-slapping data: Japan's pig iron output in 1911 was less than 70,000 tons, and steel output was only a little over 10,000 tons. As a result, in 1912, China's steel output shrank significantly, while Japan's pig iron output exploded to 240,000 tons—more than three times that of 1911. The conclusion at the time was that a large amount of Chinese ore had entered Japan, becoming the source of Japan's pig iron.

This was just an inference; Chen Ke didn't agree with it too much. From intelligence, after signing the *Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty* in 1910, Japan increased its development in Korea. Perhaps Japan had developed mines in northern Korea on a large scale, thereby obtaining a large amount of iron ore. The People's Party was currently powerless to solve the Korea problem; Chen Ke could only control the present to the maximum extent, preventing Chinese ore from flowing into Japan.

Chen Ke had always been laying things out this way. He didn't expect that after Japan participated in the "Yuan Keding Assassination Case" and offended Yuan Shikai greatly, they still had the face to ask Yuan Shikai for cooperation in steel. Chen Ke had to admire the thickness of the Japanese people's skin. However, admiration aside, Chen Ke had always admired the thickness of Yuan Shikai's skin too. Even if there was a huge conflict and Yuan Shikai was filled with anger towards the Japanese, faced with money that could be had immediately, it wasn't impossible for Yuan Shikai to swallow his pride and cooperate with Japan.

The Japanese were hostile to socialism. Yuan Shikai might not understand what the socialist system was, but his attitude towards Chen Ke was also absolute hostility. That Yuan Shikai wasn't making a move now wasn't because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't do it for the time being.

Chen Ke didn't expect to intervene in the Northeast in the short term, so Anshan Steel was out of the question. However, the four true steel groups in Chen Ke's plan did not include the Hefei Steel Group; the fourth spot was for the Handan Steel Group. Henan was Chen Ke's hometown; he knew very well how great the agricultural potential of this fertile land of Henan was. Henan's grain could feed more than a hundred million people; in terms of wheat alone, Henan accounted for 40% of the national output. Every year for the State Council's summer grain work, the first stop was definitely Henan. If Henan had a bumper summer grain harvest, the State Council would feel assured. Since the People's Party occupied the Xuzhou area of the Huang-Huai Plain, it would be better to liberate Henan directly. Controlling this quintessential great plain area meant having grain when grain was needed and men when men were needed.

In addition, Henan had coal mines, iron mines, gold in Sanmenxia, oil fields in the Nanyang Basin, and oil fields in the Puyang area. Even if they couldn't be exploited with current technical capabilities, occupying them first would make one feel at ease. Moreover, Henan was located in the Central Plains; defensively speaking, it was a "place of four battles" (a battleground accessible from all sides). Similarly, starting from Henan, going west across Tongguan was Shaanxi, and from Sanmenxia, one could obtain a passage into Shanxi. As for going north across the Yellow River, it was Hebei, and to the east was Shandong.

When he was a freshman in university, the lieutenant colonel for military education was from Zhengzhou. Speaking of Henan, his evaluation was, "This place is genuinely suitable for fighting wars."

Chen Ke really wanted to get Henan into his hands.