Faced with the massacre that erupted in early 1915, the People's Party never had an extreme reaction. From beginning to end, the People's Party only extended a helping hand to their "half-ally," the "Former Restoration Society West Zhejiang Branch." Cai Yuanpei had originally worried that the ambitious People's Party would contact the "rebel party" within the Restoration Society to seize Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so he insisted on carrying out a great purge of the Restoration Society before the People's Party could make a move, in order to put an end to internal turmoil. The People's Party held their troops and did not move, allowing the great purge "led" by Cai Yuanpei to be completed extremely smoothly.

If it weren't for the assassination of Zhu Rui sparking a series of over a dozen assassination attempts in Zhejiang—some successful, some failures—this great purge would have been a complete success. All figures in Zhejiang who advocated for land reform were either dead or had fled, and those who advocated for Westernization were also killed and scattered. The landlords and gentry regained power, and after the members of local assemblies were purged and slaughtered twice, the "Stability Faction" came into full power. In Cai Yuanpei's view, the entire province of Zhejiang had returned to the correct track. The human factors that could potentially trigger social change had been wiped clean. After this frantic slaughter, the British expressed their support, and the weapons and supplies that were promised were all delivered.

However, Cai Yuanpei felt a faint worry. The entire province of Zhejiang was too "calm," "calm" to the point of being lifeless. No one dared to discuss politics anymore; when mouths opened in the assembly, it was only about how to "thoroughly purge the rebel party." In Cai Yuanpei's view, the rebel party in Zhejiang had already been completely purged, and the urgent task now was to reorganize armaments and wage war against the People's Party. But the landlords and gentry simply didn't mention this matter. Tao Chengzhang, who had been assassinated, had once fiercely advocated for Zhejiang to stay out of the coming war to seek the preservation of the federal autonomy system. These gentry members had once opposed Tao Chengzhang, but after they came to power, their rhetoric became exactly the same as Tao Chengzhang's.

Cai Yuanpei very much agreed with Sun Yat-sen's views. In such a situation, he had no choice but to write a letter to Sun Yat-sen, hoping to receive some theoretical support from him. As a result, when the messenger returned, he brought news that Sun Yat-sen, who was currently serving as the Vice Minister of Railways and a Member of Parliament, had gone abroad to Japan for an "inspection."

"Why?" Cai Yuanpei did not understand why Sun Yat-sen would do this at such a critical juncture.

"The Guangdong assembly members used the Alliance Society's promotion of radicalism as an excuse to demand the Beiyang government kill Sun Yat-sen to apologize to the world. After all, the Equalization of Land Rights was proposed by Sun Yat-sen, and the landlords and gentry are extremely opposed to this. Mr. Sun Yat-sen had actually defended himself, saying his Equalization of Land Rights and the People's Party's land reform were two completely different things. Equalization of Land Rights respects the landlord's ownership of the land. But a large group of people simply wouldn't listen. Out of helplessness, Mr. Sun Yat-sen could only go to Japan to avoid the storm," the messenger explained.

However, there were some things the messenger did not dare to tell Cai Yuanpei directly. Yuan Shikai let Sun Yat-sen be this Member of Parliament and Vice Minister of Railways only to serve as a symbol, like buying the bones of a thousand-li horse to show he values talent. The fact that the leader of the Alliance Society, once the most revolutionary political party, had also surrendered to Yuan Shikai's Beiyang government held immense political significance. Adhering to the Beiyang government's consistent methods, Yuan Shikai specially approved 200,000 silver dollars for Sun Yat-sen to "conduct inspections on railway issues." This money was spent in less than a year. Sun Yat-sen then applied to Yuan Shikai for another 300,000 silver dollars.

During this nationwide "elimination of radicalism," a portion of the members of parliament demanded that Sun Yat-sen make his finances public, asking him to account for where this total of 500,000 silver dollars had gone. Sun Yat-sen could not explain his financial issues, and seeing that the recent situation was unfavorable, he simply used the excuse of an inspection to run to Japan to escape disaster.

Learning that Sun Yat-sen was not in the country, Cai Yuanpei was quite disappointed. He had carefully studied Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and was a supporter of Sun Yat-sen's thoughts. In Cai Yuanpei's view, implementing a new system to a certain extent was still necessary, and Sun Yat-sen was the only person in China at the moment who could confront the People's Party in terms of political system architecture.

"Mr. Sun is not in Beijing. How is the recent situation in Beijing?" Cai Yuanpei asked.

"Beijing and Tianjin have almost turned into military camps; everyone is preparing for war," the messenger replied hurriedly. He knew of Cai Yuanpei's appreciation for Sun Yat-sen; if Cai Yuanpei insisted on asking about Sun Yat-sen's recent situation, the messenger really wouldn't know how to answer.

"When can the war start?" Cai Yuanpei asked. Although the Beiyang government, from top to bottom, had been shouting about going to war, it had always been about conscription and training, and there was no real movement up to now.

"That, I don't know," the messenger answered.

"I understand," Cai Yuanpei replied. He also knew that the messenger didn't go to Beijing to confirm this matter. There was plenty of discussion on the streets all over the country right now; if what they said were true, the war would have been fought dozens of times already. The messenger didn't come back to "peddle" the rumors heard along the way, which made Cai Yuanpei quite satisfied.

After the messenger left, Cai Yuanpei sat weakly in the empty room. He was not only thinking about when Beiyang would start the war, but he was also equally puzzled as to why the People's Party still had no movement up to now.

The People's Party certainly couldn't be without movement. In 1913, comrades believed that the War of Liberation would break out. In 1914, the People's Party continued to fight, and foreign countries also attempted to interfere in Chinese affairs; the People's Party internally believed the War of Liberation would break out. Chen Ke overruled all dissenting opinions, requiring the base areas to proceed step-by-step to complete conscription, training, and industrial and agricultural production work.

By 1915, Beiyang had entered a stage of large-scale military expansion and training. The comrades within the People's Party had enough experience in this regard. The Beiyang Army claimed to have 2 million troops; without more than a year of training and equipment, an army of this scale could not possibly possess universal combat effectiveness, especially the ability to coordinate in battle. According to intelligence collected and confirmed by the People's Party's intelligence department, the Beiyang Army's so-called command center didn't even have a full complement of operations staff officers, let alone the fact that the existing staff officers were basically clerks with absolutely no combat experience. Therefore, most comrades believed that the comprehensive War of Liberation would start in the second half of 1916.

Just like the previous few times, Chen Ke came out again to overrule the dissenting opinions. He believed that Beiyang's war would begin around August 1915. The comrades dared not disbelieve; they asked Chen Ke to provide clear reasons. By the end of April 1915, Chen Ke finally convened the People's Party National Representative Conference. At the meeting, Chen Ke finally explained this issue: "Beiyang is facing the problem of imported inflation. According to the summary of recent intelligence, imported inflation has already breached the threshold and entered a stage of full-blown outbreak."

"Input" (Imported) was a concept comrades built through specific things like blood transfusions and water infusions. "Inflation" was an economics term learned in class. Separately, everyone understood the two words. Connecting them together and adding a "nature" (suffix -ing/ive/driven), the comrades felt it was impossible to understand.

Chen Ke had no intention of letting the comrades guess. He explained, "The imported inflation Beiyang is encountering refers to a certain economy outside of Beiyang's economic system injecting a large amount of currency into the Beiyang economic system. At present, when the production capacity within the economic system has not been comprehensively improved, the volume of currency in circulation exceeds the volume of transactions, leading to inflation."

Such academic remarks still made the comrades feel it was difficult to understand. Lu Huitian was relatively flexible in this regard; he was the first to figure it out. "Chairman Chen means that the British gave Yuan Shikai a large amount of silver, and Yuan Shikai minted this silver into silver dollars and issued them in Beiyang. The British provided imported inflation to Beiyang."

Some comrades understood, but some still didn't quite understand. "This is real gold and silver, not recklessly printing paper money. How can it be called inflation?"

The People's Party implemented a fiat currency system, with paper money circulating internally. Regarding currency issuance, the People's Party was very worried about inflation issues. The Central Bank was extremely careful when issuing currency and had specially established a project audit department, which was the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. If paper money didn't have state backing, it was waste paper, too hard even for wiping one's butt. But Beiyang's silver dollars were the real deal. In the concepts of some comrades, this stuff was extremely difficult to link with inflation.

"If it were just more silver dollars, it wouldn't be a problem," Chen Ke explained. "But a large amount of currency is not entering the circulation field evenly right now; instead, it is appearing with high concentration in a few specific sectors. The Beiyang Army can't drink the northwest wind; they have to eat. A large amount of currency is entering the grain purchasing system. Currently, we occupy the Huang-Huai Plain, which is a grain-producing area. Beiyang cannot feed these several million troops relying solely on Hebei and Shandong. And why did I say threshold? The common people also have to eat. If grain prices remain at a relatively high position for a period of time, the people will gradually sell the grain in their hands. Now Beiyang has no grain, and the people have no grain either. Everyone is holding their breath waiting for this year's summer harvest grain."

"This year's summer grain can't be spoken of as a bumper harvest, but it shouldn't be a problem, right?" The comrades from Henan were right next to Hebei and Shandong; they had more of a say regarding Beiyang's harvest this year.

"It is precisely because there is no problem that a problem will occur," Chen Ke replied.

This kind of stick-in-the-mud prophetic statement made the comrades feel very dissatisfied. Chen Ke was often like this in major matters; he always relied on principles he understood himself to infer the development of events. Only after the fact could the comrades understand why things proceeded that way. Before the event happened, no matter how everyone discussed it with Chen Ke, there was always a feeling that the lips of a donkey were not matching the mouth of a horse. So, dissatisfaction aside, the comrades of the People's Party confirmed two things. First was to plan future strategy according to Chairman Chen Ke's train of thought. Second was to earnestly observe and collect intelligence, so as to be able to summarize the issues at future seminars.

In the People's Party, whether one could keep up with Chen Ke's train of thought was a very serious issue. It wasn't that opinions differing from Chen Ke's would bring about any retaliatory strikes, but rather that those comrades who could understand Chen Ke's train of thought could all receive faster promotions. This was an issue that could not be ignored. Since everyone revered Chen Ke as the leader and as the mentor, how could there be a reason for students not to listen properly to the teacher's lecture?