On the second day of the Northwest Peace Talks Conference, Wang Shizhen still participated in the meeting. Duan Qirui also appeared at the venue on time, but judging from his gray face and bloodshot eyes, it was clear that Duan Qirui hadn't slept all night.

After sitting down, Duan Qirui said: "Mr. Jidao, if the peace talks are successful, I want to return to my hometown in Anhui to retire. I wonder if that's possible."

"No." Yan Fu answered very simply, "Brother Zhiquan is now the most influential person in Beiyang. You are indispensable for matters in the Northwest."

Wang Shizhen felt relieved in his heart; the People's Party forcing Duan Qirui to serve showed that they really didn't want to do anything bad to Duan Qirui.

Duan Qirui was not as open-minded as Wang Shizhen. He said: "I know that the People's Party's rules for doing things are very different from our Beiyang's. If we do things wrong, I wonder how the People's Party will deal with us."

Yan Fu said: "I also know some of Beiyang's rules. Saying that you should act completely according to our People's Party's methods in a short while is indeed asking too much. The matters below can still be handled according to Beiyang's methods, but the upper level must adopt our People's Party's democratic centralism. Everything must be discussed by everyone in a meeting. Once a resolution is reached, everyone must act according to this resolution. What others say may not be achieved, but presumably, what one says oneself can always be achieved."

Duan Qirui glanced at Yan Fu, feeling that the meaning in the words just now was quite profound. Was Yan Fu preparing to solve problems by way of military pledges? But there was no fault to be found in these words, so Duan Qirui stopped dwelling on this detail.

After discussing many conditions with difficulty, Yan Fu raised a new question, "We want to appoint Brother Zhiquan as the Chairman of the Five Northwest Provinces Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). I wonder what Brother Zhiquan thinks?"

Duan Qirui was stunned. Yan Fu had always said that the People's Party would not promise official positions, but now he broke the original statement and promised a chairman of the Five Provinces CPPCC. Duan Qirui, however, didn't know what the CPPCC did.

Yan Fu continued: "In addition, Brother Duan's title of Premier also has to be changed. How about being a Vice Premier in charge of the five provinces in the Northwest?"

Now Duan Qirui was even more confused. Vice Premiers usually had no real power. Being a Vice Premier with real power was not a drop in status compared to being a Premier. As for the position of CPPCC Chairman, after discussing for a long time, Duan Qirui finally understood that the CPPCC was actually intended to replace the current local assemblies of the five provinces, belonging to a transitional institution towards the People's Congress.

No one from Beiyang liked the parliament. After calculating in his heart, Duan Qirui found that although the People's Party spoke harshly, in reality, they still let Duan Qirui control the assembly, the army, and the government—the power of all three. His actual power did not suffer any special loss. It could even be said that with the support of the People's Party behind him, Duan Qirui's real power actually expanded.

If he didn't surrender, he would die now; if he surrendered, he would die later. Not to mention that the People's Party offered quite favorable conditions. On the third day, Duan Qirui symbolically convened a meeting of the Beiyang remnants. Those Beiyang warlords had long been in panic. After hearing the conditions conveyed by Duan Qirui, this group of people all revealed their true colors as busybodies.

Except for a very few confidants of Duan Qirui who simply questioned whether the People's Party was sincere or fake, everyone else began to bargain over this condition without exception, as if they really had the ability to refuse this condition.

Duan Qirui was a smart person. After being scolded by Wang Shizhen, he had a feeling of enlightenment. Seeing the performance of this group of birdmen, Duan Qirui directly laid down his words, "If you think it's okay, then don't say anything more. If anyone thinks it's not okay, then I'll give up this position, and you can sit in this position."

Busybodies, especially incompetent busybodies, all have the same virtue. They clamor happily when things happen, but when asked to take responsibility, they all become completely soft eggs.

Hearing Duan Qirui lay down harsh words, who dared to talk nonsense anymore? Those with some ability simply kept their mouths shut, while those without ability couldn't help defending themselves with a few words, trying to make others believe how loyal they were to Beiyang and how worried they were that everyone would be deceived. Duan Qirui didn't even have the impulse to scold these guys. He just simply ordered the meeting to adjourn.

The People's Party didn't expect these people from Beiyang to accomplish anything at all, as long as they didn't spoil things. In order to try not to stimulate the nerves of the Beiyang remnants, the People's Party did not send troops stationed in Shan County into Shaanxi. However, facts proved that busybody guys would swallow the bitter fruit they made sooner or later.

Yan Fu left Xi'an and just got on the train from Shan County directly to Zhengzhou. The news of the successful peace talks between Duan Qirui and the People's Party reached the Beiyang defenders in Tongguan. Previously, in order to control the soldiers, the Beiyang Army could only use core troops to guard soldiers with unstable morale. Now that Beiyang relaxed from top to bottom, even the die-hard Beiyang troops lost their spirit. As for those soldiers who had long been unwilling to risk their lives for Duan Qirui, they seized this opportunity and swarmed from Tongguan towards Shan County.

The defense of the People's Party did not relax at all. Even if these fleeing Beiyang troops tried to bypass the defense line of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army still captured all these people. After being captured, these Beiyang troops only made one request: "We don't want to be soldiers and fight anymore; we want to go home!"

Regardless of whether Duan Qirui on the opposite side would be fuming with rage, the People's Party sent these fleeing soldiers to concentration camps for centralized detention and screening. Soldiers who were found to have no problems after screening were sent back to their original domiciles first.

A few days later, the intelligence system of the People's Party transmitted the latest news back to Wuhan. Duan Qirui was indeed fuming with rage, but not against the People's Party, nor even against these deserters. With his current financial resources, he couldn't support so many soldiers anyway. If unstable guys fled, let them flee. What made Duan Qirui angry was that some bold guys actually began to challenge Duan Qirui's prestige at this time, shouting during public meetings that the People's Party harbored evil intentions and that these deserters were deliberately instigated by the People's Party.

Without external pressure from the People's Party, Duan Qirui unceremoniously removed this group of people from office. Then he transferred the troops in Tongguan back for reorganization. Those who wanted to leave, Duan Qirui let them leave. For those who didn't want to leave, Duan Qirui promoted those who should be promoted and adjusted those who should be adjusted. At the same time, he broke up the troops and reorganized them.

Originally, there were quite a few factions in the Beiyang Army that fled to the northwest, and Duan Qirui never had the chance to rectify them. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Duan Qirui carried out a major purge of his subordinates and promoted those loyal to himself. Although the scale of the Northwest Beiyang Army shrank greatly, order was finally restored with difficulty, and internal unity was achieved.

The ongoing Politburo meeting had no interest in this change. Duan Qirui being able to control the situation was even quite beneficial for the People's Party to march into the north. In November 1918, the focus of the People's Party was when the World War would end. Another question was to what extent the industrial development that the People's Party had consistently grasped could support various domestic affairs.

Railways! Railways! Railways! With a powerful railway system, the country's operating costs can be greatly reduced, and economic activity can be greatly increased. At the time when national liberation was nominally achieved, it was no longer an era where strategic goals could be achieved solely by wisdom, bravery, and even the spirit of sacrifice. What China needed was strong industrial capability. Most importantly, at least the People's Party understood what industry could achieve. The mist that once covered their eyes was lifted, seeing a vast new world, and everyone's greatest impulse was to gallop freely in this new world as soon as possible.

All committee members looked at Chen Ke, the leader of the People's Party, who had led the People's Party to this point and brought China to this point. Before this new threshold, everyone waited for Chen Ke to issue new orders.

Chen Ke indeed responded to everyone's expectations. He said: "This round of good days of making money easily is over. In the future, it won't be a time when any rotten goods can be sold casually. Comrades, get ready for harder struggle."

No one made a sound because most comrades couldn't understand what "any rotten goods can be sold casually" meant.

Chen Ke explained: "As soon as the World War ends, Europe needs to rebuild, and the United States will become the biggest economic winner in the North Atlantic economic circle due to geographical reasons. Britain and France suffered the heaviest losses, and they will definitely try every means to make up for the losses. Everyone, don't expect them to be so gentle to us anymore."

This was just common sense, and the Politburo could fully understand it. You Gou, the leader of the industrial sector, asked on behalf of the comrades: "But what does rotten goods mean?"

Chen Ke laughed: "To make money, the best industrial products in the world will compete with us. Comrades, do you think the quality of our industrial products is very good?"

These words were inevitably too hurtful. The industrial system of the People's Party created industrial categories more than ten times that of before. These industrial categories had grown vigorously under the nourishment of the First World War. The comrades were quite proud and confident of the crystallization of their sweat.

Chen Ke laughed: "After the war ends, we need to introduce steelmaking technology from France, and especially introduce technology and personnel from Germany as much as possible. We have to use the nearly one billion pounds of bonds in our hands well. In addition, Belgium and the Netherlands have quite good technologies. Italy's shipbuilding is doing well, and they are still very poor, so we must fully cooperate with Italy."

There was no need for Chen Ke to "predict" like a stick god anymore; personnel of the People's Party overseas had collected a large amount of information and materials. Comrades also had some understanding of these.

"What about the United States?" Zhang Yu asked. As the largest international partner of the People's Party, it was somewhat puzzling that Chen Ke didn't mention the United States at all.

Chen Ke replied: "Given the current inflation level in the United States, expecting to introduce technology from the United States is clearly a losing proposition. The United States now has the European market, and they won't really care about us. Comrades, I talked about economic crises before. Now let's look back; every time we made a big fortune in the international market, it was relying on a worldwide economic crisis or a worldwide war. Without these, we couldn't have completed so much accumulation before World War I."

Hearing this, the Politburo members laughed out loud sooner or later. Many things cannot be looked back upon. Looking back, at that time, the People's Party either tightened their belts, accepted seemingly extremely harsh conditions, or borrowed a large amount of foreign debt with fear and trembling. Facing the unknown future, except for comrades who blindly trusted Chen Ke, everyone was uneasy in their hearts. Now the comrades realized how much benefit they had earned back then.

"The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang themselves. That's probably what it means," Yuwen Badu couldn't help laughing. This remark caused a roar of laughter; this was what Chen Ke had said once. At that time, everyone really treated this as a joke.

After everyone laughed enough, Chen Tianhua said: "Does that mean the next economic crisis will break out first in these countries that made money from the World War?"

"Yes." Chen Ke nodded in agreement.

"What about the next time?" Chen Tianhua asked closely.

"Things like economic crises happen basically once every ten years. No industrial country can escape this fate." Chen Ke elaborated on a simple empirical summary.

"Does that mean our China can't escape either?" Chen Tianhua was very serious about theory.

"Right. If we also adopt the capitalist set, we can't escape either." Chen Ke never hid his sickness for fear of treatment.

"How to do it specifically?" Chen Tianhua continued to ask closely.

"Advance with the times, cross the river by feeling the stones," Chen Ke replied.

Chen Ke knew that in the 100 years from the beginning of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, the world really underwent tremendous changes. The most significant change was that the world became increasingly flatter. In the 1980s, there were even eighth-hand dealers reselling steel. At the beginning of the 21st century, fourth-hand and fifth-hand dealers in China could still be rampant. By the second decade of the 21st century, the internet age had compressed the living space of third-hand dealers to an extremely pitiful extent.

Quite a few relatively high-level "keyboard politburos" could appear on the internet not only because everyone was really full enough to have more time to think about other things, but more importantly because a lot of information reached the level where national leaders and ordinary netizens received information almost simultaneously.

Chen Ke's friend in Industry and Commerce said that as soon as the Sanlu incident broke out, local Industry and Commerce Administration Bureaus began to gather personnel on their own and completed the full preparation for sealing Sanlu products overnight. The reason why local Industry and Commerce Bureaus did not act immediately was just that everyone was waiting for the order from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Taking unilateral action without orders did not conform to organizational procedures.

The high efficiency of the People's Party was simply because Chen Ke could completely ignore the normal process of all research, analysis, induction, summary, and finally reaching a result. He relied entirely on his cognitive level as a time-traveler to implement strong promotion. Moreover, the comrades had sufficient revolutionary enthusiasm and the ability to act with the daring to unhorse the emperor at the risk of death by a thousand cuts. Therefore, the People's Party could develop at a speed completely inconsistent with seeking truth from facts.

But in this era where the Second Industrial Revolution was just unfolding, the industrial level of China in the second decade of the 21st century was still a distant future. Chen Ke could only adapt himself to this reality. Chen Ke must try every means to establish a more mature organization. An organization that could operate normally even without Chen Ke.

The Politburo members naturally couldn't understand Chen Ke's thoughts. Chen Tianhua raised a very representative question, "What about more specific execution steps?"

"Besides constantly creating, we have to eliminate. And it is mandatory elimination," Chen Ke said. After speaking, looking at the comrades' gazes full of thirst for knowledge towards him, Chen Ke couldn't help dispelling the thought of saying some more conceptual ideas. Crossing the river by feeling the stones is easy to say, but incomparably difficult to do.

"The most important work in the near future is to perfect the national large laboratory system as soon as possible. While we temporarily have money to buy technology, make up for the lack of technology and practical experience in various categories as much as possible..." Chen Ke began to narrate the basic practices.

This was actually an important link in Roosevelt's New Deal. To save costs, Roosevelt ordered the United States to engage in mandatory technological unification. All manufacturing enterprises had to pay some money to the national laboratory every year, and then the national laboratory entrusted various schools and technology development institutions to conduct development. Enterprises had the right to share technology from these technology development departments. And production equipment and technology had to be forcibly eliminated every once in a while. Especially later in the space race with the Soviet Union, the United States exerted this system to the limit.

New China also had a similar system, but because China's technology was too far behind the world's first-class level, this system mainly digested technology and parameters introduced from abroad for a long time. Plus, this kind of construction required large investment and was slow to yield results, appearing inefficient compared to directly introducing technology. So this system hadn't played a big role all along.

However, in Chen Ke's era, the technological gap between China and the world was not that big. Plus the accumulation over these years, the People's Party precisely needed such a system to strengthen the development of China's science and technology.

"This is the core work of the industrial department in the next two years, to establish our own science and technology system." Chen Ke finally issued the order.

"Then what is the name of this plan?" You Gou asked.

"Let's call it the Technology Tree Plan," Chen Ke replied.