I want to be emperor

Chapter 1193 Five major companies became the winners

The series of support plans for remote and backward areas finalized by the Great Chu Empire in the winter of the 54th year of Chengshun were very large in scale and equally significant in impact.

The funds involved in the first few years alone would have reached more than 10 billion Chu Yuan.

In particular, this amount of funds is only the financial support from the capital, and does not include the local financial expenditures of various local government offices.

Because the so-called support plans for remote and backward areas, at the national level, are mainly targeted at inland areas, especially the southwest and northwest regions.

But even for many economically developed provinces in the east, there are actually economically backward areas within their provinces, such as Guangdong.

It seems to be the second largest economic province, with an economic size second only to Jiangnan Province, which includes Songjiang Prefecture, but the local economic development in Guangdong is actually very unbalanced.

The economic scale is mainly supported by the Pearl River Delta region, while the eastern, western and northern regions of Guangdong are actually developing very generally. Strictly speaking, the local economic conditions are not much better than those of the poor areas in inland provinces.

Of course... this does not mean that the local people live in hardship. In fact, a considerable number of people in the eastern, western and northern regions of Guangdong work and live in the Pearl River Delta region, and their employment and income are still guaranteed.

However, it is a fact that the local economy is backward. Therefore, in this round of support plan for remote and backward areas, the eastern, western and northern Guangdong regions, as poor areas in Guangdong Province, will also be included in a series of support plans for remote and backward areas in Guangdong Province, thereby driving local economic development and increasing the income of local people.

This is also the core goal of the imperial high-level officials' plan to support remote and backward areas.

Increase the income of people in poor areas!

The whole country has its own plan, and each province has its own plan. When it comes to the turn of each prefecture and county, there will also be corresponding support and development plans for backward areas.

  Therefore, the total scale of the entire support plan will be very large!

Even the vast and powerful Great Chu Empire felt a little strained. After all, although the Great Chu Empire had an overall developed economy and huge fiscal revenue, it also had many places to spend money!

Every year, the central government spends hundreds of millions on education alone, and hundreds of millions on military spending as well. The amounts spent on infrastructure construction in areas such as transportation and water conservancy are also enormous.

Then there are also a lot of regular administrative expenses.

Although the central fiscal revenue of the Great Chu Empire is high, there are also many places to spend money. Therefore, it is still a bit difficult to come up with a large amount of funds to implement support plans at once.

But it's just a matter of effort... After all, a lot of capital investment is not made in a short period of time, but in batches and over many years.

The entire support program will last for ten or even twenty years.

When the timeline is extended, the economic investment in a single year will not be that much.

  And only the contemporary Great Chu Empire can carry out such a billion-level support and development plan... Why?

The Great Chu Empire is rich!

As a global empire, the direct territories of the Great Chu Empire spread all over the world. If the economic colonies such as vassal states are included, the controlled area is truly global.

  At the same time, it has a population of more than 800 million!

The Great Chu Empire maintained its huge economic system by using global resources and the cheap labor of hundreds of millions of indigenous people from various countries.

This scale is beyond the imagination of any indigenous country.

  During the fifty-four years of Chengshun, the central fiscal revenue budget of the Great Chu Empire alone reached a huge amount of 4 billion!

This is 4 billion Chu Yuan, real gold Yuan under the gold standard, which is a huge number.

As for other countries, the fiscal revenue of many vassal states is only a few million Chu Yuan, and a considerable part of it has to be used to repay debts...

The Chu people not only dumped industrial products and harvested agricultural, livestock and mineral products in these vassal states, but also made various loans for financial harvesting.

Basically, every vassal state owed a lot of debt to the banks of Chu... For example, the Kingdom of England, which was considered to be in a relatively good situation in Europe, owed a large sum of money due to war reparations in the early days, and then borrowed a large sum of money from the Chu people for some of their domestic infrastructure, such as port and canal construction.

Later they went to war with the Kingdom of Wales and borrowed money to fight the war.

While borrowing money, they also repaid debts, and now they still owe a huge debt of more than 30 million Chu Yuan to several banking groups in the Great Chu Empire.

These debts generate corresponding interest every year. The Kingdom of England is under great pressure just to repay the interest every year, and repaying the principal is even more difficult.

This is still referring to the Kingdom of England, which is in a relatively good situation. Although they owe a lot of debt, their overall economy is good and their repayment capacity is also good. They have been working hard to repay the principal and gradually reduce their debt over the years.

  However, for many vassal states, due to their poor economy, even if the debt is not that large, it is very difficult to repay it. Most of them actually borrow new debts to repay old debts, and then the debt not only does not shrink, but continues to increase every year!

Of course, it will not increase disorderly. The Chu people are not stupid. They will not let you borrow money without restraint. They will only lend you money after confirming your repayment ability.

The amount of money borrowed is basically to allow your agency regime to survive and maintain its ability to rule after you repay the interest, rather than directly collapsing into bankruptcy.

After all, the Chu people came here to make money, not to cause trouble... Otherwise, if the agent regime collapsed, they would have to support a new agent, which is unnecessary.

As for those who really can't pay it back, they can just give up more resources and labor to pay off the debt, such as minerals, docks, etc., which the Chu merchants like very much.

  After selling the minerals, the Chu people took the lion's share of the profits, and the local agent regime took a smaller share, and everyone was happy!

The Chu people's business in these vassal states was not limited to dumping industrial products and harvesting resources, but also involved in many other industries, such as shipping.

Nowadays, the shipping industry in those indigenous countries is basically monopolized by the Chu people... Because these indigenous countries cannot engage in shipping industry at all, the Great Chu Empire prohibits the export of sensitive mechanical equipment such as ships to non-Chu companies.

This meant that only Chu enterprises were able to purchase ships and then use them to operate inland and coastal shipping in the indigenous country.

The same is true for railways.

In fact, it is not just in the field of transportation, but even in the fields of agriculture and mining, the Chu people occupy the majority...also because of the restrictions on equipment exports.

For example, in the mining industry, you need mechanical equipment to mine, but these mechanical equipment can only be imported and used by Chu enterprises. If you set up a mining company and want to purchase mining equipment, the Chu people will not sell it to you. In this case, if you want to develop it yourself, you can only use inefficient manual mining... and the cost will be very high, which is not comparable to the mining companies next door that use mechanical equipment to mine, and you will eventually be squeezed out and go bankrupt.

Therefore, in the mining industry, the mineral development industry in various indigenous countries was basically monopolized by Chu enterprises... Of course, the local indigenous people were still the ones who mined. After Chu enterprises obtained the corresponding development qualifications from the local area, they brought in equipment and technicians, and then hired a large number of indigenous miners to carry out the development.

This situation also existed in agriculture. The Chu people established many large-scale farms and plantations in their vassal states. These farms generally adopted large-scale mechanized planting and employed a small number of local indigenous workers.

Except for a small part of the crops that were supplied to the local area, most of the crops were actually transported away and exported to the State of Chu. However, agriculture also has certain special characteristics, and it is impossible to use mechanized planting. Therefore, most of the natives of the sweet potato country still farmed by themselves, but the price of food was inevitably controlled by the people of Chu.

The Great Chu Empire has a very strong control over food around the world. It not only controls most of the world's food production, but also controls food prices around the world.

The global grain trade was exclusive to the Chu people, and the indigenous people were not allowed to get involved.

By controlling the grain trade, the Chu people also directly controlled the dining tables of indigenous peoples of various countries... Whether the people in many indigenous countries can have enough food really depends on whether the Chu people have conscience and consider their interests.

The Great Chu Empire firmly suppressed all indigenous countries at the bottom of the entire global economic system through industrial dumping, financial control, resource harvesting, etc., forcing them to contribute to the happy life of the Chu people.

  This is why the Great Chu Empire is so keen on establishing a global economic system and does not like slavery in its vassal states!

Thanks to the efforts and contributions of these vassal states, the economy of the Great Chu Empire took off rapidly throughout the forty years and fifties!

  Against this background, support programs for remote and backward areas can be implemented!

Otherwise, the Chu people would have to sacrifice their heads to develop those remote and backward areas!

Among this series of support plans for backward and remote areas, the construction of transportation facilities is the top priority.

In the construction of transportation facilities, the upgrading and reconstruction of official roads has also become a focus of people's attention, especially the focus of the capital market.

After local governments announced a series of pipeline upgrade and renovation plans and construction plans for some inter-city asphalt and cement roads.

In addition to a series of infrastructure companies, such as cement, steel, and construction machinery and equipment companies, stocks have been rising steadily.

  The five major automobile companies and the related automobile industry chain are the ones that are most affected!

Among them, the stock price of Li's Power Company has continued to rise since the winter. When the local government announced the plan to renovate the official roads in the east, west and north of Guangdong and the plan to build an asphalt road network around the Pearl River Delta, the stock price of Li's Power Company soared by more than ten percentage points.

Because Li's Power Company's headquarters, main production bases, and even many supporting industrial chains are all in the Pearl River Delta region, and the local promotion of highway construction will inevitably drive up automobile sales.

However, the cars of Li's Power Company are still very competitive in the local market...

More than 80% of all official vehicles in the local province, from the cars used by senior officials, the law enforcement vehicles of ordinary patrol police, to the garbage trucks used to sweep the streets, as well as the buses and taxis needed by local official public transportation companies, are vehicles produced by Lee Power.

As for local protectionism, it's nothing new!

Local support for North American automobile companies in America.

The local government of Songjiang Prefecture also provided great support to Songhe Automobile Company.

Hebei supports Tangshan Automobile Company, and Liaodong supports the local Liaodong Automobile Company.

These are all normal...because what is involved are hundreds of thousands of jobs and a huge supply chain industry. Local officials would like to blatantly ban cars from other regions from entering the local market!

Of course, this is unrealistic. The imperial high-level officials also treat local preservationism differently. For example, they turn a blind eye to industries such as textiles and small hardware. This is because these industries do not require much technical content and can be developed anywhere, thus leaving some industrial seeds for those small cities.

However, automobiles are a serious capital-intensive high-tech industry in modern times. The entry threshold is extremely high and most cities cannot actually do it.

Under such circumstances, the top leaders of the empire will naturally not sacrifice the interests of the entire automotive industry for the sake of the interests of a few places.

Therefore, the imperial top leaders have always taken a tough stance against local protectionism in high-tech industries such as the automobile industry.

If your local government wants support, you can provide funds and policies, and then you can do your own official procurement. As long as you don't engage in corruption, Jinling will not bother to intervene.

But if you dare to block other car companies’ cars from selling normally in the local area... then your superiors will directly punish you!

You can support local enterprises, but you cannot interfere with the normal operation of other enterprises!

But even so, an automobile company will still occupy a large market share in the local automobile market. In Guangdong, Li's Power Company has occupied more than half of the market share all year round.

Now that the local area is planning to carry out large-scale highway construction, coupled with the fact that Guangdong's overall economy is relatively developed, it will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in car sales.

Especially the Pearl River Delta urban highway proposed locally, which will be an intercity highway connecting Huizhou Prefecture, many areas of Guangzhou Prefecture, Dongguan Prefecture, and the newly divided Shunde Prefecture, Xinhui Prefecture and other places.

This intercity highway is a first-class four-lane asphalt road that passes through many cities in the Pearl River Delta.

This will also be the second long-distance intercity first-class asphalt highway in the Great Chu Empire.

It is conceivable that once this highway is built, it will not only promote the local economy, but will also bring great convenience to road transportation and travel.

In the future, people will no longer have to take trains to travel between these cities, but can drive directly.

At the same time, the plans to upgrade official roads in a large number of remote areas will also drive up local car sales. Whether it is hi cars, trucks, or various three-wheeled vehicles, they will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in sales.

In this case, Li's Power Company's car sales will inevitably increase, which will stimulate the rise in stock prices and allow people to see the company's future development.

The case is the same for Li Power Company, and the other four large automobile companies have also benefited to varying degrees. After all, these five automobile companies cannot be said to have a monopoly, but they at least occupy more than 90 percent of the automobile market.

Although the remaining 10% of the automobile market is not directly occupied, it is indirectly controlled through core components such as engines and gearboxes.

The Great Chu Empire's large-scale promotion of the plan to upgrade and renovate official roads and the large-scale construction of inter-city asphalt highways was like a shot in the arm for the five major automobile companies. The car sales increased significantly, which was visible to the naked eye!

  Some people even say that in this support plan for remote and backward areas, the five seemingly unrelated automobile companies have become the biggest winners!

Against this backdrop, major automobile companies are also working hard to research and develop, design, and launch various types of automobiles that better meet market demand.

Among them, the sedan category has become a battleground for the five major automobile companies, which has triggered extremely fierce competition!