Vientiane Throne of Civilization

Chapter 1152 Another Cold Winter

In the past few years, they have been carrying out large-scale development within the Great Zhou. In the volcanic island, the southern border area, and the northeastern region, which area of ​​development and construction is not burning money like crazy?

The manufacture of steam locomotives and the laying of railways have indeed greatly accelerated the development and construction efficiency of related areas.

However, the faster the development and construction efficiency, the faster you spend money!

Not to mention the various R&D and production departments, which also consume a lot of financial funds every year.

This makes them spend money like crazy.

The reason why Zhou Xu was able to be so successful in the past two years was thanks to the wealth he had accumulated from the war profits in his early years.

But to be honest, their Great Zhou still had a shallow foundation and not much wealth. After such a squandering, they finally ran out of money...

Simply put, they have no savings. Now, within their Great Zhou, the salary expenditures and project funds of each department depend entirely on the revenue of their state-owned industries and the taxes paid by the people every year.

If anything goes wrong in these two areas, their fiscal expenditure for the new year will be in trouble.

The Minister of Finance undoubtedly realized this, so he quickly called a halt to it.

By the way, he stopped not only the project of manufacturing steam locomotive No. 003, but also many other projects, all of which had proposals to cut funding or even cancel them directly.

It’s just that the steam locomotive project is a typical one, so it was specifically mentioned.

In fact, the report sent by the Minister of Finance this time is as thick as a book called "Five Years of College Entrance Examination and Three Years of Simulation".

As if he was afraid that their Majesty would not understand, he made a detailed display and calculation of every project that needed to have its budget cut or even directly cancelled, and marked the reasons and his own thoughts behind each project.

What should Zhou Xu do? He could only read it slowly, page by page.

After all, even Huo Qubing could not make the decision for him whether to cut some projects.

He certainly would not agree to all of the Finance Minister's requests.

He and the Finance Minister have different perspectives on a project, so naturally they have different ideas.

But he obviously would not reject all of them. Putting aside other things, at least regarding the current financial problems of their Great Zhou, there was no problem with what the Minister of Finance said.

The Minister of Finance's idea is to take it slow this year.

Once the development and construction in the Northeast is completed, many fiscal expenditures can be stopped. At the same time, after the development and construction of the Northeast region is completed and it starts to operate and generate regional economy, it can also bring some economic benefits to their Great Zhou.

By then, the financial situation within their Great Zhou will be clearly alleviated.

Zhou Xu agreed with this view.

The financial situation means that Da Zhou will not make any new moves in the future, and will mainly focus on existing development projects.

In the blink of an eye, it is winter again...

This winter, the Plain Fortress in the New North District was not peaceful. Outside the fortress, nearly a thousand bodies of green-skinned giants lay there, and the soldiers of the Plain Fortress were cleaning up the battlefield outside in the wind and snow.

As the commander-in-chief of the New North District, Shi Lei stood on the fortress wall, frowning slightly as he looked at the scene outside the wall.

“This is already the third wave this year…”

The first wave was in the fall and the second wave was in early winter.

Although the three waves of greenskins were small-scale troops with a total strength of no more than a thousand people, they were all easily defeated by them, but this situation was obviously different from the usual and still made Shi Lei a little worried.

At this moment, a group of figures appeared outside the fortress, causing Shi Lei to turn around and walk down the wall.

The dwarves of Copperforge have arrived.

Although the battle was over before they arrived every time, the dwarves would always send troops to confirm the situation out of caution.

According to his observation, the leader was Woking Copperforge, who had contact with them before. The arrival of Woking Copperforge gave him some ideas.

Shi Lei could feel that the other party should have a high status in the dwarf group of Copperforge. Apart from the first two times, the dwarf who led the team to confirm the situation was another one.

Now that Woking Copperfurnace has appeared again, Shi Lei guessed that something must be going on.

"Long time no see! Good friend!"

Seeing Shi Lei, Woking Copperforge came closer with a big laugh.

As soon as they met, Shi Lei clearly felt that the other party was trying to get close to him.

However, due to the other party's heroic behavior, people did not feel any bad impression of him.

"Long time no see, Lord Woking. Why are you here in person this time?"

After some brief pleasantries, Shi Lei got straight to the point.

Although Woking, who is over 200 years old, is not naive, he is obviously not good at beating around the bush.

"There are things I want you to talk about."

Having said that, Woking turned his head and looked around.

"I think we'd better talk somewhere else."

"Please come with me."

Understanding Woking's meaning, Shi Lei nodded and made a "please" gesture.

"You guys wait for me outside."

After signaling his boar riders to stand by outside, Woking followed Shi Lei into the Plains Fortress, brought him to an empty meeting room, and ordered someone to make two cups of hot tea.

Running around in this snowy and icy place is not an easy job. After taking a sip of hot tea, Woking felt much more comfortable.

"I won't beat around the bush. I'm here to invite you, the Great Zhou, to join the coalition forces to jointly resist the invasion of the greenskins."

Shi Lei frowned when he heard this, and subconsciously tried to use the same excuse to refuse.

Unexpectedly, this time Woking acted even faster.

"Don't rush to refuse. Listen to me, Mr. Shi Lei. I'm sure you've noticed that this is not the first time that the greenskin troops have penetrated deep into our territory."

Woking's words made Shi Lei swallow back the words that were about to come out of his mouth, and he pretended to be "all ears".

"This is because the Greenskins' offensive and troop size have increased."

Having said that, Woking scratched his messy hair as if he had thought of something troubling him.

"To be precise, something happened within the coalition forces. One coalition force temporarily withdrew from the front line due to some issues. The withdrawal of that force had a significant impact on the entire front-line situation."

"Forget it, let's not talk about this annoying thing. To put it simply, the greenskins are now in the upper hand, and our Copperforge has been besieged by a large greenskin army since the fall."

"The situation is quite bad now. We are already a little overwhelmed. This is the main reason why so many small-scale greenskin troops have sneaked in this year."

"With so many small units missing, the greenskins must have noticed this place. Once Copperforge Fort is breached, your Great Zhou will not be able to stay out of it."

At this point, Woking paused, his face full of sincerity...

"It doesn't matter if you don't want to join the coalition. I am only representing our Copperforge. I hope to form an alliance with your Great Zhou and jointly resist the invasion of the greenskins on this land!"

(End of this chapter)