The great hero of the Silk Road, starting from a farm farmer

Chapter 327 It is precisely because of debt that we must spend the money as soon as possible!

The theme of the twelfth year of Jingli was war. From the beginning of the year, except for the south, no place in the world seemed to be spared.

At the end of the year, the war was still going on. The Mongol army was divided into four groups and fought fiercely with Zheng's army in northern Shaanxi, Shaanzhou, Xiangfan, and Jiangnan. It felt that they were going to destroy Zheng before they gave up.

At the same time, the northwest region was also at war. The Anxi army launched a war against the Xibo regime on the Qingbo grassland. The reason for the war was that the Jiedu government of the former Xifan fandom ignored the contents of the mutual market agreement between the two parties and arbitrarily prevented the people from free trade with Anxi merchants. The imposition of high taxes violated the legitimate interests of Anxi merchants.

However, in terms of the scale of the war, the war between the Anxi Army and the Western Fan was completely incomparable to the war in the Central Plains. Counting the logistics personnel and servants, the Anxi Army only had more than 10,000 troops on the battlefield this time, which was just a small local war.

In Song Yingkui's words, this war was for troop training and expansion of the safe zone, not for a strategic decisive battle with the Western Fan.

Compared with the war in the Qingfan grassland, Song Yingkui was more concerned about the management and construction under his rule. Even though it is the end of the year and the beginning of the year, and the weather is freezing, the railway construction project still does not stop.

Due to frozen soil problems, ground construction cannot be carried out, but material manufacturing and transportation work can be carried out without being affected. Taking advantage of winter, transport the sand, stones, sleepers, and rails used for railway paving to the first-line material yard. Paving can be started as soon as possible after the start of the new year, which can greatly shorten the construction period!

If progress goes well, Song Yingkui's idea is to build the two sections of railway from Taoyang to Huizhou and Taoyang to Linjin Ferry next year.

As long as a long section of railway is built and put into use first, so that the people and officials can see its benefits and advantages, the subsequent work can be carried out better and faster.

The railway from Taoyang to Huizhou cannot be repaired directly due to the obstruction of the mountainous area. It must first be built east to Huichuan Town, and then detour northwest. The project is not easy. After the railway construction project started this year, it took more than half a year to basically dig out the roadbed. It will be very difficult to repair it by the end of next year.

The construction of the railway from Taoyang to Linjin Ferry is equally difficult. Frankly speaking, in the areas currently under the control of the Anxi Army, there are actually very few places where railway construction is not difficult. The terrain between Yinzhou and Weizhou is flat, making it easy to build a railway. Other sections require various ways to cross mountains and ridges.

what to do? We can only go ahead with the scalp. The more inconvenient the transportation is, the more road construction is needed. This contradiction is unavoidable.

Use existing technical means and manpower to solve the problem as much as possible. Where the difficulty is too great, temporarily abandon the connection and use ordinary roads for transfer. This is the only solution that can be thought of and used at present.

Fortunately, the biggest difficulty in raising funds for building railways is progressing smoothly, otherwise this plan may fail. Song Yingkui originally thought that bond financing would not go too smoothly at the beginning, and people with spare money in the country would not be too enthusiastic. As a result, the bond was issued in just one month, and the subscribed funds were already close to one million silver dollars. According to this trend, the two million silver dollar bonds issued are likely to be sold out in a short period of time.

Coupled with the funds obtained from the previous sale of part of the factory shares, it seems that the railway construction expenditure for about two years can be supported without monetary injection.

Counting the previous silver reserves in the treasury of the Dudu Palace, the Dudu Palace was able to collect more than two million taels of silver (two silver dollars and one tael of silver) in currency issuance reserves. On this basis, issuing an additional banknote and other tokens worth four million silver dollars is within the safety line according to normal financial knowledge.

Taking this into account, it is indeed no longer difficult to find money to build the railway! The people in Anxi are quite capable, and the Governor's Mansion still has a good reputation.

In fact, the most powerful people in this round of financing are not the original residents of Anxi. They were wealthy merchants from Dazheng who had escaped from the Central Plains and Guanzhong.

After losing their land and livelihood environment, they were extremely insecure and had spare money. Here in Anxi, investing in land is difficult to achieve results in a short period of time, and the investment risks in other industries are high. The shares sold and bonds issued by the Dudu Palace have become the most ideal means of preserving their wealth. It is normal to choose to invest in the Dudu Palace. but.

"Uncle, we have a lot of money in our treasury right now. We won't be able to use so much money to repair railways and other facilities in a short period of time. I thought about it. After the beginning of next year, we have to do more things in Hexi and Yinzhou. That's all." Having too much money is also a problem. You have to find a way out for the money quickly, otherwise the money will become a burden in your hands. Song Yingkui quickly found his second uncle to discuss how to spend the money.

"A lot of the money in the governor's and treasury is borrowed, how can he spend it randomly? Isn't it all used to build the railway?" To this day, the second uncle still has difficulty understanding Song Yingkui's financial management views. This doll and everything else are good, but I don’t like saving money. Others hope that the more money in the treasury, the better. As soon as he sees that there is a lot of money in the treasury, he will think about how to spend it.

"It is precisely because we have debts that we have to spend the money as soon as possible to make the money generate value, otherwise wouldn't we just pay the interest in vain? The Hexi region has also experienced war this year, which has caused great damage to local production. I think Led by the Ministry of Administration, it provides loans in the name of the government to local people with land. It supports them in purchasing cattle and other production facilities, and expanding the planting area of ​​cotton and cotton!

Although it will take some time for Yinzhou to recover, some measures to encourage production can also be implemented. Production loans can also be implemented in Yinzhou! In Hexi and Yinzhou, let's set the total amount of loans this year at one million silver dollars. If you lend at the beginning of the year, you only need to pay off the interest within five years, and then repay the principal and interest after five years. The annual interest is set at half a percent.

For this production loan, the local government must ensure that the money is actually put into the hands of the people who farm the land, and that it is invested in production. The Administrative Department must do its job as the first supervisor. The Supervisory Yuan will trace the use of funds. The joint accountability system will be adopted during the supervision process. If there is misappropriation of money in a township or town, all officials in the township will be held accountable. If If corrupt loans occur in two or more towns in a county, all officials in the county will be held accountable!

There was an incident in one state or two counties, and all the officials of the state government were arrested and questioned. Accordingly, the Ministry of Administration drafted local documents to make every local official understand that they are not only going to release money to the people, but also that everyone is responsible for supervising the use of funds. "Since the policy loans of later generations have left a big shadow on Song Yingkui's heart, in order to prevent the money released from being exploited, Song Yingkui is going to use the strictest liability system this time to ensure that the money released can really work!

(End of this chapter)