Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 104 Industrial Reform
In Guan Xuqing's long-term strategic plan, the coming situation is grim. Not to mention the desperately developing and covetous Russia around him, but also to catch up with Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, which are already far ahead, and change the fate of the world in the next two times. The big battle is bound to be seized.However, just like participating in a big gamble, if you want to reap huge returns from it, you must have a strong gambling capital.Guan Xuqing is now as if he has superb gambling skills but does not have enough chips, sighing to himself, "It's hard for a clever woman to cook without rice"!
Fortunately, he is only 17 years old. If history has not changed, there are still more than 20 years before the arrival of the First World War, and he still has a lot of opportunities to raise money for gambling.Among these bets, the country's industrial strength is undoubtedly the top priority, ranging from the supply of guns and ammunition, the supply of military clothing and food, to the supplement of heavy artillery and warships. The rapid deployment in the west requires the backing of huge industrial strength.

For this point, most people in this era do not have a clear understanding. In the large-scale Franco-Prussian, Austrian-Prussian, and Crimean Wars during this period, the outcome of the war was often determined by one or two battles. The quality of the army The level of the country has become the standard for measuring the strength of a country.

However, looking at the two world wars, the impact of industrial strength on the war is vividly reflected. If it weren't for the dense railway transportation network in the country, how could Germany support the two fronts at the same time when it was at a disadvantage in the first world war? Ground oppression operations, often a division has just completed a defensive battle on the banks of the Seine in Champagne.

Three days later, it appeared on the black soil of Ukraine and surrounded a division of the Russian Guards Corps; while the quality of soldiers has always been known for fear of death, the United States was able to defeat them in the Pacific War. Based on his experience, he relied on his huge industrial strength. In the Battle of Pearl Island, the US Pacific Fleet was almost wiped out, but within a year, the US Pacific Fleet regained its old strength, and even surpassed it before; the Battle of the Coral Sea.The light aircraft carrier "Fengxiang" was lost, the aircraft carrier "Xianghe" was seriously injured, the United States lost the aircraft carrier "Lexington", and the aircraft carrier "Yorktown" was seriously injured.

But the U.S. military newspaper wrote "We have achieved an unprecedented victory", and U.S. President Roosevelt also believed.As long as the battle can be ended with a 2:1 casualty ratio, the United States is victorious.Because the shipbuilding capacity of the United States is more than four times that of the United States.And another fact should also prove this point of view. After the Coral Sea naval battle, the two aircraft carriers were also seriously injured and lost their combat capabilities. The "Xianghe" failed to participate in the subsequent Battle of Midway because there were too few slipways that could provide repairs for large aircraft carriers. The Yorktown was repaired in almost any large shipyard on the east coast of the United States.As a result, basic repairs were completed in just 72 hours back in port.And eventually became a surprise soldier of the US military in the Battle of Midway Island.Let the navy suffer a "decisive defeat"

This shows that industrial strength plays a decisive role in a large-scale war, and no country can remain undefeated in such a world war.Even if Poland was destroyed in two weeks and the German Third Reich defeated France in three months, it would not be possible. In the end, everyone had to compete who built more planes and tanks, and who built warships and submarines faster.

Regarding how to develop a country's heavy industry in the initial stage, Guan Xuqing once made in-depth thinking based on the experience of various countries and some researches of later generations.There are many fast and successful examples, such as the Soviet Union after the October Revolution and the Meiji Restoration.Guan Xuqing summed up three very valuable experiences from it. One is the scale of the enterprise. Ten scattered small factories are not as good as a group of the same size. Only a large-scale group can have international influence and competitiveness. Large-scale industrial groups often become the benchmark of an industry's technology and system, driving the development of the entire industry. Compared with sporadic construction, large-scale industrial groups with centralized construction can improve the efficiency of talent utilization and avoid internal friction and repeated construction caused by vicious competition. The resulting waste.Large-scale industrial groups are often a concentrated expression of a country's industrial strength. As someone once said, as long as China can build a Siemens and a Krupp, it will realize modernization.Although this statement is suspected of being partial and general, it also expresses this truth.

And the second important lesson is national policy.Large-scale industrial groups did not fall from the sky, but developed step by step. In addition to the accumulation of capital, talents, and technology, massive orders are also the driving force behind their expansion.This is inseparable from two major policies, one is the policy of preferential regionalization, and the other is the policy of preferential industrialization; the policy of preferential regionalization is easy to understand. Just think about the circle drawn by Grandpa Deng in the South China Sea, and you will know a lot. Second, it is a typical regional bias policy. To develop, enterprises need to enclose land to expand their scale, need convenient road and railway transportation conditions, and need policy support such as taxation and talent recruitment.

The industrial tilt policy can be understood in this way. Manpower is sometimes poor, and so is the country. Whether it is capital, technology or talent reserves, there is a limit. If they are evenly distributed in various industries, the result may be that all industries are poor. It is mediocre and nothing can be achieved, especially in countries like China that lack funds, backward educational conditions, weak basic conditions, and low talent reserves. They can only "concentrate their efforts to do big things" and invest funds and talents in some areas that have development advantages and development opportunities. Go to an industry with great potential, and make this industry bigger and stronger in a short period of time.The most successful example of implementing the industrial tilt policy is that before the Meiji Restoration, it was also closed and backward, and a large amount of domestic gold was stolen and lost. The capital and talent reserves were far inferior to those in China at that time, but people clearly understood that industrial development was not enough. It lies in many, but in essence. According to the situation of its many excellent bays, it has concentrated its efforts on the development of the shipbuilding industry since the 60s.Almost all industrial development in the country serves the shipbuilding industry, and almost all funds and talents have been invested in it, making China's shipbuilding industry leap from an ignorant state to being able to build the world's advanced warships in just 30 to 20 years. After that, the second economic leap driven by the automobile industry in the [-]s and the third economic leap driven by the electronics industry after the end of World War II were all the result of consistently implementing the policy of industrial inclination.

The third important experience is the economic system.The economic system here does not refer to a planned economy or a market economy, but refers to the relationship between enterprises and enterprises.Regional inclination and industrial inclination are not completely without disadvantages. Take the Soviet Union as an example. Because of the dangerous international situation after the October Revolution, the Soviet Union focused its industrial development on the heavy industry mainly in the military industry. Great progress has been made.It laid a solid foundation for later defeating the powerful German army under unfavorable conditions.It's just that the implementation of the industrial tilt policy will inevitably make participation in the operation of the enterprise, as far as it is concerned, actually a behavior that violates the laws of the market.Many heavy industrial enterprises in the Soviet Union lost their independence and market autonomy due to excessive reliance on support and leadership for enterprises in the later period, resulting in rigid enterprise operations and lack of initiative by enterprise employees.The research and development of products runs counter to the needs of the market, which is caused by the economic system.History has proved that state-owned enterprises that ignore the initiative of talents and violate the laws of the market are difficult to succeed under strong intervention.Many people of insight in history have realized this.For example, in history, this problem was solved by selling government-run enterprises at a low price. Mitsubishi, Mitsui and other famous consortiums came in this way.The injection of private capital can bring more autonomy and initiative to enterprises, and the profit-seeking nature of businessmen is also a guarantee for enterprises to always follow the laws of the market.

For these three experiences.Guan Xuqing attached great importance to it.Well from the beginning.He upholds the standard of expensive and not expensive.The more than a dozen government-run enterprises under the name of the Ministry of Industry are all following the road of large-scale and group development, not only the technology and talents are second to none in the country.And each has its own characteristics. For example, the products produced by Jiangnan are famous for their fineness, and they always pursue international advanced technology. Tianjin Machinery Bureau is famous for its rough, large-scale and standardized production. Often a product design reaches them. There, it will be presented in the simplest and most economical way. Taking the railroad track designed in the 11th year of Guangxu as an example, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau uses the best rebar and adopts German-style jointing technology. Its quality is almost the same as that of the British and American. The rails produced by Tianjin Machinery Bureau are comparable, but the Tianjin Machinery Bureau uses the cheapest cast steel, which uses simple nut butt joints. The same length, its cost is less than one-third of the rails of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. Under geological and climate conditions, its service life is almost the same.Others, such as the Fujian Shipbuilding Bureau specializing in shipbuilding, the Northeast Machinery Bureau specializing in boiler steam engine and other power research, and Sun Desheng specializing in arms metallurgy, have each embarked on their own road to success.

In addition, Guan Xuqing also followed the example of later generations and invested a lot of money and manpower in the shipbuilding industry that purchased a lot of French equipment.Hope to lead the world in this field of navy.

However, how to properly handle the relationship between technology and scale expansion, and maintain a healthy competition, needs to deal with the third problem, how to privatize these enterprises that are deeply branded by bureaucratic capital, so that they can truly return to the market According to the rules, it is no longer the seniority of an official's promotion.The products produced are not regardless of the cost, but just fill in the number.This is the problem that really needs to be solved but is difficult to solve. Due to the adoption of some measures for the reform of state-owned enterprises in later generations, the government-run enterprises in this period are not as wasteful and angry as they were in history. On the contrary, they played a big role in the two foreign wars However, Guan Xuqing is soberly aware that these are superficial phenomena, or it can be said that they only treat the symptoms but not the root cause. Such "public ownership" enterprises have many disadvantages.For example, enterprises are easily subject to administrative intervention rather than market rules; the lack of sustainability of enterprise development is prone to lead to confusion in the direction of development, and the lack of motivation of enterprise employees.It is a situation where human beings are superfluous.From Guan Xuqing's position and perspective, privatizing these enterprises is the only feasible and reliable long-term solution.However, this will inevitably touch the interests of a group of bureaucrats, especially the officials of the Westernization School who have devoted a lot of energy to these government-run enterprises.Their backlash is bound to be extremely violent, and this is definitely not something that can be suppressed by the phrase "a gentleman does not talk about profit".

Just when Guan Xuqing was about to vigorously develop industries and accumulate "gambling capital", problems arose in both the south and the north.Needless to say in the north, the frequent harassment from Russia has already given Guan Xuqing a headache.In the south, Vietnam and North Vietnam also experienced small-scale riots one after another.

Guan Xuqing of Russia in the north has already sent Li Hongzhang to negotiate with the Russians. Frankly speaking, Guan Xuqing has no idea at the moment. Well in the end is to fight or not to fight.After all, the British troops in India and Malaysia have been spying on Burma, which was just included in the Qing Dynasty, for a long time.

The situation in the south is much simpler, and they are all homesick for their homeland.They are also dissatisfied with the actions of former Vietnamese officials who lost their status in Xinzhong. The scale is nothing more than the looting of dozens or hundreds of people in the countryside.Under the pressure of Liu Yongfu both soft and hard, it is becoming more and more difficult now. As for the former Vietnamese king under the strict supervision of Prince Chun, he is very honest.

Regarding Annan provinces, Guan Xuqing was actually not very worried. As soon as he came to this place, China has had enough influence on it since ancient times, even more so than Mongolia. By the early Ming Dynasty, this place was still a province of China, and Annan It has also set a record for six consecutive prime ministers, all of whom were Han Chinese from China. For example, the Chen family, whose ancestral home was in Fujian, served as the prime minister of Annan for three consecutive dynasties; Many Yue people and the people in Guangxi and Yunnan have the same ancestors, and many people can speak Chinese. However, under the French colonial rule for more than 30 years, the resistance in the south has almost disappeared, and the people’s identification with the motherland is almost gone. It can be said that there is no.Moreover, this land is deeply influenced by Confucian culture, and its basic ruling system is almost the same as that in China. They all adopt the local clan system. Guan Xuqing used the Han people and local clans here as the basis of his rule, and selected low-level officials from among them, so as to firmly establish the took control of that land.

(End of this chapter)