Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 411 Shipbuilding Ambition
"So I started to open up wasteland and farm land by myself, but I have been working as a young master in the past. How could this kind of work happen? I didn't expect that the local area would hold agricultural training courses for people like us to teach agricultural knowledge for free. I heard It's free, so I went to listen to the lectures happily. I just learned and worked like this. How about that old saying, oh, as long as you work hard, you can grind an iron pestle into a needle. In less than half a year, I have mastered all the farming skills. Knowledge and skills, my first crop was successfully harvested, and I felt so beautiful at that time, as if my wife who was pregnant in October gave birth to a big fat boy."

"I felt that I couldn't keep busy while I was planting. At that time, I also had spare money on hand. With the help of Mr. Wang, I hired a few Russians to do agricultural work. Let alone this Russian big horse. At the end of the year, I collected a lot of money. In addition to the rent and peasant money, I also left a large amount of savings. I used this money to buy another [-] acres of wasteland. After one year, guess what? I have made a lot of money in English! With more and more money in my hand, I thought that the dry farming season is too strong, and the climate in Siberia is very harsh, so the crops that can be grown are really It is limited. Later I heard that there are still mining projects that can be contracted, so I invested all the money in it. Don’t mention it, although the cost of mining is high and the investment is large, it is much more profitable than farming .”

"Let's put it this way, I now have nearly [-] acres of arable land and two iron ore factories. If I go back to Beijing now, I'm not bragging. I can buy a block of it. But the water has a source , The tree has roots, I, Ying Er, am not a master who is open to money. Now that I have money, I want to repay the imperial court. Pay a sum of money, what to do, build a school, until now I know that if this person is uneducated, it will be difficult to make great achievements, isn't the development of education exactly what we advocate?"

"In short, I just want to say to those old bannermen who are still in Beijing that this year is different. Don't think that you are still an old man if you stay in the imperial city. These days, it is about self-reliance. See me Ying Er No, learn from me if you have the guts!"

Guan Xuqing held the "Shengjing Times" and looked at Yinger's picture of a rich man, and couldn't help but smile.

Inside the Emperor Shrine.Meiji received a reply from the Chinese emperor, and immediately summoned a group of cabinet members including Xiyuanji Gongwang to discuss.

"Your Majesty, the Chinese are not easy to fool, especially the shrewd Chinese emperor. While agreeing to provide financial support, he also asked to sign a friendly agreement on Sino-Japanese trade, but will this agreement be so friendly?" Foreign Minister Takaaki Kato Said indignantly.

"Once a large number of Chinese industrial and commercial enterprises enter, there is no doubt that our traditionally protected local enterprises will be impacted! If that is the case, I dare say that within ten years, China's national industry will cease to exist. ” said Lin Youzao, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce.

"You two are worrying a little bit. What is urgently needed now is funds, and everything else is for later. Let's get this fund first, and we can slowly find a way to deal with the rest." Minister of the Army Gui Taro obviously has a different view on this. understanding.

"The biggest dilemma the empire is currently facing is national defense. Without strong national defense protection, everything will be impossible to talk about. Therefore, I also think that we urgently need to get this fund and give priority to coastal defense." The Ministry of the Navy Minister Yuto Ito said without losing the opportunity.

Gui Taro glanced at Ito Yuheng: "Ito-kun, what you said is a bit biased, don't forget that only the army is the strongest force to defend the territory."

Yuto Ito sneered: "Now the whole world is giving priority to the development of naval power, and we are a country surrounded by the sea. Naturally, the navy should be the first in national defense construction. Your understanding of the world is outdated, right? .”

"You!" Gui Taro's face turned red all of a sudden, looked at the unmoving emperor, calmed down, and sneered: "Yeah, I don't know much about the world's military development. Thinking that the Chinese navy was able to make a long-distance raid to Tokyo Bay under the nose of your navy."

"What!" Ito Yuting was exposed by the other party in front of the ministers. How could he bear it? He stood up suddenly and glared at Gui Taro.

"You two, please pay attention to your identities and occasions. This is the Pine Pavilion, not a place for you to quarrel!" Xiyuan Temple Gongwang said seriously.

The two noticed their gaffe, and then returned to their original positions.

Meiji didn't say a word from the beginning to the end, and the bad domestic situation had already made him burnt out.

Because it has no market at all, coupled with the huge foreign debt it bears, the whole is in a very difficult situation.Originally, it relied heavily on the financial support of the United States, Britain and other countries, but after the world war, the United Kingdom and the United States and other countries were too busy to take care of themselves, and they had no merit to manage, so they were in trouble in terms of funds.Originally, it also relied on a large number of Japanese overseas Chinese and women who sold themselves around the world to provide a large amount of foreign exchange to the country.But after the start of the World War, a large number of Japanese overseas Chinese went bankrupt, and because women faced competition from women in the host country, it was impossible to even maintain a basic livelihood, so there was no way to talk about remittances to the country.Since several years ago, it has not only fallen into a serious financial crisis, but also into a serious credit crisis, which has triggered political crises one after another.

At the beginning of the Great Crisis, the Ito Hirobumi cabinet at that time did not fully attach importance to the matter, so, like the United States, it took laissez-faire measures.With the deepening of the crisis, China's national economy continued to decline, especially farmers almost went bankrupt.The decline of agriculture directly caused a serious shortage of rural purchasing power, and also caused the decline of industrial production.The year before last, Ito Hirobumi finally decided to take measures to restore the economic downturn.At first, he wanted to regulate the national economy and increase the export of industrial products through administrative means, but then he found that the crisis sweeping the world made all countries nervous and closed their markets one after another.Then, he wanted to rectify the country's financial system, but at this time not only did he not receive support from foreign funds, but even the foreign debt owed was repeatedly pursued by the creditor countries with a strong attitude.

As a last resort, Ito Hirobumi thought of the opportunity to develop public construction to increase industrial production, but the huge financial support required would inevitably have an adverse impact on the ongoing military expansion.So Hirobumi Ito ordered to stop the construction of the two main warships on the berth, stop expanding the size of the army division, and use the saved funds for public construction.But this move immediately aroused dissatisfaction in the military circles.Under the traditional influence of the unique "below the top" military intervention in politics, the Minister of the Navy and the Minister of War reached an agreement and began to secretly carry out actions to overthrow the Ito cabinet.Ito Hirobumi's senior assistant was assassinated by a retired army soldier, which caused an uproar in the country.

In view of this, Ito Hirobumi immediately restarted the shipbuilding funds and promised the Army to continue to form new divisions.At the same time, in order to pass on the crisis, Hirobumi Ito, with the support of the army and navy, began to deploy additional troops to the Senkaku Islands and the Okinawa Islands, hoping to further strengthen the military power there.So various public works were cancelled, and armaments began to be accelerated in an all-round way.However, since the strengthening of armaments will seriously affect the living standards of civilians and the production capacity of civilian industries, it will cause a further reduction in fiscal revenue and further shrinking of funds for armaments.Therefore, shortly after the implementation of this measure by the Ito cabinet, it was strongly opposed by the domestic chaebols who were staring at the cake of public construction.Since the support of the major chaebols was very important to them in the crisis, Emperor Meiji had to issue an edict to put pressure on the Ito cabinet and abolished the original policy.

Hirobumi Ito is very clear: China at this time is no longer the China of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.China's powerful army can cut off any attempt to attack China from the land direction.This point, the fanatical military is unable or unwilling to realize.Therefore, he immediately suspended the expansion of the army and the continued construction of the main warships, and appointed new ministers of the army and the navy. The financial support of the chaebol also gradually restored financial credit, but for any approach that weakens the strength of the army, The military is absolutely unacceptable.Therefore, this measure of the Ito cabinet was once again resisted.

Facing China's advantages at this time, its army strength is really not worth mentioning. A simple bird port incident has already shown how powerful the Chinese navy is.At that time, there were three "King Kong"-class battlecruisers, one "Ise"-class battleship and two "Nagato"-class battleships to be replaced by new ships.One "Kaga"-class battleship and one "Amagi"-class battlecruiser have been launched.However, due to the backward performance of its active capital ships, which are far inferior to China's newly built warships, it has begun to speed up the two warships under construction in an all-round way.In order to bring the main warships closer to the Chinese Navy in terms of quantity and quality in a few years, the Ito cabinet proposed a huge shipbuilding plan: to build two "Maizuru" class battleships and four warships within five to ten years. "Yamato" class super battleship!In particular, once the Yamato-class battleship is completed, it will surpass the most powerful active-duty warships in the world such as the Zhonghua-class and the Fearless-class.

In fact, as early as before the World War, the Chinese navy had far exceeded both in quantity and quality. The "King Kong" class and the "Ise" class are too outdated. Although the performance of the "Nagato" class has been greatly improved after power modification, it still cannot compete with China's smallest "Fujian" and two-class warships.Even with the newly launched "Kaga" and "Amagi" battleships, there are only 4 main battleships in the navy. What is even more frightening is that China also built two "Kaga" ships that were exported to Chile during this period. The Admiral Latorre class battleship, two "Vittorio Veneto" class battleships exported to Italy, and two "Brave" class battlecruisers.In other words, China's shipbuilding industry has been able to build three classes of main warships in just over a year.This is a concept beyond the reach of the shipbuilding industry.Not to mention, China is now building four "Rome"-class battleships for Italy.If a war breaks out suddenly between China and Japan, relying on China's powerful shipbuilding industry alone, it will be able to build an astonishing number of warships with extremely strong combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

(End of this chapter)