At two o'clock in the afternoon, in the large conference room of the Tianjin Administration Building, the first financial work report of the group was held, and the four permanent members of the executive committee who remained in Tianjin and the ministers of various ministries all attended, after all, in any government, financial work is one of the most important tasks. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Ministry of Finance naturally attached great importance to the report, and sent a total of seven people to attend the report, consisting of Minister Jia Zhenzhao, Vice Ministers Zhao Rui and Zhu Lanping, and four other staff members, and Minister Jia Zhenzhao personally presided over the report.

Before the meeting, the Ministry of Finance had printed out the main contents, data, and forms of the report, and everyone attending the meeting had a copy, so everyone had a basic understanding of the contents of the report.

After the beginning of the meeting, the first part of the report was introduced by Zhao Rui on the current financial situation of the group, the current liquidity on the books of the group is 8,000 taels of gold, 2,737,300 taels of silver and silver coins, and the currencies of other countries are 78,300 pounds, 457,300 Russian rubles, 551,800 German marks, and 672,700 yen. Converted into silver, it is about 135.73 taels.

80% of the machines purchased from the United States and France are in place, and most of the operations of the salvage team from the United States have been completed, and most of this expenditure has been paid, leaving only a small amount of final payment, and the construction project of the Tianjin Shipyard signed by the crossing group and the United States has been started, and the first phase of engineering equipment on the American side, personnel have been on the way to Tianjin, although the first phase of the cost has not been paid, but this fee is used as a payable fund, and has not been included in the working capital.

In January 1901, the financial income of the crossing group was: 53,700 taels of silver from customs and port berths, 41,800 taels of silver from Kaiping Coal Mine, 12,100 taels of silver from Lishunde Hotel, 17,400 taels of silver from Yindao Salt Industry, and 13,900 taels of silver from other incomes, totaling 138,900 taels of silver, while the expenditure of the crossing group in that month was 76,300 taels of silver and the net income was 62,600 silver.

Judging from the situation on the books, the financial situation of the group is still good, with a working capital of more than 4 million taels of silver, and a net income of more than 60,000 taels of silver per month.

At this time, Jia Zhenzhao said: "After listening to Minister Zhao's report just now, everyone may think that our financial situation is very good, but I want to tell you that this is only the surface situation, in fact, our financial situation is not as good as it seems, of course, this does not mean that our financial situation is very dangerous, in short, we are not too optimistic." ”

After a pause, Jia Zhenzhao said: " First of all, although the working capital on our books is as high as 4 million taels of silver, in the next few months, we are faced with a huge amount of expenditures, first of all, the Beijing Campaign, which is about to be carried out, everyone knows that as soon as the cannon goes off, the gold is 10,000 taels, and fighting a war is a matter of burning money, and this expenditure will never be less; the second is the cost of building Qingdao, according to the plan at the beginning of the year, Qingdao will be our industrial base, and Germany has also established a certain industrial base in Qingdao, but industrialization is also a matter of spending money, Zhang Zhidong founded the Hankou Iron Works, and spent 5 million taels of silver, which has exceeded all our working capitalOf course, Zhang Zhidong is a well-known eye-catcher, and the Hankou Iron Works must have spent a lot of unjust money, but even if it is a split between two sides, 2.5 million taels of silver, it is still a huge expense; the third is the cost of repairing and salvaging warships, although this cost is less than the first two, but it is not a small amount; and the fourth is the reserve fund for the establishment of a bank. And we are not sure exactly how much silver will be needed for these expenses, so it seems that 4 million taels of silver is a lot, but in fact it can't afford to spend at all. ”

"Speaking of the monthly income and expenditure, although on the books, our net income in January 1901 was 62,600 silver, but this is not calculated the wages of the senators, as we all know, the wages of the senators are calculated according to the points of work, and because of the system of planning and distribution we are currently implementing, there is no exchange rate between the cents and silver, so in fact, the consumption of the elders is very low, except for meals, there is basically no other consumption, of course, this is also related to the small variety of products we can provide at present, but this has caused another result, there are many elders have saved a lot of work, according to our statisticsThere are 217 veterans with more than 10,000 points, and 35 veterans with more than 15,000 points. ”

"In addition, at present, the bulk of our expenditure is military spending, but at present only the soldiers' salaries and food expenses are calculated, and not the purchase of weapons and ammunition, because our weapons and ammunition are captured, but our weapons and ammunition cannot always rely on capture, sooner or later we will produce our own, Qingdao Arsenal has begun to put into production, and the scale of our army is also expanding, so the future expenditure will increase significantly. We have to dig deeper into the existing income, but also develop other sources of income, and also consider the impact of our income once the battle of Beijing starts. ”

There was a burst of discussion in the conference room, and it was originally thought that the current financial situation of the crossing group was very optimistic, but after listening to Jia Zhenzhao's report, he found that the original financial situation was not so ideal, and it could even be said to be very serious.

After the discussion was a little quieter, Jia Zhenzhao continued: " Why, on the surface, our financial situation is good, but carefully divided, it is not optimistic, to put it mildly, we are now very chaotic finances, there are many problems, of course, now our business is still in the initial stage, so these problems are inevitable, but these problems need to arouse our attention, and come up with ways to improve, or set a time for improvement, otherwise there will be big problems, the following is the second part of the report, our current financial problems, will be reported to you by Vice Minister Zhu。 ”

Zhu Lanping stood up and said: "Everyone, first of all, we should explain that our report is only for the facts, and not for any department or individual. If there is a prior budget, the expenditures just mentioned by Minister Jia should be included in the annual budget, so that we will have a comprehensive understanding of the financial situation, and it is convenient to control income and expenditure. The lack of corresponding data is related to the fact that our experience in the old time and space has little reference value in this era, and the original financial system of the Qing court is also a mess, and there are not many places for us to learn from. ”

"The second is that we have not yet developed a sound tax system, taxation is the most important source of government revenue, our current monthly net financial income is only 138,900 taels of silver, as a city like Tianjin, this is definitely a low number, before the Gengzi State Change, Tianjin only customs revenue can exceed 2 million per year, which is still based on the customs tariff is only 5%, and foreign goods pay the customs tariff, do not have to pay other taxes and fees on the basis, which shows that there is still great potential to be tapped in taxation. As far as we are concerned, we have initially formulated agricultural tax and customs, but we have not yet formulated industrial and commercial tax, and Tianjin is one of the most developed cities in China's commodity economy in this era, and it is in Tianjin New District, there are a large number of commercial banks and factories, which are the sources of tax payment, so we must formulate industrial and commercial tax as soon as possible. ”

"The third is that we are currently implementing a highly centralized economic system of distribution and economic planning, and the degree of concentration is even higher than in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China in the old time and space, although we now have more than 10 factories and enterprises, but the vast majority of factories are directly ordered by the government and withdrawn funds for production, and the products are also directly handed over to the government, and there is no commodity exchange, after the completion of the production ordered by the government, only a small number of products flow into the market, so although we have more than a dozen factories, Of course, in the initial stage of our business, it is completely necessary to adopt this highly centralized economic system of economic distribution, but this also greatly restricts our economic development, and it is necessary to make certain adjustments. ”

"Fourth, there is the issue of the monetary system. Although the salaries of all the patriarchs were calculated according to the amount of work, on the whole, we still follow the monetary system of the Qing court, that is, silver is the main thing, supplemented by copper coins. However, the monetary system of the Qing court itself is very bad, in terms of silver, it is diverse, only the official recognition has tattoo silver, Kuping silver, Guan Ping silver, full silver, and there are more than ten kinds of silver in private circulation, each of which has a different value, so when using silver to trade, it must be calculated according to the fineness of silver. Of course, this is not a problem of the Qing court, the whole of ancient China, inherited such a problem, so in ancient China, identifying the fineness of silver is a necessary ability for every bookkeeper. And the exchange rate between copper money and silver, there has never been a fixed standard, one or two silver is equal to a thousand copper money is just a theoretical value, in fact, the exchange rate between copper money and silver is on the market, often fluctuating, even in the period of social and economic stability, the exchange rate between copper money and silver is also between 1:1000 ~ 1500, stable right 1:1000 when very little, and the late Qing Dynasty, due to the Qing court compensation for a large amount of silver, led to a sharp rise in silver prices, now the actual exchange rate of copper money and silver: 1:2000 or more, sometimes up to: 1:2500. And such a chaotic monetary system also restricts the development of the economy, and changes must be made. ”