On New Year's Day in 186o, all parts of Guangdong have gradually begun to get used to this new calendar festival. Because on this day, those who use wall calendars and those who use desk calendars have to be replaced with new ones. Even if you can't afford to buy a desk calendar, you will get a one-page calendar and stick it on the wall. The new calendar of the Governor's Mansion is also simple, and even the simplest single-page annual calendar will be marked with the lunar calendar and the corresponding solar terms under the Western calendar. Compared to the perpetual calendar, which has to look up books, this is really much more convenient.

This year is the Year of the Monkey, and the single-page calendar either uses various monkeys as the main pattern, or according to the custom of Guangdong, the God of Wealth holding gold ingots is the main pattern. In short, it's all a celebration. The hanging calendar has a different pattern for each month. The more extravagant calendars are more and more abundant, and even the daily taboos are appropriate.

Of course, the most important thing is that all the characters within the control of the Governor's Office are simplified.

On New Year's Day, Weeser delivered a New Year's Day speech as usual. By 186o, the occupation of Guangdong by the Governor's Office could be regarded as close to five years. Over the past four years, with the wars one after another, the Governor's Office, which has won all wars internally and externally, has finally gained a firm foothold.

Wei Ze's New Year's Day speech was not about this, he put forward the standards and concepts of the state, the system, and the judiciary. "All the people have the legal guarantees, and there is no power other than the public power of the state to compel the people to choose their own lives. The standard of public power of the state is the same, and everyone is equal before the law......"

It is not easy to expect Wei Ze to say something very close to the people, because at Wei Ze's level, everything he said represents the concept of governing the country of the Guangfu Governor's Mansion. Wei Ze's New Year's Day speech was only expressed after discussion among the delegates to the National Conference of the Liberation Society. And what is shown is the content to be implemented by the Governor's Mansion back then, which is not a joke.

In addition to the concept, the Governor's Mansion also has more specific heavy matters. For example, the Governor's Office was relocated to Guangzhou three years later. The return of the Guangfu Governor's Palace, which had to hide in Foshan under the military threat of the British, to Guangzhou meant that the military strength of the Liberation Army was sufficient to defend the regime's capital. As for the order against the Liberation Army, there was not a single word about the defense of the city of Guangzhou, and Wei Ze simply asked the troops to prepare for battle.

The existence of the army was originally for war, and such an understatement was basically not noticed by outsiders. Not being noticed is not the same as not acting. At the current state of power, the National Congress of the Liberation Council, the budget department and the General Staff were arguing over the issue of military spending.

"This year's war will be fierce, and military spending will have to be doubled!" I trust the Chief of the General Staff Ju Junfeng to put forward the request from the standpoint of the troops.

Finance Minister Li Yuchang immediately retorted: "According to the governor's design, this year's army war will be a matter of the second half of the year. What's the point of doubling military spending? Naturally, the finance for the second half of the year has a plan for the second half of the year, and before the army is dispatched, the governor will definitely give an order, and it will be too late to carry out the financial establishment at that time! ”

Ju Junfeng responded unceremoniously: "As for the big cats and kittens of your Ministry of Finance, are you in time for the temporary financial preparation?" Is there enough manpower? What will your Ministry of Finance do other than poach people from the logistics department? ”

"Hah! Ha ha! Li Yuchang sneered twice, "Being able to poach people from the logistics department and make good use of them is the ability of our Ministry of Finance." It's not your turn to take care of the affairs of the Ministry of Finance! ”

Such-for-tat quarrels are the norm between various departments and the Ministry of Finance, and Li Yuchang, who was once in pain by the Manchu government, always has the courage to fight when facing other departments. Of course, as the highest organ of power, the National Assembly of the Liberation Council adopts a democratic system, and except for matters that must be decided by the Standing Committee, other things are decided by voting. Not only do they have to argue, but they also have to come up with reasons that can convince these national representatives.

For example, on the issue of military spending for the army, Li Yuchang won the victory. Most of the delegates in the country believed that a few months before the sortie, Weese, as the commander-in-chief of the 6th Navy of the Liberation Army, would make a decision. At that time, it will definitely be too late to discuss it. In fact, what everyone doesn't want to say is that as long as Wei Ze says a word, it is not a question of how much additional military spending is required. Arguing at this time is a nonsense issue, and it is really Ju Junfeng who is not happy with himself. Does he still want the General Staff to get rid of the leadership of Governor Wezedu and gain financial power?

Li Yuchang is not arguing with every ministry, for example, the Ministry of Education has doubled its budget for three consecutive years. In addition to the introduction of literacy classes in the villages where the land grant order was granted, the Governor's Office also promulgated the Law on Compulsory Compulsory Education for Military Families, which was the first stage of the Compulsory Education Law to be implemented nationwide in the future. Dependents of military personnel under the age of 24 are required to receive four months of local education each year during the slack period. and complete the required subject subjects within six years.

In Chinese cultural traditions, reading is a good thing. However, it can be said that 99% of the current recruits of the Liberation Army are not families who can let all their children go to school. This is not to underestimate the families of the soldiers of the Liberation Army, and compared with other families in China, the income of the families of the soldiers of the Liberation Army is by no means poor. Across China, families that can send all their children to school account for at most 1 percent of all Chinese households.

Even if the Governor's Office built kindergartens in both urban and rural areas, it would still be a very expensive or food-intensive project to improve the social services enjoyed by military families. Over the past year or so, the British have shown less and less signs of trying to use force against the Governor's Office, and although they have lost the tobacco trade in Guangdong, the opportunities for the British to make money have greatly increased because of the surge in normal commercial trade.

Raw materials such as copper ore, sulfur, and petroleum, cotton cloth and woolen wool for light industrial products, trains for industrial products, textile and silk reeling machinery, as long as they were products that could not be produced by the Governor's Government for the time being, the British could make money by transporting them to Guangdong.

In the past, the largest foreign export to China was the silver dollar. It can account for about 22% of all commodity trade. Since the establishment of the customs settlement and clearing bank, the British did not need to transport silver dollars to China, as long as they had an account in the customs bank, they could obtain various quotas according to the list of goods. The British side of the United Kingdom provided the internal settlement of the British part, and the Governor's Office of the Liberation of China was responsible for the internal settlement of the Chinese side. At least the British didn't have to take the huge risk of transporting large quantities of silver dollars to China.

Such a large amount of trade, such a large amount of industry, led to a sharp increase in the labor force out of production. To feed these people, a large amount of food is needed to stabilize the demand. For example, if the Ministry of Education wants to increase the coverage of education, the teachers will definitely eat food instead of growing food.

Therefore, as soon as the discussion of the Ministry of Education ended, Bi Qingshan, the governor of Guangdong Province, jumped out and made a request, "According to the investigation, we have raised the price of rice in Vietnam by 20% in less than half a year." Although the Vietnamese side still wants to increase the purchase of our weapons, it is impossible for them to buy tens of thousands of rifles from us every year. The question of how much grain we will be able to buy from Vietnam this year is a big question. I wonder what the Governor thinks? ”

All eyes fell on Wei Ze, who opened up a way for large-scale grain trade with Vietnam, and indeed relieved the heavy grain pressure of the Governor's Mansion, but people are like this. If it was the previous world where starvation was the norm, everyone would be fine. Now that they are finally able to admit that they are not starving to death, and in 1859, that is, last year, after the Governor of the Republic of China sold a large amount of Vietnamese rice in the market, and the price of rice was suppressed, the government knew that the basis for its success to achieve such a brilliant victory was completely dependent on the intervention and procurement of other countries' markets.

For such a result, everyone has a sense of crisis, not a sense of security. As soon as Vietnam was unable to provide such a large amount of grain, the food supply of the two provinces would immediately become problematic.

"My idea is simple, we want to do not only trade with Vietnam, but also do rice business with Siam. Siam, which was rich in rice and had no military industry, was closer to Britain and persuaded them to buy rifles sold to Vietnam, estimated to sell tens of thousands. If you exchange rice for a rifle, it is estimated that it can last for a year or two. ”

Bi Qingshan frowned and asked, "In other words, if the trade in Siam is smooth, we can at most guarantee that we will be able to provide stable grain by 1864?" ”

This frown means that Bi Qingshan is not optimistic about the future, and even after learning of Wei Ze's plan to import grain from overseas, Bi Qingshan still has doubts about the ability of Wei Ze's leadership to restore the Governor's Office. Wei Ze didn't feel that this kind of questioning hurt Wei Ze's own face, but he felt that Bi Qingshan was a good comrade.

Weese knew about the Great Famine in Ireland, the famine between 1845 and 1852. During these seven years, the population of Ireland under British rule plummeted by almost a quarter. The reason for this is that Britain has annexed almost all of Ireland's land, and Britain, as an industrial country, naturally needs to import a large number of agricultural products, and the Irish can only grow potatoes on small plots of land to survive. Because of the potato disease, the potato production plummeted, leading to a seven-year Great Famine in Ireland.

Even in times of famine, Britain imported large quantities of agricultural and livestock products from Ireland. After all, private agricultural capitalists engage in agriculture and animal husbandry in order to sell money. The poor Irish devils have no purchasing power, and the poor Irish devils cannot afford to feed the British with beef, milk, and wheat. Since the poor Irish ghosts can't afford it, then the poor Irish ghosts should die.

Obviously, Bi Qingshan did not have the idea of letting the poor in China die, and only by stabilizing the channels for obtaining grain from overseas could he ensure the food supply of hundreds of thousands of workers who were out of production in Guangdong. In order to ensure the stable life that Guangdong farmers have finally obtained.

Without waiting for Wei Ze to say anything more, Commerce Minister Levi said: "Now that we are importing more and more, if we can't get tea from Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan and other places, relying on Guangdong's tea and raw silk alone, it will be a matter of time before there will be a trade deficit." I don't know when the governor will use his troops to fight? ”

As soon as these straightforward words were spoken, the delegates of the Liberation Association all kept silent. Even the delegates who were looking at various issues raised their heads, and everyone's eyes fell on Wei Ze.

After these years of operation, with the new industrial era is showing its prototype little by little. The meaning of the war for the Liberation Society was also changing, and the war had gained more commercial meaning before it had gained the ultimate national power. The prosperity of the Governor's Mansion today depends on industry and commerce. Now, if you want to maintain such prosperity, you have to use the sword to maintain the prosperity and prosperity of commerce. Before you know it, war is not just about victory and hegemony, but about adding a lot of new meanings.

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