Zhang Hanqing is a person who "takes ideas" on major political matters, but it is not his strong point for trivial work, and everything depends on the actual implementation of the deputy director of the Northeast Development Committee headed by Wang Yongjiang (the predecessor of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zhang Hanqing is the nominal director), and his main work is to "give the Northeast New Deal whimsical ideas with amazing foresight" (see "History of the Republic of China---- Biography of Zhang Xueliang").

At the beginning of the New Deal in Northeast China, the fiscal urgency was very obvious. Although there is a large amount of land in the Northeast, it lacks the necessary population to cultivate it. At this time, agriculture was still in an almost primitive situation (a situation that was still present in China after 60 years of reform and opening up), and individuals could not afford to cultivate so much land in the short term. The low productivity of agriculture is a constraint on the development of agriculture, which is the basic element that Zhang Hanqing relies on to deliver nutrients to industry.

To engage in industry, you need money, and money can only come from agriculture as the primary industry; In order for agriculture to develop and improve production efficiency, it needs the fruits of industry such as machines, as if it is stuck in a dead cycle. Zhang Hanqing is not an expert in economics, but he understands the theory of economics, and he knows this point even more than many masters in the financial and economic circles in Northeast China.

China is a typical agricultural country, and money ultimately has to come from agriculture.

In fact, the Northeast is not poor in the whole country, there is the black soil of "pinching the black soil to sprout oil, inserting a pair of chopsticks and sprouting", there are abundant water conservancy resources, the surface rivers are vertical and horizontal, the amount of groundwater is considerable, the atmospheric precipitation is abundant, and it is extremely suitable for agricultural development. In terms of industry, because of the invasion of Japan and Russia successively, and used this place as a collection place for its raw materials, it led to the emergence of mining, ironmaking and related industries, in contrast, in terms of industry, except for Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao and other cities that relied on the geographical advantages of the coast, there was no more "outstanding" industry than the Northeast industry at that time---- although the Northeast was only a primitive handicraft industry.

Under the Tohoku Immigration Act, which was enacted to address the situation of a large number of people in the country, the government gave the green light to the entry of residents from Kannai and the North Korean border. Due to the continuous civil war in Guannai and the attraction of hearing that there is land to grow in northeast China, the destitute Chinese population flocked to Guanwai from northern China. Within a year after the start of the Beijing-Tianjin floods, more than one million people in extreme poverty emigrated to Northeast China, and then increased at a rate of 100,000 people per month, and by January 1919, the population of Northeast China (only the three provinces outside the Guanwai) was 26.22 million, soaring to 27.83 million by the end of the year, and 30.97 million at the end of 1920, a trend that accelerated significantly.

Thank God! Although Zhang Hanqing was not a loyal Christian, he could not help but be grateful for the favorable weather, because 1918 was another good year. With another bumper harvest year, the three provinces of Northeast China under the jurisdiction of the Northeast Provincial Autonomous Government will produce 2 million tons of soybeans, 1.6 million tons of wheat, 560,000 tons of rice, 800,000 tons of millet, 6.4 million tons of sorghum, 4 million tons of corn, 480,000 tons of coarse grains and beans (excluding soybeans), 240,000 tons of cotton, and 130,000 tons of tobacco. The stock includes 3.2 million horses, 2.4 million cattle, 24 million sheep and 32 million pigs. The annual output of the whole region is about 16 million tons. According to information from the government statistics bureau, as of the end of December, the area of arable land in the whole region was 40 million hectares (4 billion mu), of which 12.5 million hectares of cultivated land had been cultivated. The forest area is 170 million hectares. The Northeast is no less than the "granary of the north" in the south of the Yangtze River (it has been like this since history).

The peasants had a bumper harvest, and the old landlords of a certain economic position became rich, but the state seemed to have nothing to do with it except for a pitiful fraction of the agricultural tax. The various efforts of the government in the past have a feeling of being married to others.

How is this possible? How is this possible! Zhang Hanqing has to find ways to make a lot of profits from agriculture, otherwise the country is weak and the people are rich, and his own efforts are just fattening the Northeast, so won't he kill the fat pig butchers? Wrong! Fat pigs are butchers' favorites!

However, taxes cannot be raised: on the one hand, this is a continuation of the spirit of the new people's land reform, and the change of the order is a child's play on the reform, which will only cause the people's dissatisfaction and distrust of the government; On the other hand, in order to attract more people to the Northeast and join the wave of agricultural reform in the Northeast, the tax reduction policy must be continued.

The money still has to come from the peasants. Because of the Northeast Autonomous Government, the peasants in Northeast China, who have never had a good life for thousands of years, have taken the fruits of the harvest for the first time for the first time, and the state has really done what it says not to interfere with surplus grain. This has made the peasants have unprecedented trust in the government, and they have actively implemented and believed in the government's laws, regulations, and requirements. Under these circumstances, in order to maximize the funds raised for economic construction, the Tohoku government bonds, also known as treasury bills, made a brilliant appearance. Along with it, there are also food stamps.

Did Treasury bills come first or food stamps came first? No one can tell. It is not clear whether the existence of treasury bills stimulated the issuance of food stamps, or whether the existence of grain stamps stimulated the approval of treasury bills by the common people. The only thing that can be said clearly is that the issuance of these two tickets and coupons was made up by the young marshal.

Money can only be turned into capital when it is circulated, and the capital of the common people is the food in their hands. The Northeast is poor, but if the grain in the hands of the people is converted into capital circulation, it is also a lot of money, which is enough to support the primitive accumulation of the Northeast economy. The landlords and businessmen in the Northeast are not poor, even if the people in the Northeast are poor, they can't stand the crowd, right? If you don't dig some food out of their hands, you can't live up to the various advantages since the crossing.

Historically, the primitive accumulation of capital has been carried with blood and tears, as was the case with the enclosure movement in England and the slave trade in the 16th century. The issuance of grain stamps for the Northeast Treasury bonds refers to this principle, but it is supplemented by a very humane approach.

These two things, which were hailed as genius-like masterpieces by the Northeast financial circles, made Zhang Hanqing bear a bad reputation as a vampire at first. However, when the government fulfilled its promise as scheduled, it was praised for doing a great thing for the people. Therefore, many things, we have to wait and see, time is the only criterion for testing the truth, yes.

The output of the peasants consists of two parts: public grain and surplus grain, and Zhang Hanqing focuses on the surplus grain, which accounts for a relatively large proportion, and his idea is to take out this part of the surplus grain and use it for a period of time in the form of paying less or not paying for a period of time.

Doing this, it was a bit bloody at first, and this was a must in the labor pain stage. In order to enable the common people to "take the initiative" to hand over the surplus grain, the government has made full publicity: Except for the food rations and seeds for the coming year, all peasant households and traders who have more grain in their homes than a certain amount of grain will be regarded as hoarding grain, and will be confiscated as soon as they are discovered, and those who have a large amount of grain will be severely punished as the crime of disrupting the economy.

Of course, in order to alleviate the people's complaints against the government, the working group and the propaganda group also announced that the mandatory period would be three years. In extraordinary times, the people must be very cooperative.