On November 10, Shao Shude, who took a coal ship from Zhenhaibao to Dongfang Port, went straight to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Executive Committee. When I arrived at the office of the Executive Committee, I found that there was a void, and it turned out that everyone had gone to the Ministry of Finance for a meeting.

Shao Shude asked the staff and learned that it was the East Coast Company and the Ministry of Finance that held a joint meeting to discuss the settlement of the debt problem between the two sides, and by the way, to sort out next year's financial budget.

Compared with previous years, the life of the Ministry of Finance this year is much better. Among them, the Ministry of Agriculture is definitely the biggest contributor. Thanks to years of war in Europe and the abnormal climate during the Xiaoice period, European food production has been declining year by year, and food prices have been rising. In the midst of the crisis, many countries have introduced policies to restrict grain exports, which has further weakened the effective circulation of grain on the market and caused food prices to rise further.

The Ministry of Agriculture exported as many as 2,500 tons of potatoes to France and Central Europe through the Pasquier family throughout this year, removing costs and reaping a net profit of 100,000 yuan, becoming a well-deserved export star.

In addition to the Ministry of Agriculture, the General Administration of Textile Industry is not far behind, and the Ping An Machine Weaving Factory under its jurisdiction is definitely a gold-making machine with great potential to be tapped. With another cargo ship from Bordeaux docked a few days ago, the Pasquier family has shipped 65,000 East Coast white cotton cloth from the port of Orient so far this year, and due to the ultra-low cost of Ping An Machine Weaving Factory (0.75 yuan per horse), each piece of cloth can earn a full yuan of excess profits. Although some of the payments have not been able to come back in time, the profit of 65,000 yuan on the books cannot be run.

In addition, the revenue from the Navy Department's privateering was also handed over to the treasury of 120,000 yuan; Colonia's trade revenues (exports of building materials, small hardware products, refined coal, textiles, and a small amount of munitions) also amounted to 45,000 yuan for the year; The Dayuhe Arsenal paid nearly 40,000 yuan in profits and taxes for exporting arms throughout the year; The minting income is 50,000 yuan.

These items are the bulk of fiscal revenues. In addition, there are miscellaneous incomes such as domestic land redemption money, industrial and commercial taxes, etc. By the end of next month, the annual fiscal revenue of the East Coast Republic of China is expected to approach 450,000 yuan. An all-time high.

Corresponding to revenue, fiscal expenditure for the whole year is still huge. Even though most of the expenses for building ships have been borne by the Admiralty, the total of other trade expenditures, industrial investments, government office expenditures (including personnel salaries, education expenditures, etc.), and military expenditures still reached 180,000 yuan.

At first glance, it seems that there will be a huge fiscal surplus of about 270,000 yuan for the whole year minus expenses, but don't get too happy. At the end of October, Eduardo and Captain Carvalho from Portugal again brought in about 600 East Asian immigrants, who were required to pay about 220,000 yuan in "freight" according to the agreement. This money can't be defaulted yet, and if you owe it this time, there will be no next time, so the Ministry of Finance still honestly delivers it on the spot.

That's it. In 1635, the fiscal surplus was only about 50,000 yuan, which was not much, but it was the first time in recent years that the Ministry of Finance had a fiscal surplus. For this reason, the excited Minister of Finance Tang Yuan even had the urge to go out and set off a firecracker. However, this money is destined not to be kept. Considering that the Ministry of Finance is now burdened with a huge debt of 350,000 yuan, and many of these debts have been in arrears for a long time, the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Finance have decided to use the 50,000 yuan to repay the debt to the East Coast Company.

After sitting in the meeting room of the Executive Committee for a long time, and even drinking two pots of tea, the members of the Executive Committee finally came back in twos and threes. Shao Shude took a sip of tea after drinking the last sip of tea, and then went straight to the office of the Prime Minister of the Government Council.

"I heard you're coming. It was a meeting. The vest rubbed his temples and said a little tiredly: "Lao Shao, don't open your mouth." I know what you're here for. Not much, four hundred! Two hundred freedmen who had migrated from the port of the East, a hundred pirate slaves, and one hundred charruas captured. ”

"That's it?" Shao Shude was a little disappointed, but he also knew the difficulties of the Dao Government Council, so he had already prepared in his heart, and the four hundred people were still within his psychological limit.

"It's still gritted your teeth and squeezed out for you, don't be satisfied." The secretary of the vest brought two cups of fragrant New Granada coffee, and the armor took a sip before saying: "Recently, I have been staying up late, and I am used to drinking coffee to refresh myself." ”

"What kind of cup is this?" Shao Shude asked, looking at the transparent glass containing coffee in his hand. There are a lot of fine bubbles in the wall of the glass, and the color is not very pure, at first glance it is a shoddy handmade product, just looking at the appearance of the product is far inferior to the European product.

"Recently, a glass kiln was erected on the newly built reclamation site south of the Dayu River. Under the guidance of some European glassmakers, we began to fire glass. Didn't the chemical department keep shouting that there would be no chemical industry without the glass industry, and this time it was hard to deceive some German glass craftsmen to come over, and everyone felt that they could start the glass kiln. No, this is the first batch of glass products they produced, which were sent to various departments a few days ago, saying that they wanted everyone to try them out and see their results. Ma Jia said.

Shao Shude was a little speechless, so many people in the crowd were stunned that no one could make qualified glass products. At the beginning, many people with low eyes heard glass and gulped a big mouth, "Isn't the composition of glass silica, just burn sand", but when asked how to burn, how to design the glass kiln, what raw materials are needed, how high the temperature is needed, how to remove bubbles, how to remove impurities, how to fire colorless or various colors of glass paste, how to blow the finished product, these people do not speak.

After the first few failed trials, the Executive Committee gave up on this thought. In addition, resources are really tight, so only a small number of glass research teams are retained to continue the research and testing, and the focus of resources begins to tilt to other places. In the meantime, due to the war or various reasons, the research and development work has been intermittent, until the middle of this year, the glass research team still could not develop qualified glass products, and the whole team almost became a joke.

Eventually, they were rescued by the trade department, who, through their trading partners, had collected some glassmakers from war-torn North Germany at great expense and brought them to the east coast.

Together, these German craftsmen showed their worth. Under their guidance, the R&D team members of the crossing crowd fished a large number of plants from the sea, dried them and burned them into ashes to obtain impure soda (sodium carbonate salt). These soda are then mixed with limestone and river sand and calcined, and the burned glass slurry is fully stirred to remove some of the bubbles, and then blown into containers of various shapes with a blowpipe. At this point, the whole glass production process is over.

But don't worry, there's another trick here. That is, blowing glass is also a technical job, and it doesn't mean that you can just blow and get the shape you want. It takes a lot of testing and accumulation of experience to make a qualified shape. No, even one or two of those German craftsmen were able to blow up a good product.

Fortunately, I'm not stupid to cross the crowd, I don't have any experience, I can't master the strength, and I can't blow the shape I want, but I have a way to be lazy. They found the Dayuhe Arsenal to press out a batch of iron molds with a hydraulic forging hammer, and the shape and size of each mold were strictly designed. For example, the size of glass measuring cups, test tubes, curved neck flasks and other containers used in chemical experiments needs to be strictly consistent, otherwise you may fail to replicate other people's experiments, because the volumes are different.

With these standardized iron molds, it is possible to produce any desired glass product, such as measuring cups, test tubes, distillation bottles, wine bottles and other utensils, and large-scale chemical experiments are possible. Since then, the chemistry department has finally been able to open up to experiments and restore some of the techniques. They had applied for funding to order a set of laboratory equipment made of natural crystal (crystal is abundant in Uruguay and Brazil) at a high price, and this set of equipment was used as a family heirloom in front of each group. Now the official production of the glass kiln has finally solved their dilemma.

After the successful trial production, the members of the glass team sent the first batch of products to various departments of the Executive Committee and the Government Council for use, in the name of expanding their influence.

Of course, their efforts have not been fruitless. The Executive Committee and the Government Council finally decided to invest in the construction of a regular glass factory, the Henan Glass Factory, on the basis of the original glass kiln. The glass factory is located on the south bank of the Dayu River in the newly built Henan Fort (belonging to Dongfang County), which currently has only more than 200 residents, most of whom are engaged in logging and a few are engaged in farming. After the glass factory is built, hundreds of new workers and their families will be added, and it is self-evident that it will boost the local economy.

"Damn, today's stalls are really getting bigger and bigger, and people are needed everywhere." Shao Shude said stupidly, "But does that glass factory use so many people?" What is the main production? Mirror or bottle? ”

"Produce a mirror of a fart!" Ma Jia burst into a foul language and said: "At this broken level, the quality of the glass produced is not as good as that of Europe, there are many bubbles and the color is not pure, how can you compete with others?" Don't underestimate Europe, Venice's glass-making skills are still very high, at least the appearance of the product is much stronger than ours. Moreover, the strength of our glass structure is not very high, and it cannot withstand the loss of long-distance shipping, so don't think about the mirror for the time being, at most try to make a few pieces and play with them internally. If we want to talk about our advantage in the glass industry, that is, the production of finished products with molds, which is much more efficient than manual blowing, which is a conceptual lead, and Europeans do not have this concept for the time being. ”

"In other words, if we produce bottles, the Europeans will definitely not be able to compete." Shao Shude said thoughtfully, "Isn't the Government Council ready to produce?" ”

"Not ready!" Ma Jia said decisively. (To be continued......)