"Chairman Liao, this is to create four million farmers! Awesome, admire, admire! In the captain's room of the three-deck battleship "Liberator," Zhou Yu, the captain of the ship, Navy Lieutenant Commander and commander of the South China Sea Detachment of the First Fleet, opened a bottle of Xiangshan dry red and poured a small glass for Chen Youcai, director of the State Railway Administration, who came to visit him, and then laughed and ridiculed the drastic reforms made by Liao Xiaoyao, chairman of the Executive Committee, after taking office.

There is no doubt that this kind of reform has touched the interests of many people, especially the increasingly powerful naval groups. You must know that Brazil's tropical economic circle, which has been forced to cool down by the state, is closely related to overseas trade and has always been the "hardest hit area" for naval forces. Take a look at the new generation of admirals on the East Coast, such as Major Zhou Yu, commander of the South China Sea Squadron of the First Fleet, Lieutenant Ding Zhen, commander of the Caribbean Squadron of the First Fleet, Major Cai Anguo, commander of the Cape Verde Squadron of the First Fleet, Commander of the Okhotsk Sea Detachment of the Third Fleet, Major Liu Fubo, commander of the Second Fleet, Lieutenant Colonel Mo Liee, commander of the First Fleet, Lieutenant Colonel Li Ze*min, commander of the Marine Battalion, Major Zhou Yafu, etc., which family has not done business in this family? How many of the foreign trade companies and private transportation companies that have sprung up in China have not been invested by the families of these people?

Therefore, Liao Xiaoyao's various speeches and measures have successfully aroused a sense of crisis in the naval system since he took office, so there are quite a few people in the army who slander him, and it is obvious that Major Zhou Yu is one of them, and it is rumored that his family bought two sugar cane plantations and a small sugar refining workshop at a low price in Hue Port after the war, but now it seems to be true.

However, now it seems that Liao Xiaoyao's decision is unstoppable, and the chairman of the executive committee, who has quite good qualifications and prestige, has always hated the export of pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg skin, cane sugar, tobacco, and other tropical specialty commodities, believing that although the export of these things can make a lot of profits, it will corrupt the national atmosphere and will not benefit the country and the people at all.

This argument of Liao Xiaoyao is undoubtedly not the first time that it has been raised in the East Coast, in fact, it has been mentioned constantly in the years when sugar exports were at its peak. Some old people from the industrial field, such as Song Qiang, Wu Jun, Li Hongxing, Pan family father and son, etc., accused the overwhelming export of sugar, which can be called a huge profiteering, which will only allow a large amount of capital to withdraw from the industrial field and enter the industry where the bubble has been overwhelming, grabbing huge profits. And once this capital tastes the sweetness of high profits in tropical commodities, then who wants to continue to stick to the industrial field with relatively low profits, hard and dirty, huge R&D investment, and many uncertainties in the future?

You must know that a hundred years ago, the level of the United Provinces in the field of textile, paper, printing, shipbuilding and other industries was higher than that of the English, but Amsterdam successively defeated Geno*a, Bruges and other cities, and became a well-deserved economic center of Western Europe. Taking the wool textile industry as an example, the textile city of Leiden originally imported wool and wool from England, processed into various refined woolen wool and then exported to the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, but in the 17th century, the Dutch had basically given up their efforts to produce woolen wool and turned to direct imports of finished products from England, which undoubtedly made the British wool textile industry develop by leaps and bounds, and became the first of the six economic pillars of England.

The same is true of the British Empire, as a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, because of the existence of colonial ATMs - especially in India, which seems to have unlimited balances - its domestic industrial enterprises have no desire to improve industrial technology, and always make do with it. In fact, they are not to blame for this, because upgrading industrial technology is long and painful, if there is no other way to go, no one wants to earn this hard-earned money, isn't it because the Germans have no colonies and can only bury their heads in the development of industry and improve the level of technology?

Now the East Coast is gradually showing signs of this. The hot coffee, cocoa, pepper, vanilla, and cane sugar on New Huaxia Island made enough profits in the last wave of the market, attracting a lot of money to invest in it, and even foreign funds. This is actually a good thing, because the influx of funds into Xinhuaxia Island has also increased the development of the island, but the disadvantage is also very obvious, that is, the amount of investment in the industrial field has declined. You must know that the industrial and technological progress of the country on the east coast is far from enough to rely on the investment of the government and state-owned enterprises, and private capital must also keep up quickly, such as a production line, the core enterprise is a large state-owned factory, but the supporting and upstream and downstream are often small private factories and even small workshops, and the technology of these supporting enterprises is not progressing, which will greatly slow down the speed of industrial progress on the east coast, which is what many people do not want to see, and it is also the most direct reason why many people talk about "corrupt atmosphere".

What's more, in the past decade, because of the frequent outbreak of various wars in Europe, the Ottomans, Poland, Russia, and Crimea in Ukraine, the inheritance transfer war, the Anglo-Dutch naval war, the Franco-Dutch war, etc., many countries have been involved, and Europe has been a piece of chickens and dogs, and the private sector has been exhausted, and the number of tropical specialty commodities that were originally imported in large quantities has also dropped significantly, and the total market volume has been shrinking. For example, King Charles II of England ordered that customs in major ports such as London and Bristol would only allow the import of cane sugar from Barbados or Jamaica.

This was the case with England, and Spain had waited for the same, and even cut imports even more because of the huge cost of the war, as can be seen from the decline in the sale of Bey Island cane sugar in Spain held by the Italian merchant group, and if it were not for their old connections, they might not have been able to sell a single bag of sugar.

Therefore, now the international market for tropical specialties has gradually fallen into a trough period, and if you don't take action to rectify it at this time, then when the market rebounds, the resistance will only be greater. In this regard, the East Coast Executive Committee still has some sober understanding, and this is the main reason why Liao Xiaoyao can resolutely implement the policy, he is not alone!

However, although this matter is beneficial to the country in the long run, not everyone can understand it, especially those whose interests have been violated, such as Captain Zhou Yu and Zhou Da, who are complaining. He doesn't want to work hard to open any bullshit factory, whether it is a mechanical processing factory or any other factory, he doesn't want to open it, because it is too troublesome, the management cost is high, the competition is more fierce, and the money he earns is far less than pouring cane sugar, spices or something, so a fool will do it!

But now that the general trend is like this, what can he do? Brazil's Rural Finance Cooperative, Crédit United, and Northwest Reclamation Bank have stopped taking out loans, and the non-national laborers who used to work on their plantations have a better place to go, and they can no longer look down on the wages that are less than two dollars, and have begun to look for a future on the southern Pampa plains. You know, building roads is also a two-dollar salary, but the working environment is much better than that of a tropical plantation, and the food is slightly stronger, so why not go!

As a result, the economy of the tropical plantations along the coast of Brazil in the north began to cool down rapidly, and the non-national laborers who had been working there began to move southward one after another, and under the guidance of the government, a few entered the local infrastructure projects, while most of them went south to the Pampa Plain, where transportation projects such as the Yanbu Railway and the Dingyan Highway began to be built.

Chen Youcai, who is now the director of the State Administration of Railways, is reasonably pleased with this situation, because the labor demand that was originally full of gaps has been effectively filled. However, considering the emotions of his friend Zhou Yu, he did not express it too bluntly at the moment, not to mention that their family actually has a lot of shares in a trading company opened in Qingdao County, which imports pepper, cocoa, coffee, dried fruits, vanilla, sisal and other goods from New China as its main business.

"It is impossible for four million peasants, and although the international market is not big today, it is not a big problem to feed hundreds of thousands of industrial and commercial workers in our country." Chen Youcai snorted, shook his head with a chuckle and said, "Now that the general trend is like this, you still don't do it, otherwise I'm afraid you will have to suffer." I have heard that the current Minister of the Navy, Rear Admiral Sankai, has always followed the central government's policy, and he probably does not agree with some of your views. ”

"I don't know what the situation is now. It's just that our country is based on navigation and has huge interests overseas, if overseas trade is not prosperous, then how can related industries develop? How to cultivate relevant talents? Don't tell me about exporting industrial products, how big of a marine industry can it carry? It's too small! Zhou Yu paused the wine bottle on the table, sighed heavily, and said with a cloudy face: "Could it be that in the end, this country will turn to the land and dig in the soil?" Hmph, people from the army have some problems in the overall situation after all, their vision is not broad enough, and they always regard land and population as more important than their life. Also, the foundation of the army is the peasants in the countryside, and only when there are more fields will there be more peasants. And only when the number of peasants is greater can their army fool more people, and the army leaders can consolidate their power more often, but in this way, the country will be ruined, and you must know that England's maritime industry is not much behind us. ”

It is true that, as Zhou Yu just said, Liao Xiaoyao's national strategy of focusing on the development of the Pampa Plain in the next few years has indeed come at the expense of the marine industry, which has touched the interests of many people. But frustratingly, they now have a natural excuse that is so justified that it's impossible to refuse. In fact, this situation has happened several times in the history of the 50-year founding of the East Coast, although the country is generally dominated by the strategy of sea power, but this does not mean that Lu Quan has no resistance at all, in fact, they have also won the dominance several times, but the time is shorter, this time Liao Xiaoyao came to power (he is the most suitable person in the age and qualifications of the first generation of elders in the living, and there is almost no suspense in being elected), it seems to be another victory for Lu Quan, but I just hope this is also a short-lived victory.

"We can't touch on things that are too far-reaching, and we don't need to worry about it, let's focus on the present. According to me, why do the trading companies of your brothers and sisters bother to compete with others for the sugar market? Now the price of this thing has fallen sharply, although it can still make money, but it doesn't make much, far from profiteering. Rather than this, it is better to retreat from the rapids and think of another way. What do you think of the last time someone mentioned going to India to do business? I know that the state does not approve of and does not encourage everyone to do business in a short and easy way, but it is always okay for us to try to export our industrial products to India, right? This will allow your trading company to make money while maintaining the current scale of the marine industry, so why not? Chen Youcai has actually been thinking about this issue for a long time, and has already discussed with some people, and has a certain idea, which will look at Zhou Yu's dissatisfied and angry appearance, and he is afraid that he will make some inappropriate remarks in public in the future, so he took the initiative to throw the topic out and divert his attention in other directions.

And Zhou Yu seems to be really interested in this. As a senior naval officer, he had systematically studied and understood the geography, climate, and customs of India, Ceylon, and the East Indies, so he talked with Chen Youcai about the situation in India, Ceylon, and other places, and discussed the prospects of some industrial products such as military assets, medicines, hardware products, and steel bars in the local market. Chen Youcai also does not hide his selfishness, and he seems to be interested in wooing Zhou Yu, a rising star in the navy - Rear Admiral Sang Kai, Minister of the Navy and commander of the First Fleet, is already over seventy years old, and it is obvious that he is just a transition, and he will hand over power in a few years - so he discussed it very carefully with him, and agreed that they could go to India together for development in the future.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, the garrison commander of the Hailing Port Military Base reported to him that Mr. Sebastian, the ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain to the east coast, had arrived in Yancheng Bay by boat, and that he had come to negotiate with Liao Xiaoyao, the chairman of the executive committee. As for whether Hidalgo, who was born on the peninsula, came to negotiate with the people on the east coast or something, then it's not nonsense, it must be the Pampa Plains, what else can it be?