In addition to the industrial plan, the most important thing is transportation, according to the requirements of the "Third Five-Year Plan", in the next five years, the total length of railways in Bulgaria will reach 39,000 kilometers, complete the full coverage of all important cities and towns in Bulgaria!

You must know that in 1901, the total length of railways in Bulgaria was less than 13,000 kilometers, and by 1907, the total length of railways in the country reached 27,000 kilometers.

Next is the road network, "Connecting every village" is the slogan of this plan, and to achieve this strategic goal, the total length of roads in Bulgaria will reach a staggering 120,000 kilometers!

Well, don't be picky about the highways in this era, asphalt roads are myths, concrete pavements are strategic roads, and other places can be used on the line, what kind of highway level do you consider?

Even the maintenance of the road was done by the local government and the people were organized by volunteers for free, otherwise the maintenance cost alone would have collapsed Ferdinand!

What was the total length of roads in Bulgaria in 1901? It's just over 20,000 kilometers! By 1907, the total length of roads in Bulgaria was 68,000 km, and in five years it would be 120,000 km!

There is no way, this is all forced out by the world war! After all, when it comes to mountainous areas, the difficulty of railway construction is really great, and the current technology of some sections can only be opened to traffic in the year of the monkey, which can only be made up by road!

The experience of his previous life told Ferdinand that as long as there is enough manpower, it is really not difficult to build roads, as long as you are willing to invest, people can carry it on their shoulders!

Besides, Bulgaria is also an industrial country, and there is nothing else, but there is no shortage of standard equipment such as excavators, bulldozers, and road rollers commonly used in later generations!

Although the performance is still very pitted, it is still much stronger than manpower! Otherwise, Ferdinand would not have been able to ask for more than 10,000 kilometers to be built every year by the transport department! If it were just manpower, that would be crazy!

Well, the Bulgarian transport department said that there was no pressure, that they had arguably the most extensive experience in road building in the world, and that they had been building roads for more than twenty years, from 1887 to the present!

Due to the developed economy of European and American countries, most of their transportation is mainly personal investment, and there are not many government-led traffic projects!

But Bulgaria is different, the domestic economy was not good before, and building roads was a loss-making business, especially roads!

Now that the main roads have been repaired, the rest are remote areas, or branch lines, and it is obvious that there is no economic benefit in sight, and no consortium will be stupid enough to do this loss-making business!

This has allowed the Ministry of Communications to cultivate a group of road building maniacs, in their words, as long as there is money, road construction is not a problem at all!

……

"Mr. Chekov, tell me about the plans of the Ministry of Education!" Listening to the report from the Ministry of Transportation, Ferdinand continued

"Yes!" Chekov replied

"This time, the Ministry of Education's plan is divided into three parts: higher education, compulsory education, and literacy education

1. Build two new comprehensive universities, after the completion of our four comprehensive universities, can accommodate more than 30,000 college students at the same time, which can basically solve the talent gap in the future!

Since the number of our higher technical colleges is already as high as 36, it can basically meet the demand, and there is no need to continue to expand.

However, according to the actual situation, we will continue to expand our recruitment, and plan to train 200,000 engineers within five years to solve the shortage of grassroots technical talents in China!

2. Promote nine-year compulsory education throughout the country, and all citizens of Bulgarian nationality, aged 7 to 15 years old, must receive compulsory education!

3. Continue to ......"

"What about the money?" Ferdinand asked lightly

Education and industry and transportation are not the same, after all, investment in industry and transportation is rewarding in the short term, and after three or five years, it will always be able to feed back to the economy and increase comprehensive national strength in the short term!

However, investing in compulsory education is a long-term work, and there will be no benefits for a long time in the future, and there will be no increase in comprehensive national strength in the short term!

"The main thing is financial allocation, as well as private donations, and of course, some tuition fees can also be collected!" Chekov rightly said

"How much financial allocation do you need from the Ministry of Education?" The Chancellor of the Exchequer asked with great concern

"In five years, a total of 1.8 billion leva will be allocated financially, and this goal can basically be accomplished!" Chekov said lightly

Chancellor of the Exchequer Kennedy rolled his eyes and said crisply, "Impossible!" Other times it may be, but not now! The situation in Europe is on the verge of eruption, and we have to invest a lot of money in military spending! ”

Without waiting for the two to argue, Ferdinand said: "Well, education is about our future, but the situation in Europe is already very serious!"

Whether we invest in industry or transportation, we can see the return in the short term, but the return period of education is much longer!

Therefore, I hope that you will be able to compress the period of compulsory education to five years! ”

Yes, Ferdinand only compressed the time, but did not ask the Ministry of Education to cut the content of the curriculum, which means that Bulgarian students will have to complete nine years of study in five years!

This is obviously impossible! Then you can only cut some of the less important course content! For example, art and music are about to disappear from the primary school classroom!

Fortunately, this is the beginning of the 20th century, and the knowledge of many disciplines is still very small, and it is basically enough to reduce the difficulty of reducing some more!

Chekov could only nod with a wry smile, does Bulgaria value education? It can be said that it attaches great importance to it, and the annual financial allocation of the University of Bulgaria alone is as high as more than 50 million leva!

In the words of the Admiralty, the consumption of one university in a year is equivalent to the military expenditure of one fleet, and the expenditure of two universities is equal to the military expenditure of the Bulgarian Navy!

This is really not a joke, there is no way who called the army his own son? The Bulgarian Navy has always been treated like a stepmother!

In other countries, the treatment of their naval officers and men is estimated to be n times higher than that of the army, but in Bulgaria, except for the slightly better food, the salary is really not much different from that of the main army!

There is no way, the Bulgarian army has arrogant capital, but the navy has not made any eye-catching achievements since its inception! Can you still be tough if you don't have military exploits?

And the high cost of Bulgarian universities, this is the sequelae of digging people, digging scientists over, can scientific research funds be less? If you don't give people money, where will you get any results?

The key is the investment in scientific research, which has seen the return, at least now the level of scientific research in Bulgaria can finally be taken out to meet people!

At least now Ferdinand is not afraid of the technological blockade of the Great Powers! Oh, it seems that the technology is already in hand, and there is nothing to block!

But what about the Navy? If it weren't for the fact that it was the era of sea power, their sense of existence would probably be even lower!

This is also the reason why Petrov is keen to promote the colonial plan, and at least let the people of the country see that the navy is also useful!

Now that the arms race in the countries of Europe has begun, will Bulgaria be able to back down?

There is no doubt that Bulgaria must follow suit! But after looking at the military spending of the European powers in 1907, Ferdinand knew what to do!

British Empire £58.92 million

French Republic £45.5 million

Russian Empire £53.28 million

German Empire £54.89 million

Austria-Hungary £22.13 million

Italy £18.57 million

And what about Bulgaria? The total military expenditure in 1907 was: 15.86 million pounds, of which the army accounted for 10.86 million pounds and the navy only 5 million pounds!

This also includes the cost of building the dreadnought, otherwise the navy would have a military budget of 3 million pounds, which would be considered good!

Not to mention in 1908, the British were already competing with the Germans for dumplings, and Bulgaria dared to follow suit?

In this era, the cost of building a dreadnought was 16.7 million pounds at the cheapest; Two or three million pounds more expensive can still be spent!

With the strength of Britain and Germany, it is really nothing to have ten or eight ships, but for Bulgaria, if it dares to play like this, what will happen to the expenses in other places?

The results speak for themselves, the Navy will continue to play soy sauce, and the Army will join the arms race! This is also a helpless move, who told the army to be cheaper?

It is not impossible to take care of both land and sea at the same time, provided that there is money, which is obviously not something that Bulgaria can afford!

Warships are not just built, and the cost of personnel maintenance is also astronomical!

Geographically, the main threat of World War I came from Austria-Hungary, and it was still Bulgaria's national policy to prioritize the development of the army!