Peng Zhicheng sat in an office with a bright window on the second floor of the Gorge Township Railway Station, holding a copy of the text in his hand and looking at it. This is a programmatic document on the next stage of the country's development just issued by the Policy Research Office of the Government Council, which lists the current situation of industrial and agricultural development in the East Coast Republic, both the achievements and the problems of existence are written in detail on it, and at the same time, the report also looks forward to the future development, and puts forward the idea of developing some industries in a forward-looking manner.

This document was distributed to cadres at the township level in order to collect as many opinions as possible from grassroots practical cadres, which would also be of great benefit to the state in formulating policies, and the cadres below would be more able to understand the intentions of the central authorities when they implemented them. Peng Zhicheng is a retired army veteran, a special adviser to the Government Council, a national railway superintendent, and a commissioner of the Yihe region, so he is naturally qualified to read this article.

"The war has entered its third year today, and in these 16 months of war, our army has made brilliant achievements, conquering many Spanish cities with less than 2,500 casualties, basically annihilating the enemy's two major fleets in South America, and at the same time obtaining extremely rich booty. However, the tremendous military victories cannot conceal the stagnation or even retrogression of the national economic development in the past period......"

According to statistics, in the last full fiscal year (1647), the total revenue of the state treasury was 2.152 million yuan, a decrease of 5.6% compared to 1646. Among them, the collection of various domestic taxes has been increased, so the proportion of tax revenue in the national finance exceeded 10% for the first time, reaching 10.8%; The most important factor behind the decline in the total state fiscal revenue was the sharp decline in trade profits handed over by state-owned enterprises, which fell by 8.6 percent over the same period last year. In the midst of this. The main reason for the continuous decline in the sales of China's textiles in the French market is that the Kingdom of France has raised tariffs on imported Chinese textiles for the third time. It has now reached a new high of 20%. ”

"Compared to revenue. Last year, the fiscal expenditure was 3.23 million yuan, an increase of 45% over 1646. Among them, military expenditure accounted for 67.5 percent of the total fiscal expenditure, also a 64.2 percent increase over last year, and it is believed that with the continuous consumption of military funds in stock, the total military expenditure will increase markedly next year. ”

To sum up, the fiscal deficit for the whole year of 1647 was 1.078 million yuan, and with the deepening of the war and the simultaneous development of a series of economic construction, it is expected that the government fiscal deficit will exceed 1.6 million yuan next year. If the war drags on for a long time. The country's finances are bound to be on the verge of collapse......"

After watching this sensational opening part, Peng Zhicheng slapped Wen Jiàn on the table, and then laughed silently. The group of people in the Policy Research Office really made a big fuss, not to mention that the first batch of migrant ships returning from the Far East this year carried a full 1.2 million minted silver dollars in their cabins. These silver dollars, which took more than two months to be minted by the Dabo Mint, were one of Mo Dashuai's main "political achievements", after all, what he did in the Far East, the Executive Committee and the Government Council could only understand from the words in the report, and the impression was naturally not too profound.

But the boxes of silver brought back from the Far East are different, and the effect of these 1.2 million silver dollars is not ordinary at a time when the state fiscal deficit is at a record high. At least the officials in the base camps of the civil service system, such as the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, who originally looked down on him, have changed their perception of him very much at this moment: the country's annual investment in the Far East will definitely not exceed 250,000 yuan (not counting shipbuilding). Mo Dashuai actually sent 1.2 million yuan in cash to the mainland, almost all of the country's investment in the Far East over the years. Such cadres are capable cadres and good cadres of the country!

In addition to this money, the War Department also sent nearly 900,000 yuan of various gold and silver coins harvested from La Plata to the central treasury. In addition, more than 60,000 cattle (the number continues to increase) and nearly 20,000 other livestock (sheep, horses, pigs, vicuñas, donkeys, mules, etc.) brought back from La Plata, these are also realizable, and if you count some other materials such as leather, hardwood, grain, jewelry and other easily realizable materials, there is about 780,000 yuan.

If that wasn't enough, don't worry, the 10 million bank lira (more than 1.64 million yuan) promised by the Genoese will soon arrive, and all this money will add up enough to sustain the war in the East Bank Republic for two years. As for what to do in two years, cold salad! Let's take care of the present, maybe in two years the export trade will boom again?

“…… For the sake of today's plan, it is still necessary to vigorously develop the national economy and restore export trade. Through cooperation agreements with the Genoese and the Dutch West India Company, the export of goods to emerging markets - Brazil, the Caribbean, North America, West Africa, Italy and Spain - was vigorously promoted. The East is not bright and the West is bright, the decline in sales in the French market is made up by emerging markets, and the decline in textile trade is also made up by other commodities. To this end, the Government Council has formulated a development outline for the next few years. ”

"The first is to increase the proportion of non-textiles in exports, according to the cost-effectiveness ratio of the calculation, the Government Council approved the Ministry of Industry and Commerce proposed on the steel, shipbuilding, transportation three industries of the five-year plan. In the steel industry, the production capacity of the Ping An Iron and Steel Plant fell sharply last year, falling below 5,500 tons for the year, down 18% from 1646. However, last year, the country's demand for iron was close to 6,500 tons, a shortfall of as much as 1,000 tons, and the economic losses caused were very huge. The reason for this is that a large number of inland river steam carriers were dispatched to La Plata to transport military supplies during the war, and a large amount of iron ore produced by the Changshan Iron Mine (more than 20,000 workers, prisoners in the labor camp, prisoners in the labor camp, and black laborers) could not be transported to the port in time. In addition, a large number of dock workers were transferred to the front line to serve as military men, and the efficiency of dock throughput decreased, which is also one of the main reasons for the bottleneck of iron ore transportation. ”

"According to the plan this year, a section of nearly 110 kilometers from Baiqi Yabao to Hejinbao of the Northwest Railway will be fully opened to traffic, and a total of more than 5,000 tons of rails and other equipment will be required. The total demand for iron for other machinery, vehicles, boilers, steam engines, hardware appliances, metal farm implements, munitions, anchor chains, etc., may exceed 7,000 tons in the whole year. If the losses in normal production are included, Ping An Iron and Steel Plant needs to produce more than 8,000 tons of steel throughout the year. The No. 1 blast furnace of the plant is designed to produce 35 tons of iron per day and 10,000 tons of iron per year. ”

"But now the bottleneck is in transportation." Peng Zhicheng looked at Wen Jiàn and couldn't help but read it silently: "The last time I chatted with Lao Xiao, the 72-ton inland river steamboats under the jurisdiction of the inland river transportation company have only grown to 79 now, and the total transportation tonnage is less than 6,000 tons. Even with the addition of the 35-ton steamer, which has been decommissioned and is now being reused, the total tonnage of inland waterway transport will not exceed 8,000 tons. Moreover, a considerable part of them have been transferred to the front line to transport military supplies and personnel, and the domestic transportation capacity is even more tight. Coal, ore, building materials, grain, timber, machinery, etc., which should not occupy a large amount of transportation tonnage. Today, the amount of fuel, ore and grain produced by coal mines, iron mines, and farms has not decreased, and may even have increased, but this backlog cannot be shipped out in vain. ”

"Water transport capacity is tight, and this less efficient road transport is even more unbearable." Peng Zhicheng took Wen Jiàn into his hand again, and thought while looking at it: "Road transportation is still quite backward in today's country, and the mileage of high-grade highways (national highways, county roads) is short, not even 300 kilometers. There are no more than 100 trucks, and the total tonnage is only about 1,500 tons. Until now, it is not even possible to interchange roads between counties, and the Ministry of Communications is simply! ”

In fact, as the war continues, the negative impact on the domestic economy on the East Coast is indeed getting deeper. Not to mention anything else, the squeeze on transportation resources alone has caused a large number of domestic factories to understart, production efficiency has declined, and production capacity has dropped significantly compared with before the war. This is particularly evident in industries such as steel, construction, and wood processing, which are extremely dependent on energy and raw materials, and the downturn in these industries is quickly transmitted to downstream companies, causing industrial machines to spin down, productivity levels to decline, and workers to create wealth with reduced efficiency across the East Coast.

In addition, the influence of the Spaniards caused a considerable number of countries or regions to refuse to export all kinds of materials necessary for industrial production to the East Coast, which further made the industrial production in the East Coast even worse. Nowadays, the Government Council can only give priority to the production of some key enterprises, such as textile enterprises, military enterprises, machining enterprises, and so on. At the same time, last year, the country has been reducing the production of various non-essential commodities in order to save resources as much as possible to ensure that the key domestic industries are supported.

For example, the export of metal farm tools, hardware products and steel bars, which had been very prosperous in previous years, fell to less than 5% for the first time in 1647 after four consecutive years of double-digit growth rates, and the number of exports even fell by 10%, which was due to the shrinking domestic steel production capacity.

In such a situation, it is not surprising that there was a large backlog of raw coal produced by the Ping An Mining Bureau last year. In the middle of the year, the leaders of the mining bureau had to order the production reduction for the first time in history after consulting the Government Council. In 1647, output fell by 8 percent year-on-year at the Ping'an Coal Mine, which had been increasing for a decade in a row, and seemed to signal an overall economic slowdown on the east coast.

"There are still fewer people." Peng Zhichang sighed and said to himself: "It seems that the breakthrough still has to fall on the railway." It is necessary to have both war and development, and this economy cannot collapse. (To be continued......)