When Ferdinand and his party returned to Sofia from London, it was early 1904.

To Ferdinand's relief, during his absence for more than half a year, the Bulgarian government was still operating in an orderly manner and did not cause any trouble.

Prime Minister Konstantin presented a summary table and said: "Your Majesty, this is what Bulgaria has achieved in the past year!" ”

Ferdinand naturally took the report, flipped through it, and soon he smiled with satisfaction.

In 1903, it was definitely a leap forward for Bulgaria, and the equipment imported from abroad was installed and put into use.

In terms of the total volume of industry, it has increased by eighty-seven per cent in four years compared to 1899!

With the exception of some factories left behind by the Ottomans, which were restored to operation, many industries in the country have made great progress.

Many workers who had gone to the construction site due to the economic crisis have also begun to return to the factory.

Bulgaria has once again embarked on the highway of economic development and has begun to rush forward.

Of course, these industrial equipment are now only part of the production capacity, and if they want to fully realize their production potential, they will have to wait at least until the end of 1905. At that time, Bulgaria's industrial capacity will reach a new height!

For example, in the steel industry: in 1903, Bulgaria's total steel production reached 546,000 tons, of which 234,000 tons of steel, 303,000 tons of iron, and 9,000 tons of special steel!

The most important thing is that the Bulgarian steel plant is finally starting to make a profit, although it is only a paltry hundreds of thousands of leva, and the amortization of the depreciation of equipment has not been calculated, but this is also a huge progress!

This shows that the steel mill has begun to enter a virtuous circle, which means that the government no longer has to continue to invest money in the mouth of this gold-swallowing beast indefinitely!

Coal: Bulgaria produces 1.266 million tonnes of coal, including 151,000 tonnes of coking coal, 569,000 tonnes of wood coal and 546,000 tonnes of lignite.

Shipbuilding: Ferdinand's previously planned two 20,000-ton docks and 30,000-ton docks have all been completed and put into operation.

……

Education: Literacy education is still a long way to go. According to the Ministry of Education's estimates, halving the illiteracy rate in the next five years is a great victory; If you want to completely eradicate illiteracy, twenty years is a reasonable number!

Oh, it's like waiting for the next generation to grow up, but there's nothing Ferdinand can do about it.

After all, the foundation of Bulgaria today is different from the previous one, and there were basically a few scholars in each village in Bulgaria before, and it was not too difficult to carry out literacy education!

At present, many migrant villages are completely illiterate, and literacy education can only be taught by the Ministry of Education.

And many villagers have little interest in reading and literacy, and the learning speed can only be described as turtle speed! Ferdinand couldn't do anything about this part of the people, so he could only give up selectively, but fortunately, illiteracy did not affect farming!

Not only that, but the Ministry of Education also found that the mathematics level of Bulgarians has dropped very much, and the new population has been pulled down!

In addition to literacy education, teachers also had to teach them simple digital knowledge!

In contrast, basic education is progressing smoothly, and many people do not have high requirements for learning cultural knowledge on their own, but the standards for the next generation are different!

Even primary schools in many parts of Bulgaria are now reaching the towns. Everyone is still willing to walk dozens of miles and send their children to study!

Of course, this also has something to do with the low tuition fees, and the current basic education still mainly depends on financial allocations, and the tuition fees are symbolically collected.

Students' living expenses, whether they pay food or money, are okay, anyway, the school is not for profit, and the expenses are completely within the range of ordinary families!

As for the higher level of education, if you can afford it, you can apply for free education.

In this way, you don't have to pay a penny, as long as you obey the state to study in the major, and then deduct this part of the expenses from your salary in batches after graduation.

Don't wonder why Ferdinand assigned majors in secondary schools, now the two universities in Bulgaria have a combined annual enrollment of less than three thousand!

Most people are not qualified to be admitted to universities, and the development direction is of course junior technical colleges. Therefore, now middle school requires everyone to choose a subject to specialize in, and all other subjects are minors!

Cultivating all-rounders was never Ferdinand's goal! The purpose of Bulgarian education is to train professional engineers and researchers!

If you pay for it yourself, this fee is much higher, and the annual expenses of a middle school student start at 3,000 leva; If the tuition fee for a student in a university is less than 50,000 leva, don't even think about it!

Don't be too expensive, Bulgaria is now adopting elite education, and high-quality educational resources are used in a centralized manner, and the cost is of course high.

Since it is self-funded, of course, this fee is paid in full by yourself, or a major supported by the government!

If there are liberal arts majors outside of administrative appropriations, the number is even larger, ranging from 200,000 leva to 500,000 leva, which is more expensive than many colleges and universities studying abroad!

The sequelae is that so far, the number of college students in Bulgaria has exceeded five figures, but the number of liberal arts students outside of financial allocation has never exceeded three figures!

Fiscally: The Bulgarian government's total revenue amounted to 1.38 billion leva (£55.2 million).

The main reason is that the new territories have gradually recovered and can provide tax revenue to the government. Especially in the Istanbul area, it contributes 1.8 billion leva in fiscal revenue!

There is also the results of the "Second Five-Year Plan", and now we have begun to make up for the finances!

This figure was nearly 1.4 times higher than in 1898, and 15.5% over the previous year, continuing to maintain a relatively rapid rate of growth.

According to Ferdinand's plan, from 1904 onwards, the navy would also be included in the focus of government financial allocation, and the opponent was expected to be the Ottoman Empire.

Oh, and that's just a small expense. The point is that the Bulgarian government's previous debt and some loans are already maturing, and the government must leave enough funds to pay for them, which is the main reason for the financial constraints!

In fact, the Bulgarian government has repeatedly borrowed new debts to pay off old debts, and now Ferdinand finally understands the difficulties of the Ministry of Finance and decides to reduce his debts!

In 1900, the Bulgarian government's total debt peaked at 2.6 billion leva, and in the years that followed, the government took advantage of the economic crisis to collect several batches of debt at low prices and repay several loans that had already matured.

In the past three years, the Bulgarian government has repaid 183 million leva, and more than 87 million leva of borrowing will mature this year, and the government's debt pressure will be slightly reduced after repayment.

And in the days to come, if there are no accidents, the Bulgarian government will reduce a part of its debt every year and increase its fiscal normalization as soon as possible!

Oh, in fact, if you don't pay it back, if you don't reduce the debt in your hand, in the future international affairs, the Bulgarian government will be kidnapped by loans, and it will be difficult to extricate itself!

Who said that the creditors of the present are all great powers? Don't expect people to be so well-behaved, and if you provoke people to force you to repay the loan in advance, what can the Bulgarian government do?

Originally, the international loans of this era were overlord loans, and according to the background of this era, as long as people gave up the interest income, they could collect the money in advance!

Of course, Ferdinand wished that someone would have called for money in advance, so that he could save a sum of interest.

The premise is that it is only for small creditors, big creditors like France, forget it, a one-time payment will bankrupt the Bulgarian finances!

Compared with industry, the growth rate of agriculture is even more exaggerated, and it is directly increased by 1.8 times compared with 1898.

Of course, Ferdinand didn't pay attention to this set of data, the land increased, the food naturally increased, and the government did not play a big role in this!

In order to stabilize grain prices, the Bulgarian government had to spend a huge amount of money to purchase a batch of grain from the market as a grain reserve.

What satisfied Ferdinand the most was the population growth rate of Bulgaria, and sure enough, the population of Guotai Min'an skyrocketed. In 1903, the birth rate reached a staggering 5.01%, which was basically the same as that of a woolly bear!

Of course, the mortality rate has risen to 2.03%. After all, after the population growth, the medical conditions in Bulgaria have not kept up, mainly because the number of doctors is insufficient!

Ferdinand could not do anything about this long training cycle, which lasted for more than ten years. So far, the doctors who have been professionally trained in Bulgaria are still in internships, except for the first batch of doctors who have already graduated!

Just these few hundred, after being dispersed throughout Bulgaria, not even a single bubble came out!

According to UNFPA estimates, the next three to five years will be a period of population explosion in Bulgaria. Especially the immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, in order to move in the past few years, they all reduced their fertility on their own, and now that their lives are stable, they must work hard to create villains!

According to the latest demographic statistics, the total population of Bulgaria has reached more than 14 million, and the population growth rate has reached 2.97%!