"And, as far as I know, the price of steel in Europe and North America, especially the rails used to lay the rails, is very expensive, up by as much as 50% from a few years ago. If our empire can carry out a large-scale steel-making campaign and concentrate on the development of the steel industry, it will not only meet its own domestic needs, but also export some of it, so that it will be able to make a lot of money, and it will definitely be much better than farming in the countryside. Wu Chongyao is worthy of being a businessman, and what he said is still measured from the perspective of commodity production.

Li Hongzhang bowed slightly to Wu Chongyao in a friendly manner, and it was rare for Wu Chongyao to firmly support him, which also gave him great confidence and confidence that he could push forward the matter of making steel.

In the end, only Luo Zenan was left and some did not agree, although even if he objected, Li Hongzhang could rely on his status as vice premier of the cabinet, plus the other three cabinet members had already expressed their agreement, and the matter could be forcibly decided, but after all, this was the first time that Li Hongzhang made a huge decision as vice premier of the cabinet, and Li Hongzhang still hoped to get the unanimous approval of all cabinet members, including Luo Zenan.

He remembered that His Majesty had specifically explained to him that he would unite the other cabinet members, the governors of the provinces and the ministers, and carry out the government affairs well.

Seeing that everyone was staring at him, Luo Zenan was not unnatural in the slightest, and smiled: "I said before, I also agree with and carry out Your Majesty's will, as long as it is beneficial to our Chinese Empire, it is to vigorously develop the steel industry." However, it is necessary to fully assess the extent of the other adverse effects caused by the need for a large-scale steelmaking campaign. Moreover, I propose that the Cabinet submit such a major decision to the whole country for approval, and according to Your Majesty's wisdom, we will naturally be able to see the disadvantages and revise and improve it, so that we can do this work to the best of our ability.

However, the demographic dividend mentioned by Premier Li just now, I think that although this statement is somewhat contrary to people-oriented thinking, and people are also regarded as goods and commodities, but from the perspective of economic practicability, this formulation is very ingenious, and a country's economy is completely closely related to the population, and there is even a complex logical relationship in it, but we have not yet discovered it. I think the cabinet should make great efforts to organize and study this issue, so that this demographic dividend can be brought into play as quickly and effectively as possible!

And the development of this steel industry can apply this demographic dividend! But I think that no industry can be achieved overnight, and the same is true for vigorously developing the steel industry. We can liberate this working population from agriculture, but not necessarily all of it will be invested in the steel industry.

I've been wondering lately why Western countries, like Britain, had less than one-tenth the population of the Manchus, and yet their combined national power was much greater than that of the Chinese Empire, because of their extensive use of advanced machinery and skilled workers, that is, their labor was in industries that produced more wealth, such as textiles, steel, mining, machinery, shipbuilding, transportation trade, and even military personnel, rather than agriculture.

For example, for example, the coal industry in the United Kingdom, according to the data we collected some time ago, in Britain 4 years ago, that is, in the so-called 1860 in the Western calendar, there were about 250,000 coal miners, and the coal output was about 81.3 million tons, which is about 325 tons of coal produced by each coal miner in a year. According to the current price of 4.5 syr. dollars per ton, the value is about 1,462 s. In other words, the British coal miner can generate 1,100 saints a year, and of course, this includes his own salary.

In the case of British farmers, the value created in a year is only about 300 saints. It can be seen from this that even in England, the labor of coal miners creates much more value than the labor of farmers! Of course, the British coal miners still only earn about 350 s$ a year, and the rest of the 750 s$ is earned by the bosses who opened the coal mines, but that's another story. ”

According to the estimation of Guo Songtao Guo, who is in Europe, the wages of British steelworkers are about 400 saints per year, and skilled skilled workers can even reach more than 500 saints. In fact, the value they create every year is higher than that of coal miners, which can reach about 1,400 or even 1,600 yuan.

If you don't count the exploitation of those foreign bosses and the like, excluding the cost of raw materials and other costs, including the wages of the workers themselves, the total value created by the iron and steel workers after a year of hard work, that is, the total wealth brought to the world, is far higher than that of the farmers! In this case, it is true that the allocation of labor to industries such as iron and steel will create more wealth than the rural farmers engaged in farming. Luo Zenan continued his tirade and continued: "These are some of the questions I have been thinking about lately.

In this regard, I also agree with Master Li's initiative, and hope that the empire can vigorously develop the steel industry and transfer the vast number of rural farmers to the ranks of iron and steel workers, so as to create greater value! In fact, not only the steel industry, but also all other types of industries, of course, the steel industry is the foundation. In this way, we can increase our country's comprehensive national strength at the fastest speed and lowest labor cost!

However, the only condition and criterion for judging is whether the value of the normal strong labor generated by the great steelmaking that we are preparing to start a war can greatly exceed the value created by the normal farming villagers! ”

After listening to Luo Zenan's tirade, everyone finally understood what he said, and at the same time, they were also impressed by his insight, and everyone fell into deep thought.

Luo Zenan is worthy of being a master of science, and this unique insight and way of thinking makes people have to admire. In fact, isn't this the truth, whether or not to carry out a large-scale steelmaking campaign depends on whether it is cost-effective to make steel, or to farm land.

Therefore, Li Hongzhang laughed, and he directly concluded: "The value of steel refining must be much greater than that of farming!" Since Lord Luo also agrees with the large-scale steel-making, our cabinet has decided to carry out the large-scale steel-making campaign nationwide and make every effort to develop the steel industry!

In the name of the Cabinet Vice Premier, I issued a cabinet order to mobilize all parts of the country to set off an upsurge of large-scale steel smelting as soon as possible! After waiting for a little achievement, I will report the good news to Your Majesty and ask for credit for all the adults! ”

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