Chapter 698 Five-Year Plan (Part II)
Feng Yunshan, who is familiar with the history of later generations, knows that once China opens up its closed state and integrates into world economic and trade activities, the original monetary means of payment based on money will be transferred to silver as a means of payment, and at this time, the major Western countries have adopted or are about to adopt the gold standard, which has led to these countries all using gold as a means of settlement, and then slowly abandoning silver as a settlement currency. The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info countries are abandoning silver, and in this short period of time and in the coming decades, the production of silver in the main silver-producing areas of the Americas and other places will continue to increase, resulting in silver being reduced to a general metal, and the price is getting lower and lower.
Feng Yunshan knows that in the next few decades, the world's gold price will continue to skyrocket, while the price of silver will keep falling. Which country in the world finally insists on adopting the silver standard, it is equivalent to the last receiver and bears the losses caused by the decline of silver armor. Therefore, Feng Yunshan had an idea, that is, even if he could not use the gold standard, he should slowly approach the variant of the gold coin standard - the gold bar standard.
Externally, what he needs is to continue to spend silver, and spend all the silver that continues to flow in through foreign trade, so that the domestic circulation currency of the Chinese Empire will be turned into gold-linked paper money as soon as possible, and the holy currency will be promoted to the domestic circulation field as soon as possible. If possible, he would have the other party settle in the pound sterling, a hard currency of the gold standard, or directly in gold, and continue to accumulate gold and flow into the empire, and when the accumulation was at a certain point, he would also activate the gold standard and spend all the depreciated silver.
These are all caused by the fact that Britain is now the world's largest power and the largest economy. If the Chinese Empire can crush the British economy and forcefully seize the right to speak in the world economy, it will naturally not follow him to adopt the gold standard, but still use the silver standard, but Feng Yunshan knows that these are not possible for the time being. After all, Britain is an old power, and the industrial revolution has been going on for many years, and even if the Chinese Empire carries out the modern industrialization improvement movement in advance for its own reasons, the gap is too great. Therefore, it is still ahead of schedule and follows the adoption of the gold standard by the United Kingdom, which is also the development trend in the future. Even a hundred years later, when the entire social economy has developed dramatically and the gold standard has been abolished, gold has always been the most valuable financial savings and strategic material.
Thinking of this, Feng Yunshan recalled this time in history, a few years ago in the western California region of the United States, gold mines were discovered, and not long ago Australia also discovered a number of gold mines, with the increase in gold production, more and more countries will adopt the gold standard, gold will become more and more valuable. Thinking that a large number of laborers in the Xiamen area are transported to the United States and Australia every year to work as coolies, Feng Yunshan is heartbroken, and he has to send someone to contact these laborers as soon as possible to rescue them.
In a decade, diamonds and gold will be discovered in places like the Kimberley and Transvaal in South Africa, sparking a frenzied mining frenzy. You have to lay it out in advance, and then you can preempt it first. However, all of this requires military strength, especially naval strength.
Eighth, the implementation of civilization and enlightenment, the establishment of an education system.
The focus of the last five-year plan, and the most important, was to develop education, especially the model of education for modern industrial society, which was modeled after the West.
Feng Yunshan attaches great importance to this five-year development plan for education, and it was completely formulated by him. He imitated the development of Western education during the Meiji Restoration in Japan, which was improved in combination with national conditions.
However, because the Chinese Empire had a large national base, a large population, and a vast territory, it was impossible to achieve universal education at once, so it could only adopt a targeted elite education and next-generation education model.
In the Five-Year Plan, with the Ministry of Education as the main body, the local government as the carrying point, and the Cabinet and the Imperial Court with financial and policy support and the improvement of the quality of the labor force and the national population as the fundamental goal, the establishment and development of basic education, the encouragement of various educational institutions, facilities, and social education groups and activities in the private sector, and the establishment of school education as the basis for the educational undertaking of the whole country.
In order to develop education, it is necessary to civilize and enlighten the people at the grassroots level, and in the same way, to civilize and civilize the rural people, it is necessary to vigorously develop education.
Fortunately, in the original period of the Holy Kingdom, all counties and towns, under the supervision of the government, set up peasant training centers, although the goal of civilizing all the people was not achieved, but after the implementation of the past two years, still achieved great results. In particular, hundreds of thousands of people in the villages of Liangguang and Munan, which were first occupied by the Holy State, began to read and write, and more importantly, there was a kind of consciousness and concept, knowing that the countryside could only get ahead by studying and joining the army.
Although Western learning has not yet been carried out, and most of the classes in the peasant education and training centers are to invite the teachers of the nearby private schools to recite the Three Character Sutra and the Four Books and Five Classics, but at least there is a beginning and literacy.
In the Liangguang and Shonan areas, Western studies have been promoted, and translated Western studies such as "New Chapters of Naturalism" have been put into use in classrooms.
Therefore, with this foundation, it is sufficient to extend it to the newly occupied provinces that were later occupied.
In the name of the imperial court, the Ministry of Education issued the "Regulations for the Revitalization of Basic Education", requiring that it be promoted and implemented in this five-year plan.
During these five years, it is planned to develop basic education from top to bottom.
First, at the national level, within five years, nearly 10 colleges and universities and specialized schools of various industries will be established in the five places of Shengjing, in the southeast, northwest, and northwest.
Second, at least one comprehensive higher education school and one specialized school for education and normal education should be established in each province; Each state capital is required to establish more than one secondary school and one or more technician training schools; Each county has more than one comprehensive primary school and a number of universal literacy classes; On the one hand, we will continue to increase the number of peasant training centers and carry out literacy eradication activities, and on the other hand, we will set up new basic primary schools to ensure that every township with a population of more than 1,000 people will have a basic primary school for children to attend and receive education.
In addition, through the legislation of the "Regulations for the Revitalization of Basic Education", all children over the age of eight are enrolled in school free of charge, and if conditions are good, they are provided with room and board, but if they are not sent to school, the government will take punitive measures, not only the person concerned will be imprisoned and fined, but also the neighbors will be jointly and severally fined, and even the village head and township officials will be warned and punished, so that the basic education in the whole holy country will be carried out compulsorily.
Of course, in this way, a lot of educational funds are naturally needed. In this regard, in the past five years, the imperial court has set up 10 million taels of silver as the basic fund, basically reaching the level of 2 million taels per year, such a huge wealth, almost the Manchu Qing Dynasty has invested in education for more than ten years. Moreover, this is not counting, the imperial court also encouraged local gentry officials to donate money to support the education of the people.
At the same time, in the Five-Year Plan, it is planned to set up a medium-sized library and museum in each prefecture and above the city, of course, the books are still based on the 5,000-year-old humanities and history of China, etc., but it is inevitable to stuff Western schools into it, as long as you can read and write, you can enter to visit and borrow books, so as to create the whole social education.
In order to encourage the common people to send their children and grandchildren to school, the Ministry of the Interior stipulates that in addition to continuing to carry out the imperial examinations, a batch of school officials will also be conducted: those who enter the secondary school or above in the state capital will have the opportunity to become township officials, and those who have graduated from the technician training school will have the opportunity to become the head of the factory established by the local government, and those who have graduated from the education normal school will enjoy the exemption of grain tax for the whole family member and work as a teacher in the peasant training center.
In this way, we should implement both school education and social education, and in particular, while focusing on the development of school education, we should encourage private capital to enter social education. In particular, the local squires with insight can enjoy subsidies from the government when they open their original private schools, academies, and schools to the public, and their owners will also be rewarded by the government.
For this education, the entire imperial court can not be said to have paid no attention to it.
In addition, in the medical field, it is also mentioned that, like the school, the empire is preparing to open an infirmary in each large township within five years, and a hospital in each prefecture and county. In the city, the infectious disease prevention and control center must be strictly controlled, and the plague and other plagues that used to be rampant should be strictly controlled.
The measure related to the people is that the major state capitals of each province have set up traditional Chinese medicine factories and pharmaceutical bureaus to reduce the price of medicinal materials.
Finally, in the five-year plan, a recruitment plan for civil husbands was also determined. In order to support the process of industrialization, the construction of various factories and the start of workshops, the imperial court set aside the requisition funds of no less than 5 million people every year to build water conservancy, build railways, and build factories throughout the country.
Feng Yunshan is full of expectations for the country's first five-year plan. Next, as long as the Imperial Cabinet does a good job of supervising and urging local officials to strictly implement this plan and make it strictly implemented, I believe that in five years, the whole of China will have a new look. At the beginning, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was only a Westernization movement carried out by the upper echelons and some localities, and it achieved great success, not to mention that the current empire, like the industrialization of Japan in later generations, will rise rapidly.