"Priority research and development of nuclear power plants!"

Returning to Chang'an, Xijing, Li Weiguo personally issued an order to Xu Shou, ordering him to inform the nuclear physics engineering research team of the Imperial Academy of Sciences to give priority to the development of nuclear power plants without affecting the nuclear weapons program. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

The reason for such an order was also a decision made by Li Weiguo after listening to Tesla's report.

Now that the meaning of the twelve special characters on the Moon Gate has been determined, it is a set of telephone-dial-like devices that need to be completed to activate the Moon Gate's energy supply system before the correct combination of addresses can be found.

This Moon Gate requires a huge amount of energy, which ordinary power plants cannot provide, and after Tesla's calculations, even if the entire power generation of the Three Gorges Project is used to supply the Moon Gate to start, it is not enough.

Of course, the Three Gorges Project's power generation capacity here is far less than that of later generations, because of industrial technology limitations, the power of each generator in the Three Gorges Dam is only 10,000 kilowatts, and the total power of all 14 generators is only 140,000 kilowatts.

Tesla tested it once and gave the Three Gorges power set ** to the Moon Gate, but it only made one of the characters flash twice, and failed to activate the entire Moon Gate.

That's why Tesla asked Li Weiguo to build a more powerful power station, and even asked to connect all power stations across the country to supply the Moon Gate to start.

But Li Weiguo obviously vetoed this proposal, knowing that the Chinese Empire will lose millions of yuan for every minute of power outage throughout the country, and if it really wants to do that, the people of the whole country will make a fuss.

However, if a large-scale construction of thermal power stations around Lishan does not fundamentally solve the problem, it will even cause a larger scale of fiscal expenditure and financial waste, and the construction of too large a number of power stations together will cause a large number of parallel power grids, which will be catastrophic in the event of a thunderstorm.

The Moon Gate is a project, and once opened, it doesn't end in a day or two, so a stable energy supply is needed.

According to the drawings in Qinqing's tomb, it is true that an energy device is needed to activate the Moon Gate, but this device does not know where it has gone.

So, Li Weiguo thought of a nuclear power plant, and he needed to build a huge nuclear power plant.

Although nuclear power plants also involve nuclear physics knowledge and equipment, they are far simpler than making nuclear weapons, because the nuclear fuel required to make nuclear power plants does not need to be more than 95% of the purity of weapons, only 30% can be used to generate electricity.

The biggest technical problem of nuclear power plants is to prevent nuclear leakage, but this is not difficult for the current Chinese empire, and it is only necessary to build a reinforced concrete earthquake-proof and explosion-proof building of sufficient thickness, as well as a radiation protection device completely enclosed with lead metal, and one or more high-performance steam turbine units.

For the Imperial Chinese Academy of Sciences, the technical difficulty is S-level, but it can be completed, which is much easier than developing nuclear weapons, after all, the current precision of centrifuge equipment is not high, and it is very difficult to purify more than 95% enriched uranium, but it is relatively easy to purify more than 30% of nuclear fuel.

The Imperial Chinese Academy of Sciences has no problems with technology, and the biggest problem is the cost.

Fortunately, Li Weiguo did not call for the large-scale construction of nuclear power plants, and the development of nuclear weapons was not so urgent, so with the current financial capacity of the Chinese Empire, there was no pressure to build a large nuclear power plant near Lishan.

However, this is not something that can be done overnight, at least the mining of uranium ore and the enrichment of uranium take time, and most of the high costs basically come from the two steps of uranium separation and uranium enrichment.

At present, uranium ore resources in mainland China are very scarce, although several provinces can provide uranium mining, but the uranium ore is not of high quality and the mining cost is expensive.

However, in terms of the world, uranium ore resources are still relatively rich, especially Australia, which accounts for 83% of the world's total reserves.

The Chinese Empire discovered a large number of uranium deposits in the northern region of Australia, and its uranium ore is of high quality, variety, and shallow burial, most of which can be mined in the open pit.

Since the day the Chinese Empire announced the start of the nuclear project, it has set up a nuclear fuel mining base in Australia, and the nuclear raw material plant put into operation that year plans to mine 1,400 tons per year, and 968 tons of uranium-308 can be obtained after initial purification, which requires an average cost of 130 yuan per ton.

Then through a high degree of separation in a centrifuge, enriched uranium with a purity of more than 30% can be obtained, and about 720 tons of nuclear fuel for power generation in nuclear power plants can be obtained, which is the most costly, requiring an average of 200,000 yuan per ton.

In other words, the Chinese Empire needs to spend at least 150 million yuan to obtain 720 tons of 40% nuclear fuel every year.

This is just the cost of nuclear fuel, if you build a nuclear power plant with an installed capacity of 1 million kilowatts, you can't do it without 200 million yuan.

For nuclear power plants, the initial investment is huge, and the later stage will save costs because of the small amount of nuclear fuel.

A nuclear power plant with an installed capacity of one million kilowatts only needs to provide 40 tons of nuclear fuel per year, so that the annual fuel cost is only 8 million yuan, and in the future, with the decline in the cost of uranium mining and the decline in the cost of uranium enrichment, the cost will be lower and lower.

In the long run, nuclear power plants are quite cost-effective.

Of course, the premise of everything is that Li Weiguo has to withstand the nagging from the cabinet and the Congress, because the budget allocation of 200 million yuan is also a huge amount of money for the Chinese Empire.

After the order to build a nuclear power plant in Lishan was issued, Prime Minister Jang Pei-lun hurriedly flew from Wuhan, Kyoto, to Chang'an, Xijing, and personally lobbied Li Weiguo.

Of course, lobbying is only two words, no money.

"Your Majesty, the Imperial Academy of Sciences has invested one billion yuan as scientific research funding this year, accounting for as much as 50% of the total imperial budget, plus this year's military budget, the total amount has accounted for 90% of the total financial budget, and if this adds another 200 million yuan to the budget, this year's economic development will stagnate!"

Zhang Peilun's words are reasonable, if fiscal expenditure is not invested in the economy, it will not be possible to form a cycle, and economic development will naturally be affected. This is not very big for a small country with a backward economy, but for the Chinese Empire, as the most economically developed country in the world, the impact is very great.

Li Weiguo will not change his decision, but he is not unreasonable.

"Economic development cannot be stopped, so convene an extraordinary Congress, revise the budget, and increase the economic input budget."

Zhang Peilun waited for this sentence, he knew very well that he could not persuade Li Weiguo to give up the construction of the nuclear power plant project, nor could he persuade Li Weiguo to reduce the military budget, even if Li Weiguo had returned most of the rights to the cabinet and the Congress, but the thinking of the supremacy of imperial power has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of most of the courtiers, including Zhang Peilun, this generation is difficult to change, maybe the next generation will really exercise power.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Zhang Peilun happily took the order and left, and the imperial parliamentarians who were waiting in Wuhan, the Great Kyoto, were also overjoyed to learn the news, and immediately convened the Diet to greatly increase the economic development budget.

This time, the Chinese Empire doubled the amount of medium-term government bonds, selling a total of 2 billion yuan.

As soon as the National Assembly passed a new bill to expand the size of the national debt, there was a huge reaction in the market, with countless individuals and companies from home and abroad, as well as civil society groups, vying to buy the national bonds of the Chinese Empire.

As a result, in less than three days, 2 billion yuan of treasury bonds were sold out.

Faced with this result, the military and political leaders of the Chinese Empire, including Li Weiguo, were shocked.

That's a whole two billion national debt!

It is the most valuable renminbi in the world, and its purchasing power is equivalent to 20 billion US dollars in later generations.

This unusual signal made Li Weiguo vigilant.

You must know that the national debt, anyone with a little IQ knows that they can't make much money for themselves, it all depends on patriotic enthusiasm.

Therefore, even if the people of the Chinese Empire were relatively rich and rich, it was impossible for them to buy 2 billion yuan of government bonds at once, and it would be good if they could buy 500 million yuan of government bonds.

So who bought the other 1.5 billion national bonds?

The answer is already on the horizon, and it must come from abroad.

"Who bought the Treasury bonds?"

In the face of Li Weiguo's questioning, the finance minister hurriedly reported the statistics of the prepared list of government bonds to be purchased.

Sure enough, the total amount of treasury bonds purchased by the people of the Chinese Empire was less than 450 million yuan, and the remaining 1.55 billion yuan treasury bonds were bought from abroad.

Among them, the United States, England and Japan purchased the largest number of government bonds, with 840 million yuan, 230 million yuan and 24 million yuan respectively.

"Where are the more than 400 million?"

"Back to Your Majesty, the rest of the national debt is scattered around the world in small amounts, and it is basically bought and sold between civil society."

Since the Chinese Empire's treasury bonds were allowed to be traded in the market, many people of the Chinese Empire bought the treasury bonds and sold them to foreigners in exchange for a high price difference.

Of course, the price of the treasury bonds themselves is unchanged, and the Chinese Imperial Government will only exchange the face value of the maturing treasury bonds for renminbi, such as 10,000 yuan of medium-term treasury bonds, and if a foreigner spends 20,000 yuan to buy them, he can only get 10,000 yuan of principal and a few hundred yuan of interest at maturity.

This means that foreigners will inevitably suffer a loss when they buy second-hand Chinese imperial treasury bonds.

However, it is inconceivable that foreigners are willing to buy, or even buy on a large scale, and digest more than 1.5 billion yuan of treasury bonds.

But if you think about it, it makes sense.

Soon, Tang Shaoyi, the minister in charge of foreign affairs, explained to Li Weiguo.

"Your Majesty, according to the courtier's inference, the reason why the American government and the English government bought the imperial treasury on a large scale, even at the cost of it, contains an intention to counter the empire."

Tang Shaoyi's words instantly stunned everyone in the court.

However, Li Weiguo suddenly realized something, he didn't pick it out, but continued to listen to Tang Shaoyi's judgment.

"Go on!"

Tang Shaoyi then continued to explain: "Your Majesty, you should be very clear that the imperial renminbi is now the only universal payment currency in the world, and the overseas trade settlement of all countries is based on the renminbi. ”

"The second is that when a country's RMB foreign exchange reserves reach a considerable size, it will have a reverse effect, which I call foreign exchange coercion!"

Foreign exchange coercion, this is a new term, coined by Tang Shaoyi, and for a while the court looked at each other.

However, Li Weiguo's heart is getting clearer and clearer, and he has already guessed what Tang Shaoyi wants to say.

I only heard Tang Shaoyi continue to explain: "Your Majesty, you may not know that since the end of the world war, the foreign exchange reserves of the United States, England, Japan and other countries have become higher and higher, the foreign exchange reserves of the United States have reached 5.13 billion yuan in recent years, and the foreign exchange reserves of England have reached 2.3 billion yuan. ”

At this time, Zhang Peilun, as the prime minister, suddenly interjected and asked: "Lord Tang, the United States, England and Japan have large-scale reserves of RMB, which is a good thing!" The more RMB they have in reserve, the more materials the Empire has plundered from their country, and we have made a great deal of money for the people of the Empire! ”

Tang Shaoyi shook his head and said: "Making cheap is only temporary, in the long run, one day, the United States, England and Japan and other countries will spend the yuan and then use their own national currency, which is essentially a fair foreign exchange exchange." But the problem is that the United States, England and Japan have been exporting various materials and products to the empire on a large scale, earning the empire's renminbi foreign exchange, but rarely using foreign exchange to buy the empire's materials and products, which is the fundamental reason why their foreign exchange reserves are rising year by year, and now they are still buying the empire's national bonds at a loss, which is enough to arouse the empire's vigilance. ”

Many ministers did not understand and looked at the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shen Xiaochuan, who is also the Chancellor of the Exchequer nominated by the new cabinet.

Tang Shaoyi is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he has nothing to do with the finance, if he is generalized, it will make Shen Xiaochuan, as the Minister of Finance, very embarrassed.

This Shen Xiaochuan is also a person who wants to save face, and he didn't understand the meaning of Tang Shaoyi's words, but he had to stand up.

"Don't you forget that England, the United States and Japan are all defeated countries, and now under the military jurisdiction of the empire, they can only curry favor with the empire to survive, so they buy the empire's foreign exchange on a large scale to alleviate inflation in the empire and prevent the risk of RMB depreciation, which does not see anything to be wary of."

Tang Shaoyi waited for Shen Xiaochuan to speak, so he immediately counterattacked: "Now, the total amount of foreign exchange RMB held by these three countries has reached 7.6 billion yuan, which is close to the empire's GDP in a year. If the three of them secretly unite and sell the renminbi in a concentrated manner when there are problems in the empire's economy, it will cause serious harm to the empire's financial and currency markets, isn't this a threat? ”

At that moment, the entire court was silent.

Ministers, including Zhang Peilun and Shen Xiaochuan, recalled the RMB financial crisis many years ago.