By the end of 1899, the Anglo-Boer War had taken on a situation that had surprised the whole world, and the British Empire, with its absolute control of the sea, had devoted almost all of its combat power to the Cape Colony and had raised the military strength of the entire Cape Colony to an astonishing number of nearly 150,000 regular troops before the dawn of the new century.

However, regardless of the attack on the eastern, central and western fronts, the British, who planted the rice flag all over the world's ports, once entered the interior of Africa6, seemed to have completely found the shadow of a world power, and in the last month of the turn of the century, the British 6th Army and the Boer coalition army had four large-scale engagements, but the result was a total defeat to the surprise of the world.

In the blink of an eye, the bell of the 2o century has already sounded, and while the world is paying attention to the Anglo-Boer War, the media of various countries have begun to pay attention to Europe, the United States, and China, which are flourishing.

On January 1, 19oo, "China Times", "Beijing Daily" and other mainstream media such as the publication of the cabinet policy report, Premier Qin Kai to "look forward to China's new economic era" as the title of the New Year's Eve of the day to write the New Year's address, he put forward the concept of the inner 6 economic circle, the coastal economic circle, and once again reaffirmed the idea of fully carrying out the national infrastructure construction, put forward the infrastructure extension to drive the internal 6 economic development of the seven-point plan and more specific 2O large industry development.

The so-called 2O large industrial development is a complete set of industrial chains that extend inward from the inside to the state, including the resources that belong to the state, telegraph, heavy industry, heavy chemical industry, and private open light work, machinery, agriculture and animal husbandry, iron and steel processing, agriculture, forestry, fishery and animal husbandry processing, all of which are mature technologies in the coastal heavy industry system and coastal industrial chain, and are reintegrated with the help of the provinces' own resources.

In the government's policy address published on the same day, the Beijing government once again reiterated its stance against corruption, and on the same day announced that it would establish the Department of Integrity and Integrity, the Circuit Court, and the State Security Department under the cabinet into vertical agencies directly under the county and city levels. At the same time, the cabinet reaffirmed that it would sign the detailed rules for the interpretation of the Company Law by the first quarter of that year. Vigorously support the expansion of the light industry.

Naturally, the Cabinet has pledged to support the infrastructure construction funds. However, Premier Qin naturally knew that he had the capital on hand, and although he made every effort to reduce military spending, and even considered further exerting the role of the army in local construction, in the first year of the 20 th century, although the national tax increased by a large margin year after year, the investment in basic education, agricultural support, and the construction of basic medical facilities continued to increase. In fact, he can only take out about 300 million yuan.

According to the railway construction budget of 10,000 yuan and one kilometer of railway, which is the construction cost of 30,000 kilometers, or a one-way railway, if it is necessary to support standardized provincial roads, the pressure on funds will be even greater...... When it comes to the issue of money, Premier Qin also has to sigh at the national credit system in later generations, and the printing of money completely depends on the national credit, rather than the silver standard and gold standard of today.

Later, Tang Shaoyi hurried to Qin Kai with several bigwigs in charge of the State Bank to discuss the state budget for the coming year. "Prime Minister, I think such a large-scale construction of railways and highways is extremely important for the national economy. But the treasury is on the verge of bankruptcy...... What's more, the growth of national tax revenue this year cannot be confirmed, and I am worried that the follow-up investment will encounter difficulties! ”

In this regard, Qin Kai naturally had a plan, but how to operate it, he wanted to listen to the opinions of these bank tycoons who control the assets for the country, and after listening to the concerns of many domestic financial heavyweights, including Shi Jinyong, the president of the Bank of China, he said very clearly: "Shaochuan, everyone. Naturally, the money in the national treasury should be put to good use, and I understand your concerns. However, I have only advocated for infrastructure investment in my Agenda. It doesn't say that it has to be fully funded by the government, in fact, I have some more effective ideas that you need to think about and how to implement them! ”

New Vision...... As Tang Shaoyi, who has followed Qin Kai for many years, immediately sniffed out the cattiness, and it was no secret that this Prime Minister Qin's gold hand was at the top of the Nanyang Body, which immediately made him inexplicably more confident, "Prime Minister, didn't you say it earlier, I was still complaining to President Shi just now that the gold reserves of the treasury are insufficient, and I am afraid that it will affect the operation of the national economy...... Tell us what you have in mind! ”

Two hours old, when Tang Shaoyi easily left the Prime Minister's Office, Qin Kai had completely left the matter of raising funds behind, the national economic construction is not yet fast, infrastructure investment is naturally indispensable, this has long been confirmed by the countless experience of later generations and the rise of industries in the two provinces and coastal provinces.

Later, Qin Kai came to the Ministry of Military Affairs thoughtfully, for the current situation of the country's peace, the busy team of the Ministry of Military Affairs is almost all paying attention to the stunned white war in distant Africa, and he has just received an important news that makes him immediately realize the need to start diplomatic balance immediately.

In the past 20 days, the British South African Expeditionary Force has launched the largest ground offensive since the beginning of the war, and Admiral Buller has invested a huge force of nearly 70,000 troops on three routes in an attempt to open a gap from the Orange Autonomous Region, only to suffer humiliating defeats in recent weeks after more than a month of fierce fighting!

Continued unfavorable operations and strategic mistakes, coupled with the fact that the British 6th Army did not adapt to the changes in African operations in terms of tactics and shooting techniques, especially the dense formation of the charge, although it had the advantage of firepower, in the face of the very mobile, treacherous and changeable tactics, dense and ferocious Boer cavalry riflemen, the conservative British 6th Army suffered defeat again and again.

The many telegrams and reports sent to Beijing from the front line outlined the great limitations of the British Sixth Army's offensive -- the railroad became the offensive route of the British Sixth Army's attack, and in fact, these young officers of the Military Administration seemed to agree with this idea, and the railway was almost a powerful logistical force with a huge blood transfusion effect for the army.

A large number of officers who rushed to South Africa also sent back various judgments and important information after in-depth investigation, among which, a very pertinent view is that based on the problem of the British army's advance along the railway, while the British received the logistical assistance given by the railway, in fact, they also completely lost the military strategy in the ground offensive, and the British army's movements along the three offensive directions of the entire Transvaal and Orange Autonomous Region, and the Boer army, which was skilled in cavalry maneuvering and cavalry archery, easily obtained the judgment result effortlessly.

The loss of strategic suddenness made it impossible for the British to form a point and surface suppression, even if they had a military superiority, but instead the Boer cavalry regiments attacked everywhere on hundreds of kilometers of long railway lines, making the British strained everywhere, powerful but nowhere to leak, and what made the officers at the front quite appreciate was the changeable tactics of the Boers.

All kinds of effective means of defense, concealed trenches, making full use of the cavalry's mobile advantage over the infantry, inducing the British army to break into its range in a dense formation, so as to fully wield the lethality of its modern firearms, the Boers' weapons can be described as a hodgepodge, the Boers with a large amount of military spending, earlier can be said to have purchased weapons from Germany, France, and China at any cost, and it is these weapons that have greatly increased the range of fire, so that the combat ability of the Boer cavalry greatly exceeded the expectations of the British.

This series of unfavorable factors made Admiral Buller have to swallow the result of losing nearly 4ooo men in this large-scale battle, and the entire British attack line was forced to retreat to the south of the Tuguela River!

On January 7, the Beijing government sent a note to the British Minister to China, Blau, proposing that a number of countries carry out diplomatic mediation, but it was quickly rejected by the Salisbury cabinet...... On the contrary, after the news spread, France, the Netherlands, and Italy proposed to Britain one after another, but the response of the British Empire was still extremely tough.

On the 1oth, the British Salisbury Cabinet announced another 2ooo million pounds of special war expenses to supplement the almost exhausted national military spending, and on the same day, Salisbury decided to remove the commander of the British 6th Army in South Africa, Buller! ――

A day later, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Government Interest Discount Plan for Infrastructure Construction", which detonated the huge energy of the entire domestic investment market in one fell swoop.

Although Qin Kai has a huge amount of financial investment, Qin Kai has always believed that it is necessary to fully mobilize the power from the domestic capital market, and even the resources of foreign consortiums, and the plan he gave is surprisingly not to do the specific affairs of the bank himself, but to subsidize the discount of infrastructure investment funds.

The only question is whether domestic banks and a large number of foreign banks can raise enough loan principal, which will take a certain amount of time, but the boom of domestic infrastructure construction has been completely detonated almost at the same time. (To be continued)

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