readx; "The national average Engel consumption index fell to 32 percent, falling short of the target set last year and exceeding the target by 2 percent. In 1917, the national inflation was 6%, which also exceeded the standard by 3%, because the amount of currency issued by foreign exports was too high, resulting in nearly half of the standard. Ma Liangsheng reported.

The report made by the Bureau of Statistics is still relatively real, just like the statistics of inflation, many countries see the statistical data, feel that this piece is too high, immediately remove a certain piece from the calculation, not included in the inflation range, that piece is too high, that piece is crossed out, the result of the data is very beautiful.

Data is easy to deceive, and Xia Jun often pays attention to changes in commodity prices. At his request, the Imperial Bureau of Statistics sought truth from facts about the statistics of the data and did not falsify them.

However, inflation is as high as 6%, which can't help but make Xia Jun frown, and wait for a while to investigate this aspect and find out the root cause.

Xia Jun also roughly guessed the reason, mainly because of the rapid development of foreign exports, a large amount of foreign exchange and precious metals flowed into China, and the central bank could only issue additional Fuxing currency to the market in order to exchange these foreign exchange and gold, and Fuxing currency was more in the market, resulting in extremely strong domestic demand, and the supply could not keep up with the speed.

The report of the Bureau of Statistics was completed for nearly half a day, and in the afternoon it was the report meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture.

At noon, Xia Jun transferred detailed inflation data from the Bureau of Statistics and looked at it, and Xia Jun breathed a sigh of relief after reading the data.

Judging from the data, agricultural products are not inflationary, and inflation is mainly due to some industrial products, such as bicycles, motorcycles, household appliances and other products.

With the development of the economy, China's national purchasing power has increased, and the demand for these devices has soared, and the price of some things has even soared more than ten times.

However, these things are not consumables, but goods that can be reused for a long time, so they will not affect people's living standards.

The price growth of these commodities is just like the electronic products of later generations, when they first came out, the surname could be rotten, and the price was still terrible. As inflation soars, the price of electronics is decreasing.

As long as the manufacturers expand their production capacity in the future, they will be able to suppress the main inflation points this year, and the money will still be so valuable and will not become worthless.

In fact, inflation is not as high as 6%, but the calculated data is just that, and this is an algorithmic problem.

If you cross out the inflation point in this area, then the real inflation is exactly about 3%, which is about the same amount of seigniorage that the empire collected last year.

…… At the afternoon agricultural report meeting, Yang Mingliu, Minister of Agriculture, made a key report on the agricultural reform in 1917.

"This year, the empire has opened up 20 million mu of new cultivated land, returned 80 million mu of farmland, and the total area of cultivated land has dropped to 1.3 billion mu, of which 500 million mu has completed agricultural reform, and another 800 million mu is undergoing agricultural reform ......."

In Yang Mingliu's report, the area of arable land has decreased.

In fact, the empire did not use so much arable land, and due to the current unification of China, the area of arable land increased dramatically, but the productivity of much arable land was not improved.

Therefore, the reduction of arable land does not lead to a decrease in the production of agricultural products, but rather an increase in the output of agricultural products because more land is used for advanced agricultural productivity.

The cultivated land in the mountains was first returned to farmland, and the inhabitants of the mountains were moved out of the mountains. Secondly, the ecologically weak areas of North China and Northwest China have also been banned from reclamation.

Therefore, the cultivated land has dropped to 1.3 billion mu, and the empire has a population of only 450 million, so so much arable land cannot be used at all, even if the empire is currently vigorously developing cash crops and aquaculture, it will not be able to use so much land.

In terms of agricultural exports, the decrease in arable land will not be affected, because the arable land in the Nanyang Republic and the arable land in the Kokang Kingdom of Myanmar have increased significantly.

Moreover, foreign exports will be affected by the external economy, and blindly expanding production is not a wise choice.

Many countries have begun to impose high tariffs on Chinese agricultural products in an attempt to protect their own agriculture, so that Chinese agricultural products can only hit traditional agricultural exporters.

The hegemony of China's agricultural products in the international market is unquestionable, but it is completely impossible to completely crush the agriculture of other countries.

After gaining a general advantage, China's agriculture at this time had already entered the final stage in the international market, and the export agricultural products of various countries were competing for their surnames.

For example, if the United States can still export a certain agricultural product, then next year China will increase the planting area of this agricultural product, or Xia Jun will directly produce some high-yielding varieties with higher yields.

The future of China's agriculture will inevitably be affected by the Great Depression, so Xia Jun also made China's agriculture begin to tilt in the direction of the internal economy, while seizing the international market.

It is still too early to adjust, but the cultivated land cannot be opened too much, too much arable land has a relatively large impact on the ecology, and now the arable land of the Nanyang Republic and the Kokang Kingdom of Myanmar is too sufficient, so the cultivated land area in the country has shrunk again.

China's agriculture will gradually adjust during the decade of post-war prosperity, and Xia Jun is not sure whether international capital will change its mind because of China's rise, but it is clear that just by looking at the stock markets of various countries.

However, when the people of Europe and the United States began to speculate on stocks in large quantities, it was time for international capital to take action, and when the stock price rose to an outrageous level, it meant that international capital was going to flee.

The flight of international capital means that the money of the people of all countries has been trapped, and after the money has been trapped, they have become poor overnight, and market consumption will be affected immediately, because there are too many people who speculate in stocks, and too much money will be thrown into it, and as soon as market consumption falls, some factories will go out of business, and the factories will close down, and the workers will lose their livelihoods, and the consumption capacity will decline again, and then some factories will close down, thus entering a cycle of evil surnames.

When the cycle reaches a certain level, China's agricultural exports will also be affected, not only agricultural products, but almost most of the export products.

But when the world stock market rises to an outrageous level, China's industry and agriculture will begin to reduce the amount of export commodities produced, and when the world economic crisis breaks out, it will quickly transform the affected industrial workers and let them build infrastructure and so on, in short, there will be no large-scale unemployment in society.

The empire's agriculture had to reduce the area under cultivation for export agricultural products year by year, otherwise there would be heavy losses.

Compared with the previous agricultural reform, there has been irrigation agricultural reform in the past two years, and after two years of agricultural reform, 500 million mu of cultivated land has been irrigated, mostly using sprinkler irrigation.

The agricultural reclamation companies basically invested all the profits of the past few years in the agricultural reform, and the rate of return was obviously good, and according to the original history, it would have prospered for ten years after the war.

This decade is also a very active period of economy, and it is very sufficient to recover the cost of agricultural reform in ten years, and it will also produce good profits.

…… The last day of 1917 was quickly over, the Russian Civil War broke out in November, and by December, the Russian Provisional Political Axe had fallen.

Soon, however, a new Provisional Axe appeared, which was divided into two parts, one in the lower Volga Caucasus, under the White Guards led by Denikin. Part was in the Urals, led by Kolchak.

Nominally Kolchak as supreme leader, Denikin also recognized Kolchak's supreme leadership. Between the two White Russian forces was the Soviet Red Army, and the two sides were trying to open the front and connect the two sides.

The Russian Civil War shocked the world, especially the Russian Revolution, and frightened the international capital of the United States into holding a conference one after another, and the parliamentarians bribed by the international capitalists demanded that the United States intervene in the Russian Revolution as soon as possible, preferably by armed intervention.

At that time, China was in the process of budgeting for 1918, and the imperial fiscal revenue in 1917 was 12.3 billion, which was still lower than last year, but the decline was not high.

The main reason for the decline was that the profits on arms became smaller, so that tax revenues fell, but because of the internal economic development, tax revenues increased considerably.

Despite the decline in tax revenues, the budget is still very generous.

Today, the Chinese Empire's financial situation is arguably the best of all countries in the world, and the Chinese Empire still spends the previous year's money on the next year, and the fiscal deficit is equal to a negative number.

In other words, in the event of an emergency, the empire can spend two years of tax revenue in a single budget.

The financial situation is good to this extent, and there are advantages, but there are also disadvantages, that is, the money has been lying in the bank for a year and cannot achieve maximum development.

But at least for now, it is beneficial, because China's development is now heavily constrained by talent.

No matter how much money is smashed, it will not have much effect if it is restricted, it is better to put it in the bank for a year of interest and keep it for next year.

When China's development is no longer constrained by talent, then the imperial government can increase the budget and put next year's money directly for next year.

There is also a certain advantage to the current use of finance, that is, the funds arrive quickly, and as long as a project is determined, there will be no delay in the arrival of funds.

The army, navy, and air force have all seen a decline in military spending this year, especially in the army, which had already expanded its strength to 2 million in 1917, and had already paid for the manufacture of equipment, and spent much less on equipment.

The decline in the Navy's funding is due to the fact that many warships have already begun to be built, and most of the funding has been paid.

The army, navy, and air force still have a large amount of research funds that have not been spent, and they are worried that they don't know where to spend them! Now there are really not so many researchers, the military scientific and technological research force is not sufficient, and there is no place to spend the money.

The total military expenditure of the three armed forces in 1918 was 1.5 billion yuan, which was about one-ninth of the fiscal revenue, and the proportion was a little higher than that of the United States in peacetime, and lower than that of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, the three major European powers.

(To be continued)