In September of the second year of Guanghua, it is the golden autumn season, and the policy of recuperation and recuperation of agricultural tax exemption for two consecutive years has been substantially reflected, and it will be a bumper harvest year.

After the Taiping Rebellion, the Chinese population was only about 200 million, except for the densely populated and economically developed Liangjiang area, the rest of the region relied on agriculture and animal husbandry to generate income, and the war and bureaucratic raids made people panic in these places, unable to cultivate and graze with peace of mind, resulting in increasing poverty.

With the founding of the People's Republic of China, the war ended nationwide, and the people returned to their homes and recuperated became an inevitable means of social stability.

For this reason, when Li Weiguo ascended the throne, he was directly exempted from taxes on agriculture and animal husbandry for three years, and was supported by all the people.

For a traditional agricultural country like China, exempting agriculture and animal husbandry from taxes for three years is a big expense, because even if there are only 200 million people left, and only 180 million people are engaged in agriculture, the annual tax is 20 million yuan, which is 60 million yuan in three years.

Li Weiguo did this because he had various other means to make money.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou Industrial Base, as the foundation of Li Weiguo's key business, now the most complete industrial types, and the world's unique petrochemical, automobile and other industries, but also the cornerstone of New China.

If it is said that during the period from 1853 to 1860, the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou industrial base lost money, at that time, Li Weiguo had to throw a lot of money into it in order to maintain normal operation. By 1860 and 1865, the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou industrial base had basically broken even. Now, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, in just one and a half years from the first year of Guanghua to the summer of the second year of Guanghua, the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou Industrial Base has achieved a huge income of nearly 60 million yuan.

This huge income mainly comes from the military industry, and the patriotic rifles, Gatling machine guns, various castrated foreign trade versions of rear-loading artillery produced by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and a large number of supporting ammunition have become the main force, among which the Prussian, French and American Davis government armies are large consumers and were slaughtered by Li Weiguo. In particular, the Gatling machine gun is too bullet-intensive, and even more 12 are used. 7 mm special anti-personnel ammunition, at present only China can produce, forcing Prussia, France and the United States to spend a lot of money to purchase a large number of ammunition, otherwise it will not be able to fill the consumption on the battlefield, Prussia and France do not dare to imagine what the result will be once there is no Gatling machine gun on the battlefield, they have begun to imitate the Gatling machine gun in their own country, but after all, it takes time, and it takes more time to form large-scale production. So, before that. Prussia and France knew that they were being bled by China, but they were helpless.

In addition, the Davis Government Army (the former Yugoslav Military Government) in the north of the United States has mastered most of the industrial areas north of the 38th parallel of the United States, and some mines have money, and the 300,000 newly recruited US troops have been newly recruited, all of which are equipped with Chinese-style weapons and equipment, and the amount of the first phase of the order alone is as high as 15 million yuan.

It can be said that the Davis government was able to survive. It was Li Weiguo who sent the Chinese Shence Army to Washington in time to stop the Northern Expedition of Lincoln's army, and now the Davis government officials, who have half of the country, are grateful to Li Weiguo, they have all seen the might of the Chinese Shence Army, and Lincoln was forced to sue for peace. In addition, there were previous successful defeats of the British and French forces, and the Americans have been recognized by the Americans as the strongest army in the world, so the combination of these factors led the Davis government army to adopt Chinese-style weaponry and training methods.

As for the British, although a batch of military equipment, including Gatling machine guns, was also ordered from the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau of China. But the scale is not large, Li Weiguo knew that these weapons would be imitated sooner or later, so he generously sold them design drawings and authorized technology production for one million pounds.

In addition, there are other European powers. They also imported weapons and equipment from China's Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, and the total amount of orders hovered around three and a half million pounds, after all, they were not a powerful country like Britain, France and Prussia, and their strength was a cut behind.

The second big money-maker in the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou industrial base is the fertilizer factory, the earliest implementation of chemical fertilizer in Liangjiang to increase the yield per mu has to beg farmers to use, a few years later the farmers tasted the sweetness, and gradually began to spend money to buy more fertilizer. Before Li Weiguo led the Northern Expedition, chemical fertilizers were widely used in various parts of the south.

With the reunification of China, Li Weiguo implemented a policy of rest and recuperation, and when there was no agricultural tax, the peasants naturally happily opened up wasteland everywhere and looked forward to increasing grain income. In the past, only a small amount of fertilizer produced by Jiangwan Fertilizer Plant flowed into the northern region, in addition to control, it was also because Jiangwan Fertilizer Plant had been expanded in six phases, and fertilizer branches were set up in various provinces in the south of the Yangtze River, with an annual output of 2.5 million tons, but this scale could only meet the needs of the people in Jiangnan for planting and fertilizing, so it was difficult to find a bag of fertilizer in the north at that time, and the price was high beyond the bottom line of farmers.

Now Jiangwan fertilizer factory in response to the call of the imperial government, the first time in the northern provinces to establish fertilizer branches, less than a year, the northern Central Plains provinces have a fertilizer plant, so that the fertilizer production in the north of the country proudly in the north.

All these have generated tens of millions of yuan in annual revenue for Jiangwan Fertilizer General Plant, and the annual tax payment to the government is as high as more than 3 million yuan.

In third place is the textile industry, a large number of mulberry silk and cheap labor in the south gathered in the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou Industrial Zone, bringing a profitable era to China's textile industry.

In the past, if the Chinese wanted to import a set of textile machinery, they needed to spend a lot of money to buy machinery and equipment and hire foreign workers to install, debug and maintain, resulting in the cost of spindles as high as 24 spindles per 3. 5 pounds, while the average of 24 spindles made in India is only 1. 7 pounds, even the spindles produced by the Japanese are cheaper than those in Shanghai, and they can't compete at all.

However, due to Li Weiguo's foresight, when importing machinery and equipment, he gave priority to importing various precision lathes and production technologies, and actively developed large-tonnage hydraulic press section binding equipment, which made China's own mechanical processing technology continue to make qualitative leaps and progress, and now Chinese can not only produce their own foreign advanced machinery and equipment, but even continue to improve textile technology, further reducing the cost to an average of 24 spindles1. 2 yuan, which strengthens the competitiveness.

The most interesting thing is the printing and dyeing technology, Li Weiguo carried forward the color printing and dyeing technology he used to print Wei banknotes. Some of the insensitive technologies were transferred to civilian use, and Lee's printing and dyeing technology was claimed to be able to print and dye fabrics of various colors, and they would not fade or mix after washing.

As a result, China's textile printing and dyeing industry has sprung up, quickly crushed foreign competitors, and broke the absolute monopoly of Europe and the United States in the textile printing and dyeing industry for a hundred years, directly exported to Europe and the United States, and was very popular, creating a large amount of foreign exchange income for China.

As for other industries, such as salt production, gas, tap water, cement plants, etc. These are already indispensable things for urban residents, and profitability is inevitable.

In addition, heavy industries such as the automobile industry, petrochemical industry, and steel mills are temporarily given priority to the state and the army for large use, and the civilian use is very small, so the monetary profit is very small, but for the country and the army, the benefits are huge, far from being measured by money.

These are all benefits on the surface, and the great powers of all countries see it. They will also secretly investigate and obtain detailed information to assess the sources of revenue and expenditure of China's finances and how much war potential it has, so that each country can make corresponding countermeasures.

But on the dark side. The great powers of various countries did not know that Li Weiguo still had a greater source of income, and that there was a large number of printed banknotes to set up various military and civilian materials of real value such as cash and silver from various countries.

Today, China's central bank is still the Imperial Bank, responsible for issuing and exchanging domestic and foreign currencies such as the renminbi. The AIIB is the oldest bank in China. It has now returned the rights to print and issue renminbi to Imperial Bank, but it remains China's largest private bank, with total assets of 1.3 billion yuan. Gold and silver reserves account for as much as 800 million yuan, most of which belong to the country and the people's currency reserves, and have not been transferred to the Imperial Bank for management, because Li Weiguo has implemented a policy of rest and recuperation, and the imperial government's huge financial expenditures are all supported by the AIIB, unless the government pays off all the money in the future, and then the 800 million yuan of gold and silver reserves can be transferred to the Imperial Bank.

Li Weiguo has developed the AIIB into the world's largest private bank in just over a decade since he established the AIIB with empty gloves and white wolves, which has attracted worldwide attention.

However, only Li Weiguo himself knows in his heart that a lot of the funds of the AIIB are obtained through the printing of illegal banknotes, and in the past ten years, it has obtained more than 300 million yuan from Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other European and American countries, which is also one of the key factors for Li Weiguo to defeat the British and French coalition forces twice and unify China.

By infiltrating the European and American powers in violation of banknotes, we can not only obtain the abundant funds necessary for the development of the country in a short period of time, but also destroy the monetary and financial systems of the European and American powers, cause their currencies to depreciate, and disrupt their economies.

But this is risky, to be exact, extremely dangerous, because once the European and American powers know about the illegal banknotes, they will regard Li Weiguo and his empire as mortal enemies, and then a large-scale war will break out.

Li Weiguo was afraid of this happening before, so he was always very careful not to put illegal banknotes into the market on a large scale, so as not to be discovered by the powers of various countries, and even used agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to cut off the tail when necessary, so as to prevent the other party from tracking down Li Weiguo's body.

But there is no impermeable wall in this world, and Britain, France and other powers soon found some clues after more than ten years of secret follow-up investigations.

In a British police undercover underground society in London, he worked his way up from the very beginning as a dealer to a criminal money distributor, and after five years, he finally sat in the upper echelons of a society, thus gaining access to the inside of the illegal banknote trade.

It's just that the dealer is also British. Because Li Weiguo did not use yellow-faced Asians to do things from the beginning, China S.H.I.E.L.D. used various means to coerce and lure the local British to make a deal at the beginning, and it would be resolved soon after the transaction, and later China S.H.I.E.L.D. adopted four or five-year-old orphans around the world, and more than ten years later, these orphans grew up and were directly trained as agents, and then worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., so European and American countries could not suspect Li Weiguo.

But this time it was different, the British undercover police were shrewd, and through several years of dealing, they gradually let the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents let their guard down, and then took down a S.H.I.E.L.D. illegal distribution station in London, resulting in the deaths of several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, as well as some customs clearance and shipping documents, some from the Chinese Legation in London.

Of course, the Counsellor of the Chinese Legation flatly denied this. And there is no conclusive evidence from the British side pointing to China, so the incident is over.

However, there are still many sharp-minded people in the British authorities, who soon discovered that China's renminbi production technology is extremely high, far exceeding the printing and anti-counterfeiting level of European and American countries.

Combined with the whole process of Li Weiguo's strong rise, as long as the British are not too stupid, they will always find some perfect "coincidences". For example, where did Li Weiguo get so much money to import tens of millions of pounds of factory machinery and equipment from Europe and the United States, covering a wide range. It's so well equipped, it's just incomprehensible. If you don't carefully check the unique code of the currency, you will find a duplicate currency, and you will not be able to find out that one of them is a violation of the banknote, because the illegal money is so beautiful, it is no different from the real money. To be able to do this, at the very least, means that the counterfeiters have the most advanced printing equipment in the world. It's not something that can be done individually.

"It's a pity that we don't have evidence, otherwise we could use the matter of violating money to call on the whole of Europe to go to war against China!"

British Prime Minister Derby sighed helplessly, although angry, but there was no evidence. If it was the previously backward Qing Empire. Then he will not hesitate to make this matter public, whether it is true or not, he will call on the entire European and American powers to start a war against China together, but it is a pity that China is too strong now, even if the European and American powers know that this matter is true. I am afraid that I do not have the ability and energy to go on an expedition to China.

Faced with this reality, the British Prime Minister could only break his teeth and swallow blood, and slowly restore the vitality of the British Army. Then gather the most powerful British Royal Navy, and wait until the Suez Canal is opened, and you can take revenge.

"The War Department has sent experts to study the structure of the Gatling machine gun, and with reference to the drawings of the Gatling machine gun sold to us by the Chinese government, we have mastered the relevant technology, and we can produce it ourselves as long as we wait for the approval of the Prime Minister, but it is ......."

"Just what?" Hearing Deputy Prime Minister Benjamin hesitate, Derby asked rhetorically.

"Although the Gatling machine gun of the Chinese Shence Army is simple in technology and our engineers can imitate it, there are two problems that need to be solved urgently. One is the caliber problem, China's Shence Army uses a point 50-inch bullet, this caliber we currently do not have in China, we need to re-open the production line, you know, the one-piece bullet uses a new caliber must be a high-precision cutting machine, which takes a lot of money and time, and continuous testing to complete. ”

"This problem can be solved by the Chinese, and I believe that the gunsmiths of the British Empire should be able to solve it, right? What about the second question? ”

"You're right!" Benjamin then said: "The second problem is the problem of ammunition, we purchased the Chinese Shence Army standard point 50 caliber machine gun bullets, through dismantling and research, it was found that the power of the medicine they use is very strong, several times that of the hey powder we use is more than ten times the power, and it is smokeless gunpowder, although I don't know how they control the stability of smokeless gunpowder, but we don't seem to have a smokeless gunpowder production line now." ”

"Who is this Li Weiguo? Why does he surprise us every time he appears? "Derby was shocked, last time because of the Patriotic rifle, but this time it was noticeably stronger.

Benjamin replied: "The last time Li Weiguo dared to sell us their most advanced rifle technology, it was obviously that he was prepared, and he was not afraid that we would threaten them in turn after preventing a large number of them, but this time we suffered a big loss in equipment, and the power of the Gatling machine gun was the key to victory or defeat in this war." But now that our war has just ended, Li Weiguo dares to sell us the technology of the Gatling machine gun, what does this mean? It shows that Li Weiguo is not afraid that we will imitate him and then deal with him in turn. ”

"How is this possible? Is he God? "The more Derby was shocked, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Benjamin said: "Whether he is a human or a ghost, I don't think we should be led by the nose by him, and we have to change our strategy so that Li Weiguo can't grasp our intentions and rhythm." ”

Derby's eyes lit up suddenly, and he agreed: "You're right, if Li Weiguo deliberately gave us the Gatling machine gun and let us make it in large quantities, maybe this itself is a dangerous situation he deliberately set up, deliberately misleading us, and letting us follow his train of thought, then we are too passive." Just, do you have any great ideas? ”

Benjamin thought for a moment and said, "Do you think we will have a large-scale ground battle with the Chinese Shence Army in the next war?" ”

Derby said: "You mean that Li Weiguo also expected that the next war would not take place on land, but at sea?" ”

Benjamin nodded and agreed: "The weakest thing in our British Empire is the population, and it is impossible to defeat China with hundreds of millions of people on land, and even Li Weiguo's mobilization of troops will exceed the total population of the entire British Empire, so he is not afraid of us on land, so he will sell us Gatling machine guns without fear." ”

Derby thought for a while, frowned, and said, "So Li Weiguo is ready to defeat us at sea?" ”

Benjamin agreed: "The general signs show that the Chinese navy is getting stronger and stronger, and they have even built 10,000-ton ironclad ships, which is already one step ahead of us, and the next one may be a showdown at sea." ”

Derby was not convinced, and asked rhetorically: "Do you think that Li Weiguo's development of the navy in a few years can surpass the naval strength of our British Empire for hundreds of years?" ”

Benjamin replied: "Perhaps Li Weiguo's purpose is to go step by step, first drive the imperial navy out of East Asia and Southeast Asia, this does not need to face all the imperial navy, but the imperial navy is scattered all over the world, and it is impossible to move all the main forces to the periphery of China, this is Li Weiguo's local combat advantage, which is not good for us." ”

Derby understood and agreed with Benjamin's analysis.

"Then let the army take its time, go all out to develop the navy, and if it is really as you expected, concentrate all the elites of the British Empire and completely destroy the Chinese navy in World War I."

Li Weiguo didn't know that his plan could be guessed by Benjamin. Of course, he wouldn't be so surprised if he knew that this Benjamin was the next British prime minister. (To be continued.) )