At a time when the meeting of the Ministry of Military Affairs was in full swing, the cabinet meeting was also under the chairmanship of Zhou Ruidong to intensively discuss the issue of military spending in the budget, and the news of the expansion of military spending had already been reported in the plan at the beginning of the year, but how to use this huge amount of money was obviously the issue that the current government needed to be most concerned about. ≥ ≥ ≥ Xiao ≥ said, www.

"Ladies and gentlemen, according to the information gathered by the Intelligence Department and the Central Think Tank from multiple sources, the danger of a large-scale war in Europe is imminent, and the security threats to our country mainly come from Russia in the northwest and the United States on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Zhou Ruidong briefly and forcefully announced the tone of the meeting, saying that the main content of today's meeting is to ensure the implementation of the military expenditure bill put forward at the beginning of the year.

As soon as Zhou Ruidong's voice fell, the eyes of the cabinet officials were fixed on Tang Shaoyi, the Minister of Finance, the funds under the control of the God of Wealth are obviously the foundation and key point to solve the problem!

Tang Shaoyi held a tortoiseshell fountain pen in his hand, flipped through his big black book unhurriedly, and then nodded to Zhou Ruidong and said: "Prime Minister, the Special Committee of the National Assembly and the Ministry of Finance have reviewed the proposal of the Ministry of Military Affairs, a total of 880 million national dollars, except for the initial armament expenses allocated in 6 years, the rest of the funds for the expansion of the navy, army, and air force have been in place, and the allowance for the troops will be greatly increased for the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China 20 years ago, and the allowance for front-line officers and non-commissioned officers will be doubled within three years. The decommissioning allowance will also be gradually increased in accordance with Congressional Proposition 227......"

In the nearly 20 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, in fact, in addition to fighting a war in South Asia against the British colony of India, the main task of the Army has been to assist the government in completing a series of national defense and local construction. But. Although the domestic education system is now very well-developed. In 1908, a national census was completed, showing that the national primary education coverage rate under the age of 40 had reached an astonishing 83 percent, which is a huge country with a population of nearly 600 million, and the new government has spared little effort to spend on education and promote national education, and the results have been remarkable.

The improvement of the national economy has also provided the army and reserve forces with more high-quality non-commissioned officer resources, improved the treatment of soldiers, and greatly increased the country's economic and financial resources this year. Obviously, this is also an issue that cannot be ignored, and the new development idea of the army following the "high standard and the source of soldiers" has in fact already become a consensus at the top level.

"Shaochuan, the dry dock construction in the plan of the four major heavy industries is basically ready, in addition to 8 foreign warships occupying a part of the 10,000-ton dock, a comprehensive overhaul has been completed in the past three months, but the funds specially approved by the Ministry of Finance have not yet been fully in place!" Xu Jianyin, the general director of the Ministry of Industry on the side, has already opened his mouth to pick up the topic, the Ministry of Finance allocates money, and the Ministry of Industry does things, this is today's topic. The money did not arrive, and he, the Minister of Industry, was also quite worried.

Tang Shaoyi and Xu Jianyin naturally have a good relationship in private. However, in this official matter, the two can never talk about friendship, "Mr. Xu, the annual subsidies of the four major heavy industries in the past ten years have exceeded 10 million national dollars, and the major heavy industries occupy 70% of the domestic steel market, last year in accordance with the 60% profit regulations, a total of 140 million national dollars were paid to the Ministry of Finance, and the reproduction balance that they can use is nearly 90 million, and the appropriation I agree to will definitely come down, but it will be necessary to wait for the project to be launched!" ”

Xu Jianyin despised Tang Shaoyi in his heart, the industrial fund he operated in the past ten years has continued to receive overseas capital injections and investment income, in fact, it has formed a huge capital with a scale of nearly 500 million national dollars, however, the purpose of establishing this fund is to support the private economy, and it does not include providing loans to the four major heavy industries, after all, the four major heavy industries with the state as the foundation, there is almost no problem of funds, the only problem is how to use money well.

Zhou Ruidong naturally would not let the topic deviate from today's direction, and he immediately opened his mouth to terminate the discussion between the two on the appropriation, "Chief Xu, the production capacity survey of the Ministry of Industry should have been completed, what I hope to confirm is not about the funding of arms investment, but about industrial capacity, we will usher in an unprecedented era!" The future of our country will be our most important concern in the coming years! ”

Xu Jianyin immediately stopped the previous topic, he took out a thick report from the briefcase behind him, "Prime Minister, the new armored artillery vehicle on the army side has completed the finalization of 60mm and 40mm two types, and the locomotive factories of Jiangnan Heavy Industry and North Heavy Industry will carry out large-scale production, the current production capacity is 30 vehicles per month for each of the two types, and if the new factory is put into operation in a year, the wartime production capacity will be at least 150 vehicles per month, in addition, Beihai and Mawei are also operating new locomotive factories to compete." ”

"What about the Navy? This is what Chairman Qin is most concerned about! With the rise of the domestic automobile industry, in less than 10 years, China's cars not only surged in domestic sales, but also obtained a large number of orders in Europe and the United States.

According to Qin Kai's layout, military enterprises are still included in the scope of unopened industries, however, with the rapid development of the domestic processing industry, state-owned military enterprises have begun to purchase a large number of components from private factories, in addition to greatly saving factory manpower, more importantly, a competitive supply system for standardized parts has been established.

However, compared with the competition in the army's armament, the competition in the navy is much more flat, and the advent of the dreadnought era directly means that except for the super-large heavy industry shipyards, other factories are simply unable to cross this huge industrial threshold...... Even with the rise of dozens of private shipyards in Wenzhou, Guangzhou, and Tianjin, although these factories have the capacity to build 10,000-ton cruisers or even 20,000-ton freighters, they are completely incapable of building dreadnoughts.

On paper, the refining of the large fleet is definitely a super industrial project, and large and super-large heavy industrial machinery is not at all an investment that a profit-oriented private factory can afford, let alone a super-large dry dock of more than 30,000 tons and 40,000 tons, huge investments and uncertain orders. Unless the factory board goes crazy. Otherwise, it would certainly not be allowed to invest large sums of money in such a large, and potentially unprofitable construction.

But. The report from the Ministry of Industry still gives surprising news......

"Prime Minister, Mawei, Beihai, Jiangnan, North four major heavy industry shipyards under the jurisdiction of the shipyard can be put into operation before the end of the year 30,000-ton dry docks 8, 4 40,000-ton dry docks, Jiangnan, the two major shipyards in the north by the end of next year can add 3 40,000-ton dry docks, 9 months ago for the German Far East Fleet built two 25,000-ton combat cruisers, can also be two more dry docks! So, my only concern is funding! ”

With 12 large dry docks, the investment is undoubtedly staggering. Moreover, in the past few years, in fact, the construction of new warships that each heavy industry can undertake is very limited, and more are export warship orders and new super-large bulk carriers, but thanks to the income of the giant coal-iron complexes of the major heavy industries and the experience accumulated by the heavy industry, the production capacity of this kind of process can be maintained.

However, it is the accumulation of heavy industry on such an unprecedented scale that makes Qin Kai and the Beijing government have strong self-confidence, Zhou Ruidong nodded with satisfaction, which means that once the military and political department's armament plan is implemented, the four major heavy industries will be enough to deal with the most extreme shipbuilding plan. The only problem, obviously, is - the reserve of funds and skilled workers.

Discussions on the details continued into the evening. When Zhou Ruidong, Xu Jianyin, Tang Shaoyi, and He Xing appeared in Qin Kai's mansion, they were just in time for a group of military leaders of the Ministry of Military Affairs to cheat and eat and drink in the Qin Mansion, and the meeting of the Ministry of Military Affairs during the day actually ended much faster than the cabinet.

"It is possible to build 12 super battleships at once...... Then place an order to build it immediately, and by tomorrow, we can add 5 more ships, wouldn't it be two years later, our main battleships will reach 24! Tang Qingshan, who had just finished eating the Qinfu dinner set, shouted excitedly while nibbling on a piece of watermelon, he, the commander of the Northern Fleet, is said to have a great chance to become the commander of the new fleet after the reorganization, and he can command more than a dozen battleships at once, which is the future that any admiral dreams of.

"In four years, we will be able to build a super-scale navy with 41 ships...... By 15 years, tsk tsk...... Old Tang, your navy can have 58 super battleships, and the tonnage of this big iron lump alone is nearly 2 million tons, and it can easily crush all the opponents in the Pacific Ocean! Zhang Kui also nibbled on the watermelon without grace, and did not forget to sarcastically mock his colleagues in the navy, the army's equipment is really shabby compared to the navy's things.

"That's a good dare! Our navy is only 400,000 tons now, and it will be able to increase by 1.5 million tons in six years...... Even the British were thrown out a few streets! Liu Hetu, who was sitting next to Tang Qingshan, immediately picked up the topic, and a few conversations were full of interest, as if the million-ton battleship could be piled up with hands-on effort!

On the other side, Xu Jianyin, who was talking to Qin Kai in a low voice, heard the conversation of these military leaders, and they also smiled bitterly, the construction of this dreadnought, even if it has funds, technology, and docks, the difficulty of construction is still huge, from design, supervision to the boarding of every rivet, it is the key to a huge project.

Qin Kai naturally understood the key point, just integrating the four major heavy industry groups that compete with each other on weekdays is not an easy task for the Ministry of Industry, but he already has a plan for this......

On July 1, the Beijing government sent a note to the British Minister to China, Bauer, that considering that the British Navy's huge shipbuilding program in the past few years has made the Royal Navy's tonnage greatly exceed the 1 million ton limit set in the original "Sino-British Treaty of London", China will start to build a part of the warships to replace the old ships of the Navy, the initial scale is 10 battleships and a number of cruisers and destroyers with escorts.

This was quickly learned by European countries, and the British government quickly responded to the Chinese briefing, claiming to respect the Chinese government's armaments program and reaffirming the London Treaty between the two countries on peaceful convoys.

On the 10th, the Beijing National Assembly held a special hearing meeting of the National Assembly, and agreed with a vote of 9 percent to establish the "Central Science and Technology Development Committee" to be fully responsible for promoting the modernization of the squadron.

The next day, Qin Kai convened a special meeting in the name of the chairman of the Central Science and Technology Development Committee, and the theme of the meeting was the layout and distribution of the production of huge military orders.

In addition to the Minister of Finance, the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Commerce, the chairman of the board of directors of the four major heavy industries and the head of the armament design team were the protagonists of the meeting. (To be continued......) R527