Perhaps since 1730, the Ming Empire had not made such large-scale preparations for military expansion, and when Zhu Mu handed his expansion plan to these merchants who had rushed to get a piece of the pie for the new emperor's accession to the throne, they were also frightened by such a terrible plan.

"Your Majesty...... You want me to prepare 5,000 gasoline engines, and I have to expand my own production plant if I want to deliver them on time. A businessman lost the look of excitement on his face when he first entered the door, and replaced it with a sad face.

This order was a great temptation for him, and of course a huge cake that was difficult to eat. For the Ming Empire, the gasoline engine still has some technical reserves, but when the steam engine fuel was relatively abundant, the Ming Empire was not generally equipped with this internal combustion engine.

However, even if the technical reserves are small and there are not many factories for research and development, Daqing does have its own gasoline engine companies, and there are many of them. The technical level of these enterprises is average, and it can only be said that they are still in the middle of this era, but they are better than the technical genius Wilhelm that Wang Jue poached from Germany? There is a gap in the skills that Wenger has mastered.

However, there are some things that are not the most advanced or the best, such as proficiency and reliability, which are important criteria for measuring an industrial product. At least in some less important places, using a mature product that is cheap and reliable can definitely be considered a good and inexpensive option.

It's just that so many military and civilian products make everyone here a little nervous, these things are not small commodities, 4000 cars and 1000 150 mm caliber artillery, according to the Ming Empire's troop establishment standards, can arm nearly a million troops.

You must know that even in the world, there are very few troops like the new army organized by Wang Jue that attach importance to equipping cars and artillery. Therefore, in the eyes of businessmen who don't understand military affairs, the troops that Zhu Mu wants to arm are really too large, which makes them feel uneasy.

In fact, Wang Jue and Zhu Mu hope to equip and form a new army unit in a short period of time at this moment, and the combat effectiveness is only about 300,000 at most, and this is a long-term development goal, not the number that Wang Jue has now. Now it can barely be counted as a new army's troops, even if you add the Praetorian Guard, it is nothing more than about 100,000, which is still counting the number of supplementary soldiers.

After Zhu Mu handed over a contract for the production of canned food to the last businessman, regardless of the shock and confusion of these merchants, he said to himself: "This is only a contract that you need to complete in the short term, and I still have a long-term contract for you, that is, a full 10,000 cannons of more than 100 mm caliber, 150,000 cars of various types, 100,000 military horses, and 5 million tons of various food reserve plans......"

For all the businessmen here, the problem now is not that they don't get enough benefits, but that they can't eat the benefits themselves. If the huge production order really wants to be completed, according to the current method, it can only expand its own production scale, and expanding the production scale is undoubtedly a hesitant decision.

If the Ming Empire fails to fulfill its promises, the end result will be the bankruptcy of the merchants who have invested money but cannot get production contracts, which is certainly not the outcome they want to see. So they want to know how much sincerity there is in this plan that His Majesty the new emperor has come up with.

"Your Majesty, we support your idea of arming up for war, but now that you have just ascended the throne, it is not wise to be so eager to arm an army that exceeds the capacity of the population." Tan Jincheng thought for a while, and then persuaded in a tactful way: "I really want to get this order, looking at the numbers on it is as happy as looking at a stack of gold coins, but ......."

Zhu Mu sighed, it seems that the Ming Empire has a lot of money, and these merchants in front of him are better than him, His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Empire. So he got up from his seat, walked to Tan Jincheng's side, pressed his hand on the other party's shoulder, and motioned for the other party to sit down.

Then he looked at the merchants who were trying to stand up, stopped them from trying to get up with his eyes, and continued, "Indeed, I can't afford a large part of these things that I wanted. ”

Before these merchants could discuss, he continued to say what may be regarded as the most shocking remarks in the upper echelons of the Ming Empire today: "Therefore, I have decided to follow the example of the Emperor of the Apocalypse and implement the King James Wartime Commercial Production Act against you. ”

"What?" These businessmen present widened their eyes and looked at His Majesty the Emperor in front of them, they didn't know why this emperor had to make such an important decision, and dared to take out a terrifying bill that almost destroyed the royal foundation laid by the Emperor of the Apocalypse back then, to arm the army of the Ming Empire.

The King James Wartime Commercial Production Act was the general name of a series of laws promulgated by the Emperor of the Apocalypse in private with representatives of the business community to relinquish part of their rights and use the arms production workshop founded by the Emperor himself as collateral. This bill created a precedent for the Ming Empire to borrow private assets to develop industry, but it also set a precedent for borrowing funds to wage war.

The end result was the famous Royal Arms Factory, which became the current Chiyou Heavy Industries Company. After the death of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, the new emperor who was hollowed out by the asset group began a 20-year bloody struggle for power, so that the Ming Empire had just conquered most of the world, and it went downhill in just 20 years.

Of course, this decree was regarded by the bourgeoisie of the Ming Empire as a sign of its own rise, and also by the royal family as the beginning of its own loss of power and humiliation. Successive emperors have kept silent about this bill, and it is rumored that when the Emperor of the Apocalypse named his descendants, he deliberately gave up the genealogy set by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, because this bill touched the interests of the clan and ended the dominant position of the imperial merchants in procurement, so that the reason why the clan was difficult.

However, these are all rumors, and there is no evidence for them. However, the "King James Wartime Commercial Production Act" is indeed a Pandora's box that starts with borrowing and cannot be cleaned up like a snowball. When the businessmen present heard that Zhu Mu proposed this bill, they all found that their palms were already full of sweat.