In 1871, Zeng Guofan held an inauguration ceremony at the Ziguang Pavilion in Beijing. It was supposed to take office in 1870, but it was delayed because of his participation in the Cairo Conference in Egypt, and the emperor ordered Chen Kejie, who had been re-elected for four consecutive terms, to continue to handle government affairs for the time being, although Zeng Guofan was nominally prime minister in 1870, so he could take office after taking the oath.

"I swear that from this moment onwards, for the well-being of the people, for the strength of the nation, to be loyal to my duties, to His Majesty the Emperor, to the country, and to the nation (5,000 words omitted here)"

The salute is completed, the music is played, and the salute is fired.

The first to congratulate Zeng Guofan was the first imperial prime minister, Zuo Yu, who was already in his prime, became the helmsman of the imperial consortium after retiring, and played a major role in promoting the formation of a consortium of Jin merchants, Zhejiang merchants and other merchants, he had a pivotal position in the imperial business community, and he was awarded the title of new Earl of Shanghai. Then came the previous Prime Minister Chen Kejie, Chen Kejie was in power for 20 years (4 terms, five years each, Zuo Yu was in power for two terms), the development of the empire is a succession, in his tenure the empire completed the basic transformation from agriculture to industry, in addition to the empire seized a large number of African colonies to promote the sinicization of Southeast Asia, the key is to open the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, and European countries signed commercial agreements, in West Asia to support the pro-Persian and Afghan regimes against the British.

"Congratulations! Bohan, the future development of the empire depends on you, we will do our best to help you, the empire needs young and promising talents like you. Zuo Yu patted Zeng Guofan's shoulder and said happily. Although Zuo Yu didn't know why the emperor valued Zeng Guofan so much, Zuo Yu still recognized him for his performance in the past few years.

Chen Kejie is actually not much older than Zeng Guofan, so the two actually have a good relationship, one listens to the government by the emperor's side all the year round, and the other must know the holy will as the prime minister, so the two are also iron buddies, especially the two often form groups to fool the emperor, for example, in 1868, when these two people were one inside and the other outside, the emperor approved the "South American Special Program Budget", which was actually to infiltrate various factions in South America with money. At first, Lin Hong was resolutely opposed, thinking that it was better to invest the money in Africa! In the end, he was fooled.

"Bohan, congratulations, this burden is handed over to you!" Chen Kejie said with a smile.

"Big brother, I'm smiling, I want my big brother to correct me in the future!" Zeng Guofan also said with a smile.

"Definitely, I'm still in the House of Lords!"

Then there is a whole bunch of parliamentarians, deputies and business and military figures

Noon, one o'clock. Zeng Guofan was officially granted the power of prime minister by Emperor Lin Hong in the Old Summer Palace, and ordered to formally form a cabinet within a week, of course, it was inevitable to admonish.

The next day, Zeng Guofan officially took office, of course, he is still a light commander, he first has to draw up cabinet candidates, the auxiliary ministers are Shen Guifang and Xu Jishe, Foreign Minister Guo Songtao and Vice Minister Chen Zhen (son of Chen Kejie), Navy Minister Shen Baozhen Vice Minister Hua Ziji (Dongying people Huashan Ziji, Dongying basically changed the Han surname), War Minister Qin Han, Vice Minister Zuo Zongtang, Colonial Minister Yang Litong (that is, Okubo Litong is now the Prime Minister of Japan, etc., and Japan can only take office if Dongying Province joins the empire), Vice Minister Hu Linyi, Minister of Commerce, Peng Yulin, Minister of Police Liu Jintang, Minister of Transport Liu Kunyi, Minister of Industry Li Hongzhang, Minister of Culture and Education Li Hanzhang, Minister of Agriculture Tam Chung Lun, Minister of Justice Ding Baozhen. In addition, there are special advisers to the royal family, Wang Minyun and Wei Yuan, who will also take office after the official formation of the cabinet.

Zeng Jize, the secretary general of the Ziguang Pavilion and his son, first handed over an overview of the national situation compiled by the previous cabinet, which was classified as a top-secret document every five years, and the new cabinet would send it to the National Archives for backup after it was used up, and the original copy would be sent to the imperial palace for preservation, and the backup copy would be unsealed and disclosed to the whole country after 50 years.

It is said that the document is actually a thick booklet, which contains secret treaties in foreign affairs, political trends of various officials and political parties, and military outlining the strength of the navy and army. There are also the results of the census and the recommendations left by the previous session, and so on.

The most direct manifestation of a country's strength is its army and territory. In the booklet, Zeng Guofan first browsed the situation of the emperor's * team. According to the data of the imperial army training at the end of 1869, there were more than 1.3 million standing troops in the imperial army, and about 2.46 million reserve troops plus the construction corps and militia. In addition, the empire garrisoned about 450,000 troops in colonies around the world, including 200,000 in North America, 150,000 in East Africa, and 100,000 in Southwest China. By the beginning of 1870, the tonnage of warships and warships under construction in the Imperial Navy had reached 671,200 tons, second only to Britain's 728,300 tons and France's 687,700 tons, ranking third in the world, and having 45 ironclad ships in the same number as Britain (Britain's number of cruisers was huge and occupied a large amount of tonnage, but Britain's 13 ironclad ships under construction and the empire was expected to launch only 8 in three years), and France ranked third with 39 ships.

According to the Statistical Bureau of the Reich Ministry of Commerce, at the beginning of 1870 the Reich's industrial output was 20% of world capitalism, the second largest in the world. 22% in the United Kingdom, 13% in Germany and the United States, and only 10% in France, which is dominated by the financial and lending industry.

According to the Land Bureau, Tsang was told how large the land he would administer was, and through the wars between Britain and Russia and various treaties, the empire had reached 24.34 million square kilometers by the beginning of 1870, with Siberia accounting for the lion's share, and it would be even larger with the addition of the province east of Japan at the beginning of the year. The empire's colonies and protectorates around the globe will be 10,000 square kilometers after the Cairo Conference. Fortunately, the empire now has a population of 600 million enough to fully exploit these places, and most importantly, there are some immigrants such as North Indians and Burma and Vietnam who will lead the empire's colonization efforts.

At the beginning of 1870, the empire's domestic coal production reached 40 million tons (the domestic coal was basically mined for protective mining, and the total output reached 87 million tons), the pig iron output reached 6.7 million tons, accounting for 38% of the world's pig iron production, and the steel output was 2.17 million tons, accounting for 60.3% of the world's output, becoming the world's largest steel industry country. By the end of 1868, the Ministry of Communications of the Reich had basically completed the main railway trunk line covering the whole country, "four horizontal and four vertical" (this kind of three horizontal and four vertical lines were the same as later generations, and the extra horizontal was the North Asian railway line from Vladivostok to Almaty in the west, running through the Mongolian steppe and the Altai Mountains, which was roughly the case with the Trans-Siberian Railway in later Russia). The total mileage of the country's railways has reached 86,700 kilometers, ranking first in the world.

In terms of economy and trade, the previous cabinet led the appreciation of the Chinese dollar, and the exchange rate between the British pound and the Chinese dollar is now close to 1:3 (the exchange rate in 1840 was 1:6.78). The empire maintained a huge trade surplus by exporting goods such as tea, ceramics, and silk to the world every year. From 1850 to 1860, the empire's foreign export trade volume was 78.4 million Chinese dollars, and the import of goods was only 22 million Chinese yuan; By 1860-1870 this number had expanded to 129 million, with imports of 43.3 million, and the Treasury expected the surplus to remain flat until the end of the century, before which the world would obediently pay to China.

Needless to say, in terms of culture, Chinese culture is broad and profound, what is needed now is to explore and inherit the tradition and innovate on this basis, otherwise Lin Hong would not have been arrested by the Congress because of martial arts novels, and he was willing to be pulled as a coolie because of this.

Zeng Guofan now has two problems in front of him: first, to start construction of the "WN Railway" from East Africa to Southwest Africa as soon as possible to ensure the absolute control of the empire over Africa; The second is how to further promote the development of capitalism at home, especially in the financial sector, where the empire still lags behind Europe and the United States