1908 year.

At the beginning of 1908, the domestic financial situation improved markedly with the end of the seven-year tax-free and supportive development policy in New Northeast, Quang Nam, Shan State, Novosibirsk, West Siberia, South Siberia, Western Xinjiang, Xinjiang Province, and Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Region, and with the gradual demonstration of the results of the domestic large-scale agricultural economic policy.

At the same time as the introduction of taxation, the country's GDP statistics also covered the vast majority of the country.

According to this statistics, the domestic fiscal revenue for the whole year of 1907 increased by 31% compared with 1906 to 2.58 billion Chinese dollars, and the total tax revenue of the overseas provinces was 130 million Chinese yuan, or about 305 million pounds.

In 1907, the country's total GDP also surpassed that of the United States in statistical statements, ranking first in the world.

Prior to this, after the London Conference, a group of European and American economists published papers confirming that China was already the world's largest country in terms of gross national product.

Now, the answer given by the National Bureau of Statistics also proves this.

Not only is it the first in the world, but it is also 23 percentage points higher than that of the United States...... This figure in itself does not account for the gross domestic output of overseas colonies.

China's fiscal revenue also ranks first in the world, about 10% higher than that of the United States.

This is not a welcome achievement, given that China is so large and has a population 4.5 times that of the United States.

In 1907, there were still a lot of very encouraging figures in China.

In more than 40 fields, such as textiles, agriculture, agricultural product processing, machinery, chemicals, steel and profiles, aluminum products and aluminum alloy profiles, electrical appliances, generator sets, electric trains, porcelain, shipbuilding, automobiles, engines, Chinese and Western medicines, coal, etc., China's total export volume has jumped to the first place in the world, and it is also the world's largest trade surplus country.

In terms of the overall level of manufacturing, China is also on par with the major powers of Europe and the United States, especially in the manufacture of large-caliber main guns and the production of related heavy machine tools, there is no gap between China, Britain and Germany, and each other is at the same level.

In the domestic market, in 1907 alone, the total sales of domestic tractors, harvesters and other agricultural vehicles reached 440,000 units, and the state adopted the form of support loans to increase the popularity of domestic mechanized agriculture, while continuing to increase the number of cattle breeding and poverty alleviation programs in the central and western regions.

With the expansion of the country's territory, the popularization of the development of immigration to overseas areas, the increase of the industrialized population, and the increase of the average agricultural land supply, especially in the strong promotion of the large-scale agricultural economic policy, the proportion of middle peasants and rich peasants in the country has increased substantially.

In the electrical industry, the total installed capacity of domestic generating units reached 52.05 million kilowatts in 1907, with thermal units accounting for 81% and hydro, geothermal and other units accounting for 19%.

With the all-round development of the electric power industry, the production efficiency and process level of the domestic industry are also developing rapidly, and emerging household appliances such as electric heaters and electric fans have begun to appear in a large area in the market, and even refrigerators and air conditioners have also appeared.

The economic policy of large agriculture and the electrical industry have become the two biggest driving forces of China's economic development, making petrochemical, machinery, automobiles, and electrical appliances ...... All walks of life have been explored to the greatest extent.

After its GDP leapt to the first place in the world, China's economy is still developing rapidly, with an average annual growth rate of about 7 to 10 percent, much higher than that of the United States, Britain and Germany.

China is developing at a miraculous pace, and a low GDP per capita means a low labor force, relatively cheap domestic resources, and a special advantage for industrial exports.

If there is no war, China will certainly continue to develop like this until its per capita GDP is on par with that of Britain and the United States.

War will come eventually.

Therefore, Hu Chuyuan and other macroeconomists in China are faced with a common problem -- if they continue to ensure the development of the national economy during the war.

There is no doubt that a lower debt ratio and a well-stocked treasury are the best options.

Start laying out years in advance...... This is certainly also a very good choice.

In 1908, the domestic economy reached an unprecedented period, the Shanghai stock market experienced unprecedented prosperity, and the arms race among the international powers became white-hot.

At Hu Chuyuan's suggestion, Qu Hongji, then the prime minister of the empire, made several important orders to reorganize the official assets held by the political axe through the State Assets Committee, and most of the industrial and commercial land held by the central and local political axes began to be sold through public auctions.

The National Railway Company was established to manage the nationalized railways, the Ministry of Posts was corporatized, the National Postal Company was established, and the Postal Savings Bank of China was opened at the same time.

Under the name of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a more professional Agricultural Credit Bank of China was set up to further increase agricultural credit and industrial support through the operation of state-owned banks.

So far, the Postal Savings Bank of China, the Agricultural Credit Bank of China, the China Trust and Financing Corporation, and the China International Investment Bank have become the four nationalized financial institutions held by the central government axe through the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and the shares held by the government axe in China Commerce Bank, Nanyang Bank, and Beiyang Bank have been sold one after another.

The Bank of China continues to assume the functions and powers of the central bank, while the United Bank of Asia is an international cooperative bank jointly held by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China and other Asian countries, partially exercising the functions and powers of the Asian central bank, responsible for supervising the central banks and note-issuing banks of various countries, responsible for studying the development of the world economy, conducting annual reviews and ratings of global financial institutions, and monitoring the working capital situation on an international scale.

Some of the assets held by the central government axe were transferred to the China Trust and Financing Company, including the assets held by the government axe in Jiangnan Commercial Bank and other commercial banks, the special mineral resources held by the government axe overseas, and the foreign exchange treasury bonds held by the government axe, which were successively digested in the international financial market.

When war comes, nothing is more reliable than real money.

At present, the international silver price is still at a low price of 1:30, through the China Trust and China State Investment Corporation, the central government has gradually converted a large number of German marks, rubles and francs into silver, and some foreign exchange into gold.

The treasury bonds of Germany, Russia, France, and other countries held by the central government have been exchanged in the market and converted into gold and silver, while at the same time hoarding important strategic resources such as copper, zinc, aluminum, nickel, chromium, manganese, tungsten, and oil in the international market.

In 1908, the domestic military industry began to greatly increase the utilization rate of production capacity, and appropriately used the military industrial capacity of the international market to increase war reserves as much as possible.

In the past 20 years, Hu Chuyuan has left a very large sum of money to the central government, and now it has been withdrawn from the market, with a total amount of at least more than 20 billion yuan.

When war came, the central government used this money to continuously increase military expenditures, and both the army and the provincial National Guard began to increase the number of military personnel, continue to deepen the principle that the army is a military academy, and prepare for a substantial expansion of the troop strength, and at the same time continuously improve the quality of the soldiers in the active forces.

Seventy-four divisions of the army have fully begun to mechanize, and non-mechanized divisions and regiments are also equipped with a certain number of armored vehicles, military off-road vehicles, trucks and other auxiliary vehicles.

New weapons began to speed up equipping.

75mm mortar, 120mm caliber howitzer mortar, 55mm shoulder-fired grenade canister, 30mm rotary grenade launcher and its enhanced version, 122mm self-propelled howitzer, 155mm self-propelled howitzer, medium main battle armored vehicle TZA-4, heavy main battle armored vehicle TZA-5, infantry armored vehicle TZB-4 and its improved field communication vehicle, semi-automatic rifle Browning BM10, 11mm caliber Browning machine gun, Domestic submachine gun CM1905B and lower grenade launcher models, new Jiangnan Mustang military 105 horsepower armor off-road vehicle, 16 combined 175mm caliber rocket launchers...... One after another, they began to enter the troops.

In order to alleviate the pressure on logistics and supply, the Jiangnan rifle series was discontinued in China, and the new Browning BM10 semi-automatic rifle and the Browning M1905 model and its derivative series of manual rifles were uniformly produced.

Other logistical equipment of the army and navy, including military uniforms, camouflage uniforms, military quilts, steel helmets, gloves, overcoats, cotton clothing, military boots...... Meticulous to the socks, all of them are replaced uniformly, and the new 08 style is adopted.

At this time, the State Military Commission had transitioned to a state of intense war preparations, and all kinds of details and regulations had begun to be strictly grasped, the deployment of equipment and the education courses of soldiers were the focus, and more details were made in the specific deployment of equipment, and the overall equipment level was also rapidly improved, and each infantry squad was equipped with at least one light machine gun, two submachine guns, a grenade launcher, and even a telescope.

For mechanized fast infantry units, each combat squad has two Mustang military off-road vehicles, each equipped with an 11mm caliber heavy machine gun.

The total size of the Air Force was increased to six divisions, the size of the Airborne Division to three divisions, large-scale training was concentrated in the northwest, the number of military academies specialized in the domestic Air Force was increased to four, and pilot training courses were urgently opened in other military academies.

Although the navy is unlikely to be the focus of a new war, after all, China's main ally is the United Kingdom, but it has entered a stage of massive expansion, with the construction of 22,000-ton Yizhou-class battleships significantly accelerated, and four ships being built at the same time, for a total of eight, and four of the 15,000-ton Zongyuan-class battlecruisers are expected to be built.

Due to the fact that the war may have come relatively early, the Chinese Navy has not had time to complete the drastic transformation to 330mm caliber main guns, and the Zongyuan-class battle cruisers still use 305mm caliber main guns, and the displacement tonnage has also been reduced to 15,000 tons, which is also the reason why the Yizhou-class was forced to increase to 8 ships.

The Yizhou-class battleships with a displacement of 22,000 tons, the Dreadnought-class battleships with a displacement of 18,200 tons, the Yongzhou-class battleships with a displacement of 15,700 tons, the Zongyuan-class battlecruisers with a displacement of 15,750 tons, the Liangzhou-class battleships, and the Weiyuan-class cruisers will constitute the main ship group of the Chinese Navy in the next five years.

It was expected that in 1910, the total tonnage of the naval displacement would exceed 1 million tons, and the number of marine divisions would increase by 17.

Of course, on the other hand, Hu Chuyuan will also gradually cash out his capital in Germany.

He first sold out the shares of Opple, and by opening branches in other European countries, Mercedes-Benz Automobiles, BASF Chemical Group, and Siemens Electric successively transferred them to Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain, and then transferred the main technical and engineering personnel to Zurich, Switzerland.

In fact, he has moved the headquarters of these companies to Zurich.

Finally, through the merger of Commerzbank and Winterthur, he skillfully transferred a large amount of assets into pounds sterling and gold, deposited them in the German branch of Winterthur Bank in Frankfurt, and slowly withdrew them from Germany.

In terms of personal and Fukang investment options, he also chose to invest in silver.

Once a major war breaks out in the world, major countries will issue more currencies on a large scale, objectively causing currency depreciation, and gold and silver will become the most popular investment channels and the main channels for capital to flee.

Considering that the price of silver is too low and the production is tightly controlled, investing in silver is the best choice now.

The so-called butterfly effect is just that.

China's large-scale military build-up in order to prevent a possible war is the most powerful stimulus to Russia, and Russia is also forced to prepare for war with China, aggressively expanding its army, adding new equipment, and even its navy, Russia has a plan to restart new warships.

Russia influenced Great Britain, Britain influenced Germany, Germany influenced France, France influenced Portugal, Portugal influenced Italy, Italy influenced Austria-Hungary, Austria-Hungary influenced the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire influenced Russia, and Russia continued to influence China.

The world is completely in chaos.

Unlike the expected naval race, this time, even the army is in a large-scale competition, and the problem is that armored vehicles are a completely new system, and it is difficult to catch up.

At this stage, the best way is to copy, Britain, Germany and France copied China, Russia, Austria and Italy copied Germany, and Spain and Portugal copied France.

On the whole, it still depends on the level of industrial development of each country, China and Germany should be the strongest in the armored car system, and the rest of the countries are embarrassed, Britain and France have always been insufficient in the power of the engine, and Russia and Austria have imported engines from Germany.

The Ottoman Empire was even more straightforward, importing the entire set of mechanized equipment directly from China.

There are still a lot of questions.

Germany, France, and Britain only have the prototype of the TZB-2, and none of the other models have it, and in the entire system of mechanized combat trucks, oil trucks, off-road vehicles, communication vehicles, maintenance vehicles, trailers, etc., all countries can only continue to explore and study on their own on the basis of referring to the military intelligence obtained from China.

In contrast, China, which has experience in the large-scale use of mechanized warfare, has full and meticulous consideration in the design and production of a new generation of armored vehicles.

Again, it's the engine.

After more than 10 years of research, on the basis of the diesel engine of Diesel engine, a new type of diesel engine military engine has been developed in China, and a new turboshaft increase technology has been used.

Larger horsepower, new tracks, power transmission system, axle wheel transmission control system, and cold-pressed new armor have been updated, so that the main battle heavy artillery type armored vehicles finally have a practical use, and they are no longer as clumsy as in the past.

The heavy main battle armored vehicle TZA-5 will definitely be an epoch-making work.

The war is approaching step by step, it may not be next year, it may not be the year after that, but it will definitely come.

It does not depend on a contingency event, but objectively, Germany needs more colonies, Russia wants to regain its territory, Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary all want to regain control of the Ottoman Empire and push their power deep into Asia.

July 1909.

Rio Tinto, which has been granted full privileges to exploit oil and gas resources in Iraq and Kuwait, began to produce oil in Kuwait, with six large oil wells commissioned at a time that month, with an annual production capacity of 700,000 tons, and then several more wells are expected to be commissioned before the end of the year, with an expected production capacity of 1.1 million tons.

Prior to this, Hyundai Heavy Industries had produced 50,000-ton special oil tankers, and Shanghai, Ningbo, Tianjin, Qingdao, Fuzhou, and Guangzhou had set up 50,000-ton port terminals waiting for oil to be shipped from the Middle East.

China has become the world's largest oil consumer, with 3.5 million tons of oil needed annually, half of which needs to be imported from the United States and Southeast Asia.

World oil prices have fallen by 22 percentage points, a huge blow for Russia, which relies heavily on oil and iron ore exports.

Hu Chuyuan's goal is exactly that.

In November 1909, Shell, a subsidiary of the Swire consortium, also put a number of large oil wells in Egypt and Libya into production, further driving down world oil prices.

(To be continued)