The world economic crisis, the Dutch and Indonesian conflicts...... The year 1929 was anything but peaceful.

Nothing can be done in an instant, everything takes a long time from outbreak to expansion, and several provocations, when blocked by China, have instead prompted Britain to nominally remain in the middle of the country, rather than support the Netherlands.

For Britain, containing China is obviously not as important as maintaining the balance of power on the European continent, the problem is that Britain is now too busy to take care of itself and has no ability to take care of things in the Pacific, and after all, it is still its friend, and it is better to let Indonesia fall into the hands of than to be occupied by China.

Gu Weijun, who was in Europe, saw this clearly and accurately, and soon chose to continue to induce Britain and the Netherlands to make enemies, and took the initiative to provide loans to help the Netherlands sell the British pound to increase its holdings of the Chinese yuan and the franc.

In China.

Unlike the Great Depression of the world economy, China is embarking on an unprecedented national infrastructure construction, which is an unprecedented scale of the grand plan, in 1930 alone, the central government and provincial government axes at all levels will invest 4 billion yuan in national infrastructure construction.

On the premise that other expenditures cannot be saved too much, the central financial budget is not enough to support this kind of large-scale construction, and the only way is to print more money to buy treasury bonds and rely on the direct credit support of the central bank to promote the development of infrastructure construction.

It doesn't matter, after saving so many years, China is also the only country in the world that can continue to make large-scale banknotes at the moment.

The logic of Keynesianism is very simple: when the country's economic situation is good, the political axe should shrink the fiscal budget to maintain a surplus, and when the economic situation is bad, the political axe should expand the fiscal deficit and maintain the deficit.

In the spring of that year, Emperor Song, accompanied by Chen Qimei, Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, inspected the Liujiaxia Hydropower Station, which will be the largest hydropower station in Asia, with an installed capacity of more than 1.22 million kW, and is currently the largest hydropower station project in the world.

In the past 20 years, the empire has built more than 200 small and medium-sized hydropower stations across the country, the most famous of which are the Songhua River Hydropower Station and the Yalu River Hydropower Station in Northeast China.

Northeast Electric Power Engineering Co., Ltd. and Far East Construction Engineering Corporation are the pearl companies of the empire's two major water conservancy construction, through the absorption of the best engineers from Russia, Germany, France and the United States, as well as the long-term training of local talents and long-term years of rich engineering exploration, the empire has the world's leading level in the field of hydropower station construction, especially in the fields of hydropower station equipment, special cement, special steel, high-voltage power grid, relay protection and other fields.

The Liujiaxia Hydropower Station project is contracted by the Northeast Electric Engineering Company, and the investors are the Central State Investment Bank, the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, and the Far East Electric Power and Energy Company, each with 1/3 of the share capital, and the Agricultural Bank of China, the Far Eastern Bank, and the Postal Savings Bank of China provide special loans of about 70 million yuan.

Before the construction of the Liujiaxia Hydropower Station, the Far East Electric Power Company had invested 68 million yuan in the Third Five-Year Plan to build the Yanpanxia Hydropower Station, which accumulated very important basic experience for the construction of the larger Liujiaxia Hydropower Station.

Accompanied by Chen Qimei and others, Song Biao first went to visit the Yanpanxia Hydropower Station, which has been connected to the grid for power generation, and then arrived at the Liujiaxia construction site by boat.

The midday sun sparkled on the water, and the river mixed with countless pieces of ice rushed away and crashed on both sides of the ship.

Song Biao, dressed in a dark blue tweed coat and black red deer military boots, stood on the bow of the boat, holding a black cane inlaid with hundreds of small sapphires into the pattern of the royal Han Sanlong regimental emblem, the gilded Benxi saber still hanging from his waist, and also wearing a white sheep fur high hat.

No matter how the times change, he seems to be still the officer who came out of the Hunjiang River in the northeast.

Even though the empire defeated the Soviet Union and adopted a posture of hostility to the Soviet Union both culturally and ideologically, just like the influence of the Northeast, much of the material and spiritual spirit of the old empire of Tsarist Russia, as the division of the Northeast system, was inherited and absorbed by the new empire of the Far East.

No matter how the empire changes, it is an unchangeable fact that the Tsarist Russian Empire has been wiped out, and until now, whether it is the Benxi sabre, or the current military uniform of the empire, or in other fields, the influence of the great power chauvinism of Tsarist Russia can still be seen at will.

Whether it was under the tutelage of Russia or Germany, the empire pursued the same admiration for that kind of martial country, so much so that to this day, the emperor [***] people still have a kind of disdain for the ally France.

It is not clear whether the fact that the empire will inadvertently remember the greedy and militaristic Tsarist Empire that once dominated Eurasia means that the empire deepest aspires to become the next new empire to dominate Eurasia.

Just as the Tsarist Empire remembered and worshipped the Eastern Roman Empire and the Golden Horde, it remembered the glory and magnificence of the past, and in doing so, inherited the fearless pioneering spirit.

On the vast territory of 19 million square kilometers, the Song Emperor rode on a light boat, looking ahead, and the undercurrent of calm heart surged.

Forty knows the destiny of heaven.

At the age of forty-five, Emperor Song gradually squandered the last vestiges of his youth, becoming more arrogant, hard and indifferent, he began to understand more and let go of a lot, and it was for this reason that after the middle and lower non-commissioned officers took the initiative to provoke the Seoul incident, although he ordered the troops stationed in Korea to give a severe and quick blow, he did not let the incident expand.

Neither China reported on the incident, as if the conflict had not happened, and Song Biao did not pursue it, refusing to apologize, but only sending an official from the Zhihua faction to apologize in private.

At such an age, Song Biao has become more and more clear about what it means to be a real "small intolerable and chaotic scheme".

He can also say that he suddenly opened his mind, and suddenly he figured out that with China's current foundation, it is indeed impossible to destroy its own historical opportunity to compete with the world, and what an important opportunity the world depression is for China, which is rare in a century, and seizing this opportunity will take advantage of the situation to become the world's largest economic power.

What about the book, the small book is now a broken jar, and there is not enough domestic demand market to save itself.

When so many large domestic projects are in front of him, Song Biao feels that it is really the most boring thing to compete with the book, as long as China seizes this historical opportunity that is difficult once in a century, it is very simple to clean up the book in the future.

The Liujiaxia Hydropower Station is definitely not the largest hydropower project in China, at this level, China's hydropower resources are enough to build dozens of them, and it can be said that there is no one, even so, it can be regarded as a country with rich hydropower resources in the world, which shows how powerful China's hydropower resources are.

China is here, Chinese are here, and there is no reason why China is not a world hegemon.

Song Biao took a boat up the river, looking at the construction site and the 100-meter-high scaffolding group in front of him, and felt infinitely emotionally that the dam would be 145 meters high and 212 meters wide, although it was far away from the Hoover Dam that was about to start, but it was already the first in Asia.

Song Biao's eyes are Liujiaxia, what he thinks of is more large-scale hydropower stations, in the Jinsha River basin for a ten-year comprehensive investigation has basically ended, four world-class super-large hydropower station projects far larger than Liujiaxia hydropower station have been formally approved, into a new round of research, the first two are expected to start construction in 1931, the remaining two due to the scale is too large, to consider the impact of earthquakes and in-depth mapping research, may wait until about 1940 to officially start.

The research work of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station is also underway, and compared with the Jinsha River, the risk is relatively small, the key is that the natural environmental impact may be relatively large, and the construction difficulty is indeed too great.

One of the main reasons why the empire wanted to build hydropower projects was that hydropower was cheap, especially since the hydropower stations in the upper reaches of the Jinsha and Yellow rivers were located in areas with less local power demand, which allowed the empire to pump enough electricity for electrolysis to extract heavy water.

With the discovery of heavy water, uranium-235, uranium-238 and nuclear fission reactions in domestic nuclear physics research, the empire has already met the conditions for starting a nuclear weapons research program at this time, and has begun the theoretical field and preliminary research work, while the Chinese Academy of Sciences has not announced the nuclear fission reaction, and the relevant research offices have been transferred to the secret bureau to be directly responsible.

The Liujiaxia Hydropower Station and the Longyangxia and Lijiaxia Hydropower Stations, which were built at the same time, had a very important responsibility to extract heavy water during the hydropower abundance stage, and the Imperial Heavy Water Engineering Research Bureau was set up in Lanzhou, and the Nuclear Physics Engineering Research Institute was set up in Hanzhong.

The Aerospace Engineering Research Institute is located in Yanjing, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Xi'an, Guangzhou and other places, headquartered in Yanjing, and has completed the development of the first set of ramjet engines, while the Shenyang Aeronautical Engineering Research Institute has completed the theoretical work of turbojet engines and is entering the third phase of the experimental stage.

The Far Eastern Arms Corporation was reorganized into the China Great Wall Heavy Industry Corporation and has been secretly promoting the development of ramjet and turbojet engines, and the Shenyang Aircraft Manufacturing Company of the Far Eastern Consortium has also participated in the entire research work, cooperating with the research institutes directly under the central government in the 201 Project, jointly contributing personnel and funds, and sharing technology patents and manufacturing.

According to the current trend and progress, Song Biao estimated that before 1940, the empire would be able to develop the first nuclear weapon, considering that each research laboratory had some special information and intelligence, and it was likely that the first atomic bomb would be developed around 1938.

The first generation of missiles will basically appear in 1933, the first generation of medium-range missiles will basically be launched in about 45 years, and the first generation of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles will be roughly completed in about 50 years.

Therefore, the 201 project, especially the top-secret project of the 201s series, is still very scary.

Theoretical things are easier to do, such as turbojet engines, Germany has related theoretical ideas in the 20s, the empire is currently in the turbojet, turbofan two theoretical fields have been developed, most of them are still in the field of theoretical calculations, experimental things also have, really to make finished products, and consider industrial production, this cycle is very long, it is difficult to do very good without ten years, especially turbofan engines, it is normal to spend 20 years of cycle to gradually explore and research.

In fact, the current industrial level and the thickness of the accumulation of talents in the empire are much more powerful than those in the first and second five years of the republic, and the republic began to study artillery steel in Yunnan and Anshan Iron and Steel during the first and fifth five years, when the Soviet Union basically gave the technology, we ourselves carried out trial production according to this process diagram, and the artillery steel of the first five years was still very simple nickel steel, and there were two difficult problems to break through at that time was the smelting and smelting of nickel, and in the first five-year period, we could not even produce nickel, let alone how to smelt nickel steel.

These technologies and production experiences actually broke through at the end of the 19th century, especially in the 20s of the 20th century.

The empire in these areas is very relaxed, the Northeast period through cooperation with Russia and Germany to solve the problem of nickel steel, artillery steel, the empire in the 201 project also in the Far East Iron and Steel Corporation to complete the nickel rotary electric furnace catalytic process, in the current are still leading the world, the purity is the same, but the domestic production process has lower cost and higher utilization.

The current artillery steel production process of the empire is already a world-class leading level, and in Song Biao's view, it is basically the same as that of the 70s during the Republic period, so a comparison can show the level of the empire in basic heavy industry, especially in the field of metallurgy.

Imperial 201 project in 1925 to start a new microcrystalline steel process research, this thing is simple and simple, microcrystalline steel is to use inert gas protection and ultra-high pressure cold rolling in the process of cold rolling, this high pressure is more than five times the normal, in order to make steel into the microcrystalline level.

To do this research, the empire must first have two conditions, one is a 25,000-ton vertical cold rolling mill, and the other is an electron microscope, one large and one small, without which the entire microcrystalline steel system cannot be studied.

After the 70s, the world's aircraft carriers, submarines mainstream steel are in the field of microcrystalline steel and quasi-microcrystalline steel, these steel in the sea for 20 years do not rust, do not need to degauss, the Republic is a planned economy era, although there is this research basis in the 70s, but it has not been engaged, and later the aircraft carrier was dragged back only to find that these things are missing, and the temporary development began.

In fact, there were basically enterprises in Europe and the United States engaged in the research of quasi-microcrystalline steel in the 40s, and large-scale commercial application began in the 60s.

There are many details that can be seen, the place where the bow anchor of the 054A ship is easily rusted, and there is often a large piece of rust spots, and the modern destroyer is at a similar level of maintenance in our country, and the rust can not be seen in the same position.

Since the implementation of the 201 project, there have been more than 4,000 technical catch-up projects in the country, and there are 72 major projects that are being pre-researched and catching up with Europe and the United States at this stage, involving more than 600 sub-projects.

Basically, around 1928, the overall level of China's industry has reached the level of Europe and the United States, and there are still some leading points in the fields of electrical, electronic and material fields, with such a foundation, the empire can carry out a large number of real scientific and technological research work beyond the surname, including nuclear weapons, missiles, radars, turbojets, turboprops, computers, semiconductors, and so on.

Song Biao's Liujiaxia Hydropower Station is also the result of Project 201, and the four turbine generator sets and high-voltage grid transmission system to be installed here will be at the world's leading level.

With the construction of these power stations, there will be a foundation for the electrification of railways in Xinjiang Province and the western region.

The Liujiaxia Hydropower Station of this scale is actually just a microcosm of the modernization of the empire, a microcosm of China in this era, Song Biao can see a lot of things from here, and he can be said to be very proud at this moment.

Now in this situation, does he still need to pay attention to the book?

As long as the pace of economic development continues to be maintained, and the empire has sufficient funds for education and scientific research, it is just a matter of waiting for the empire to dominate the world.

Therefore, Song Biao's mood when he went to Liujiaxia to inspect was still very relaxed.

This project was officially launched in August last year, and it is still in a basic stage, and Song Biao can't see much on this trip, basically just listening to a report.

After listening to the collective report of the project expert group and the chief engineer in charge of the project, Song Biao left the project headquarters without too much worry, and walked on the mountain road on the north side of the gorge accompanied by Chen Qimei, the minister of agriculture, and Chen Jiayou, the internal officer, to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Liujiaxia.

Walking here, Song Biao not only thought of Wang Yongjiang.

Song Biao personally flew to Liaoyang to see him for the last time, and stayed in Liaoyang to preside over the funeral, which was also regarded as the highest special gift from cabinet ministers in the empire.

The person who can get such a love and gift from the Song Emperor is still the only one Wang Yongjiang in the empire so far.

Many people say that in the past 20 years of the empire, there were only four cabinet ministers who really made immortal contributions to the empire, namely Tang Shaoyi, Ouyang Geng, Zhang Kangren and Wang Yongjiang, but in Song Biao's heart, the weight of the first three was not as important as Wang Yongjiang, but people ignored the development of China's agriculture while pursuing national recovery and national modernization.

Wang Yongjiang is the first person to make China's agriculture so successful today, and this important minister of the imperial party who served as the minister of agriculture and water conservancy for 17 years has made immeasurable contributions to the country.

Before World War I, 54% of the empire's total economy belonged to agriculture, and the great development of China's agriculture, the recovery of the silk tea industry, and the great development of animal husbandry, forestry, fishery, and mechanized agriculture all depended on Wang Yongjiang's determination alone.

Wang Yongjiang's strength, iron fist, incorruptibility, shrewdness, and ability among the cabinet ministers in the same period, almost no one can compare, and it is precisely for this reason that Song Biao handed over the most important position of Minister of Agriculture to him, and he worked until 1927, when his body could no longer hold on.

Among the many cabinet ministers of the empire, Wang Yongjiang is also the only important minister in the cabinet who has been re-elected for four consecutive terms.

It's just that this burden also crushes him.

Song Biao's road today is the last road Wang Yongjiang took in office, he walked along the original road, and silently remembered this important minister of the empire in his heart, walking on this road, he didn't know that there are still a few people in the empire today who still remember this important minister of the fourth term.

During his seventeen years as Minister of Agriculture, Wang Yongjiang traveled to almost every province in China, even overseas provinces, from the chief of the Agricultural Section of the New Deal Bureau in Northeast China, all the way through, Wang Yongjiang became an agricultural and water conservancy expert in the empire.

In this way, he walked through every province, walked through the Jinsha River, walked through the upper reaches of the Yellow River, walked through the Three Gorges, walked through Sichuan and Henan, where the task of agricultural reform was the heaviest, walked through Yunnan, where agricultural innovation was the most special, and walked through the four northern provinces and Novosibirsk where agriculture was blank.

He walked and walked, and promoted the development of China's agriculture in the most iron-fisted way, almost with a few forces to promote the real implementation of the "Land Restriction Act", he recovered China's silk tea industry with a few forces, and established the hegemony of China's soybean and wool industries in the world with a few forces.

Song Biao walked on this road, looking at the scenery of Liujiaxia, infinitely remembering Wang Yongjiang in his heart, thinking about infinite thoughts, he thought that if Wang Yongjiang was still alive, he would be very happy that the Liujiaxia Hydropower Station had finally begun to break ground.

personally presided over the funeral of this degree of holy grace, Song Biao privately thought that only Wang Yongjiang was worthy of it, and even Tang Shaoyi did not deserve it, this should have belonged only to Wang Yongjiang's special treatment, because he was not grateful to Tang Shaoyi, nor to Ouyang Geng and Zhang Kangren, but he was really grateful to Wang Yongjiang, he did not admire Tang Zhang Ouyang, but only admired this Wang Yongjiang, because Wang Yongjiang did things that he couldn't do.

Song Biao really can't do it, and no one else can do it, only Wang Yongjiang can do it.

It's a special talent.

Walking to the end of the mountain road, the corner in front of him was the long and boundless Yellow River and the mountains that stretched for thousands of miles, Song Biao stopped here and sighed silently for Wang Yongjiang.

Chen Qimei is one of the very few people who can understand Song Biao's mood at the moment, he knows what the emperor is sighing, and he also understands why the emperor sighs and remembers it.

It was getting late, and the mountain breeze was getting colder.

Chen Qimei whispered and persuaded Song Biao: "Your Majesty, it's getting late, go back early to rest, tomorrow morning I will arrange a plane to Hanzhong, and there will be one more day to do!" ”

Song Biao nodded slightly, continued to look at the spot for a while, and then turned around and returned the way he came.

Just walked back to the Liujiaxia construction site, seeing that the lights in the distance had been lit up, he and Chen Qimei and Chen Jiayou, who were accompanying him, sighed: "Liujiaxia and Lijiaxia projects are very important, with the supply of electricity can promote the development of industry, with the development of industry, Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningbo provinces can really develop." Only when the northwest develops can the entire northwest region be stable. With industry, the population can increase, agriculture can also generate income, the population of the Han nationality in the northwest will increase rapidly, and the minority population can also benefit from it, and everyone will no longer have to compete for land, so that there will be harmony between ethnic groups. ”

Speaking of which, he emphasized again: "These are all important, very important. ”

Chen Qimei replied respectfully: "What the emperor said is extremely true. Speaking of agriculture in the northwest, we have built a number of pilot projects in Shanshan and Hami areas of the underground water canal project, so far the benefits are very good, although the scale of investment is much larger, for the development of local agriculture will also play a very important role in promoting reuse, groundwater development projects have also been launched, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources will continue to increase the investment in water conservancy projects in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningbo and Xinjiang provinces in the next five years, close to 370 million yuan, enough to improve the efficiency of the agricultural water conservancy and irrigation system in the entire five northwest provinces by more than ten times. ”

Song Biao still bowed slightly, and agreed: "This is a good thing." Although international agricultural grain prices have been declining, we have also passed the food and clothing line, but our grain deep processing industry is still vigorously developing, agriculture as the most important foundation for industrial raw materials, we must continue to increase development and support, you are now the fifth Minister of Agriculture, the previous Wang Yongjiang laid a lot of foundation for you, it can be said that the most difficult work, he has done it for you, so, you should do better than him in this position. ”

Chen Qimei said: "Please rest assured that your subordinates will do their best to live up to the emperor's high expectations." ”

Song Biao had something to say again, but he didn't say it after thinking about it, but said, "I'm relieved of you...... Rest assured, do your job, I always thought you would be the most important statesman in the future of the Empire. ”

Chen Qimei bowed down to thank Emperor Song for his praise, but judging from the situation just now, he knew that the emperor still had some things to say, and these words were probably exactly what the emperor thought he was still lacking.

Among the successive secretaries-general and chiefs of the inner court around Song Biao, Chen Qimei is the most shrewd and capable one, and the one who knows Song Biao's thoughts and surname the most, and he guessed not wrong at all.

In Song Biao's view, Chen Qimei can become a very clever politician, but there is still a lack of talent from a big politician, a lack of vision and artistic conception, and a lack of ideology and overall situation.

Among the politicians of the same generation, Gu Weijun, another chief of the inner court, is the opposite, which means that he is good at the overall situation and talent, and has his own understanding of the world.

Wang Zhaoming is also a very good politician, but his surname is a little weaker, shrewdness is true, and it is true that he is not strong enough, and he lacks iron-fisted means and clever cognition.

Song Jiaoren is also good, with ideals, vision, and a great mind and will, and now he is also a middle-aged senior official with a rich political resume, but it is a pity that he is not in the Guangfu Party, and it is really difficult to reach the top in this era when the Guangfu Party is dominant.

Song Biao didn't want to say anything.

Because he believes that everyone has their own creation, everyone has their own natural advantages and missions, and in this period of national rejuvenation, they will all find their own place on the big stage of history.

(To be continued)