The First World War was coming.

Even though Britain and Germany expected a war, there was a lack of sufficient estimates of the scale of the war, and both sides believed that it would be similar to the Battle of the Armada in the 16th century, in which the First World War decided the supremacy of both sides in the seas, but Germany had a premonition that it would be difficult to defeat the British navy, so in 1914 it reduced the cost of building ships for the navy and transferred more funds to the army, hoping to defeat France through a quick victory.

This German strategy was actually pulling the whole world into the First World War, and the problem was that Germany itself lacked such an understanding.

Lookers-on see most of the game.

Far away in East Asia, the emperor has an unusually clear judgment on this, therefore, in 1912 to 1914 in the world, the expansion of the production capacity and technology of the Chinese industrial industry is the most intense, from the founding of the empire to March 1914, the entire Chinese industry and related upstream and downstream industries investment in the total scale of up to 53 million pounds, through the introduction of equipment and technology from Britain, France, the United States and Germany and other countries, China's various types of gunpowder, Total explosives production has also surged to 330,000 tons per year, second only to Germany and France, and even higher than Britain and the United States.

In addition to the needs of the domestic market, the active preparation of various countries and the Second Balkan Campaign also provided a vast external market for the explosives of the Far Eastern General Arms Corporation.

It was under these circumstances that Emperor Song Biao visited the three eastern provinces in mid-February 1914, and the goal of his visit was to ascertain China's pre-war industrial readiness.

At this time, there were three railway lines from Yanjing to the three eastern provinces, the first was the Beijing-Fengzhou Railway, which was also changed to the Beijing-Shenyang Railway after Fengtianfu was changed to Shenyangfu; the second Jingxing Railway, this railway from Yanjing through Chengde, Fuzhou to Xing'an League, and then Xing'an League as a transit point to Hulunbuir, Qiqihar, Harbin and Changchun, through Fuzhou transit to Shenyang; The third railway is the continuation of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, with Zhangjiakou renamed Xuanzhou, this railway was also renamed the Beijing-Xuanzhou Railway, and Xuanzhou is one of the most important transit points in China's railway system, from Xuanzhou to the north through the railway to Xilin Gol League, through Xilin Gol to connect Chifeng, and then enter Jinzhou, and so on the Xiku Railway through, you can go directly to Kulen in Outer Mongolia, from Xuanzhou to the west all the way through Hulunhot, Baoketu (Baotou), the westernmost side can reach Bayan Zhuoer, two years later, this railway will be further repaired to Yinchuan, From Yinchuan to Lanzhou, from Xuanzhou to the south all the way into Taiyuan, from Taiyuan can reach Yuncheng, Jincheng respectively, after which will be directly connected to Luoyang.

In the military industry, Xuanzhou is linked to the six large-scale salt lakes and miscanthus nitrate raw material bases that have been developed in China, which not only supplies more than 2 million tons of miscanthus to China every year, but also exports purified miscanthus nitrate to foreign countries on a large scale.

Song Biao's inspection of the industries of the three eastern provinces is to take the Xuanzhou line, detour to Xilin Gol through Chifeng, Liaoxi Prefecture (Chaoyang City) into Fuzhou, and then transfer from Fuzhou to Xing'an League, and go around a big circle to reach Shenyang, Liaoyang and other places.

After controlling Inner and Outer Mongolia, the central cabinet political axe divided the north into four provinces: Chahar, Kulun, Uriya Sutai, Altai, and Tangnu Ulianghai, collectively referred to as the four northern provinces, which belonged to the central and northern regions in the administrative division of the Chinese Empire, and corresponded to the central and southern regions composed of Huguang and Liangguang, among which the most closely controlled was Chahar Province, which was also the leader and governance center of the four northern provinces.

China can actually also be called the Steppe Empire.

Looking at the world, is there any country with larger grasslands and pastures than China?

From the beginning of the establishment of the empire, since the era of the three eastern provinces inherited the idea of large animal husbandry is naturally continued to the new imperial cabinet political axe, with two cavalry divisions to quell the small-scale rebellion in Outer Mongolia, the empire took the opportunity to continue to implement the previous dynasty's policy of "changing the land and returning to the stream", the two provinces of Chahar and Altai first implemented provincial-level jurisdictional governance, first established a sound provincial and government level governance, the local government successively changed the flag and set up counties, and further appointed county magistrates.

Through the establishment of the Military Pastoral Bureau and the same prefecture-level jurisdiction, the Xilin Gol League has been reorganized into a Military and Pastoral Bureau at this time, and is becoming the central base of animal husbandry in Chahar Province and a larger-scale military horse breeding base.

The Xilin Gol Grassland is known as the most beautiful grassland in the world.

Take a special train to arrive at Xilin Gol League, Song Biao saw a new city in the grassland, along the road there is a kind of power generation windmill that seems to be unusually science fiction in this era, this is a new type of power generation equipment developed by the Northeast Electric Power Research Institute, although the power is small, but it is widely distributed in the Xilin Gol League area of thousands, and the only purchaser in the whole world is the Xilin Gol Military Pastoral Bureau.

The scale of Xilin Gol City is not large, at this time can barely be regarded as the first generation of Chinese architects Lu Ronggui personally responsible for the planning and construction of the city, basically referring to the Russians in the construction of Dalian when the planning thinking of the square city, although the new city, but the function is very complete, and in the periphery to establish a circle of anti-sand forest.

In the plan of the central cabinet, Chahar Province will gradually develop four large-scale industrial cities in the next 30 years, namely Baoketu, Hohhot, Xilin Gol and Hulunbuir, especially Xilin Gol and Hulunbuir, both of which will focus on animal husbandry to establish the dairy, leather, wool spinning, and oil industry leaders of the four northern provinces.

Only with the development of cities can the population of the Han nationality increase and expand rapidly, accounting for the majority of the four northern provinces in terms of population proportion, and only then can the four northern provinces achieve real long-term peace and stability.

During this period, the central government has issued the "Prohibition of Reclamation in the Four Northern Provinces" and the "Animal Husbandry Protection Law", strictly prohibiting illegal reclamation in the four northern provinces, all development is centered on animal husbandry, in the case of mechanized planting scale can not be expanded, and it is difficult to expand, animal husbandry will play a vital role in the promotion of China's agriculture, to ensure that the number of one million horses is cultivated every year, sold to North China and the Central Plains, effectively supplementing the lack of the number of cattle cultivated in various places, and is conducive to the transportation between towns and villages.

If everything was in the service of expanding the war potential, the value of animal husbandry to the Imperial Army was much higher than that of agriculture, and the consumption of military boots, woolen uniforms, blankets, and tents by two million troops alone was staggering, and it could not be sustained by traditional farming.

At this time, Xilin Gol City was the Xing'an League a few years ago, and new cities were being built, expanding the number of industrial land and factories, introducing a large number of new grazing species from the Xing'an League, Hulunbuir, and Liaoxi Military and Animal Husbandry Bureaus, and changing the grassland areas with suitable conditions into artificial pastures as a supplement to natural pastures, importing feed and chemical fertilizers from the three eastern provinces, and building local sand control and irrigation measures.

Qi Hao, who had previously served as deputy director of the General Bureau of Military Reclamation of the Ministry of the Army, retired from the rank of brigadier general and was appointed as the governor of Chahar Province by the cabinet political axe, as the best animal husbandry expert in the army system, he was naturally the best candidate for the post of governor of Chahar.

Song Biao was accompanied by Wang Yongjiang, Minister of Agriculture, and Tan Jiwu, director of the Animal Husbandry Industry Bureau, and Qi Hao also arrived at Xuanzhou Mansion to pick up the driver, and accompanied Song Biao to inspect Xilin Gol with Wang Yongjiang.

Song Biao's mind was obviously still on the military, and after getting off the train, he immediately rode a horse to inspect the horse breeding center of the Military Animal Husbandry Bureau on the west side of the Xilin Reservoir after inspecting several tanneries, milk powder factories and woolen factories in Xilin Gol.

Because it is a shortcut, the Liaoxi horse at this time has been basically formed after ten years of cultivation.

When Song Biao left from the city, he deliberately rode a black Liaoxi horse, with a body height of about 1.55 meters, which is also the most benchmark data of the Liaoxi horse.

From the city to the breeding horse all ten kilometers away, Song Biao and the others galloped all the way in only about twelve or thirteen minutes, and the horse steps were very steady, the walking was very coordinated, even Song Biao did not ride a horse for a long time, there was no discomfort.

Whether the horse is good or not, you will know if you ride it and walk around.

When he arrived at the horse breeding institute, Song Biao was very happy and praised Qi Hao who was accompanying him: "Your work over the years is very meaningful, most of us used to rely on Don hippos and Mongolian horses to expand the cavalry, although the Don hippo is good, but there are also some shortcomings, and it has to be bought from Russia, the price is definitely not cost-effective, although Mongolian horses are cheap, but there are more shortcomings." Now, ten years of hard work, at least solve the problem of our military horses first. ”

Qi Hao sighed with a smile: "It's still the emperor's sage and far-sighted, otherwise how can there be today?" ”

Song Biao lifted the horsewhip and pointed to the big stable of the breeding house and said, "Let's go, go and see!" ”

The construction scale of Xilin Reservoir is very large, and it is also one of the 20 key projects of the national agricultural water conservancy project in the first five-year plan of the central government, which was just completed at the end of last year, and there are more than 10 horse breeding stations in this area, and more than 10,000 Liaoxi horses are cultivated locally.

Because the Xilin Gol grassland has the local excellent horse breed Xilin Gol horse, in the horse farm grabbing point, Liaoxi horse temporarily has to give way to Xilin Gol horse, after all, Liaoxi horse in Liaoxi, Hulunbuir, Xing'an League The three major military and pastoral bureaus have a larger horse farm, so in the entire Xilin Gol Military Pastoral Bureau, the Liaoxi horse breeding station has retained a total of no more than 40,000 horses.

China's horse breeding industry has been cultivated for ten years, although the time is not long, but the two main breeding of new horse breeds, Liaoxi horse and Northeast horse, have been formed. Walking all the way over, looking at the thousands of Liaoxi horses in captivity at the horse farm, Song Biao's mood could not be better.

Qi Hao took this opportunity to introduce to Song Biao: "Your Majesty, Liaoxi Horse currently has a relatively stable herd of 600,000 horses, according to the current estimate, about after 1915, it will be able to supply 50,000 adult military horses to the army every year, and after 1920, the size of the horse herd can roughly expand to 2 million, and the scale of the new supply of military horses can reach 200,000 every year, and it will begin to expand in the direction of civilian horses." From our current observations, Liaoxi horses have excellent adaptability in the Mongolian Plateau and the Far East, Ningxia, and North China. Last year, taking advantage of the establishment of Xikang Province, the military department sent cavalry north to Kangding, including about 1,000 Liaoxi horses, which seem to be basically able to adapt to the environment of Xikang Province. Judging from this situation, I think that the Liaoxi horse is generally competent to fight in Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, especially the situation in Qinghai is special, and the adaptability of the Don hippopotamus is already slightly insufficient. It's just that I want to continue to go to the plateau in the future, I'm afraid I still have to specialize in Qinghai horses. ”

Song Biao nodded slightly, his plan was basically to take advantage of the inability of Russia and Britain to take care of Xinjiang Province, Tibet Province, Nepal and other places during the First World War stage, to cover the administrative jurisdiction of the central political axe to Tibet Province, and expand the sphere of influence to West Asia.

Therefore, as long as the first war starts, the central government must suddenly send troops to eradicate Ma Jiajun as soon as possible, and the faster the action, the better, otherwise, there is no need for the central government to rush to build the railway to Tianshui and Bayan Zhuoer, Ma Jiajun of course also knows that as soon as the central railway arrives, they will perish, on the one hand, they actively show loyalty to the Huahuang, on the other hand, they strictly prohibit the railway company to further explore the terrain in the northwest, and frantically prevent the westward expansion of the railway.

Ma Jiajun did not understand the ambitions of the empire, and their own interests had already threatened the empire's control of Tibet and Xinjiang, and in the long run, China's territory could be divided between Britain and Russia.

These people of the Ma family have the blood of the Han people in their bodies, but they are all doing animal things that harm the interests of the country, just for their own selfish interests, but in the final analysis, they are all the troubles left by Zuo Zongtang back then.

After visiting the animal husbandry factory and horse breeding institute in Xilin Gol, Song Biao stayed here at night at the Military Pastoral Bureau, and in accordance with his wishes, the Military Pastoral Bureau did not dare to make special arrangements, but prepared a room with a kang for him.

Han people to live in the four northern provinces must face a lot of unaccustomed to life, especially the problem of too large temperature difference between morning and evening, the winter is even more cold and uncomfortable, the warm kang must be a necessary thing, but unlike the Northeast, the warm kang here is generally made of coal and horse manure, three catties of coal and seven catties of horse manure can ensure the heating conditions of one night.

It was still freezing outside, so Song Biao sat on the big kang in the room, called Wang Yongjiang, Qi Hao and Tan Jiwu of the Animal Husbandry Industry Bureau over, sat on the kang and peeled peanuts and drank rice wine, and talked about the future and development of China's animal husbandry.

Tan Jiwu had just returned from an inspection of animal husbandry in the United States and Britain last year, and he had a lot of ideas, and at this time he talked about it the most, and Song Biao and Wang Yongjiang sat next to him and listened.

European and American countries, the stronger the strength, the proportion of animal husbandry in the total agricultural output value will be higher, the proportion of the United States is about 55%, the United Kingdom is as high as 70%, so Britain engaged in the industrial revolution when there was an enclosure movement, in fact, there is an outbreak of the enclosure movement in the whole of Europe, Germany, Russia, Denmark enclosure movement in the 19th century really reached the first, and the Czech enclosure movement began to develop in the past few years.

With the development of China's wool industry, especially the rapid development of the wool industry and textile industry in the three eastern provinces, during this period, China also began to enter the tide of land enclosure, and its most significant feature is the introduction of the "Prohibition of Reclamation in the Four Northern Provinces" and the "Animal Husbandry Protection Law", which strictly prohibits the four northern provinces from changing grazing to farming, and most of the original cultivated land that has been reclaimed has been restored to artificial pasture, and a small amount of reserved cultivated land can only be planted with food crops related to animal husbandry.

Including sericulture, which is also part of animal husbandry, is also within the scope of the "Animal Husbandry Protection Law", but in order to ensure the grain production in the south of the Yangtze River at the same time, the mulberry varieties are also being improved, in order to seek planting in mountainous and hilly areas, that is, the so-called difference between forest mulberry and lake mulberry, and the raw silk industry continues to advance to Zhejiang.

In this regard, the central cabinet also promoted the National Assembly to pass the "Forestry Protection Law" to strengthen the forestry development of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and other provinces and the three eastern provinces, focusing on the development of fruit forests, timber, tea trees and medicinal materials.

All of this is ultimately in the service of industry, and in fact a new enclosure movement.

The impact of industry on agriculture is huge, for example, in the process of rapid development of China's textile industry, the demand for wool, cashmere, cotton, raw silk, flax has increased sharply, in North China, Shandong, Henan, northern Jiangsu and the three eastern provinces of Liaodong Bay region, the Ministry of Agriculture has been actively promoting new cotton seeds, promoting new technology and chemical fertilizers, improving water conservancy conditions, and increasing the total supply of cotton.

If we want to avoid the weakening of grain output in the process of developing cash crops and prevent the growth of grain prices, we can only continuously promote the development of water conservancy, chemical fertilizer, and new cultivation technologies while the grain arable land is constantly decreasing.

This is also the reason why the central authorities have borrowed money on a large scale to develop water conservancy, and it is necessary to increase water conservancy, popularize chemical fertilizers and new technologies, and expand the scope of horse farming, ox farming, and mechanical farming; only in this way can we effectively ensure the increase in grain yield per mu and further ensure the huge demand of industry for cash crops.

With the large-scale construction of fertilizer factories in the three eastern provinces, Shanghai, Wuhan and other places, and the introduction of ammonia chemicals from Germany at any cost, China's total fertilizer output has reached 1.3 million tons.

No matter how it changes nominally, behind it is the phenomenon of the enclosure movement, but in fact, it is all for the service of industry.

Listening to Tan Jiwu talk about the gap between Chinese and American animal husbandry that he knew, Song Biao slowly peeled peanuts and listened silently, Wang Yongjiang seemed very silent.

When Tan Jiwu said almost, Wang Yongjiang and Song Biao said: "Your Majesty, the empire has worked agricultural development in recent years, but compared with the United States, the gap between us is still obvious. Some time ago, the policy bureau came back from the United States and France to investigate and research, and I said that the current per capita grain in the United States is 1232 kilograms, and we only have 230 kilograms, and I only sigh after listening to it, especially the use of agricultural machinery in the United States, which is currently about 12 billion horsepower, with an average of 133 horsepower per person, which does not include livestock horsepower, even if we add livestock, it is not more than 3 horsepower per capita, and the gap is even greater. Therefore, I said to Jin Dingxun of the Policy Bureau that he was looking for trouble for me, and as soon as these data came out, our Ministry of Agriculture has worked hard in the past few years, which means that we have not done anything, and we have a long way to go, and I don't know how many years it will take to finish. ”

Song Biao was not in a hurry, and said, "Take your time, you are the Minister of Agriculture, and you have a heavy responsibility." Before I came out of Yenching, I talked to Premier Tang about the Cabinet, and I said that now it is the Cabinet Ministers who are the most important, agriculture, finance, industry, transportation, and water conservancy. Your Ministry of Agriculture is a well-deserved First Cabinet Department of the Empire, and the task is arduous, and all the first-class talents we can select have been sent to you, and the Foreign Experts Bureau of your Ministry of Agriculture has hired no less foreign consultants than the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Land and Resources. As a matter of fact, if we look at the problem from a different angle, it is precisely because we have a big gap between us and the United States, and now we are staring at the United States to study, and we will do what they do, and we will promulgate whatever laws they have; as long as we continue to persist in studying, our development will be faster and we will have more room for progress. ”

Tan Jiwu said: "Now the three eastern provinces can be qualified to compete with American industry and agriculture, the conditions are good, according to the current development speed of the three eastern provinces, it is expected that in ten years it will be the level of industry and agriculture in the United States, and at that time, our China can be regarded as the first step of rejuvenation." ”

Song Biao said: "That's what I said, but the gap between inside and outside the customs is too big. When we formulated the "Cultivated Land Protection Act", the goal was to control land annexation and ensure that every household has a part of the land, so each province has the right to set a production tax ceiling, and each household will start to increase the production tax if the land exceeds a certain number of acres, and the upper limit of 60 acres of land is generally in the three eastern provinces, and the minimum is 150 acres. In previous years, you were embarrassed to call yourself a landlord if you had a hundred hectares of land in the three eastern provinces. Our situation is special, the agricultural population is too large, and the average cultivated land area is low, so we can only do this, make the land of each household relatively more evenly distributed as much as possible, gradually ban the big landlord class, let the accumulated capital of agriculture flow to industry, and curb land annexation. Looking back now, the gap between agriculture and industry inside and outside the Kansai is rapidly widening, and this situation is not good for the Cabinet, and the three eastern provinces must continue to accelerate their development, and similarly, the Kannai must seize the time to catch up. ”

Wang Yongjiang and Tan Jiwu didn't say anything when they heard this, it was easy to say, but it was just a touch of the upper and lower lips, but it was too difficult to do it.

In order to curb land annexation and relative equalization, the Ministry of Agriculture has borrowed money to set up the Agricultural Bank of China, set up rural credit offices throughout the country, and issued loans to small farmers to help them gradually buy back land from the big landlord class.

Generally speaking, if China's economy wants to develop and industry wants to expand, agriculture must first develop, but the development of China's agriculture is the most difficult, and it is also extremely spacey, which is both difficult and promising.

Song Biao is not the prime minister, he doesn't think much about this aspect, and at this time, he and Wang Yongjiang and Tan Jiwu are just talking casually, and Qi Hao, the growth of Chahar Province, is listening from the sidelines and doesn't say much.

At the time of the Northeast New Deal, the development of the Northeast was to learn from the United States and Germany, and after the emperor became the ruler of the Northeast in the world, the Imperial New Deal promoted now, or the Shenwu New Deal, was actually a continuation of the Northeast New Deal.

Regarding the Shenwu New Deal, Song Biao made a simple definition in the strategic direction, that is, "flexible and changeable to learn from the United States", it is impossible to completely learn from the United States, there are many similarities between China and the United States, and there are many differences, so we must be flexible and changeable, and continue to learn from Germany, France, Britain and other countries.

In the past few years, many inspection delegations have been sent to the United States, Germany, France, Britain, and other countries, and a visit to Europe and the United States has basically been arranged at the provincial governor level.

As the governor of Chahar province, Qi Hao's work pressure is easier than in other provinces, because the agricultural and industrial development of Chahar province revolves around animal husbandry, which is his strength, but his greatest pressure is to bear the future of the entire four northern provinces, as well as to appease the Mongolian people and skillfully increase the number of Han people.

(To be continued)