The year 1900 was destined to be a year of fierce competition between the Chinese Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire.

The conclusion of a military alliance between the Chinese Empire and Great Britain was considered a diplomatic tie with the Tsarist Empire. In the subsequent war fund reserves, the Chinese Empire prepared $4.7 for funds, which was pressed to $250 million for Tsarist Russia. However, in terms of the number of troops, Tsarist Russia clamored that it could invest 1.8 million troops to fight against China, while the Chinese Empire only prepared 1.62 million troops, and only 38 armies in the front-line areas, with a total strength of only 1.14 million troops, and the Chinese Empire was at a disadvantage in terms of the number of troops.

However, in terms of army equipment and combat training, the Imperial Chinese Army once again pulled back a game.

The three major military regions in the north of the Chinese Empire were the front-line theaters of the war against Russia, and the front-line main combat units of the 38 armies were not only equipped with the latest advanced weapons and equipment of the Chinese Empire, but also greatly improved their individual protective equipment.

For example, an ordinary private in the front-line combat unit of the Chinese Empire was equipped with a Browning Type 97 rifle, 100 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, four honeycomb grenades, a steel helmet and military cap, field military boots and cloth shoes, training uniforms and regular uniforms, raincoats, bayonets (sabers), military shovels, compasses, water bottles, and marching backpacks.

Among them, steel helmets, field military boots, and training uniforms are obviously different from the current foreign armies of various countries in the world. The quality of the steel helmet is significantly higher than that of the foreign army steel helmet in the same period, and the use of a large stamping machine to stamp and form the Chinese special steel at one time, which is 50% more protective than the foreign army steel helmet, and effectively resists and bounces off 80 meters of foreign attack bullets and shrapnel. Field military boots are made of leather and steel soles and steel toes, which effectively protect the soldiers' feet and improve their marching ability. The training uniform is camouflage, the summer training uniform is grass and green camouflage, and the winter training uniform is gray, white and black camouflage, which can greatly improve the concealment and survivability of soldiers in field combat.

The War Department of the Chinese Empire has always pursued the principle of quality building the army by Emperor Wang Chenhao, so in terms of the amount of individual equipment expenditure of various countries, the average individual equipment of the Tsarist Russian Army is less than 31.52 US dollars, the individual equipment of the French Army and the British Army fluctuates around 50.8 US dollars, and the standard of individual equipment of the German Army has not been the highest in the world until the 19th century, reaching 78.6 US dollars.

In the 20th century, the cost of individual soldiers of the Imperial Chinese Army exceeded the standard of individual soldiers of the German Army, reaching 82.7 US dollars in 1900, reaching the first in the world.

Of course, with the support of advanced weapons and equipment, and after rigorous training in Chinese-style military training, the combat capability of the Imperial Chinese Army has also risen sharply. The Imperial Chinese Army was known as the second only army to the German Army during the Beiyang Army era, and after the First Sino-Russian War, the popularity of the Imperial Chinese Army increased significantly.

With the expansion of the standing army of the original 54 towns into the wartime establishment of the 54 armies of the Imperial Chinese Ministry of National Defense, the Imperial Chinese Army, with a total strength of 1.62 million, is now recognized by the army circles of various countries as the second strongest army in the world.

However, the Russian Army's expenditure on individual equipment has not increased much, and it still follows the idea of building an army that is overwhelming by numbers. After the First Sino-Russian War, the world ranking of the Russian Army suddenly fell to sixth place.

The Chinese Empire had an advantage in the face of the Tsarist Emperor [***] in terms of army equipment and quality, and then the two sides once again started a game on strategic material reserves.

The Tsarist Empire clamored that once China and Russia went to war, the 1.8 million troops of Tsarist Russia could defeat the Chinese Imperial Army in three months, end the war within six months, and force the Chinese Empire to surrender or sue for peace.

Therefore, the Russian General Staff Headquarters formulated a six-month strategic material reserve mechanism, planning to reserve 2 million rifles, 100,000 heavy machine guns, 1 billion rounds of ammunition, 6,000 artillery pieces, 60,000 rounds of ammunition, 500,000 war horses and horses, 200,000 tons of grain, 1 million tons of forage, and 50,000 boxes of medicine.

However, the huge problem facing the Tsarist government is that these strategic materials account for less than one-fifth of the share of the Tsarist Russia's warehouse reserves throughout the country, and more than four-fifths of the war readiness materials need to be repurchased.

The General Staff of Tsarist Russia planned to complete the entire strategic material reserve plan before the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway in February 1902. To this end, the Ministry of Finance of Tsarist Russia urgently allocated 190 million rubles for the procurement of relevant strategic materials.

However, the arsenals of the Russian Empire throughout the country faced serious problems of insufficient production capacity and insufficient inventory. As the Imperial Army of Tsarist Russia began to replace the Nagant rifle one after another, only the Moscow Nagan Arsenal and the Royal Arsenal produced modified rifles, and as of September 1900, the two arsenals had only produced 900,000 new Nagan rifles and 40 million rounds of ammunition, and even the more than 2 million army troops in active service in Tsarist Russia could not be equipped in place, let alone an additional reserve of 3 million rifles and 10 rounds of ammunition.

As we all know, during the war, the consumption of ordnance was huge, and the life of the guns in this period during the battle was very low, especially the backward technology and steel in Russia, and the average three months had to be replaced with new guns during the war, so the Russian Ministry of Tsarist Russia planned to reserve 2 million rifles in order to maintain combat effectiveness. Now encountered this problem of capacity constraints, in addition to increasing production lines on a large scale to increase production capacity, Tsarist Russia had to ask France and Germany for help, but the cost of firearms production in France and Germany is much higher than that of Russia itself, and Tsarist Russia cannot afford it, so Tsarist Russia has to suggest that the General Staff Headquarters will reduce the requirements.

The Russian General Staff Headquarters had no choice but to urge domestic arsenals to work overtime in production, and on the other hand, reduce the stock reserve requirements, reducing the number of guns from 2 million to 1 million. As a result, the Russian Army's gun reserves were only enough for 1.8 million troops to fight for another three months, beyond which the Russian Army would have to bear the risk of a shortage of guns caused by the destruction of guns in battle.

The same situation also occurs in heavy machine guns, artillery and other weapons and equipment, and it is also because of the insufficient production capacity of the major arsenals in Tsarist Russia, as well as the poor quality and insufficient quantity of these weapons and equipment caused by the long-term army [***] and other problems that reduce the requirements.

The reserves of other strategic materials, including grain, forage, horses, etc., are progressing fairly smoothly, and Tsarist Russia has the advantage of being an agricultural country in this regard.

However, in terms of medicine, Tsarist Russia sadly discovered that the Chinese Empire restricted the export of pharmaceutical necessities to Russia, especially anti-inflammatory and hemostatic drugs for trauma, industrial disinfectant alcohol, and surgical equipment, and canceled the export to Russia, and used patent rights to "advise" the pharmaceutical industry in Europe and the United States to prevent them from exporting to Russia.

The progress of the Chinese Empire in the field of medicine is rapid, especially the super-large-scale production of antibiotics in Shennong, which quickly replaced the pharmaceutical products of other countries in the field of anti-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory, and became a strategic drug that countries are vying to import. One of the areas of China Special Steel is low-toxicity alloy stainless steel, which specializes in the production of medical devices, which enables the medical device companies of the Chinese Empire to produce safer medical surgical equipment and quickly seize the world medical device market.

Under the restrictions of the export control of medical devices in the Chinese Empire, the anti-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory drugs represented by Shennong antibiotics have become the strategic material reserve projects of the Chinese Empire, and exports to Russia have been restricted. As a result, Russia is in a difficult situation when it comes to procuring medicines. Pharmaceutical companies in many countries are afraid of being sanctioned by Chinese pharmaceutical companies, and do not dare to export such drugs to Russia that are listed under export control by the Chinese Empire, and a small number of companies resell them at high prices in order to make profits, but the Tsarist Russian political axe has limited funds, and the too high price is suddenly scared away.

In this case, the Tsarist government finally obtained only 10,000 boxes of such medical drugs and equipment, and the other 40,000 boxes of drugs and equipment were imported from France and Germany, but the effect was obviously not as good as that of China.

Similarly, when the Tsarist Russian Empire was stockpiling strategic materials on a large scale, the Ministry of Defense of the Chinese Empire was also carrying out relevant strategic material reserves.

Wang Chenhao, the emperor of the Chinese Empire, knew that Russia was a country that was difficult to conquer, and the world's strongest Napoleon and Hitler were all destroyed by Russia, and Russia was like a small power that could not be defeated.

In Wang Chenhao's view, there was no time for Russia to surrender in history, so in a war with Russia, Wang Chenhao did not expect Russia to surrender on his knees like this said.

In this way, Wang Chenhao's strategic thinking was changed to fighting a war of attrition with Russia, and only by dragging down the Russian economy could Russia give up the war.

Under this strategic premise, the Ministry of Defense of the Chinese Empire began to stockpile strategic materials on a large scale. All strategic supplies are enough to supply the Imperial Chinese Army for one year.

Among them, there are 5 million rifles, 300,000 heavy machine guns, 5 billion rounds of ammunition, 40,000 lightning guns, 20,000 artillery pieces, 300 million rounds of artillery shells of various types, 3 million kilograms of explosives, 500,000 war horses and horses, 10,000 automobiles, 800,000 tons of grain reserves, 3 million tons of oil, 2 million tons of forage, and 220,000 boxes of medicine.

Such a huge reserve of strategic materials directly consumed 260 million dragon coins, and according to the estimation of the General Logistics Department, this batch of strategic reserve materials could be completed in June 1902. However, Wang Chenhao believed that it should be completed earlier, because Wang Chenhao would not wait until the completion of the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway and wait until Russia was ready for war before taking action, and Wang Chenhao wanted to strike first, so Wang Chenhao's order to the General Logistics Department was to complete it before the end of Guanghua Yuan.

For the General Logistics Department of the Chinese Empire, Wang Chenhao gave them a very difficult task, but it was not impossible to complete.

Subsequently, the General Logistics Department issued purchase orders to major companies across the country, and put forward the requirements for rapid production under the condition of quality and quantity.

For the empire's purchase list of up to 260 million dragon coins, the factories of major domestic companies were immediately ecstatic, and they increased the number of employees and working hours one after another, and worked overtime to produce the strategic materials needed for the imperial political axe.

In China, most of the factories of Chinese companies are not very productive, not only because of start-ups, but also because of the low individual skills of the workers. At present, major companies basically do not implement assembly line operations, so the overall efficiency is low.

However, the problem was soon solved. Wang Chenhao ordered his Beiyang Industrial Group to pass on the technology of assembly line operation to other national companies and factories in China, so that they could also adopt assembly line operation. In this way, many beginner workers do not need to master all the production techniques of the product, but only need to be proficient in one link of the technology.

With the large-scale implementation of the assembly line operation mode in the Chinese Empire, the production efficiency of major factory companies has risen sharply, which can not only complete the tasks stipulated by the imperial political axe on time, but also create rich product profits for the company, so that the company continues to grow and develop, and plays a huge role in the improvement of the overall industrial strength of the empire.

Soon, by the end of 1900, the next year would be the first year of the Empire.

For the ministers of the five provinces and nine ministries of the empire, it is even busier at the end of the year, in addition to summarizing the work of the year, it is more important to carry out next year's financial budget. In particular, next year is the first year of the empire, and all the ministers are thinking that they can make meritorious contributions and achieve higher achievements in the next year to ask the emperor for credit, so everyone is actively preparing for it.

On January 2, the first year of Lightyear, local councils across the country listened to the annual work reports of their respective local political axes and conducted strict audits.

On 12 January, the local councils of each province reviewed the annual work reports of their respective local governments and submitted them to the Imperial Cabinet. Subsequently, the five provinces and nine ministries of the Imperial Cabinet began to do the relevant summary audit work.

On January 20, the National Bureau of Statistics of the Chinese Empire released economic data showing that preliminary estimates showed that the annual GDP of the empire was 2.26 billion dragon dollars, an increase of 42.3% over the previous year.

After his speech to the National Assembly, Premier Zhang Feng said: "In 1900, in the face of an extremely complex domestic and foreign economic environment and extremely severe natural disasters and various major challenges, under the wise leadership of His Majesty the Emperor, the Imperial Cabinet firmly pursued the economic development ideas of judging the situation and making scientific decisions put forward by His Majesty the Emperor, and finally united and led the people of all ethnic groups throughout the country to accelerate the development and construction of the national economy, so that the economic operation of the empire was generally good. The total economic output continues to remain at the second level in the world, and it is not far from the United States, which is the first in the world. We believe that under the wise leadership of His Majesty the Emperor, the Empire will soon catch up with the United States and regain the crown of the world's number one economy. ”

Of course, Zhang Feng was deliberately vague on the issue of gross domestic product and economic aggregate. In fact, after the Chinese Empire's economic aggregate was surpassed by the United States in 1895, it has not caught up until now. The United States is growing too fast, and the Chinese Empire is just starting, so it will take at least twenty years to catch up with the United States.

According to preliminary estimates, the annual GDP of 1900 was 2.26 billion dragon dollars, an increase of 42.3% over the previous year at comparable prices, and the growth rate was 22 percentage points faster than that of the previous year.

In terms of industries, the primary industry grew the fastest, reaching 1.84 billion dragon dollars, an increase of 45.3%; the added value of the secondary industry was 290 million dragon dollars, up by 12.2 percent; the added value of the tertiary industry was 140 million dragon dollars, up by 9.5 percent.

Agricultural production has grown steadily, thanks to financial support from the government and the large-scale use of chemical fertilizers, which has led to an increase in grain production for three consecutive years. The total annual grain output reached 91.5 million tons, an increase of 18 percent over the previous year, and increased output for three consecutive years. Oilseed production increased by 2.7 percent and sugar by 1.9 percent. Meat output maintained steady growth, with the annual output of pigs, cattle, mutton and poultry reaching 4.8 million tons, an increase of 3.6%. Among them, the output of pork was 3.7 million tons, an increase of 13.7%.

9,150 tons of grain, which seems like a lot, is just a little bit of food and clothing after being distributed to the country's 400 million people. The 4.8 million tons of meat are mainly concentrated in Mongolia and the great northwest region, where people mainly eat meat, and if you look at the whole country, the average amount of meat is too little, which shows that most of the people in the Chinese Empire cannot afford to eat meat.

Of course, judging from the current national conditions of the Chinese Empire, it is already very good to be able to solve the problem of food and clothing for the common people. The Chinese Empire is still growing, and it is believed that it will not be long before the common people will be able to eat meat regularly.

Industrial production has grown rapidly, and the efficiency of enterprises has been greatly improved. The added value of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 65.7 percent over the previous year. In terms of light and heavy industry, heavy industry increased by 176.5 percent and light industry by 63.6 percent. By region, the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou region grew by 114.9 percent, the Yangtze River Delta region increased by 48.4 percent, and the Pearl River Delta region grew by 75.5 percent, stimulated by the US-Philippine war. The growth rate in other regions does not exceed 20%, mainly because the industrial base has not yet been fully built and is still in its infancy.

The largest driving force for industrial growth comes from the Zhili Iron and Steel Company, driven by the Zhili Iron and Steel Company, the total steel output of the Chinese Empire in 1900 reached 5.64 million tons, surpassing the 4.98 million tons of the United Kingdom, ranking third in the world, the second Germany is 6.65 million tons, and the first United States is 10.35 million tons, the gap is quite obvious. But if it is the same as the Manchu Qing six years ago, when the Manchu Qing produced only a few thousand tons of steel, it can be described as a remarkable achievement.

Such a huge steel output would not have been able to absorb it if it were not for the expansion of domestic demand and the construction of a comprehensive national industrial system by the Chinese Empire. The large-scale construction of railways in the Chinese Empire required a huge supply of steel, the construction of the empire's major industrial bases, the establishment of tens of thousands of factories and companies, and all the steel required for the machinery came from the iron and steel companies of the empire. Especially with the vigorous construction of the imperial industry, large-scale high-quality steel products have basically been bought by the imperial industrial department, such as naval warships, army cannons, guns and ammunition, cranes as large as thousands of tons, and as small as a nail. It can be said that in the entire national economic construction, the demand for steel is huge. The Chinese Empire, with its large domestic market, was able to consume millions of tons of steel, and demand outstripped supply.

On the whole, the convergence of industrial production and marketing in the Chinese Empire is very good. All 248 companies under the Beiyang Group are profitable, more than 3 companies have multinational companies, and more than 152 companies have foreign trade surpluses. The annual production and sales rate of industrial enterprises above designated size reached 97.9 percent. This is due to the expansion of domestic demand by the political axe, the overhaul of roads, railways, schools, hospitals, industrial bases and other projects, and the huge political axe investment naturally stimulates the rapid development of domestic industry. In particular, the implementation of Russia's strategic reserve has directly benefited tens of thousands of large, medium, and small companies and factories in China.

The total volume of imports and exports grew rapidly, and the trade deficit decreased by a large margin. The total import and export volume was 2.9 billion US dollars, an increase of 74.7% over the previous year. Among them, exports were 1.45 billion US dollars, imports were 1.52 billion US dollars, and imports and exports were offset, with a deficit of 70 million US dollars. This part of the deficit was mainly caused by the Chinese Empire's purchase of armaments and materials from abroad, the construction of warships, etc., excluding this part, in fact, but in terms of private trade, the Chinese Empire has achieved a trade surplus.

This situation was mainly due to the fact that the Chinese Empire abolished the unequal treaties of the great powers in China, recaptured the customs, erected trade barriers, and protected domestic enterprises. At the same time, the trade volume of these two was the key to the trade deficit of the Chinese Empire, thanks to the fact that grain was not imported and opium was stopped.

With the full localization of the Chinese Empire's naval industry, the trade surplus of the Chinese Empire will continue to expand in the coming period, and eventually restore the trade achievements of the prosperous period, or even achieve greater achievements.

The ratio of workers and peasants in the Chinese Empire has changed dramatically, and the number of Chinese workers has increased dramatically from 750,000 five years ago to more than 14 million in 1900 due to the ultra-rapid development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang industrial base, the construction of the country's six major industrial bases, railways, and highways, and the establishment of more than 30,000 industrial and mining companies and enterprises.

The income of urban residents grew rapidly, and the total per capita income of urban households reached 81 million yuan, an increase of 41.5 percent over the previous year. In the per capita total income of urban households, the income from wages increased by 10.7 percent, the income from transfers increased by 12.8 percent, the net operating income increased by 12.1 percent, and the income from property increased by 20.5 percent.

The per capita net income of rural residents was 29 million yuan, an increase of 14.9 percent, or 13.9 percent in real terms after deducting price factors. Among them, the income of wages and surnames increased by 17.9%, the net income of household operations increased by 12.1%, the income of property surnames increased by 21.0%, and the income of transfer surnames increased by 13.8%.

The money supply is growing steadily, and Dragon Coin is super strong, thanks to its pegs to the British pound and the US dollar. The increment of deposits and loans accelerated. The balance of broad money (M2) was 1.76 billion dragon dollars, an increase of 19.7% from the end of the previous year; narrow money (M1) was 370 million dragon coins, an increase of 21.2%; The currency in circulation (M0) was 450 million dragon coins, an increase of 16.7%, an increase of 4.9 percentage points. The balance of loans of financial institutions was 490 million dragon coins, an increase of 90 million dragon dollars over last year. The balance of various deposits is 2.48 billion dragon coins, of which Wang Chenhao's personal deposits are the largest, reaching 2.1 billion dragon coins, almost five times that of the imperial people, becoming the richest man in the Chinese empire and the second richest in the world.

(To be continued)