In October 1925, as the Liberation Party of China continued to win a resounding victory in the congressional elections, Ouyang Geng was once again elected by the parliament as the fourth prime minister of the central cabinet of the empire, which made the empire appear unusually politically stable.

In December, the Imperial Diet adopted the new Second Constitution of the Chinese Empire, and the rights and status of the Prime Minister as the head of state were greatly strengthened, and under special circumstances, through the vote of the National Assembly and the approval of the Emperor, the Prime Minister of the Imperial Central Cabinet could be given a third term to maintain the stability of the country during the critical period.

At a time of political calm, with France's withdrawal from the Pan-Pacific region, the scope of the naval conflict between China and Ben has widened, and the trend of naval competition between the two countries has become more intense.

Under the restrictions of the "Washington Treaty," the Sino-Chinese naval competition is limited to cruisers with very little deterrent power, but in fact the two sides are building pocket combat cruisers, and military spending is not small, and in the field of submarines, destroyers, and aircraft carriers, the two sides are also waging a new round of competition.

In this secret competition, the empire secretly built a new aircraft carrier in Qingdao shipyard in 1927, this class of aircraft carriers appeared for the first time in the world with an angled deck, and the standard displacement also reached the upper limit of the Washington Treaty of 27,000 tons, and at the Luoyuan Bay Naval Base and Guangzhou Shipyard, the empire secretly built a new generation of B013 class large diesel-electric submarines, with a displacement tonnage of 1,550 tons, and it was also the first generation of large submarines officially installed in the empire.

During this period, the Imperial Air Force also achieved rapid development, and the FD-12 transport aircraft of the Focke-Douglas Company, the K-8 fighter of the Shanghai Aircraft Company, and the S5 heavy bomber of the Shenyang Aircraft Company began to enter service one after another.

The prototype of the FD-12 transport aircraft is the FD-2 passenger aircraft, which is the world's largest passenger aircraft and transport aircraft jointly developed by the Imperial Fokker Aircraft Company and the American Douglas Aircraft Company after the merger, with 30 seats and a rated load capacity of 1.2 tons, because the Fokker Company's main order comes from the military, the passenger aircraft has been designed as a military transport aircraft from the beginning, and the most 60 orders are indeed from the Imperial Air Force.

In order to meet this standard, Fudao used a propeller engine produced by Far East Electric Company, which was the result of one of the projects of Project 201.

On the basis of this type of aircraft, the Imperial Air Force demanded that a large patrol aircraft be further improved, which could track enemy ships and ships in the near sea area, with a special focus on anti-submarine aircraft.

In the early days, anti-submarine mainly relied on personnel inspection, which required great patience and cruising space to ensure that there were enough patrol personnel, and the FD-12 was the best choice, which could effectively detect those small and medium-sized submarines, as long as the enemy submarine was driving on the surface of the sea, it could almost be found.

In order to confront China, it is also taking an all-out approach to invest in the research of aircraft, and by introducing technology from Britain, it is directly making up for the gap between China and China, but in terms of overall capacity, quantity, and production capacity, the gap between China and China in the field of air force is relatively difficult to catch up.

From 1925 to 1927, the military confrontation between China and China became more and more tense, and in this competition, the Chinese Empire has always occupied a clear advantage, relying on the increasingly strong financial advantage and hidden military spending, the empire can easily maintain three times the military spending, but the military expenditure in the central finance is still maintained at about 18%, and there is no obvious sign of tax increase within the empire. The Empire could only continue to concentrate all expenses on maintaining the existing superiority of the navy, while the empire used the air force to assist the navy in competition with the army by building airfields and reserve airfields along the coast.

This result is indeed not the situation that Song Biao wants to see, although the empire is stronger, but he does not want to slow down the pace of the empire's development because of the world's financial turmoil, especially in the case of the coming world financial turmoil, if he has to fall to death with the capital, it is really not cost-effective.

After the Spring Festival in 1928, Song Biao took a special train to Shanghai to inspect, and consciously made arrangements in advance, inviting Sen Ke, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, to invite Sen Ke, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, to be the promoter of the increasingly fierce military confrontation between China and China.

Immediately, the military competition between the two sides spread from the navy to the entire sea, land and air, but in 1927, because of the competition, he suffered a serious financial crisis, and the pace of economic recession was obvious, and he was forced to maintain the competition posture of the navy.

Sen Ke is still very powerful, not only can speak Chinese, but also proficient in Northeast dialect, Cantonese and Shanghainese, and Mitsui & Co. has a special relationship, and is said to be a very emerging industrialist in the country, rich family property, has been actively promoting a tough policy towards China during his tenure, Huanggutun, Manmeng and other events, he is the main mastermind behind the scenes.

Even in this era of the Chinese Empire, Sen Ke was the most important financier of the Manchurian Restoration Movement, often using Mitsui & Co.'s channels to send spies to the country to contact the Manchu rebels through various evil routes.

According to the investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency, this person said privately that China would inevitably start a large-scale war with the Soviet Union or Britain, and that as long as Ben was prepared, it would definitely become a real victorious country together with the Soviet Union and Britain, and that China would inevitably fall into division as long as it was defeated.

To put it simply, this person is sick, and there are a lot of sick people like this in the whole story.

Even so, Song Biao decided to arrange for Gu Weijun, the newly appointed chief of the Inner Court, to meet with Sen Ke at the Consulate General in Shanghai as a special envoy.

In mid-March 1928, Song Biao arrived in Jiangning by special train and arrived in Shanghai by boat.

This time, Song Biao still lives in Yu Garden.

If Song Biao is not mistaken, since he ascended the throne, this is only the second time he has visited Shanghai, and the number of visits is pitiful, and even Hong Kong, Song Biao has been to it three times.

As a well-established northerner, Song Biao has always been a little unaccustomed to Shanghai, but he still has to take a look, because with the rapid development of Jiangsu and Zhejiang industries, Shanghai is gradually replacing the status of Aurora and Hong Kong as the most important financial center and trading port in this empire.

Shanghai's development does have innate advantages, which cannot be changed by Song Biao, as the emperor, whether he likes or dislikes.

With the construction of the Hunan-Shanghai Railway in 1918, the prosperity of Shanghai's industry once again had more capital, and the railway from Changsha, Nanchang, Quzhou, Hangzhou to Shanghai made the resources of Jiangxi, Hunan, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and eastern Guizhou all quickly pour into Shanghai.

In order to maintain the basic strength of the Shanghai Shipyard, the Jiangnan Consortium also built an iron and steel plant in Shanghai, and actively forged ahead in the fields of machine tools and electrical, gradually forming an industrial base that can compete with the Far East in the early 175 items and the subsequent 125 items.

Today, the Northeast and Jiangnan are China's two major industrial zones, Zhili, Luyu, Huguang, Liangguang, Fujian, Shanxi are all ranked behind the two major industrial zones, if the crown of the Northeast Industrial Base is the Aurora Prefecture, the leader of the Jiangnan Industrial Zone composed of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi is the Shanghai Directly Administered Government, and these two large municipalities are also the financial centers in the regional economy.

Compared with Aurora, Shanghai's industrial scale is larger, because the development of the entire Northeast is relatively balanced, Aurora County is to a large extent the financial and commercial center, the shipbuilding industry is concentrated in Jinzhou County, metallurgy, machinery and other industries are concentrated in Liaoyang, Shenyang and other places.

After eight years, Song Biao went south to Shanghai again, and Song Biao was more aware of this, but he still didn't like Shanghai very much, unlike a completely emerging city like Aurora, Shanghai's planning was very messy and lacked the charm of a square city and a university city like Aurora.

The city of Shanghai seems a little too realistic.

Song Biao rode a car all the way through the street and slowly drove into Yu Garden.

Since it was taken over by the Inner Court, it has been semi-public because the royal family has almost never been there, and it can often host some meetings and special guests.

It was only during this period that it was closed to welcome the arrival of the emperor.

After arriving at Yu Garden, Song Biao rested for a day, and the next morning he met with Zhang Kangren, who had retired from public office and returned to the Far Eastern Bank as the chief director, at Yangshan Hall.

Old friends, old belongings.

When the Far East held its annual meeting in Kyoto County last year, Song Biaogang met Zhang Kangren, who had been the finance minister for 15 years.

Yu Garden was divided into two, the east and west gardens were acquired by the inner court after three years of imperial Shenwu, considering that Zhang Kangren wanted to return to Shanghai to recuperate, and the royal family had very few opportunities to go to Shanghai, Song Biao gave the East Garden to Zhang Kangren, and the West Garden that remained in the inner court was usually reserved for the use of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Although Zhang Kangren is the chief director of the Far Eastern Bank, in fact, he is really retired, and he went to work at the bank's Shanghai headquarters normally two years ago, but now he basically does not go, and at last year's annual meeting, he also announced that he would attend it for the last time.

has served with the emperor for fifteen years, and his feelings are naturally deep.

Entering the flower hall of Yangshan Hall, he saw Song Biao reading the newspaper, Zhang Kangren stepped forward to pay homage and said, "Your Majesty will meet the emperor." ”

Song Biao glanced at him, smiled and pointed to the seat on the bed beside him, and said, "Come and sit, we just met a few months ago, so we don't need to be so polite." But now that you live far away, it's not easy to see you once. ”

Zhang Kangren sighed: "Your Majesty is reluctant to give up the emperor, but when you are old, you always have to go home, and you originally wanted to go back to Guangdong, but your children are all living in Shanghai, and you still come to live with them." ”

Song Biao snorted and didn't say anything.

Zhang Kangren has two sons, the two brothers opened a flour mill in the Northeast in the early years, Shenwu about three years, the two went to Shanghai to invest in an electric company, real estate, insurance business also operated, because of Zhang Kangren's relationship, the business naturally did very well.

This is inevitable, and which country is not so?

The General Bureau of Investigation of the Central Committee has been staring, and there is no obvious violation of the law, but it is still not uncommon for Zhang Kangren to say a few hellos and the like, and Song Biao can't really ask for it.

Song Biao was still the same as in the past, when he was idle, he dragged a handful of raw peanuts in his hand, and when Zhang Kangren sat down, he pushed the plate over and motioned for Zhang Kangren to eat with him, chatting while eating.

Zhang Kangren waved his hand and said, "Thank you for the emperor's gift, your subordinates' teeth are not as good as a year, and they can't even chew this raw peanut rice." ”

Song Biao sighed, lamenting that people are really pitiful when they get old, so he asked, "Then change the dentures, right?" ”

Zhang Kangren said: "There are still some teeth to eat alive, reluctant to change, people to the age of the minister, teeth can still be used to live is not much, the real teeth are a little painful, soft, but eating tastes, changing the dentures will not work." ”

Song Biao didn't want to persuade him anymore, he didn't know much about it, so he said, "I don't know what it will be like when I'm old." ”

Zhang Kangren thought for a while and said, "The emperor is blessed, he won't be old." ”

Song Biao laughed and said, "I'm still getting old, Yuanyuan's girl has entered the preparatory department of the Imperial University, how can she stay young?" If I don't pay attention, I will pass the age of forty, and people say that forty knows the destiny of heaven, and I now have a deep understanding. ”

Zhang Kangren also laughed and said: "What the emperor said is yes, his subordinates also know the mandate of heaven at forty, but the mandate of heaven is to serve the emperor, as long as they are loyal to the emperor, their subordinates will not live in vain in this life." ”

Song Biao still smiled, then put down the newspaper in his hand and said to Zhang Kangren: "Let's talk about serious things, I came to Shanghai this time for nothing more than two things, one is to inspect the local economic situation in Shanghai, especially to look at the stock market and land prices; The second is to have an end with the Ben side by the way, and try to find a way to end the current confrontation as much as possible. ”

Zhang Kangren replied: "The emperor Shengming, if you want to cure the small capital, everyone in the country has it, but now there are many places in the empire that urgently need to be invested, and you can't save enough energy to invest in military spending at this time." Fortunately, our fiscal revenue is high, even if we maintain a medium tax rate and long-term preferential industrial policies, compared with the high tax rate of the capital is still more than five times the gap, our fiscal 2 percent of the military spending, that is equivalent to the total financial revenue of the whole year, it is said that the two years have been relying on debt to maintain military spending, I really don't know how to live this day. Having said that, we are not afraid of competing in military spending, we are afraid that the dog will jump over the wall in a hurry, and fight this small book, in fact, we really can't make any oil and water, it is purely a loss to make money, if we want to save so much energy with the Soviet Union, then we can hold on, and we can make up for the financial gap just by making reparations, and it is even more profitable to continue to cut land. What is there to cede to us? If we really take back the southern part of Korea, our army will lose the stage to threaten it. Moreover, even such a small piece of land is not worth the empire's military budget to go to war. ”

Song Biao praised: "So it's still an old courtier, your mind is the same as mine, sooner or later we have to find an opportunity to teach this a lesson, but now we really can't do it, but this country is really incredible." The empire is now second only to the United States in strength, and it is a matter of course that we want to build ships to enhance our military strength, and the more they think about it, the more ridiculous they feel when they are so eager to maintain their naval superiority over us! ”

Zhang Kangren said: "Your Majesty, you don't have to be so angry, do you think, before the negotiation of the "Washington Treaty", was it different to compete with the United States? The strangeness of this book lies in the culture, to talk about it in detail, his small territory is really not worth our attention, but he feels that he is a world naval power, so let him feel that he goes. In the past two years, His Majesty has been thinking about the Emperor's words, and has devoted some energy to studying the American economy. At this time, it is not a bad thing for us to shrink a little financially, as long as the central treasury of the empire maintains a surplus for a long time and the gold reserves are abundant, even if there is another economic crisis in Europe and the United States, we can easily block it. Now the key is to look at France, we and France have been economically closed to each other in the past few years, and the main trade has developed between China and France and the Chinese and French colonies, which means that China's exports to other regions are relatively large. Therefore, as long as there is no big problem on the French side, there will not be much problem on our side, but if the problem starts from the French side, we will hurt our vitality. ”

After all, Zhang Kangren has been the Minister of Finance for 15 years, and his thinking logic has always remained in the habitual surname of the past, and the issues he thinks about are still considered by the Minister of Finance.

Song Biao thought for a while and said: "There is not much of a problem in France, Ouyang Xi only went to France once last year, and he also paid attention to investigating the economic situation in France after the visit. ”

Since the signing of the Second Sino-French Treaty, the Sino-French colonial markets have been opened to each other, and both sides have reserved projects, basically taking what they need in the entire colonial market and the Sino-French market, France has the advantage of France, China has the advantage of China, and the relatively large conflict between the two sides is in the textile industry.

The speed of development of China's textile industry is very amazing, which does have the credit of the French textile industry, and Germany also has a greater relationship, as China's textile industry continues to forge ahead to a higher level, this conflict also has a tendency to spread, the most ruthless problem is China's low labor costs.

During the years of Ouyang Geng's cabinet, China's per capita income has been on an upward trend, with a steady increase of about 5% every year, roughly double that of the First World War period, and the minimum wage protection standard has also been increased year by year, but compared with the United States, France, and other traditional industrial countries in Europe and the United States, China's per capita wage is only 1/3 of the level compared with the United States, France and the United Kingdom.

According to the Empire's calculations of more than 4,000 workers in six cities in the United States, the average monthly income of workers in the United States is about $43.5, while in China it is only 27.8 yuan.

Although the empire has made a lot of efforts to expand domestic demand, the problem of the empire is indeed that the country is too big, the population is too large, and it is not so easy to govern.

It's just that in terms of the current scale of the empire's trust assets and the level of central gold reserves, the empire's ability to withstand the international economic crisis is still very strong, and Song Biao is not too worried.

Song Biao's biggest worry now is in Shanghai, Shanghai's current land prices are too high, Song Biao invited Zhang Kangren to come over today to talk about this matter, because the economy is booming, Shanghai's credit situation is also relatively inflated, and a lot of capital is concentrated in the real estate industry.

Zhang Kangren still has a good understanding of the situation in this regard, so he discussed with Song Biao here, relatively speaking, it is still necessary to introduce policies as soon as possible to squeeze Shanghai's real estate and credit, shrink credit, and squeeze out some bubbles, so as not to pull the banks into it because of a crisis, as was the case with the rubber crisis of that year.

In addition, Song Biao also discussed with Zhang Kangren the disposal of the assets of the central trust.

This is also a more complex issue.

In addition to the Soviet Union, the imperial central political axe is the richest political axe in the world, the Soviet Union has all the resources of the country, which is of course incomparable, and the imperial central political axe is different, the central trust assets mainly come from four aspects, one is the early 175 and 125 state investment; second, the domestic and overseas property confiscated by the empire during World War I; third, the Empire's investment in financial reserves during World War I; Fourth, foreign debts held by the empire during World War I.

How much money is there, only four people in this world know, Song Biao, Ouyang Geng, Zhang Kangren and Ouyang Xi, and the others can only know what they are responsible for.

The trust assets of the empire are mainly handled by four companies: China International Trust and Investment Corporation, China State Trust and Reserve Corporation, China State Investment Bank Corporation, and China Industrial Holding Corporation, which are the so-called four state-owned capital companies of CITIC, China Reserve, China Investment and China Holdings.

The fact that the Chinese Empire is the largest capitalist country in the world, but also has the world's largest state-owned company, is a bit of a drama in itself.

These four major companies have their own characteristics in the division of labor, CITIC is responsible for overseas asset management, China Reserve is responsible for maintaining national strategic reserves, and adopts the method of selling high and buying low to maintain the stability of domestic prices, China Investment is responsible for professional investment and financial management of domestic and foreign financial assets, as well as bank takeover business to prevent domestic financial crisis, and China Control is the product of 175 and 125 items, and still holds shares in 200 large enterprises.

Even excluding domestic assets, foreign claims, and military balances, the total amount of overseas assets held by the Imperial Central Government is $5.7 billion.

Basically, by this year, most of the overseas assets held by the central government have been withdrawn from the stock markets of various countries, and it is almost impossible to exchange such a huge amount of assets for gold, because there is not so much gold in the world.

If it can't be exchanged for gold, the money will continue to be used overseas as foreign currency.

The Great Depression was different from the First World War, which was still a sharp rise in prices, and companies made and lost money, and the Great Depression was actually a loss for everything bought, even if it was kept as foreign exchange, it was also possible to suffer the risk of currency depreciation.

In exchange for national debt, the Reich would have surpassed France and the United States as the world's largest creditor almost instantly, France was one of the largest creditors in the world at the time, and Germany owed it so much war reparations.

With such a large sum of money, the annual interest alone will generate nearly 1/10 of the national fiscal revenue, which is equivalent to 1/5 of the central fiscal revenue.

I happened to talk to Zhang Kangren about this matter today, and Song Biao asked him if he had any good ideas.

Zhang Kangren was silent for a while, and then said after a while: "If you are not afraid of Germany's default, it is the safest and stable high yield to use for credit issuance in Germany, and secondly, we still have to consider France and the United States, the national economic situation of France and the United States is still good, but Your Majesty thinks that you might as well hold more silver assets." If there really is an economic crisis like that of 1857, it is better to use the scale of silver assets to force some countries to return to the silver standard, and use silver assets to issue huge credits to support these countries to temporarily survive the economic crisis. Britain and the United States and France are trying to control gold assets, and so are we, and the serious uneven distribution of world gold reserves, which is completely unable to keep up with the current economic size of countries, is the main factor in the international economic chaos. His Majesty thought that if we issued tickets in the Northeast in the past, we could at least guarantee a reserve rate of 13%, but now the economic scale of various countries is expanding wildly, coal and iron are constantly mined, various industrial products are emerging in an endless stream, the economic scale is getting bigger and bigger, and gold cannot keep up with the demand for reserves. There are only two countermeasures to solve this problem, one is to directly decouple the currency from precious metals, and the other is to return to the situation of coexistence of the gold and silver standard, the former depends on the credibility of the political axe, once it encounters a large-scale international war, the result may be even worse, and the finances of all countries will go bankrupt, and the latter is too high in the short term, and the impact on the economic entities of various countries is mostly negative. It is difficult for His Majesty to say exactly how the specific historical trend will develop, but there is no doubt about one thing, that is, the current gold standard can no longer be held. The fact that the empire has a large amount of overseas assets that cannot be exchanged for gold is enough to show that the crisis is objective. ”

Song Biao admired and admired: "It is worthy of being the Minister of Finance for fifteen years, and the problem is very thorough." ”

When he said this, Song Biao had already made up his mind to take the opportunity to re-hold silver assets, the empire's silver reserves have been maintained in a relatively stable stage, after selling a large amount of silver before the end of World War I, and taking advantage of the collapse in silver prices over the years, it has a great bargaining power for silver, and the domestic silver production is also relatively high.

If we start holding silver assets now, it will be enough to maintain the appropriate exchange rate for gold and silver in the long run, and as long as this exchange rate is maintained, there will be no need for the United States to monopolize financial power after World War II, and it will not allow Britain and the United States to share financial power.

With the use of silver, China has a way to compete with the financial hegemony of Britain and the United States, of course, only in the short term, in the long term it is necessary to consider other methods, the production of silver itself is a drastic change, far less easy to control than gold.

(To be continued)