For China's silk tea industry, Wang Yongjiang, Minister of Agriculture, and Wang Shuhan, director of the Silk Tea Industry Bureau, are both halfway monks, and neither of them is very knowledgeable.

There are several major factors in the decline of China's silk tea industry, one is the heavy taxation and indiscriminate taxation of silk tea taxes at the end of the Qing Dynasty, which has forced the two major industries into a desperate situation; the second is the great support of the British for Indian tea and the domestic silk industry; Third, the country is complacent, and technology and technology are gradually lagging behind the era of large industry; Fourth, the transportation cost remains high and the support of the railway is lacking; Fifth, the foreign trade situation is chaotic, the good and the bad are uneven, businessmen value profits over reputation, the market lacks strict standards, products are chaotic, prices are chaotic, and foreign businessmen are gradually losing their trust.

In addition, there is a problem to consider, that is, the advantages of the mountain area are obvious, through the sale of a large number of low-cost mountain land, and encourage farmers to plant mulberry and tea trees, and supply cheap silk and tea.

Although there are many mountains, it can promote the construction of railways at all costs, so that most areas have good transportation channels, plus many ports, whether it is operating costs, transportation, tax costs are much lower than the late Qing Dynasty.

The best way to beat your opponent is to learn from them.

In response to this series of problems, the Ministry of Agriculture has issued a series of new policies, and the Ministry of Communications has also planned a large number of small railways and main road railways to support the silk tea business in the seven provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hui, Fujian, Guizhou and Sichuan, and even hyped up the benefits of drinking black tea throughout the country, providing preferential policies for black tea, encouraging tea farmers to operate black tea varieties, introducing black tea production technology, encouraging tea factories to introduce Western equipment, and also encouraging domestic machinery factories to imitate the production of new tea-making and reeling and dyeing equipment.

It will take a long time to do a good job in these tasks, and it will not be effective in three or five years, unless Wang Yongjiang's method is used to implement a new way with a tough method, but this method does have a certain squeeze on the entire industry.

After resting in Shanghai for a few days, Song Biao met with more than a dozen big businessmen from the Shanghai Silk Industry Office and the Tea Industry Office, and now these businessmen are too small compared with Hu Xueyan back then, except for Yu Qiaqing, who has just entered this industry, the rest of the people are not very high in the Shanghai business community.

Subsequently, accompanied by Yu Qiaqing and Minister of Agriculture Wang Yongjiang and others, Song Biao personally went to Suzhou, Huzhou, Hangzhou, Jiaxing and other important places in the silk industry to inspect, and then went to Fujian to inspect the tea industry.

Especially in Fujian, the difficulties of rugged mountain roads and water transportation made Song Biao feel too much, and the rigidity and backwardness of the domestic silk tea industry in terms of technology and technology also made him feel difficult.

After inspecting the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau in Fuzhou and inspecting the local porcelain industry at the last stop in Quanzhou, Song Biao ended his tour of the three traditional industries of silk tea and porcelain and returned to Zhili by boat from Quanzhou.

On the night of his return to Beijing, he summoned Tang Shaoyi to the imperial study, talked about it late at night, and persuaded Tang Shaoyi to adopt Wang Yongjiang's strategy to control the export market of the silk tea industry, limit the issuance of licenses, and strictly control the quality of exports.

Because Song Biao looked all the way, what he could feel was the same experience that Wang Yongjiang had after several inspections -- it was difficult to return to the accumulated evils and many bad habits.

The problem of China's silk tea industry is not at all a simple tax reduction and railway construction can be solved, the key problem is in the ideology and ideas of the problem, so we must introduce new forces, from the overall situation and the grand strategic level to drive the entire industry to turn together.

The emperor's attitude was a will that Premier Tang Shaoyi could not resist, and although he was inclined to the free competition of the market, Tang Shaoyi was not willing to directly disobey the emperor in this kind of matter, just as he decided to adopt the 175 national industrial plan, everything was just for speed.

……

As emperor, Song Biao, like all national leaders, could not devote all his energy to the development and revival of China's three traditional industries of silk, tea and porcelain, even if he was very concerned about it.

When he returned to Beijing, Song Biao faced the most important problem, which was also the real duty of the emperor, that is, how to further implement the military mutual assistance agreement between China, France and Russia.

Before the signing of the agreement, China and France had plans to set up a joint venture to set up a super-large military factory and launch a comprehensive military cooperation plan; at this time, China's largest military cooperation country was Germany, and the largest arsenal was also the Benxi Arsenal, a joint venture between the Far East Arms Corporation and the German Arms and Ammunition Corporation.

After the French Vice Minister of War Lieutenant General Florent personally arrived in Yanjing, he held close talks with Shu Fangde and others for half a month, and finally decided to establish a number of joint venture factories on the basis of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, involving cooperation in many fields such as firearms and ammunition, artillery, warships, ships, and finance.

In Chiang Fangzhen's words, it is simply incomprehensible to abandon military cooperation with Germany and cooperate with France instead.

Because Jiang Fangzhen returned to China half a month earlier than expected, before meeting Florent, Song Biao first called Jiang Fangzhen, the chief of the General Staff of the Central Military Department, who had just returned to China, to the imperial study for a secret talk.

As a result, Song Biao heard an unprecedented prison call, as well as endless regret and chagrin.

After expounding on the various problems of the French army and navy, as well as the problems of the French industry, relying on the fact that he was the backbone of the imperial party, Jiang Fangzhen and Song Biao finally stated that it was the stupidest decision ever made by the Central Military Department to engage in a military alliance with France and Russia.

It was late at night, and there was a cool breeze in the garden outside.

At the end of May, Yanjing Zhongnanhai is like this, in the warmth, there is still some cold wind at night, and occasionally it makes people feel a little cold.

The wind blows the bamboo forest, the window rustles, the moon shines, and the cold light shines like a spring on the window decorated with double-patterned glass.

Song Biao sat cross-legged on the low couch, as used to sit on the kang in the northeast, and when he listened to Jiang Fangzhen's scratch, he was still very quiet and didn't say a word, Jiang Fangzhen also seemed to feel that Fang Cai had spoken too harshly, and he also sat speechlessly in the chair next to the low couch, his spirit seemed weak and pale.

Song Biao could see that he, the chief of the General Staff, who had always been a little too demanding and perfect, had gone crazy.

Of course, when it came time to sign a military mutual assistance agreement with France, everyone applauded it unanimously, and the same was true for Jiang Fangzhen.

When the treaty was signed, and the French were full of pride and open their minds to welcome the arrival of the Chinese Central Military Investigation Mission, and showed all the hole cards to Jiang Fangzhen and others, everyone was completely disappointed, and even the Minister of the Navy Cheng Biguang, who went with him, was speechless.

It's not that France is bad, but compared with Germany, the main partner country before, there is really a big gap, and this gap can also be seen on the surface, for example, the gap in the total number of battleships between the two sides, but under the surface, the gap between the two sides is so much that the central military inspection team is speechless, thinking that in the future, it will be necessary to learn from such a European military empire for a long time, whether it is Jiang Fangzhen or Cheng Biguang, they are very speechless to each other.

Song Biao listened to Jiang Fangzhen's words silently, and only took a sip of tea after half a sound, but still didn't speak.

At this time, Jiang Fangzhen decided to change his tone, and said more in a nutshell rather than complaining about the emperor: "Your Majesty, your subordinates are not saying that France is not strong, but if we want to use France as a division, the navy may be slightly improved, and the army is definitely in chaos." ”

It wasn't until this moment that Song Biao finally said: "You all have problems with your mentality, what we signed is a treaty of mutual assistance in three [***] matters, not a treaty of apprenticeship, and we don't let you have to learn the French army in an all-round way, they have advantages, we will learn, and if there are shortcomings, let's pay attention to our own improvement." I also know that cooperation with Germany is the most beneficial, but Germany does not want to repay the concession and does not want to borrow money, but our top priority is to borrow money to develop its own military industry and national industry. You are very unhappy and feel that it is better to continue to cooperate with Germany, but the cabinet government is happy to cooperate with France, and this is a big loan after a special loan. To understand, to understand, this world is fair, there will be gains and losses, there must be losses, there must be gains, now we are begging others to cooperate, and one day in the future will definitely be others begging to cooperate with us. ”

Jiang Fangzhen thought for a while and said: "That being said, we really want to further sign an alliance agreement with France, and in case of a war between Germany and France, we will send troops to fight in accordance with the agreement." Your Majesty, to tell you a realistic matter, what is the situation on the navy's side, Your Majesty doesn't know, if you want to go to war with the German Army, Your Majesty is not very sure, but if you go to war with the French Army, Your Majesty is really seven or eight points sure. His Majesty heard Cheng Biguang say that the rebellion of the French Navy was basically similar to that of the Qing Beiyang Fleet before and after the First Sino-Japanese War, and it could not withstand the toss of the German Navy at all, and it could be cut down by dividing it by two. Therefore, His Majesty and Cheng Biguang only had one idea when they came back this time, the military mutual assistance agreement was like this, and it really couldn't sign further alliance agreements with France, it would be really embarrassing, and the consequences would be very serious, Your Majesty! ”

The reason why Jiang Fangzhen was so anxious was because the French side had sent a special envoy to meet with Song Biao and the Prime Minister's Office a few months ago, and the general conditions were very clear: as long as China further joined the Russian-French alliance, once France and Germany declared war on Germany at the same time, France would give great support to China to support its development, and the scale of credit could be further expanded by as much as 10 times.

The flickering Premier Tang Shaoyi could wake up laughing when he fell asleep, and it seemed that even the emperor basically agreed.

After that, Jiang Fangzhen and Cheng Biguang went to France to investigate, and the two of them also agreed to form an alliance, but when they went to France and carefully explored the bottom of the matter, their souls were scared.

Let's not talk about the mess on the army's side, the navy's side is simply chaotic and has nothing to say, it is completely a European Qing Empire, from equipment to tactics, from the establishment and operational thinking to the extreme.

Of course, Song Biao knew that Jiang Fangzhen was anxious now, but what could he say?

After pondering for a moment, Song Biao said: "What is there to worry about, even if there is really a war, then there is not Britain and Russia, how many things can we turn to?" Will France really send us to France to fight? ”

Jiang Fangzhen said: "Most of us don't need to participate in the war in the real sense, but we are afraid that Britain will watch from the sidelines, sit and watch the dragon and tiger fight, and France and Russia will be completely defeated, and when the time comes, we will be a defeated country." ”

Song Biao sighed, laughed again, and said: "You can't be so nervous, most of the things in the world still have to be taken step by step, and don't look at the Russian and French armies are usually bastards, but they are big countries after all, and they will definitely surprise you if they really fight." We are far away in Europe, and the greatest value of an alliance with Russia and France is not to participate in the war, but not to turn to Germany and not to go to war with Germany against Russia. As long as we stabilize this point, and act as a reserve force and support for Russia, it will be the greatest help to the Russian-French alliance. Even if we formally conclude an alliance with Russia and France, this is only the point. As for the conclusion of an alliance with Russia and France, in the long run, the advantages still outweigh the disadvantages, so you need not worry about it anymore, just focus your mind on how to maximize the benefits of this alliance. ”

After a pause, he taught Jiang Fangzhen a lesson: "I'll say another ugly word, you are a little unaware of the high ground and the thickness of the sky as soon as the Xinhai War is won, so ambitious, at least in my opinion, France still has a lot to learn from us, and they also have a lot of things that can help us for a long time." ”

Seeing that the emperor was reluctant to change his mind, and he didn't seem so happy to listen to the words, Jiang Fangzhen could only reply according to the emperor's meaning: "Your Majesty, your subordinates are just a little anxious, and naturally you also know that France's scientific, technological, industrial and economic strength is far stronger than ours, and there are many things worth learning from our country. It would be great if France sincerely concluded an alliance with our country to support our development. ”

Song Biao nodded slightly and said, "It must be the best if you can think like this!" ”

If a person is arrogant to you, there must be a reason for his arrogance, and if a person is close to you, there must be a reason why he is close.

During the New Deal period when Song Biao was also the governor of the three eastern provinces, France was the largest exporter of capital in Northeast China, and during this period, it obtained extremely high returns from Northeast China. With the Northeast Army proving its strength and value on the Korean battlefield, and Song Biao officially becoming the emperor of China, ruling the whole of China, French politicians and bankers could easily imagine that if they could further conclude an alliance with the emperor and China, they would not only stabilize the Russian rear, but also find a huge market and source of raw materials for France, as well as a capital export market second only to the United States in the world, just as Britain had the king diamond in the crown of India.

The two sides simply hit it off, just as Britain had a discerning eye and did not hesitate to compromise itself to form an alliance with the company.

Before World War I, France was the most natural all-round ally of the Chinese Empire, whether it was economic, scientific, technological, educational, military, there was a very broad space for cooperation, especially in the field of credit, attracting French capital to the long-term threat to national interests was the lowest, and the scale of French capital export was second only to Britain in the world.

In 1911, France's total foreign capital exports amounted to 2.1 billion pounds, and one-quarter of the political axe's fiscal revenue came from loans to foreign political axes, which can be called a usury country.

At least before World War II, the political axe that bought the most foreign national bonds was France, not only the French political axe purchase, but also the French bank, because the French industry as a whole showed a downward trend after the Franco-Prussian War, the domestic credit demand was low, and the total national capital remained high, and both the political axe and the banks could only export a large amount of capital to buy foreign government bonds and issue loans to foreign countries.

The economy determines politics, and politics determines the military.

Therefore, comprehensive cooperation between China and France has become inevitable, and in order to remove some obstacles to this cooperation, France has even even given China the most favored nation treatment in trade and trade in the newly signed "Sino-French Strategic Treaty of Reciprocal Commerce," and the two sides have also specially agreed on a low-tariff policy for some industries to encourage greater mutual investment and trade between the two countries.

France, like the original book, has used the same amount of the Gengzi indemnity to provide education aid to China, and has additionally provided some very relaxed policies for studying in France -- of course, there are sequelae of the wave of studying in France, depending on how the pros and cons are grasped.

Song Biao could see that Jiang Fangzhen was still very reluctant to maintain a long-term cooperative relationship with Germany, so he comforted: "Don't think too radical about everything, and don't be too radical, especially in the position of chief of the general staff, you must also consider the overall situation and long-term national interests in everything, you must know in your heart." Having said that, after spending so long in France, there's always some good news. ”

Jiang Fangzhen could only nod his head and said, "The emperor's discipline is extreme. When it comes to good news, there is actually something. France is indeed very enthusiastic about this alliance, after all, they are in an obvious weakness in the contest with Britain and Germany, and they have to adopt the strategy of alliance and alliance, and France is still quite successful in the field of artillery, to put it mildly, even better than German artillery. During his visit to France, His Majesty had the opportunity to personally inspect some of France's key new artillery pieces. France did indeed have a new model of long-stroke tube annealing gun, and the technology was very advanced, which was even better than the new model jointly developed by China and Germany. The French side has agreed to license this model of 75mm field gun to China for production, the range can reach 11 kilometers, amazing, the cost of technology transfer is still very low, almost for nothing to give us this set of technology, including the original three-inch Lucia field gun, the French Schneider company will modify the design, provide a new type of long-stroke brake and gun mount. Including in the railway artillery, France also agreed to continue to sell us 305mm caliber M1906 railway heavy guns, which already weigh 18 tons, which is much more powerful than the 240mm railway heavy guns we bought before. ”

After a pause, Jiang Fangzhen continued: "Generally speaking, France is still trying to fully replace the military cooperation between Germany and China, as long as we conclude an alliance, they can basically give us what they have, of course, they also want to buy out the patent of the Popnin submachine gun from us, as well as the patent of the 60mm mortar." Actually, I even proposed that they use our Shenyang rifle, they currently use the Lebel M1907 rifle, which is very backward, I really can't understand why they don't change the gun, although there is a new Bettier rifle, but it is not much better, the magazine capacity is only three rounds, I really don't know where to start, I gave them some suggestions, suggesting that they use the Shenyang rifle directly, our most basic capacity of the magazine is eight rounds. Not only is the design and model of the rifle old, but the French Army is even using the old round-nosed bullet of 8mm caliber, and I heard what they mean, and after the introduction of the Popnin submachine gun, they also intend to continue to use this old ammunition of 8mm caliber, which is really incredible. As for the military thinking of their army, it is completely different from ours, and it is even lagging behind the entire European continent, blinding their technologically advanced artillery. ”

Song Biao smiled and said, "Whatever they want, as long as they have good things, we will come down, and leave the rest alone." ”

Jiang Fangzhen sighed: "It seems that there is only this way now. ”

Although Jiang Fangzhen and many other subordinates of the Central Military Department would be entangled in forming an alliance with France and abandoning cooperation with Germany, Song Biao knew that this decision was correct, even extremely wise.

If you work hard in the past few years, especially by working hard to expand the military industry, you will be able to make a fortune completely during the war, and no matter how much money you borrow from France now, you will basically be able to pay it off at the end of the four-year war, and there will even be pure profits.

Of course, this goal is still very difficult, because although China's arable land area is large, the per capita grain is really not high, and the agricultural infrastructure is too weak, and it is very difficult to expand grain production, unless it is desperately cultivating new farmland, and this is more than worth the loss.

It was already very late, Song Biao still had to continue working, and after sending Jiang Fangzhen to leave first, he continued to call Cheng Biguang over to inquire about the investigation in France, regardless of the fact that it was already early in the morning.

Logically speaking, the French Navy is definitely more dismal than the Army, because throughout the European and American powers, even the Dreadnought-class battleships were actively pursuing battleships, but the French Navy inexplicably poured out a naval idea called the "New School", after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, with the economic decline and industrial decline, a part of the French Navy began to advocate the use of small ships, especially torpedo boats and torpedoes and other weapons to deal with large warships, with these weapons locked French seaports and colonial ports, At the same time, patrol the colonial seas with cruisers, ensure the prosperity of commercial transportation and trade, and pursue the defeat of the enemy at the lowest cost.

As a result, the French Navy completely stopped progressing, and has been stuck in the idea of building cruisers and torpedo boats, and it was not until 1900 that the French battleship school became the mainstream again, and restarted the new French [***] ship program, but in 1903-1905, the admiral minister from the New School came to power, and once again pulled France back into the New School, stopping the construction of a large number of battleships in the original plan, and when the battleship faction regained its position in 1906, The gap in the technology of battleships of countries such as France, Britain and Germany is already too large.

The most terrible thing is the creative spirit and liberalism of the French, so that every battleship and cruiser, even the main guns of the same model and caliber, have big differences and "independent surnames", and all the main gun shells are different.

The tragedy is at its extreme.

Song Biao originally thought that Cheng Biguang would have more complaints, but he was very surprised, Cheng Biguang did not have Jiang Fangzhen's strong truth-telling and scratching capital, he looked at the current situation of the Chinese Navy more objectively, and felt that it was not bad to cooperate with the French Navy in an all-round way.

Cheng Biguang also saw the new model of Brittany-class battleships being designed by France, because the previous French dreadnoughts still used two main gun calibers in the design, so this is the first class of French dreadnoughts in the true sense.

After all, France is a former naval power, the country has a rich technological heritage, a developed shipbuilding industry, strong technological innovation capabilities, at least much stronger than Russia, the Brittany-class battleships under construction have excellent surnames and designs, France also agreed to sell two to China, to enhance the strength of the Chinese Navy against the German Navy.

Don't look at the fact that France and Britain have reached a peace treaty, in the First World War, the two sides were also staunch allies, but before the outbreak of the First World War, Britain and France actually did not really wear the same pants, and if there was no challenge from Germany in the army and navy at the same time, Britain and France could never be allies.

Even at this time, Britain and France were still two completely different camps in the world, France and Russia were allies, and Britain said they were alliances, while France and Russia tried to completely draw China into the alliance, confront the British alliance in Asia, and suppress the development space of the British alliance in Asia.

Cheng Biguang's evaluation of French [***] ships, especially battleships, is not high on the whole, especially compared with Britain and Germany, but when it comes to France, which has only recently launched a new type of battleship, there is still a quite positive evaluation.

In particular, in view of the special circumstances that China is currently facing, Cheng Biguang suggested that two Dandong-class battleships could be imported from France, as far as funds permitted, which he considered to be the best balance between dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts.

Song Biao was not in a hurry to agree to such a proposal, but just took the information submitted by Cheng Biguang and looked through it, and gave Cheng Biguang an answer in a few days.

That night, or rather, in the early hours of the morning, Song Biao fell asleep very late and carefully read the inspection reports on the French army submitted by Jiang Fangzhen and Cheng Biguang.

Unlike Jiang Fangzhen and Cheng Biguang, he did not have much apprehension, and in his opinion, the French army still has many things that are worth learning and introducing into the Chinese Central Defense Force, such as French artillery, chemical weapons, submarines, torpedo ships, destroyers, and cruisers.

For example, French submarines, torpedo ships, torpedo technology, destroyers and cruisers were still ahead of the world during this period, especially their cruisers and battleships had very clear characteristics, focusing on the defense of torpedo technology.

After reading the inspection report of the French Navy, Song Biao wanted to buy a few cruisers and destroyers from France, and he wanted to buy design drawings and production drawings, and asked France to send people to provide assistance and guidance.

(To be continued)