In Yanjing, the Chinese Emperor Wang Chenhao convened a ministerial-level imperial meeting in the Forbidden City to discuss the US-called quasi-military alliance and the threats and challenges that the Allied countries' technical support to the US would bring to the defense and security of the Chinese Empire.

As the basis for the decision-making of the Supreme Command of the Chinese Empire, General Li Guodong, director of the Imperial Central Intelligence Agency, also attended the meeting and was the first to speak, giving a brief overview of the political, economic, and military intelligence currently in the possession of the Empire.

"This year, the United States will spend about $600 million on national defense, accounting for about 30 percent of the total US budget, of which $200 million will be spent on the maintenance of the standing navy, and the budget for naval expansion is estimated at $400 million, mainly with the construction of eight new capital ships, four Colorado-class battleships, four Philadelphia-class battlecruisers, and about 50 light cruisers, hunting destroyers, submarines, and other auxiliary ships. The army is about 92 million US dollars, and the new army has 10 new divisions, about 170,000 people, and the weapons and equipment are mainly rifles and artillery produced by the Springfield Arsenal. The Air Force invested less than $2 million, added six squadrons of reconnaissance aircraft, and five airships, and found no aircraft for combat use. ”

Prime Minister Zhang Feng said: "The growth of US spending has hit a new high for five consecutive years, and military spending has accounted for 30% of the total US budget, which will seriously drag down the economic development of the United States, and this huge economy will soon slow down." ”

Then Zhang Feng respectfully said to Wang Chenhao: "Congratulations, Your Majesty, your strategic intention has succeeded, and if the United States continues to develop like this, it will soon fall into a quagmire and will not be able to extricate itself." ”

Wang Chenhao leaned on the dragon chair with one hand on his chin, and nodded with a smile.

At this time, Minister of the Interior Nguyen Trung Shu poured cold water and said: "Now the total economic volume of the empire exceeds that of the United States, but the overall strength of industry is still quite far behind them. It is true that an arms race with the United States can bring down the US economy, but it will also greatly damage our own vitality. ”

Wang Chenhao seems to have become accustomed to Ruan Zhongshu, every time he pours a basin of cold water on the imperial ministers when they are elated, it is naturally good to cool down and let everyone calm down and think about the problem.

Wang Chenhao knew in his heart that it would naturally not work to continue the arms race like this. At present, the funds used by the Chinese Empire for the arms race come from the war plundering of Britain, Russia, and other countries, and for the time being it has not affected the normal development of the national economy, and the stimulating and stimulating effect of the arms race on the imperial industry is still at a level where the gains outweigh the losses, but in the long run, when the plundered funds are spent, the huge military machinery will need huge funds to maintain, and the normal national economic investment will be crowded.

Thinking of this, Wang Chenhao asked, "How much war reserve funds do we have left?" ”

The Minister of Finance, Song Hanzhang, replied: "Your Majesty, there are still 314,370,000 ...... remaining in the war reserve funds."

Wang Chenhao suddenly waved his hand to stop: "You don't need to be so detailed!" Probably enough! ”

"Yes!" Song Hanzhang received the order, so he said: "There are about 300 million dragon coins left!" ”

Wang Chenhao smiled: "Before I know it, hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent. ”

Ruan Zhongshu then said: "Your Majesty, if there is another plan to build ships this year, I am afraid that this little money will be spent, and next year it will have to squeeze out the national financial expenditure." ”

"How much can you occupy?" Minister of National Defense Wang Shizhen pouted and said: "The empire's fiscal revenue last year has reached 2 billion dragon coins, in the past six years, the military has never asked for additional money subsidies from the treasury, according to the annual normal military expenditure accounts for 20% of the treasury, we still have at least 2 billion dragon coins deposited in the Ministry of Finance!" ”

Wang Shizhen doesn't know anything else, when it comes to the military's funds, he comes as soon as he opens his mouth.

A cadre of civil officials suddenly gave Wang Chenhao a roll of his eyes, which seemed to say: What is stored in the Ministry of Finance? We don't admit it.

As long as the silver of the empire exists in the Ministry of Finance, it is a sheep in the mouth of a tiger, and it is easy to enter and it is difficult to come out again.

Wang Shizhen kept talking about this matter, in order to give Emperor Wang Chenhao a wake-up call, and reached out to ask the Ministry of Finance for money. Even if the Ministry of Finance does not give them this "arrears," it will be easy for the military to ask the Ministry of Finance to allow them to be released in other respects.

The little ninety-nine in Wang Shizhen's heart, every politician present knew it in their hearts. Whenever this time, Zhang Feng will always stand up and reason with Wang Shizhen, and the two will definitely quarrel and fight for each other.

Sure enough, Zhang Feng was about to open his mouth to theorize, but was suddenly interrupted by Wang Chenhao's words.

"Don't study this today!" Wang Chenhao's golden mouth opened, preventing the two from breaking out a war of words.

Zhang Feng snorted at Wang Shizhen and secretly discussed: If you are lucky today, I won't reason with you.

Wang Shizhen also responded to him with disdainful eyes, which meant to say: Afraid of you?

Wang Chenhao thought for a while and said: "Britain started to build 9 revenge-class battleships in one go last year, which has completely overwhelmed the industrial capacity of the German Navy. It seems that Britain can no longer stand such a huge arms race, and they are ready to end this arms race with war. ”

Li Guodong added: "Your Majesty Mingjian, the information obtained by Weichen shows that Italy plans to sell Suez Canal shares to Britain, so that the Allies will lose their dominant position in the Suez Canal. This move was bound to provoke great dissatisfaction with Italy by the Central Powers, and eventually pushed Italy to the side of the Entente. Britain seemed to have anticipated the opportunity, so that if Italy defected, the Entente would certainly act against the Allies. ”

Wang Shizhen said: "If the two major military blocs fight, this Europe will definitely be in a mess." ”

Zhang Feng said: "Isn't that better?" After they fought, the empire took the opportunity to expand the trade market, exporting arms and materials to the two major military blocs, and making a lot of war profits. ”

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "That's right!" The real purpose of instigating the two major military blocs to fight is to make it easier for us to take advantage of the opportunity to reap war money. The Empire had already laid the 'oxygen pipeline', supporting the Entente at sea and the Allies on land, and a large amount of European gold would flow into the Empire's treasury. ”

Zhang Feng said: "Your Majesty, once the European war breaks out, the price of strategic materials in short supply is bound to rise sharply, and the empire should now invest a large amount of money to rush to buy such strategic materials and hoard them for high-priced exports during the European war." ”

Wang Chenhao smiled and nodded, "That's right!" You're on point! ”

Wang Chenhao paused, and then said: "I think that from now on, the empire will begin to hoard strategic materials on a large scale, the more the better, and the European war will have to be fought for at least four or five years, so we must prepare early." ”

Will the European war be fought for four or five years?

Everyone was stunned. Although both domestic and foreign military strategists expected the outbreak of the European war, they did not think that it would last more than a year, after all, the huge arms race was about to drag down the economies of various countries, and if there was no financial strength to support a prolonged war, the economy would collapse.

However, the ministers had to believe in the strategic vision of the emperor, in their eyes Wang Chenhao was an all-powerful prophet, a god-like being, and what he said was a holy word, which was always correct and could not be doubted.

Seeing everyone's expressions, Wang Chenhao asked, "What?" Any objections? ”

"Don't dare! No objections! The ministers hurriedly replied, and no one raised any objections.

This made Wang Chenhao a little disappointed, he originally thought that someone would raise an objection, and then Wang Chenhao would explain it to them and experience the pleasure of being a strategist. But the ministers obviously didn't give Wang Chenhao a chance to express himself.

That's fine, at least the ministers have completely surrendered to Wang Chenhao.

Wang Chenhao then handed over the matter to Zhang Feng and Zhang Jian, Minister of Agriculture and Industry and Commerce, to handle it, and hoarded all kinds of strategic materials to the greatest extent, especially food, medicine, munitions, clothing and other materials.

According to Wang Chenhao's strategic prediction, during the four-year period, more than 20 countries of the two major military blocs in Europe participated in the war, and almost all the young and strong men participated in the war, and their domestic arable land was deserted, except for heavy industry, most of the other light industries will be stopped, and commodities will be supplied in limited quantities on demand. The war will consume more than 800 billion US dollars, and this huge cake is to be monopolized by the Chinese Empire, so the preparations must naturally be done well.

In fact, as early as the end of the war against Britain, Wang Chenhao began to order various departments of the empire to start hoarding strategic materials. It's just that the scale of hoarding is not very large, because it requires a considerable amount of money, and if the European war does not start, these hoarded materials will become worthless, and the economic losses of the empire will be incalculable.

Despite this, Wang Chenhao still used his personal savings of more than 3 billion dragon coins to hoard strategic materials such as grain, edible oil, alcohol, cloth, cement, and steel on a large scale.

Food is the most critical of all, because there is a limited amount of surplus food in the world every year, and it will be too late to hoard food when the war breaks out in Europe, and it will not be possible to buy food, because countries must ban the export of food and buy food from outside on a large scale.

Therefore, Wang Chenhao ordered the Royal Food Group to start large-scale procurement of surplus grain and hoard grain five years ago. By 1912, the Royal Foods Group had stockpiled 100 million tons of grain.

In addition, other companies of the Royal Enterprise also stockpiled strategic materials on a large scale. Among them, there are 8 million barrels of edible oil, 50,000 tons of alcohol, 5 million pieces of cloth, more than 800,000 tons of cement, and 2 million tons of steel.

Wang Chenhao's royal enterprise expanded its production line and began mass production of these supplies that were in demand during the war, in addition to normal supplies. At the same time, investment in fixed assets has been increased. Wang Chenhao invested 2 billion dragon coins to build more than 5,000 new branches, including all the production lines of strategic materials involved, and built the production line in advance, but did not start, because many materials will be overdue and cannot be sold. Depending on the deterioration of the situation in Europe, these production lines will begin to produce materials one after another.

According to Wang Chenhao's estimate, he invested six billion dragon coins and earned at least six billion or more, or even more.

At the imperial meeting on the same day, Wang Chenhao originally proposed to transfer most of the empire's 1912 budget to the reserve of strategic materials, and become a state-level hoarder and a big businessman. However, Zhang Feng believes that instead of directly buying strategic material reserves, it is better to encourage the people of the empire to invest in these industries involving the production of strategic materials.

Zhang Jian's suggestion was that tax breaks and exemptions could be imposed on the factories of companies that produce strategic materials, and that the political axe promised to buy the products they produced and be responsible for helping them sell them. In this way, the empire can not only achieve the purpose of large-scale hoarding of strategic materials, but also stimulate the expansion of the empire's industrial scale, further increase the employment rate and number of workers, thereby accelerating the overall process of industrialization of the empire, and striving to surpass the United States to become the world's largest industrial power after the European war.

Wang Chenhao then put forward a suggestion to Zhang Jian, asking the Ministry of Agriculture and Industry to encourage the development of the imperial industry towards secondary processing and multiple deep processing, because if the export raw materials will definitely not be sold at a better price, if the grain is processed into various flour, biscuits, bread, cheese, noodles and other foods, and raw meat is processed into canned food, jerky, etc., so that the selling price will increase exponentially, and the realization of the empire's local processing, so that the empire's domestic processing industry will flourish rapidly, which can be described as killing multiple birds with one stone.

Zhang Jian followed Wang Chenhao's advice and successively introduced a series of plans to stimulate domestic light and heavy industries. At the same time, the government granted a two-year tax holiday to the reprocessing industry, which greatly stimulated the merchants of the empire to invest in the processing and deep processing industries.

Among them, the Yangtze River Delta industrial base, where the light industry products of the Chinese Empire are the most developed, have emerged a series of modern food factories. For example, a large number of food deep processing companies such as instant noodles in sealed plastic packaging, eight-treasure porridge filling, canned beef, mutton and fish, canned fruits, etc., most of their predecessors were self-employed people in the streets and alleys, and under the stimulation and subsidies of national policies, food companies have been established one after another.

Of course, the deep-processed foods of this period basically contain industrial preservative additives and flavor enhancers, which are not good for human health. The Imperial Ministry of Health did not pay much attention to this kind of food containing food additives, but after the Imperial Emperor Wang Chenhao learned about it, he asked the Ministry of Health to control the dosage of food additives in the products produced by food factories, and it was best not to add preservatives.

However, soon a report from the Congress reflected that the deeply processed food of the empire was very popular with European and American countries, and if preservatives were not added, then it would be expired and rotten when it was shipped abroad, and it was the citizens of the empire themselves who suffered.

So, after some discussion, a compromise was finally come up. For the sake of the health of the citizens of the empire, food containing industrial additives such as preservatives was not allowed to be sold domestically, and food products exported abroad were allowed to add preservatives.

Food with added preservatives has a very long shelf life, and it can be eaten for more than five or six years at most, which is very convenient for the Chinese Empire to hoard this strategic food. At the same time, all kinds of deep-processed industrial products are more profitable, and they are more popular with foreign countries, and their sales are very good.

The grain reserve and development strategy is only one link in the empire's strategic material reserves, and more such as arms, cloth, salt, edible oil, alcohol, medicine, etc., are all part of the strategic reserves, and they are all required to be deeply processed.

For example, in the field of munitions, after 10 years of major rearmament, the Chinese Empire now has millions of rifles, heavy machine guns, lightning guns, and hundreds of millions of tons of various weapons and ammunition. If these arms cannot be sold, they will have to be destroyed on their own, and the cost of destruction is very high and very expensive. At the same time, there are a large number of industrial production lines, most of which will be shut down if the Imperial Axe does not purchase these weapons, and only a small part of the production lines will rely on the export of arms overseas to make ends meet.

For this reason, the imperial political axe takes into account that most of the arms and equipment production lines in the empire can be in line with German equipment and have the same caliber, and can be sold to the Allies in wartime, especially the 7.92 bullets are as high as 6 billion rounds, whether it is the Entente or the Allied Countries, the main rifle bullets are of this caliber, which can be used universally.

As a result, the Imperial Government shipped the arms to overseas bases in Cyprus, Kuwait, and Bermuda for storage, waiting to be sold during the war.

At the same time, the improved 6.5 mm series of guns of the Chinese Empire also began mass production, this kind of light and powerful weapon, not to mention the soldiers of the Chinese Empire, even the foreign large foreign [***] team also liked this weapon.

Therefore, the imperial side built a large number of production lines and waited for the export of such weapons to allies in need in wartime. Of course, the export of this weapon is also purposeful, because the 6.5×55 mm specification production line is currently only available in the Chinese Empire, and other countries do not have production lines of this specification. Therefore, once the foreign [***] team is optimistic about the rifle or light machine gun weapon of the Chinese Empire, then in addition to buying weapons from the Chinese Empire, they must always use the bullets of the Chinese Empire in the future. And during the war, the consumption of such bullets was staggering, so the arms dealers of the Chinese Empire would have made crazy money just by buying bullets.

Of course, there is also the most powerful weapon of the Chinese Empire - the use of 12.7 mm M2 heavy machine gun, this weapon is very ferocious, not only can penetrate the armor of the M10 main battle vehicle in service in the Chinese Empire, any car is blown up by it, not to mention the lethality of personnel, hitting the human body will tear the whole person to pieces instantly.

Similarly, the Chinese Emperor [***] was ready to provide an early model of the M07 for the European theater. This tank was not purchased on a large scale by the Imperial Chinese Army, but more than 300 were produced, and it was planned to add some excitement to the European theater. The Imperial Chinese Army began to equip the M10 main battle vehicles on a large scale, and the military's point of view was that it was not excluded that the European war would involve the Chinese Empire, so it was necessary to actively prepare for it. At the same time, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry is also developing the next main combat vehicle, which is surnamed Nengcan more than the M10 combat vehicle. If the Chinese Empire had not been involved in the war, then every time the Imperial Chinese Army was equipped with more advanced equipment, it would sell the obsolete equipment to foreign countries, making a lot of money while not delaying the upgrading of the Chinese Emperor's [***] team itself.

(To be continued)