Although the issuance of government bonds has a relatively good prospect for the imperial treasury, it is still difficult to provide much help in a short period of time.

Therefore, the budget for 1858 was still based on 88 million taxes!

In terms of the expenditure budget, because the military's attitude is too resolute, and at the same time, Lin Zhe also acquiesces to the military's tough attitude, so although the civilian officials led by Prime Minister Bi Yutong collectively oppose and express dissatisfaction, they still can't make the military regress too much!

In the end, after several ministerial meetings, the cabinet had to agree to the military's budget requirements in the face of the military's tough demands, but at the same time, they also raised the budget for fiscal expenditure for 1858 to 90 million, which was 2 million more than the budget for fiscal revenue.

Finally, according to the budget for 1858 agreed by the High Command and the Cabinet, the budget for the three regular military forces of the Royal Army, the Royal Navy, and the Allied Defence Force was 66 million silver yuan.

It accounted for 73 percent of the total expenditure budget of 90 million, which was three percentage points higher than the proportion of the military budget in 1857.

After the biggest difficulty in the expenditure budget, that is, the proportion of military expenditure, was resolved, the Cabinet, the High Command, the Inspectorate, and the Grand Court, the four major powers of the empire, a joint ministerial meeting, and more than a dozen civil officials and a number of high-ranking generals jointly signed the budget for the fiscal year 1858, and submitted it to the Pingrentang for the approval of the Emperor of Heaven.

The next day, Lin Zhe used a red pen to make instructions on the budget. The instructions are quite simple, with only one word: 'Quasi'!

Such a simple 'quasi' word. It has already been stated that the budget has officially received the approval of the Son of Heaven, and the Ministry of Finance will carry out the budget work for the next year according to this budget.

in this budget. Military spending accounts for 72 percent, and the remaining 27 percent, that is, the budget of 24.3 million yuan, is distributed by various cabinet departments, the Inspectorate, the palace affairs department, and the Grand Court.

At present, the military is full of joy, and this is a military budget of 66 million, which is more than twice this year's amount. And how to use this batch of money, the heads of the military have held many meetings.

Even Shi Qingxuan, Xu Yanqing, Shen Chiyun and many other generals on the front line, although they could not personally return to Nanjing to preside over the matter, they all corresponded frequently with Nanjing and issued their opinions through attributes!

However, although these high-ranking generals are extremely arrogant in front of outsiders, within the military, this is a place with a more strict hierarchy!

In fact, the generals with real power at the front line have no right to make a decision, and many departments of the high command have no right to make a decision, and it is a department within the military that can make this decision. That is, the Strategic Division of the Joint Staff!

If the Operations Department of the Joint Staff Department is the department with real power responsible for formulating major battles, then this Strategy Department, which also brings together the most elite talents of the Navy and the Army, is the department responsible for the future strategic development of the Chinese Army and the future strategic direction of the entire empire.

The officers who served during this period were the best talents in the military. Most of them are part-time instructors in the two major military academies of the navy and land!

After the budget for fiscal year 1858 was approved by the Ministry of Civil and Military Affairs, which was jointly composed of the High Command, the Cabinet, the Inspectorate, and the Supreme Court, and was approved by Zhu Zhu, the director of the Strategic Department of the Joint Staff, Chen Anxu, worked overtime. The Strategy Division is to draw up a strategic plan for the next two or three years in light of the current strategic environment of the Empire.

At the same time, according to these strategic plans, we will formulate plans for the expansion and training of the army!

The relationship between the expansion of the army and the fighting of wars. It's not that the army is expanded first, and then the target is selected. Instead, we first selected the target, and then solved the problem one by one, to see how many troops were needed, how many cannons, guns and ammunition needed to be prepared in advance, how much grain and bean feed to be prepared, how many livestock needed to be collected from the people, how many people needed to be mobilized to transport military supplies, and how much rations were needed for these people, and how to solve it!

These things are the same, strictly speaking, many subsequent things have nothing to do with the Strategy Division!

But why is the Strategy Division important? Because it proposes what strategies to be implemented, the Follow-up Operations Division and other military departments are able to draw up detailed plans based on these plans and address the problems that arise one by one.

The Strategy Department shoulders such a heavy responsibility, and the responsibility of Colonel Chen Anxu, as the director of the Division, is quite large!

And every day, many letters from military bigwigs are sent to him, including Shi Qingxuan, Xu Yanqing, and Shen Chiyun, all of whom are real power bigwigs in the military, and these bigwigs send letters, mostly about their own strategic insights, for example, Shi Qingxuan constantly reiterates the strategic importance of Shandong and Henan, saying that after seizing these two provinces, he can directly seize Beijing and completely establish the ownership of Kyushu.

Chen Yuntao, who was tossing in Fujian, sent a letter saying that Liangguang is the southern gateway of China, and Guangzhou in Guangdong is a treaty port, and that industry, agriculture and commerce are developed.

Even Xu Yanqing and Lin Anfei were unwilling to be lonely, talking about the strategic importance of Jiangxi and Hubei, if they could seize these two places, then the empire would have a solid foundation!

The questions these bigwigs are talking about actually have a hint of personal will, and they all expect the overall strategy of the empire to be inclined to the theater they are responsible for, Shi Qingxuan and Shen Chiyun want to go north, Xu Yanqing and Lin Anfei want to go west, and Chen Yuntao wants to go south!

Why?

Because the future prospects of these high-ranking generals and their century-old wealth are all tied to their military exploits, but it is not enough to rely on their military talents to make achievements, you must have the full support of the command behind you.

Why was Shi Qingxuan able to sweep Yangzhou, Hefei, Lu'an, Fengyang, and Sizhou, and finally defeated the Qing army monk Greenqin in the north north of Taoyuan?

Is it really because Shi Qingxuan's ability is much stronger than Xu Yanqing and others, and he can be the first person in the Chinese army? This is a question worth digging into.

If there is no military training department, Shi Qingxuan will continue to replenish recruits. The 1st and 3rd Divisions of the Royal Army under Shi Qingxuan's command would have been crippled long ago, and if there was no constant supply of food, grass and even shoes and socks from the Quartermaster Department. The First Army had long since starved to death. Without the constant supply of guns and artillery from the Ordnance Department, the First Army's Mini rifles would have been insufficient.

Shi Qingxuan's First Army's Lian Battle was successful. It is inseparable from the full support of various departments of the Command, but if you dig deeper, what about the First Army that will support Shi Qingxuan for the Commandery?

Because in the strategic plan for the second half of 1857 formulated by the Strategy Department, the strategic goal was to 'seize Jiangbei, consolidate southern Anhui, and go south to the south!' ’

In other words, the high command will devote most of its strategic resources to the battlefield in the north of the Yangtze River, while the resources available to the battlefields in southern Anhui and Fujian will be very small.

Otherwise, why hasn't the Fourth Army been able to take Jiujiang yet? The Second Army has not been able to take Anqing yet? Is it because their soldiers are not as brave as the First Army? Or is it because Xu Yanqing and Lin Anfei's abilities are not as good as Shi Qingxuan and Shen Chiyun?

Neither, the most critical reason is. The High Command's support for them was very limited, they didn't even have enough artillery shells for the siege, and it was difficult to replenish the soldiers of the Royal Army if they were damaged, and even the soldiers of the Allied Defense Force could not maintain too much, because the Quartermaster Department of the High Command did not give them too much rations at all.

All of the above are on the surface, and the importance of the Strategy Department within the Chinese military is worthy of the attention of those military bigwigs.

And to be able to be the director of such a powerful department, Chen Anxu is naturally not an ordinary person!

Like most of the officers in the Chinese Army, he was born as a scholar, and joined Yu Shengjun in 1853. And was admitted to the Suiying Academy at that time, and then studied for a few months and became one of the first batch of students of the Suiying Academy.

However, unlike many people who directly entered the field army, he was because of his excellent grades and his ability to learn foreign languages was very strong. In just a few months, I was able to translate foreign military works with translators.

So he stayed on to teach, and at the same time worked as a part-time translator. In the past few years, he has translated more than a dozen foreign military books, and has also participated in the compilation of textbooks for military schools.

After that, although he was once transferred out of the Suiying Academy. Served in the army, but as soon as he went, he was the battalion commander of the major. And after serving for less than three months, he was transferred back to Suiying Academy as the director of the Academic Affairs Office. Later, he joined the then Supervision and Training Department, mainly responsible for strategic research.

In the first half of this year, he briefly served as the commander of the first regiment of the first division, but this experience only lasted for four months, and when the Chinese Empire took Nanjing and established the general headquarters, he was transferred to the director of the strategic department of the joint staff.

Looking at his resume, you will find that he has very little field service experience, and he has always changed back and forth between civilian and military positions, and everyone else is promoted from deputy company commander to company commander, company commander to deputy battalion commander, and deputy battalion commander to battalion commander.

However, he was a civilian and military officer, and twice he was sent to the army, both as a commander-in-chief, from major battalion commander to lieutenant colonel regiment commander, while serving in the central organs. They all hold important positions, the former director of the Academic Affairs Office of the Suiying Academy, the co-organizer of the Supervision and Training Office, and the current director of the Strategy Department, but they are all positions of real power.

Such a person can tell at a glance that he is the type of person who has been placed high hopes on him and belongs to the key cultivation!

If it was said that for a period of time, and the timing was right, it would not be surprising that he was promoted to major general, and it was even possible to directly become the commander of a certain Royal Army infantry division!

And every officer who has been trained and is expected to be promoted to major general in the short term belongs to the people who are focused on by Lin Zhe, they don't need others as backers, and they don't need to be fake to Qingxuan, because Lin Zhe is his backer!

As long as you show enough potential, then Lin Zhe is guaranteed to let you grow up smoothly to a high enough position!

So in the face of the letters from Shi Qingxuan and others, although Chen Anxu also read these letters, he laughed at them!

What are you kidding, how can the imperial strategy for next year or even the next few years be swayed by the personal preferences and interests of a certain high-ranking general!

After working for many days with a group of talented staff officers from the Strategy Division, he finally got some of the future strategic scales that had been developed in detail.

Then, he was not willing to continue to wait, but directly submitted a request to the palace department to see the holy face, if other ordinary officials want to ask to see the Son of Heaven, most of them are just going through the motions, Lin Zhe has limited time, and the people who can be allowed to face the saint actually account for only a very small part of the applicants, and according to the usual practice, these officials who have not been able to see Lin Zhe will generally be received by cabinet ministers instead.

However, Chen Anxu is different, his status is enough for him to get the opportunity to face the saint for the first time!

After receiving a notice from the Secretariat of the Palace Affairs Department, Chen Anxu stood up from his chair, first tidied up the spotless and neat new school official dress, and then put on his briefcase, and then walked steadily into Lin Zhe's office! (To be continued......)

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