Time passed, to 1892, to the sixteenth year of the new Qin.

Two years have passed, and the whole of China can no longer see the traces left by the third Sino-Russian war. Far away in the west, the earth is sown, and people's faces are smiling with joy, and these Central Asians, who have become naturalized Chinese, have not forgotten the war in their minds, but have only deeply entered the heart of the war and the trauma brought to them by Tsarist Russia.

In two years, China's tax revenue has once again had a wave of growth peak, and now the annual national tax revenue has reached 50 billion yuan, plus local taxes, the total national fiscal revenue for the whole year will exceed 70 billion yuan.

However, with such a high fiscal revenue, the state fiscal deficit has not been reduced in the slightest. In the autumn of this year, China's national fiscal deficit exceeded 55 billion yuan, and now it is still rushing all the way to the height of 60 billion yuan.

Because the country's income is higher, the expenses are higher. In the past two years, the state has been constantly upgrading the new-style armament of the landing navy, in the past two years the country has been developing in great strides in the new schools and new types of education, in the past two years, the total strength of the national army has been growing by leaps and bounds, and in the past two years, the local infrastructure construction -- railways, highways, and power stations -- has been raised all the way! Because in 1891 the price of silver ushered in another wave of world-wide decline.

The fact that the price of silver continued to decline in the second half of the 19th century is known to anyone who knows a little about the history of the late Qing Dynasty. Liu Xian is also very clear. Therefore, he risked the condemnation of the world at that time, and linked the value of money to grain, and had to separate it from silver.

The price at which the silver dollar is trading against the British pound on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Since the 70s, one pound could only be exchanged for four silver dollars. But by the mid-70s. One pound can be exchanged for three taels of silver. And if three taels of silver are exchanged for silver dollars, they are worth 4.5 silver dollars. Then the world silver price entered a period of stabilisation. It has been oscillating back and forth between one pound sterling and three taels of silver or five silver dollars, because China, the world's largest silver currency at the time, has always maintained its external victory.

This continued until the end of the Second Sino-Russian War, and the price of silver soon fell by 11% worldwide. After the start of the Third Sino-Russian War, the price of silver had a short-term recovery of more than a year, because at that time the Rand gold mine was discovered. But in 1891 it fell rapidly by more than 15 per cent again. What the reason is, it is clear without asking.

Now the people who can manipulate the world's gold and silver markets and financial markets are not the old United States, but those ancient predators in Europe.

China is a piece of fat that they are targeting. But these people who have been playing with finance for hundreds of years have never seen a government that links the value of money to food, so they are not making any profit in China, which is above state power.

But after the last lesson, why did they not repent? This is not bright in the east and bright in the west. China can't be harvested, and in fact, there are still a lot of fruits for them to enjoy.

At present, most countries in the world have a dual standard system of gold and silver, and the state has set a ratio of gold and silver swaps, and the private market obviously has such a ratio, and the proportion set by the state is obviously inelastic, that is, it cannot be quickly adjusted according to the actual value of gold and silver.

As a result, everyone competed for gold coins, melted them and collected them, so that gold gradually withdrew from circulation. Silver coins, on the other hand, flooded the market, causing them to depreciate in value. Thus came the Gresham's Law. That is, bad money drives out good money. After that, the state implemented the lame standard, and since then silver has been reduced to a subsidiary currency of gold.

Europeans love gold, and everyone loves gold. When gold and silver are in circulation at the same time, people's love for gold can also lead to an imbalance in the real value of gold and silver. If the government does not control it properly, silver coins will overflow, and silver will become worthless in people's hearts.

Chinese banknotes are not directly convertible with precious metals. But the idea that 100 Chinese dollars is worth a silver dollar has been imprinted into the minds of all Chinese people. Even foreigners use this ratio to bring into their own currency. Now the price of silver has plummeted. It is impossible for the Chinese dollar itself to follow the plummet, but foreigners still took the opportunity to adjust the exchange ratio between the Chinese yuan and the foreign currency. Although these are not recognized by China. However, some foreign devices imported into China have raised their prices on this basis. It could have been bought for 10,000 yuan. Now the asking price is ten thousand.

The domestic silver price and gold price have also been adjusted, and the price of gold and silver will naturally be lowered. The price of gold and silver did not attract much attention in China at this time. Chinese have long accepted the Chinese dollar from the bottom of their hearts, accepted paper money, and many people, even if they still hold real money and silver at home, have slowly equated real money and silver from the concept of "money". Real money is an overweight item that can be sold for a lot of money, but they are not money.

Therefore, the adjustment of gold and silver prices did not attract the attention of the whole country, but the increase in the price of imported goods attracted many domestic products to increase their prices, thus causing a wave of price increases in China. The government will have no choice but to follow the trend and raise the salaries of public officials.

Anyway, the state's total fiscal revenue of 70 billion yuan is not enough to spend. Even if the country has another power company, such a large taxpayer and profiteer, but to spread the power grid across the country, the investment is also painful for the cabinet.

Hydropower stations have already begun to be built in the Yellow River, the Pearl River Basin, the Huai River Basin, the Min River, the Yangtze River, and so on, and the investment in these water conservancy projects is in the unit of 100 million yuan. Even though the state has opened its mouth to recruit private funds to participate in construction, the water conservancy claims of the Development Bank and the China Construction Bank have been sold out in a dozen.

In the past two years, industrial and agricultural equipment such as tractors, combine harvesters, hullers, and trucks have appeared in provinces across the country. These modern agricultural machinery, fast speed, deep ploughing, time-saving and labor-saving, to China's agriculture is really a pair of wings to take off.

Especially in the Northeast and Xinjiang, the former has really become China's North Warehouse, just look at the two years in the north of the grain prices have been declining, North Korea's food prices have also fallen by nearly 10%, you know the power of this 'North Warehouse'.

In Xinjiang, cotton is grown. This is Liu Xian's 'agricultural positioning' of Xinjiang, where cotton is famous in later generations of China. Before 2010, hundreds of thousands of cotton pickers poured into Xinjiang every year. Of course, cotton cultivation is also indispensable in Uzbekistan, and it is also known as the 'Platinum Country'. The largest cotton producer and exporter in Central Asia, cotton production accounts for 70% of the former Soviet Union, and Uzbekistan's cotton is similar to Xinjiang cotton, with a micronaire value of 3.5-4.9, a good horse value, long fiber length, good internal value, low linter rate, good luster, and more than 40 yarns can be spun.

Of course, the Chinese government has invested more in Xinjiang than in Central Asia. Has this become a hinterland? The area of Xinjiang Province has expanded, and Xinjiang's melons and fruits have poured into the interior with the transportation of trains. Now it is the Liangguang area, and there are cantaloupe and dried fruits from Xinjiang to buy. In addition to cotton, Xinjiang also has many economic achievements such as oilseeds, sugar beets, hemp, tobacco leaves, medicinal materials, and silkworm cocoons.

During the years when the National Defense Forces completely ruled Xinjiang, the output of silkworm cocoons has reached 120 tons, a five-fold increase from the beginning. -- Don't think that there is no silk in Xinjiang, the legend of the "Silk Princess" spread in Xinjiang two years ago. In the ancient woodblock print, a young girl from the Weiyang Palace hid a silkworm cocoon in a bun to avoid the inspection of the guards and marry in the Western Regions in Khotan.

The history of sericulture in Hotan in Xinjiang can be traced back to the beginning of the Silk Road, and its silk production technologies such as mulberry planting, sericulture, and silk reeling all originated from the Central Plains. Even from the point of view of weaving skills, Xinjiang's 'Adelais' is likely to be a "close relative" of Hangzhou Pu Silk, the "House of Silk".

Moreover, in the past two years, Xinjiang's grain output has also broken the table year after year. Wheat and corn are the bulk and can be planted in most areas of Xinjiang, and the sown area accounts for more than 90% of the total area of grain crops. This is especially true of the Ili Valley, which is now completely safe. The climate here is mild, the rain is more, the land is fertile, and it is more suitable for the growth of grain and wheat.

Anyway, compared with the census of 1889, the total registered population of the country now exceeds 50,000,000, which is 70 million more, but the per capita grain has risen instead of falling, from 290 kilograms per capita a year in 1889 to 320 kilograms per capita a year now. This is good news to celebrate.

After all, the economy is based on agriculture, agriculture is based on grain, and the people take food as the sky.

In 1880, when the new Qin dynasty ruled the world, the average annual per capita grain in the country was only 200 catties. And that's not just fine grains.

The reason is very simple: the people have been in the midst of war for a long time, the people have suffered from displacement, and the environment is unstable, so naturally they cannot be self-sufficient in food, and it is difficult to solve the problem of food and clothing. At that time, if it were not for the national dynasty to vigorously import rice from the Nguyen Dynasty and Siam, China's recovery would have been slow for two or three years.

Henan Province, as a famous agricultural center in later generations, in the early days of the establishment of the dynasty, the total grain output of the province was only 10 million stones, which seems to be a lot, right? You have to think about how many people there are in Henan. Even though it was a disaster at that time. But in 1880, the disaster disappeared completely, and the overall situation was completely stable, and the grain output of Henan province jumped to 90 million stone that year. It can barely cover the mouths of the people of a province, although it is still a province where grain is transferred. But we can also see the harm caused by wars and military disasters to the local economy.

Liu Xian also asked the Ministry of Agriculture to organize experts to start working on 'hybrid rice', which was not a complicated study in his cognition, but he obviously took it for granted. Several years have passed, and the Ministry of Agriculture has not been able to produce a single plausible result.

China's railway construction is moving towards 40,000 miles, and at most the next year, the goal will be set again at the height of 50,000 miles. In addition, China's steel industry has also developed greatly in recent years, and last year's output has exceeded 7 million tons, Zhang Shouyan said in his policy address that when the third five-year plan ends, he will push China's steel output over 8 million tons! This goal is clearly to be achieved! (To be continued......)