As for the fact that the northern republican government headed by Zhao Dongyun wanted to borrow tens of millions of pounds from the foreign powers, it was only the beginning in August, and it was still limited to private communication between high-level officials, and Foreign Minister Lu Weixiang and Finance Minister Zhou Xuexi were only testing the attitudes of various countries, but no formal diplomatic negotiations had been conducted.

After all, tens of millions of pounds are involved, and it is a huge loan of hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for Fengyuan, and it is impossible to say that Zhao Dongyun and Zhu Erdian can be determined by a few casual words of foreign ministers, which can be determined from private verbal intentions to formal negotiations, and then to reach negotiations, it will take several months or even more to reach negotiations, and this negotiation will not be able to represent Zhao Dongyun to get the money immediately, even if a loan agreement is reached, such a huge amount of money cannot be given to Zhao Dongyun at once, Payments are often made in batches, and the payment time in them often lasts for months or even a year or two.

Therefore, even if it is a qiē is smooth, the bank group of the four countries does not want your salt tax, customs mortgage, financial supervision and other messy conditions, even if they give it to you for nothing, Zhao Dongyun will not be able to get this money within half a year.

However, now the republican government led by the Beiyang Soviet Department is extremely short of money, which can be seen from Zhou Xuexi's sad face since he took office as the Minister of Finance of the second cabinet, before Zhou Xuexi became Minister of Finance, he did not expect that the financial situation of the Soviet Department had deteriorated so strictly, not only the salaries of government officials were in arrears for several months, but some troops on the military side had also begun to pay half salaries. The republican government also accumulated more than 3 million yuan in arrears for the ordnance of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

At the beginning of Zhou Xuexi's tenure, not to mention the future military spending, the many arrears of the Ministry of Finance alone have reached more than 9 million yuan, and the taxes collected by the Ministry of Finance from the local government are often not covered yet, and they are immediately withdrawn, and the Ministry of Finance's inventory emergency funds have been hovering below one million yuan.

The biggest and even the only reason for the financial difficulties of the Beiyang Soviet Republican Government is that the huge military expenditure has begun, and although the financial situation of the Soviet Union before entering the customs is difficult, it can barely hold on, but after the outbreak of the customs operation, the military expenditure has surged, and the money is flowing out like the water of the Yellow River that has burst its embankment, and it cannot be stopped at all.

Since the entry of the customs, the salaries of the personnel required by the rapidly expanding army, the procurement of large-scale weapons, and the consumption of ammunition almost like a bottomless pit have consumed more than 30 million yuan of military expenditures of the Soviet system, and it can be said that all the financial revenues of the Soviet system in the three eastern provinces have been exhausted.

After taking control of Gyeonggi, the Soviet Beiyang Republic government inevitably had to assume the responsibilities of the central government, including paying the salaries of central government officials to support the navy, and at the same time reorganizing the provincial army and police, and dredging the financial system, etc., all of which required a lot of money to afford.

In fact, before Zhou Xuexi became the Minister of Finance, the Soviet finances had been in fact bankrupt, but Xiong Xiling had been playing the trick of demolishing the east wall and making up the west wall, so he did not openly declare bankruptcy.

Even if Zhou Xuexi has been playing finance for many years, he is a Beiyang money bag in the era of Yuan Shikai, and he is facing such a predicament, he also feels that his head is extremely big, although Lu Weixiang of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken the lead with the great powers and said that he wants to borrow foreign money, but the far water can't save the fire, if the Ministry of Finance doesn't think of a way, not to mention that the salaries of the government officials cannot be paid, I am afraid that the salaries in the army in the next two or three months will not be raised.

And those big-headed soldiers can't get paid silver is not so easy to deal with, the Beiyang soldiers of this era have not yet had the consciousness of fighting for the country and the nation for free, maybe the officers, especially those young officers who abandoned the literature and followed the Rong, are willing to fight hard for the country and the nation, but for ordinary soldiers, their minds are very simple.

They went into battle for Zhao Dongyun to kill the enemy, and Zhao Dongyun gave them money to support their families!

It is true that they are loyal to Zhao Dongyun, but the premise is that Zhao Dongyun has to pay them to support their family, if the family has nothing to eat, the ghost will fight for you!

"Is the situation at the end of the Treasury really at the end of the mountain? Didn't the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry just allocate a cigarette donation to the Ministry of Finance last week? Zhao Dongyun looked at the report handed over by Zhou Xuexi and frowned: "I remember that the batch of funds was more than three million, why was it gone in just a week?" ”

Zhou Xuexi also said with a bitter face: "The cigarette donation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has just been delivered, and General Director Zhao of the Headquarters has come up, saying that the reserve funds of the Fuyuan Machine and the factory have been exhausted, and if you don't pay for the goods from the Fuyuan factory, Fuyuan will have to stop production next month. ”

As soon as Zhou Xuexi said this, Zhao Dongyun also remembered that last week he specially approved a special fund to the Ministry of Ordnance to repay the arrears of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, remembering that there were 1.8 million yuan, and the salary arrears of the government princes were longer than the arrears of military expenses. For many Soviet officials, victory has been won, and the time of suffering has ended, and now is the time to enjoy the fruits of victory, but not only have the fruits of victory not been enjoyed, but salaries continue to be delayed, which makes many government officials, especially low-level civil servants, complain.

After all, in such a huge system as the Soviet Union, officials are only a small part, and more are a large number of ordinary civil servants, that is, ordinary clerks in ordinary government departments, these people are actually just ordinary people, and they have nothing to do with official words, and they are also waiting for their monthly salary to support their families.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance was also forced to use millions of yuan to pay salaries, of course, this million yuan is just a drop in the bucket, and it is impossible to make up all the arrears of wages, only a small part of them.

But looking at the Ministry of Finance's books with less than one million yuan of funds left, Zhao Dongyun frowned, now the financial situation is so tight, the salaries and office expenses of government officials still have to continue to save, especially the salaries of officials, the salary level of officials in this era is very high, which is a great burden on the finances, of course, Zhao Dongyun does not intend to say that the salaries of officials will be reduced, the high salary policy of officials since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty has been implemented for more than 200 years, and if you change it rashly, it may cause the morale of the official group to fluctuateToday's situation needs to be stabilized, and any policy that may cause people's hearts to fluctuate must be cautious.

However, it doesn't mean that Zhao Dongyun can't take some compromise methods, he said while pondering: "Personnel salaries should be pressed again, didn't you get a half-year patriotic bond in front of you, you get a half-year patriotic bond according to the industrial and commercial bonds, and then call on the majority of government officials and officers to take the lead and use their salaries to buy patriotic bonds. ”

Zhou Xuexi heard Zhao Dongyun say this, and he was smart almost immediately and saw that Zhao Dongyun's move was almost to imitate the previous generation of selling officials, but this method is much more secretive, at least Zhao Dongyun will not publicly say that you have to buy patriotic bonds to be promoted, as long as he reveals this kind of rumor, in order not to affect his promotion, it is logical for the officials below to exchange their salaries for patriotic bonds, otherwise if others buy you don't buy it, who knows if it will affect your promotion.

Zhao Dongyun continued: "Compressing the salary of officials is just a small amount of money, you have to speed up the issuance of domestic bonds on the big side, I think the industrial and commercial patriotic bonds in front of me are good, you change it again, don't be afraid that you can't afford to pay interest in the future, and don't be obsessed with long-term bonds, we are now in urgent need, as long as we can raise money, then the interest rate is higher, and the repayment time of the bond is also shorter!" ”

Anyway, borrowing is the old way of borrowing new money to repay the loan, and from last year to now, there have been millions of bonds issued by the Soviet Union, and now it is not the same that there is no money to change, and those short-term one-year bonds expire at the end of the year, it is estimated that they will have to rely on the issuance of new bonds to repay.

Zhou Xuexi heard Zhao Dongyun's words, and also felt the urgency in Zhao Dongyun's heart, thinking in his heart that I am afraid that the lord in front of him is also a person who only cares about the present, regardless of what is happening behind him, if this is a debt with too high interest, then the finance will probably have to worry about paying interest and principal every year in the future, and the cycle will not be the same as financial bankruptcy.

But Zhou Xuexi obviously couldn't understand Zhao Dongyun's thoughts!

Why, because the two of them are at different levels of status!

Zhou Xuexi only considers the problem from a financial point of view, but Zhao Dongyun considers the problem from the perspective of competing for hegemony in the world, for Zhao Dongyun, how much debt the government bears is actually not a problem, there is not much difference between a debt of 100 million and a debt of 100 million for him, Zhao Dongyun has to consider whether he can unify the world.

As long as the world can be unified, it is acceptable to bear debts, and after reunification, it is not a problem to gather the strength of the whole of China, as long as you are not stupid, it will not be a problem to pay the arrears, and a regime as fucked up as the former Qing Dynasty can pay hundreds of millions of indemnities at will, no matter how you do it, you can't be worse than the former Qing Dynasty, right?

If it can't be unified, he Zhao Dongyun was defeated by Duan Qirui or the Southern Federation, hehe, even if he borrowed a trillion, he didn't need him Zhao Dongyun to pay it back, let those who took away his world have a headache.

Zhao Dongyun has such determination, and Zhou Xuexi, the executor, naturally can no longer stop Zhao Dongyun's plan to issue high-interest domestic patriotic bonds, as for how to repay these bonds after issuance, Zhou Xuexi is already unwilling to think about this headache.