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Thick clouds hung like a blanket over Nanjing all night, and the sky over the imperial capital did not disperse until early in the morning, and it was already drizzling in the Zijin Mountains near the city, and the rain and fog made the riverside city appear foggy, and the water and sky converged to feel like a fairyland.

As the capital of the Chinese Empire, after three years of construction, the prototype of the capital of the empire has begun to appear - those buildings with classical Chinese architectural style, blending modern and ancient, just like the empire symbolized by the city, where classical China and modern China blend with each other.

At this time, Nanjing, like this country, had thrown off many of its feudal things in the past and became one of the most advanced and Westernized countries in Asia. From the inner city with traditional tiled roofs to the Shimonoseki Wharf, there are buildings that combine east and west, and on both sides of China Avenue from Shimonoseki to the front of the Imperial Palace, there is a long row of new buildings like Chicago and New York, which are completely Western-style high-rise buildings.

Compared with the Chinese-style inner city, Xiaguan, near the wharf, is to some extent the most westernized business district in China, because most of the land in the Xiaguan commercial area is sold in the form of land transfers, and there are no restrictions on architectural styles, so that land buyers can hire any construction firm at will to build buildings of different styles, and almost without exception, those companies have chosen Western-style buildings, thus making Xiaguan a kind of "International Architecture Exposition".

Summer to autumn, in a fog and rain, the general white cruise ship slowly approached the Xiaguan wharf, in China, almost everyone is familiar with this beautiful shape of the cruise ship, this is the royal cruise ship "Hanwei", every summer, as the capital of Nanjing is one of the three major "furnaces" in the Yangtze River Basin, every hot summer, the officials of the central government of the empire, will go to the Lushan Palace with the emperor to escape the summer. All departments of the central government come to Lushan in the summer to build permanent office buildings and dormitories in the Lulin area.

To some extent, for the officials, this is a summer benefit, after all, the entourage is often accompanied by the whole family, and when autumn comes, they will return to Nanjing by train or ship, and Nanjing will then regain the function of the capital, and the real restoration of the capital's function is often signaled by the arrival of the "Hanwei" in Xiaguan.

In previous years, after the "Hanwei" arrived at Xiaguan, at most half an hour, His Majesty would disembark with the Empress, the Crown Prince and other members of the royal family in the honor guard, and return to the palace by car, but today, the honor guard has been standing in the fog and rain of early autumn for nearly an hour, and His Majesty's figure still has not appeared on the gangway, so that the officials who stayed behind to greet His Majesty will also show their anxious color.

What's going on?

Could it be that something happened on board?

Everyone turned their attention to the "Hanwei", although the tonnage of more than 5,000 tons of the "Hanwei", its tonnage in the cruise ship is not large, but on the Yangtze River is a behemoth, in Nanjing qualified to return with the ship only the ministers, the marshal of the army and navy, the duke with public office and their families, ordinary officials, even if it is a deputy chief, is not a stranger, to a certain extent, "Hanwei" is also the royal palace.

What's going on?

People were anxiously looking at this white swan-like beautiful and elegant palace on the water, and everyone had some doubts in their hearts, even if it weren't for the fact that there was no abnormal signal on the ship, and the escort ship was just quietly moored aside, and the guards with the ship were still standing quietly on the side of the ship, I am afraid that someone had already asked to board the ship, but people would inevitably be a little curious.

What the hell is going on? Did something happen on board?

While the people outside the ship were waiting there, inside the ship, in the conference room inside the ship, everyone was silent.

And Tang Haoran, as the emperor of the empire, this self-respecting emperor who is full of words and is not even constrained by the constitution, is just standing quietly on the thick carpet at this time, walking slowly.

If it is said in terms of the courtesy of the monarch and the ministers, when the emperor walks, the ministers are still sitting, it is undoubtedly not in line with the traditional etiquette, but in the past three years, the ministers have long adapted to His Majesty's way of thinking.

Three years!

Time flies!

What has happened in the last three years?

Tang Haoran, walking back and forth, pondered the changes that had taken place in China in the past three years.

Under the maintenance of the army's bayonets, the new land tax reform was completed, thus enabling the central government to take back the local financial rights at the same time, and at the same time further expand the financial resources -- two years ago, the land tax revenue alone exceeded 1 billion yuan, and the huge land tax revenue gave the government sufficient funds to invest in industry and infrastructure, and in just three years, the government invested in the construction of more than 10,000 kilometers of railways, more than 150,000 kilometers of hardened roads, and a large number of large and small ports.

And the more important Hanyang, Tangshan, Ma'anshan and a series of new construction or expansion of iron and steel enterprises, coupled with more than 3,000 industrial projects, so that now China is like a huge construction site - two years later, once these enterprises are completed, China is about to become the "little brother" in the club of great powers, leap into the fourth industrial power after the United States, Germany, Britain, and this is only the beginning, according to the corresponding plan, from the second year of Hongwu at least 12 years, the central government and local governments will invest 47.5 billion yuan, It is used for industrial construction, and all this is based on economic planning under economic control.

The successful experience of industrialization in Northeast China led to the fact that after the reunification of the country was completed, the corresponding departments immediately formulated a plan for industrial and commercial control, so as to seek economic control and industrial construction throughout the country.

Decade!

That is to say, after the completion of the two "five-year economic control plans," China's industrial strength may even surpass that of Germany, and become an industrial country second only to the United States, and even surpass the United States in some indices.

Of course, all this is built on the premise that all plans are implemented smoothly. From the civil unrest against the tax reform at the beginning of the empire, to the national state of emergency, the military bayonets protected the regime from being overthrown, and then the state of emergency did not end with the smooth implementation of the tax reform.

Of course, the bayonet did not bring about progress - during the state of emergency, a large number of vices - smoking cigarettes, foot binding and uncleanness - were completely banned in all parts of the country, and of course the common people began to believe in the law, as they say, "the military and police are harsh, and the judges are fair", and the people began to believe in the law as a guarantee for the protection of their rights and interests.

It was also during this period that the financial reform of "abolishing the two yuan and changing the yuan" was carried out throughout the country, in order to repay the due debts and carry out the corresponding industrial construction, after the capital was set in Nanjing, the government immediately announced the establishment of the imperial central bank, the issuance of Chinese dollars, the implementation of the gold standard, and the prohibition of currency and gold and foreign currency in the financial market transactions, the relevant standards are set by the state - the value of 0.721166 grams of pure gold is used as the standard customs department collection form calculation, called "customs gold unit", which is also the standard unit of Chinese yuan. In the country, more than 700 million taels of silver were exchanged for paper money in a way that was prohibited by law from being circulated or even held.

Over the past two years, the central bank has held sufficient precious metals to support large-scale imports - the import of industrial equipment, and last year, 57% of the world's machinery was exported to China, which is why the whole world is watching China and watching China's industrialization.

It is very clear to anyone who pays attention to China that China is industrializing in an unprecedented way, and once it completes industrialization, its hidden power will be immeasurable, and it is for this reason that in the past two years, while countries have realized China's stored strength, they have begun to negotiate with China to sign a new treaty, change the old treaty, and other issues such as extraterritoriality, concessions, and tariffs have been fundamentally resolved in the past two years.

Diplomatic success has allowed China to truly stand on the world stage as a "great power," but for the rulers of the empire, they are well aware of the problems facing this old and young empire.

Like now, the problems that have been building up for two years have finally exploded. And this problem is almost fatal to the country, even to the point that Tang Haoran can't ignore it.

"Every good year, it is normal for the grain to hurt the peasants, and it is always difficult to avoid ...... in all dynasties."

As the prime minister, Zhang Zhidong seemed extremely calm when he spoke, because whether it was in the history books or in his decades of experience as an official, it was always common, and it was precisely because of this that he felt extremely calm.

"It's always hard to avoid?"

With a cold snort, Tang Haoran asked rhetorically, in addition to nearly 300 million mu, to be precise, more than 257 million mu of flag land, hidden land, and other "official land" released to tens of millions of people, Tang Haoran chose to ignore the rural problem to a certain extent, and he thought that he still had time to rectify the rural problem -- he could use 20 or even 30 years to completely solve the rural problem through Siberian reclamation and the way cities attract surplus rural labor.

But now, this year's grain and peasants have forced Tang Haoran to choose to face this problem, instead of focusing all his attention on industry.

"What do we have now? Of the 400 million people, only 70 million are in the cities, and 330 million in the countryside, and this is the real and biggest problem! ”

After a slight pause, Tang Haoran continued.

"It seems that the grain is cheap and hurts the peasants, which seems to be a big problem, but what we must see is that the reason why the peasants sell grain is to pay the land tax and land rent to the imperial court, which is also the reason why the grain merchants are trying their best to lower the price -- no one dares to owe the imperial grain and national tax! The problem now is that the reputation of the imperial court is being damaged, and the profiteers ......"

With a cold snort, Tang Haoran turned his head and asked.

"How did we solve it in the Northeast?"

"Your Majesty, in the Northeast back then, it was expropriated in kind."

"Why can't we use in-kind expropriation now?"

"Back to Your Majesty, traffic, the road construction in the interior is far less than the Northeast, and most of the Northeast is dominated by immigration points, its old and new immigration points are staggered, coupled with food subsidies for new immigrants in the countryside and cities, so that the government needs to master a large amount of food, and in the interior is limited by traffic conditions, large-scale physical collection, will bring transportation, storage and other aspects of the problem, according to the original plan, such as the use of the Northeast physical collection, will bring 20% of the cost loss, this loss is undoubtedly unbearable for the government, so it will be changed to cash settlement……”

"Uh......"

Originally, the government was throwing off the burden...... Tang Haoran, who understood the reason, pondered for a moment and said in a deep voice.

"What is the price now? The price of rice in Nanjing is 7 yuan 3, while the lowest price of grain in the countryside is only one piece, the difference between the two is so big, do you think it is reasonable? ”

Originally, Tang Haoran was not aware of the problem of inverting the grain and hurting the peasants, and in fact, he would not mention this matter in the ministers' recitals, which was completely reported in the newspapers.

"Peasants, there are hundreds of millions of peasants in the country, originally, they should be the main force of industrial consumption, but now, because of those profiteers, so that the people are being oppressed, do they really want to force me to implement grain control? I think it's necessary! ”

Although the economic control system still occupies a dominant position in the country, compared with the strict economic control in the northeast in the old days, the interior is undoubtedly relaxed, except for the implementation of control involving transportation, mining and heavy industry and other aspects related to the lifeline of the national economy, the market system is still implemented for light textiles, consumer goods manufacturing, grain, etc., the government does not intervene, at most it is just a guide, but now, the reality that caused profiteers to raise prices on the one hand and lower grain prices on the other hand made Tang Haoran realize, The time had come for him to act.

"Your Majesty, please think twice, after all, ......"

"Think twice...... I've been thinking long enough......"

With a cold smile, Tang Haoran stared at Zhang Zhidong and said.

"After today's meeting, immediately send a telegram to the provincial grain companies, asking them to open up the purchase at a price not lower than 80 percent of last year's local grain price, and since then, this 80 percent grain price is the protective price, and every good year, the grain companies can use this as a protective price to purchase openly, and in addition, the police must inform the people in their jurisdiction of this protective price, so as to prevent them from being deceived by profiteers......

Between the three parties, Tang Haoran made such a decision, which is to learn from the "protective price" of later generations, of course, this is not a complete grain control.

"I hope you understand that the weakness of the empire lies in the countryside, and the foundation of the countryside lies in the peasants. So, now, no matter what, we must think about stabilizing the countryside! (To be continued.) )