In addition to the lack of professional diplomatic talents, the empire's current foreign relations and overseas interests are also related to the fact that the empire's external contacts are actually very limited.

Since there were no overseas colonies, the only overseas benefits were China's traditional export commodities, especially raw silk, tea, and porcelain, and then there were some exchanges of technical personnel, such as sending people to study abroad, recruiting foreign technicians to work in China, and finally the import of high-tech equipment.

Among these three items, in fact, it does not involve much energy in the empire, the simplest of which is the import of technical equipment, which is not popular now, as long as you can afford it, there is nothing that those foreign capitalists dare not buy, and governments generally do not restrict the export of equipment.

It is not difficult to study abroad and introduce talents, the flow of talents in these years is quite relaxed, and governments will not prevent the empire's enterprises and schools from recruiting talents, as for studying abroad, many countries even welcome it, they don't care how many students you send over, as long as you have the strength and relationship to send these students to the school, you can send them.

Raw silk, tea, porcelain, raw silk and porcelain are simple, these belong to China's special goods, and they are commodities that do not have much competition, and they have always been in short supply in the international market, even if countries raise tariffs, they still have to import.

In the case of tea, in the face of the recent impact of India and other emerging tea producing areas, the growth rate of tea imports from Britain, China's main exporter of tea, to China has decreased, and the growth rate of tea exports in 1860 was only 23 percent, which is far lower than the 35 percent growth rate predicted by the industrial and commercial departments.

But even so. It also has little diplomatic impact because Britain is a free trade country. Except in exceptional circumstances, discriminatory taxes are generally not levied on Chinese tea. The impact on Chinese tea is also due to the low prices in new tea producing areas such as India.

It can be said that at present, apart from the territorial contradictions and disputes between the empire and Britain and Russia, there are quite few international contradictions and conflicts in other aspects, and those diplomats are basically idle, and there is nothing else to do except collect all kinds of public information from the local area and transmit it back to home and abroad.

After all, the earth in the nineteenth century had not yet become a global village, although the ocean-going telegraph had appeared, and the exchange of information was relatively rapid. However, the exchange of goods and personnel is still very difficult, and it takes at least a few months for China to travel back and forth to Europe, so diplomatic exchanges between countries are actually relatively small unless necessary.

At present, the foreign affairs of the empire are mainly concentrated with Britain, followed by France and the United States, and as for Russia, it is purely an armed conflict caused by territorial disputes, and although the two countries also negotiate for three days and two days, it is clear that neither the empire nor Russia intends to give in at the negotiating table. So the current border friction and conflict between the empire and Russia in the northern regions will continue for quite some time.

This time period may be two or three years, or it may be ten or twenty years.

But judging from the reality of the situation, as long as there are no big accidents, then it is impossible for a large-scale war to break out between the two countries. The reason is simple: it is difficult for both sides to gather heavy forces in the areas of territorial conflict, that is, in the Central Asian region west of the Trans-Khingan Mountains and Xinjiang, to defeat the other side completely. The great thing is a large-scale conflict of about 10,000 people, but a large-scale war of tens of thousands or even more than 100,000 people is basically impossible.

In Russia, the Trans-Siberian Railway was built. Or until China completes a railway that extends to the Trans-Khingan Mountains or the northwestern Xinjiang region, the two countries will not be able to break out a large-scale war in these areas.

So you're welcome to say. In a short period of time, the likelihood of a large-scale war between China and Russia in at least a decade is not as great as the likelihood of a large-scale war between China and the United Kingdom.

There are more conflicts between China and Britain, Burma, Hong Kong, Thailand, Tibet and other issues, and then there are trade conflicts, these are the triggering points of the war, if the two sides do not restrain themselves, the slightest carelessness will lead to a large-scale war, and once the war is triggered, it can really be fought, for example, the Chinese army can send troops to Burma, send troops to Hong Kong, and Britain can directly send the navy to blockade China's coastal areas, and even another large-scale sea landing.

However, on the whole, although there are many conflicts between the empire and Russia, Britain and France, there is no possibility of a large-scale war in the near future.

Lin Zhe knew this very well, and this was the main reason why he cut military spending on a large scale in 1860!

In the near future, the external environment of the empire is relatively stable, and the military conflicts in some border areas and the war in Xinjiang will not affect the overall environment within the empire.

Under these circumstances, Lin Zhe was able to devote most of the empire's resources to internal development!

At the Imperial Education Conference in August, the Minister of Education, Jiang Daoquan, once again presented the Imperial Education Development Plan and asked the central government to allocate up to 5 million yuan to support the development of education.

It's just that this time Jiang Daoquan is no longer obsessed with the old concepts of what a hundred years of cultivation people, but learns from other reformers and comes up with a lot of data to support his plan.

Although Jiang Daoquan is a representative of the traditional conservative wing of the empire, there are quite a few conservatives below him who support Jiang Daoquan and oppose many of the empire's radical reform policies, but Jiang Daoquan's conservative does not mean that he is conservative about education.

On the contrary, Jiang Daoquan knew very well that education was his stronghold, and his prestige in the officialdom, and even His Majesty's affirmation of his talent and ability were all based on the development of education.

So in recent years, he has spent a lot of thought in order to develop domestic education!

"Among the graduates of Imperial University who graduated in the first half of this year, many of them have been booked by many institutions and departments and enterprises before they officially graduated, and many companies have stated that the current high-level talents in the empire are too scarce, so they cannot recruit enough talents, and can only hire them from abroad at a great cost!"

"At the same time, I have another report on my hand that in the last two years, several higher schools in the empire have produced students who have played a significant role in the development of industry and commerce!"

As many of the reports collected by Jiang Daoquan were put on display, the cabinet ministers also secretly pondered whether they should support the large-scale expansion plan of the Ministry of Education.

After all, the cost of this expansion plan is too large, the investment in the first year is 5 million, and next year, the year after and after will definitely continue to invest, the total cost will be tens of millions.

However, the central government's funds are limited, and if the Ministry of Education takes so much, other departments will definitely take less.

However, if they do not support the development plan of the Ministry of Education, they are also well aware that the current lack of middle and high-level technical talents in the empire has seriously affected the development of industry and commerce in the empire.

For example, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce wants to engage in industry and commerce, and let enterprises open factories, which can not be opened with money and equipment, you still have to have people, ordinary workers are simple, and they can just recruit farmers for training for a few months, but those technicians are not so easy to solve.

At present, there are three main sources of high-tech talents for the industrial and commercial enterprises of the empire, one is to hire directly from abroad, which is also the most common way for many large enterprises, and the second is to recruit from the imperial university, those graduates of higher secondary schools, these people have a better foundation, and they can basically be used as backbones after studying for a year or two. The third is the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial School, which is co-sponsored by a number of large enterprises in Shanghai, such as Linde Machinery Factory, which not only provides the talents needed by modern enterprises such as accounting and administrative management, but also trains technical personnel, but these technical personnel have limited ability and can only act as intermediate technical personnel at most. What's more, Shanghai Industrial and Commercial School does not recruit students, but belongs to the subordinate schools of several large enterprises, and only trains their employees, and it is impossible for other enterprises to obtain technical talents from here.

Then another university in the empire, Jiangnan University, has been opened, but the first batch of students has not yet graduated!

In general, there is a considerable shortage of technical talents cultivated by the empire at present, and this has caused great difficulties for the current industrial and commercial development of the empire.

According to the Ministry of Education's development plan, in addition to further adjusting and maintaining the existing two-level basic education system of county primary schools and prefectural middle schools, they will further expand the number of higher secondary schools, and strive to increase the number of higher secondary schools in the country to more than 50 by 1865.

At the same time, in order to accept the students of these high schools, the empire will build two new universities, Jiang Daoquan even took the name and location, one is to prepare to set up the Zhili University in Tianjin, and the other is to set up the Nanguang University in Guangzhou, the reason for choosing these two cities is also simple, the two provinces of Zhili and Guangdong tried their best to attract the Ministry of Education to run universities in their jurisdictions, for this reason put forward a lot of local financial support, for example, Guangdong is to promise that if the opening of the Nanguang University, the provincial finance will invest at least 300,000 yuan, The local government of Guangzhou will also support more than 100,000 yuan.

However, only four universities are not enough, and Jiang Daoquan plans to carry out in-depth reform of the existing normal schools, select about five to eight normal schools with relatively large scale and relatively strong teachers, and reform them into higher normal schools, extending the length of study from one year to three years, and students will change from studying only a single subject to studying multiple subjects.

The length of study is one year less than that of a formal university, and the faculty of the normal school itself is better, but it is still far inferior to the formal university, so the school effect is definitely worse.

However, this will greatly alleviate the current problem of too small higher education, and provide more elite talent for the empire in a short period of time.

At the same time, the Ministry of Education also plans to introduce policy and even financial support to allow the private sector to participate in the cause of running schools.

At present, the private education in the empire is mainly focused on preschool education, that is, private schools for enlightenment!

In addition, there are a small number of high schools, such as Fuzhou High School, Suzhou High School, etc., and then there is a special enterprise school, that is, Shanghai Industrial and Commercial School.

Now the Ministry of Education is obviously dissatisfied with this, and the enlightenment education is fine, and the participation of the private sector is quite extensive, but there is much less in higher education. (To be continued.) )