On the first day of December, Zhao Dongyun, who had just arrived in Shenyang, convened a defense meeting of the three eastern provinces and determined the future defense arrangements for the three eastern provinces and the subsequent plans for army reorganization and expansion.

The general staff of the headquarters optimistically expects that within the next six months, the existing part will be fully manned, and the total field strength of the Soviet Union will reach 73,000, including more than 8,000 cavalry units, more than 200 75-mm barreled artillery, more than 500 mortars of various calibers, nearly 400 heavy machine guns, and more than 600 light machine guns.

In addition, there will be a patrol force with twelve regiments.

The military has even proposed to train an infantry division in the second half of next year, that is, after the existing units are fully equipped.

And this series of reorganization and expansion will cost money!

At the financial meeting, Zhao Dongping, chief of the ordnance department, who is in charge of the army's military expenditures, put forward a demand for 12 million silver next year, and at the same time indicated that this is the minimum requirement, and if there is a need to expand another division in the second half of the year, it will have to spend about 3 million taels of additional military expenditure.

In fact, this military expenditure is not weaker than the military expenditure of the seven towns in Yuan Shikai's era, and Yuan Shikai used to invest only more than 1,000 yuan in the army every year.

Many of the reasons for the high military expenditure of the Feng army in Chengdu were due to the fact that the expansion of the army required the purchase of a large amount of ordnance, and at the same time the hoarding of a large number of shells and ammunition in preparation for war.

In the face of such a huge pressure on military spending, Zhao Dongyun convened a three-day financial meeting to discuss the financial situation in 1907, and the core issue was one, that is, how to get enough money to support the army next year.

At the next day's meeting, Xiong Xiling of the Finance Bureau put forward a budget plan for the 1907 year, and the expenditure in the plan was very simple: the army and the patrol police accounted for the lion's share of the military expenditure, followed by the administrative expenses inside and outside the customs of the three provinces and one district under the jurisdiction of the three eastern provinces (Fengtian Province, Jilin Province, Heilongjiang Province, and Fengjun-controlled Zhì District in the eastern part of Zhili), including the salaries and office expenses of officials at all levels, civil servants, police, and other government employees. The third is the economic development fund, which includes the funds for land reclamation, transportation construction, and municipal construction, and the fourth is the education fund, which is mainly used to maintain and establish various types of schools and provide government students with foreign students.

There was a mess of other expenses under various names, and the final total was thirty-two million taels of silver!

This is a minimum expenditure, that is, it is based on the fact that the Feng army does not break out into large-scale wars with other forces, there are no natural and man-made disasters, and even the army is not expanded.

And what is the corresponding fiscal revenue?

The taxes on agriculture, commerce, salt, and so on add up to about 26 million taels of silver, and the difference between expected income and expenditure is as high as 6 million taels of silver.

The reason for such a huge difference in revenue and expenditure is of course the reason why Zhao Dongyun has maintained a huge military expenditure, but it is also related to the huge financial burden caused by the acceptance of Heilongjiao, Jilin, and the area east of Rehe.

At present, in the three provinces and one district controlled by the Soviet Union, the main contributor to the fiscal revenue is Fengtian Province, and the Tangshan region also has a certain amount of contributions, which can contribute about millions of dollars, although there are few in Jilin, there are about four million a year, and Heilongjiang is a typical financially weak province, and the income in previous years almost relied on the appropriation of the household department and the cooperation funds of the provinces, and now that the Qing Dynasty is finished, these revenues are naturally gone, so Heilongjiang's own contribution to the financial income is only more than one million!

Among the various expenditures of the above provinces in 1907, Heilongjiang and Jilin and Chengde were indispensable!

In other words, the current finances of the three eastern provinces are to use the finances of Tangshan and Fengtian to support the entire Soviet-controlled district!

This creates a huge financial gap!

How were the finances of the three eastern provinces maintained during the Qing Dynasty? Far from it, let's just say that from 1905 to 1906, Heilongjiang and Jilin almost all relied on the appropriations of the Ministry of Household and the cooperation funds of the provinces, even when Zhao Dongyun was the general of Shengjing, he was still cheeky to ask the Ministry of Household and the southern provinces for cooperation funds.

To put it bluntly, except for Mukden and Tangshan, the three eastern provinces in 1906 were all areas that lacked the economic ability to be self-reliant and relied on central funding!

This is also fortunate that Zhao Dongyun has been operating in Fengtian for several years, especially after 1905, Fengtian's economy has shown explosive growth, with an annual income of more than 20 million taels of silver, although this income is not as good as Jiangsu, Guangdong, these financial provinces in China, but it can also be regarded as a financial province in China, otherwise Zhao Dongyun would not be able to get an army of 50,000 or 60,000.

Therefore, from an economic point of view, accepting Jilin, Heilongjiang and even the eastern part of Rehe were all loss-making transactions, and instead of bringing much economic benefit to the Soviet system, they had to spend a lot of money every year to maintain local rule and support local economic development.

However, many issues cannot be considered from a purely economic point of view, and we must not give this place to Wang Yingkai just because maintaining the rule in Rehe and the garrison are trading at a loss, let alone simply giving them to the Russians because the finances of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces cannot make ends meet, and even need subsidies from the Finance Bureau!

With such a deterioration in the financial situation of the three eastern provinces, it is not surprising that Zhao Dongyun summoned many of his civil officials to hold a three-day financial meeting.

During the three-day meeting, the heads of various departments put forward all kinds of suggestions in an attempt to open up sources and reduce expenditures!

For example, Cheng Dequan of Heilongjiang said that more gold in Heilongjiang can increase the development of local gold mines, but this construction will not have any effect in a short period of time, why? It's no secret that there are gold mines in Heilongjiang, especially in Mohe, and this is not the first day of mining, even if the mining efforts are increased, it will not be much more than now, as for finding new gold mines? What if a new gold mine could be found? He had already sent someone to dig for gold, but Zhao Dongyun did not bring a detailed map of China's minerals from later generations, so he couldn't tell the people below with a casual finger on the map: There are gold mines here, and silver mines here!

Compared with the words of Cheng Dequan, the governor of Heilongjiang, the construction of Zhao E, the governor of Jilin, is much more realistic, he said that now the reclamation of Fengtian has been on a scale, and the future reclamation can continue to expand to the north, that is, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, there is a large amount of barren land in these two provinces, as long as there are immigrants willing to come, the local government is even willing to distribute these lands to immigrants for free, of course, the agricultural tax that should be paid can not be less, otherwise the local government will give the resettlement land to what, isn't it an agricultural tax!

Since he took office as General Sheng Jing to set up the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau has set up dozens of reclamation stations in Zhili, Shandong, Henan and even Shanxi to recruit landless peasants to go to the Northeast for reclamation, and this work has not stopped even in the Beiyang Civil War that began in October.

Nowadays, there are more Jilin and Heilongjiang in the Soviet-controlled districts, and it is normal for the reclamation work in these two provinces to be put on the agenda.

However, this move still cannot provide a large amount of revenue for the finances of the three eastern provinces in a short period of time!

The only one that can provide a large amount of cash income in a short period of time can only rely on the issuance of banknotes by Fengtian Bank, as long as the excess issuance of banknotes according to a certain percentage, then it is equivalent to an extra amount of money out of thin air, as long as the credit of the banknotes is maintained, then it can be used to spend all the time!

In addition, the Mint under the Finance Bureau can also contribute a lot of cash income, this Mint produces silver dollars and copper dollars officially issued by Fengtian, which is a very profitable thing, and it can make millions a year.

The mint produces and issues silver dollars and copper dollars, because the front has the word "Feng", and the north side is "a circle", and the local people call it "Fengyang" and "Fengyuan".

Now that the republic is republican, the words 'Fengzao in the 32nd year of Guangxu' on the edge of this silver dollar have been replaced with 'Fengzao in the first year of the republic', but in the eyes of the population, this is still 'Fengyuan'.

This kind of Fengyuan is also the physical currency of the banknotes to be issued, and one yuan banknote is exchanged for one piece of Fengyuan.

In addition to coinage and the issuance of paper money, the Finance Bureau also proposed several other measures, such as following the example of Mukden, and also rectifying agricultural taxes and miscellaneous taxes in Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Tangshan, while Mukden's agricultural tax also needs to be continuously rectified on a large scale.

The purpose of this agricultural tax rectification is not only to rectify taxation and increase fiscal revenue, nor is it just to reduce the burden of various miscellaneous taxes on the peasants' shoulders.

It can even be said that the political significance of this policy is greater than its economic significance!

Of course, this is for Zhao Dongyun, and for the Finance Bureau, the biggest motive for the implementation of agricultural tax and commercial tax rectification in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Tangshan and other regions is to be able to get more tax revenue.

Tax reform, banknote issuance, monetary and financial reforms, support for industry and commerce, reclamation and many other measures are considered long-term plans, and these measures cannot be used to obtain a large amount of funds in a short period of time, especially in the past few months.

The military's reorganization plan is basically concentrated in the first half of the year, especially in the three months from January to March, and a large amount of funds are urgently needed for the purchase of ordnance and for the various expenses required to recruit new soldiers.

Not to mention anything else, now the military owes a butt of money to the Fuyuanji factory, and the previous 600,000 yuan has not been paid, and in the next few months, the Fuyuanji factory will provide more than one million worth of ordnance, if the military does not take out the money, the Fuyuanji factory will have to go bankrupt.

Zhao Chenbin, the chairman of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, personally found Zhao Dongyun's side, Zhao Chenbin did not complain that the military did not give money, he just said: If the Fengtian military does not pay the arrears of goods this month, then they will have no activity funds for the purchase of various raw materials, if it drags on for three months, the Fuyuan Machinery Factory will have to go bankrupt!

If the Fuyuan machine factory is dragged bankrupt, who is most distressed? It was not the shareholders of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but the generals of the Fengtian military, otherwise they would not have gritted their teeth and first took out two million from the small treasury for the purchase of ordnance.

At the same time, it has repeatedly put pressure on the Finance Bureau and even the entire civilian system, asking the government to settle the money for this batch of ordnance, if the remaining two million in the military's small treasury are spent and the government has not raised enough funds, it is estimated that the generals of the military can wield their sabers and kill Xiong Xiling's Finance Bureau.

And when the generals of the military saw that the group of people in the government had held meetings for several days and had no good way to solve this urgent need, they put forward the so-called 'military ticket plan' while shouting slogans such as the government's incompetence and Xiong Xiling's damn

He said that since we have no money, we will print money, not too much, print millions of military tickets, and then send them out as military salaries, and force all sectors of society to recognize and collect these military tickets, and then redeem them one by one when the military has money in the future.

As soon as this military ticket plan was thrown, it was consistently opposed by the civilian system, especially the financial system personnel headed by Xiong Xiling, believing that it would cause irreparable heavy damage to the economy of the three eastern provinces.

Zhao Dongyun is also not very interested in military tickets, as an ambitious warlord, well, no, it should be said that there is an ideal political family, Zhao Dongyun still cares more about his own territory, if he gets a military ticket, it is estimated that the people of the three eastern provinces will have to scold themselves to death.

However, the military ticket plan is not good, this military spending gap, especially the military spending gap in the last two or three months, must be solved, and finally Zhao E proposed a solution.

This solution is very simple, just one word: borrow!