At the end of 1865, after the Yuxiang incident, the situation in Hawaii continued to be tense, but this tension was only a small matter for the Chinese Empire or for Britain, France and the United States, and the bigwigs of various countries did not pay much attention to it.

Although Hawaii was important, in the mid-nineteenth century, the general influence of various countries on the archipelago was its relatively rich goods and supply depots to and from the Pacific, and although there was some recognition of its great military strategic value, it was not considered that Hawaii's importance had risen enough to affect national security.

On the whole, for Britain, France and the United States, although they have been watching Hawaii for a long time, this kind of snooping is limited, otherwise, they would not let this Pacific island country survive for hundreds of years, people Spain had to occupy this Pacific archipelago hundreds of years ago, and after Spain, Britain would have annexed it a hundred years ago.

Hawaii's survival to the present day can be said to be due to the fact that countries have not fully recognized the enormous strategic value of the archipelago.

The same is true on the Empire's side, except for Lin Zhe, other Imperial military and political leaders don't know what Hawaii means to the Empire at all, and in the past two months, the Navy has paid attention to the situation in Hawaii, while the Cabinet and the Army have not even been interested in paying attention to the situation in Hawaii.

After the cabinet received the report on the situation in Hawaii, it was directly transferred to the navy, and it was still the same sentence, this is your navy's business, you handle it yourself, and you have not even pulled out excess funds.

The Imperial Navy should pay more attention to it. However, it is also limited.

Send an ironclad to go?

Impossible, ironclads are the foundation of the empire's coastal defense. How could it be sent to Hawaii, thousands of miles away!

Therefore, the Navy only continued to draw warships from the nearby Pacific Fleet stationed in Japan and sent two wooden cruisers over. In addition, there were coal carriers, one transport ship each, to strengthen the Hawaiian task force and deter Britain, the United States, and France.

None of the Imperial military and political leaders paid much attention to Hawaii, let alone the ordinary people, most of whom had never even heard of Hawaii.

I heard it occasionally, but when I heard that Hawaii was more than 8,000 kilometers away from the empire's sea, everyone was stunned, so far away. Isn't it far away?

Therefore, many people do not have much concept of distant Hawaii, and even many people do not understand why the empire sent a fleet to this island nation in the Pacific!

But just because the empire doesn't pay attention doesn't mean the empire doesn't pay attention!

With Lin Zhe here, the empire's attention to Hawaii was not at the beginning, and Shi Yezhi, the minister to the United States, personally went to deal with Hawaii-related affairs, and the imperial navy had already sent four warships and many auxiliary ships to Hawaii, carrying more than 500 marines.

After Shi Yezhi signed the Sino-Xia Friendship Treaty with Kahawaha on behalf of the Empire, Shi Yezhi did not leave Hawaii immediately. Instead, he stayed to deal with the diplomatic representations of Britain, France, and the United States, and at the same time tried to dispel the idea of Britain, France, and the United States trying to resolve the conflict in Hawaii by force.

If the benefits of the empire can be obtained diplomatically, then it is better to avoid war if it can be avoided.

At the time of diplomatic negotiations, the calendar also quietly turned over to 1865. The year 1866 entered the Western calendar.

And at this time of year, the empire enters a major political event at the end of the year, that is, the allocation of the budget.

Due to the implementation of the Western calendar by the Empire. The traditional lunar calendar is a mixed system, based on the traditional lunar calendar. The Western calendar is complementary, and the fiscal year of the empire. Instead of using the Western calendar as a year, the calculation is based on the lunar year as a fiscal year.

The lunar year is about February in the Western calendar, so the month after the New Year's Day in the Western calendar is the time when the empire will budget for the next year.

During this month, the Finance Department will make a revenue budget report, and then formulate a budget for next year's financial expenditure based on this revenue budget.

At this time of year, there is always a competition between the military and the cabinet for incentives because of the amount of military spending, and at the same time, some political conflicts will break out within the military because of the competition for military spending between the navy, the guards, and the army. The Cabinet's own departments, finance, industry and commerce, transportation, education, agriculture and forestry, and other institutions that spend a lot of money will also compete for funds.

Because every year in January of the Western calendar, the upper echelons of the empire will stage a war for funds, and all parties will fight openly and secretly around the financial expenditure of hundreds of millions of yuan.

However, with Lin Zhe personally pressing, and the many times over the years of funding competition have also formed some conventions, so if nothing else, basically the allocation of funds will have a relatively fixed proportion, so this kind of competition can not form political turmoil, at most it is just a rude quarrel at the financial meeting.

On January 8, the first imperial financial meeting of the imperial fiscal year of 1866, dozens of dignitaries from both the military and the government sat together, and the civilian representatives represented by Xue Huan and the military represented by Shi Qingxuan engaged in a fierce battle of lips and tongues.

He shouted in an astonishing voice that he would reduce this year's military budget to less than 25 percent!

You must know that since the reunification of the empire, the empire's military spending has been declining year after year, and last year, military support only accounted for 30 percent of fiscal expenditure, even so, the empire's military spending still maintained a relatively stable growth rate, but the increase was not too large.

However, the 25 percent that Xue Huan shouted cut the military spending by 5 percent at once, which is absolutely unbearable for the military.

Because the Ministry of Finance's 1866 central revenue budget was about 480 million yuan, if the military expenditure was only 25 percent, then the total military expenditure would only be more than 120 million yuan.

However, in the 1865 fiscal year, the central government's revenue budget was 440 million yuan, of which 30 percent was more than 130 million.

A comparison between the two shows that the proportion of military spending has been greatly reduced. What is even more crucial is that the total amount of military spending has decreased, which is absolutely unacceptable to the military.

In the past few years, although the civilian clique has been trying its best to suppress the proportion of military spending. But thanks to the restoration of the empire's agriculture, industry and commerce developed rapidly. The central government's fiscal revenue has maintained a relatively rapid growth rate, especially after 1862, and has basically maintained an annual growth rate of about 10 percent.

Therefore, although the proportion of military spending has been declining continuously, it has been affected by the increase in fiscal revenue, so the total military expenditure has never actually decreased, but has gradually maintained a small increase.

However, now Xue Huan actually said that he would actually cut military spending, which is unacceptable to the military no matter what!

Immediately, the military bigwigs Shi Qingxuan, Xu Yanqing and others took turns to speak. Words are exciting!

Although there have been no large-scale wars in these years, there are hundreds or sometimes more of them who have been martyred on various fronts such as Sino-Russian border conflicts, foreign wars, and banditry every year. in order to be able to safeguard the empire's overseas interests in Vietnam, the Ryukyus, and Japan.

In this case, the pressure on the naval and land armies continues to increase every year, and if they can't maintain enough military spending, then how can the imperial soldiers defend their homes and defend the country. How to protect the foundation of the empire?

Is it difficult to let the army officers and men hold burning sticks, and the navy officers and men stand on wooden sampans and fight for life and death with the Western barbarians? ”

When Shi Qingxuan spoke, he stood up directly with excitement. The words were full of excitement.

At this time, Xu Yanqing also said: "Now the army is now equipped with new rifles on a large scale. New rear-loading field guns are also being developed, and a large amount of military spending needs to be continuously invested every year in Central Asia, Northeast China and other directions. If there is not enough military support, the northern interests of the empire will be greatly damaged! ”

Admiralty Minister Lin Dabiao also said: "Our navy is building and developing new warships, and we also need to invest a huge amount of money every year to build ironclad ships, and the construction of ports such as Guangzhou and Taipei is also continuing, and the empire is expected to build a large military port in Hawaii, which requires a lot of military spending!" ”

Seeing the military generals talking about how heavy the military's tasks are, how short of money they are, and so on, Guo Longyun, Xue Huan, and Jiang Daoquan, the three bigwigs of the civilian system, glanced at each other.

Now the reaction of the military is all they expected!

During the annual budget allocation, many factions of the civilian system put aside their day-to-day political differences and then took the same side to suppress military spending.

Only when military spending is suppressed can the funds for other areas be increased, and the total amount will be increased, and the cabinet departments will have more room for internal distribution.

A few days ago, when these three bigwigs of the cabinet held an internal meeting, they had already formulated a relevant strategy, and this time they made up their minds to reduce the proportion of military spending to less than 30 percent no matter what.

As for the 25 percent target, they are just paying lip service, and they also know that the military's response will be very strong and impossible to achieve.

Their goal is to keep military spending below 30 percent and strive to reduce it to 28 or even 27 percent.

And once this goal is accomplished this year, with this year's example, if there is no accident such as a large-scale war next year, it is absolutely impossible for military spending to recover to more than 30 percent.

What the civilian officials are fighting for is not day and night, but wants to gradually compress it year by year.

Obviously, the people on the military side are not stupid, and they will naturally know that in the budget allocation in the past few years, military spending has only been reduced, and it is unlikely that there is a possibility of increasing the proportion.

After all, there is not much threat of large-scale war in the empire at present, only a small number of small-scale conflicts, and such small-scale conflicts are the norm, not an unexpected event, and cannot be a reason to increase the proportion of military spending.

Therefore, the military's goal is also very simple, that is, it does not want to increase the proportion of military spending, but at least it must maintain an increase in total military spending, and no matter how bad it is, it cannot reduce the total military spending.

Lin Zhe, who sat on it, like the usual imperial councils, did not speak most of the time, as the emperor of the empire, the ruler of this empire, Lin Zhe was very familiar with this kind of contention between the military and civilian officials.

However, Lin Zhe has always reserved his opinion about the competition for funds, and let the courtiers compete for it on their own.

As an emperor, what he wants to do is to be a judge, not to be a contender.

In 1866, the contradictions between the military and the cabinet were far greater than in previous years, and the high-ranking officials of both sides came and went, one by one, quoting scriptures, and the military said that the threat to the empire was so great that military spending could not be reduced, or even increased.

The civilian officials said that now that the empire is at peace with each other, the huge annual military expenditure has seriously dragged down the economic development of the empire.

Guo Longyun said that because of the large annual military expenditure, the development of industry and commerce in the empire has been greatly hindered, and if the reduced military expenditure is used for economic development, then the economic growth rate of the empire can be increased by at least five percentage points.

With such a big difference between the two sides, it is naturally impossible to reach an agreement in a day or two!

After the first imperial finance meeting, the military and the government held many joint meetings, but although the dispute was still large, it could not be dragged on forever, so after a series of compromises and exchanges.

The military and the government also slowly reached an agreement.

Five days later, at the second Imperial Finance Meeting, although the military and government were still arguing fiercely, an agreement was finally reached.

In fiscal year 1866, 28 percent of the total budget for military expenditures was 480 million, and the total military expenditure was more than 130 million.

Basically the same as the total military expenditure in fiscal year 1864!

However, the Cabinet and the military also reached another agreement, that is, if there is an additional conflict, the Cabinet will pay an additional part of the war expenses, for example, the current situation in Hawaii is tense, the Navy and the United Kingdom, France and the United States around the war around the Hawaii conflict is on the verge of breaking out, once the war breaks out, the Cabinet will timely withdraw war funds to the military.

Despite this promise, the Cabinet got what it wanted, which was to successfully reduce the proportion of military spending to less than 30 percent, and to ensure that military spending would not increase significantly every year and remain at a stable value of 130 million.

After the military and government have completed the contention, they will be divided within the military and the cabinet according to the management, but although the competition for these internal distributions is also fierce, it cannot be compared with the intensity of the military-political contention.

However, just when the financial battle within the empire has not yet completely ended, news came from distant Hawaii that a skirmish broke out between the imperial Hawaiian task force and an American warship, and the Hawaiian conflict escalated again! (To be continued.) )