Chapter 262: Lack of Food (Asking for Subscriptions, Monthly Passes, and Miscellaneous !! ）

When Deng sent a report to the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, Chen Feng briefly told Kang Ze what had happened, and heard that the Japanese army had taken the children of senior officers of the Eighth Route Army as hostages, Kang Ze was also dumbfounded when he heard it, and secretly said that this group of Japanese devils was getting more and more unable to get on the stage, and it was a fucking shame to make a fuss about some children.

Soon Deng Ping came back and said: "I just told Mr. Zhu about the matter, and on behalf of the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and the leaders of Yan'an, he thanked Commander Chen and the entire Eighth War Zone for their timely assistance, and hoped that your army would send the rescued children to a safe place as soon as possible." In addition, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army will find a way to rescue those children, as for the outcome, hey, to be honest, we are not very sure! ”

Chen Feng said: "I have already ordered Iron Leopard to send the rescued children to a safe place first, and sent a few special combat team members to Baoding to inquire about where the children are being held and do their best to rescue them." But Lao Kang can only help him in this matter, if you want to talk about intelligence collection, Lao Kang is an expert! ”

Kang Ze thought for a while and said, "Don't worry, I won't leave this matter alone, give me two days, and I will hand over the detailed information to Commander Chen in two days." ”

"Thank you so much, thank you!" Deng Ping said excitedly.

"This matter is over first, I have one more thing to ask you two today, I heard that the price of food in the defense area has risen a lot in the past few days, what is going on?" Chen Feng said.

Kang Ze said, "I'll talk about this matter." Commander Chen should have known about Chahar's lack of food a long time ago. Due to the large-scale Japanese offensive, a large part of Chahar's land missed the cultivation season, and many parts of the province ran out of food from August. However, because the provincial government has implemented a cash-for-work policy, the people can barely have something to eat, and they will not go hungry. ”

"But Commander, you also know that our Chahar is just a remote and poor province, the economy is not developed, and the population is not large, so the taxes collected in a year are very limited, and a total of 32 million oceans of taxes have been collected this year. Eliminate the salaries of government workers. There are still about 27 million left. This year, we started 2,231 projects at the same time, although most of them are schools that do not cost much, but there are still some projects that cost a lot, such as the Suier Railway, Baofa Power Plant, Wuwangou Reservoir, etc. By now, the balance on the books of our provincial government is not much. It's 10 million oceans. In order to hold on for a little longer. After discussing with the old man, we decided to change the salary paid to the workers from 5 catties of fine grain to 10 catties of coarse grain. This caused dissatisfaction among the common people, and the provincial government had no choice but to explain the difficulties faced by the provincial government to the common people. But things didn't settle down. As soon as they heard that the provincial government had run out of money, many people panicked and went to rice stores to buy food. And those profiteers, although they were afraid to raise the price of food too high due to the pressure of our provincial government, still increased it by nearly half. ”

"So that's the case, so does your provincial government have a solution?" Chen Feng asked again.

"It's not that I came to talk to Lao Deng about this matter today, but there is no good way to talk about it, and the best way is to get some more money to implement this cash-for-work policy until next autumn." Kang Ze Dao.

"Well, that's a good idea, but have you calculated how much it will cost?" Chen Feng asked.

"Why haven't I calculated, it's because I've calculated, so I don't think this method will work at all. Our provincial government now has a balance of 10 million oceans, and at the current rate of spending, this 10 million will support 3 months at most, or even less. If you want to support the autumn harvest, even if you count next year's taxes, there is still a shortage of at least 60 million oceans, this hole is too big. Kang Ze replied.

As soon as Kang Ze finished speaking, Deng Ping also said: "The problem is far more than these, I know that the troops under the command of Commander Lu Dao all have a fixed military salary, ordinary soldiers receive 5 oceans per month, and officers receive different military salaries according to different military salaries, although we don't know how many people there are in your army now, but presumably the military salaries needed every month must be a huge amount." Although there is a lot of tax collected this year, the consumption is also very large, and the provincial government has not withheld the military salary for the commander so far, so we have not dared to move the 10 million oceans, and if the military salary is included, I am afraid that the gap will be even greater. ”

According to a report by the logistics department last month, the total amount of military salaries to be paid by the whole army in September was 2.2 million yuan. In addition to the disability allowance and the pension for the families of the soldiers who died in the war, the logistics department spent a total of 4.77 million yuan in September. Fortunately, the troops made a lot of money from Tianjin last time, otherwise they would have fallen into an economic crisis.

"You don't have to worry about the military rank, in the future, all the taxes collected by the provincial government will be used for the construction of the province, and the army will not spend even a single ocean from it. In addition, I will allocate another 100 million oceans to the provincial government, and you must ensure that the lives of the people in the defense area are stable, and as for the reduced salary, if it is changed back, it can even be appropriately increased. Then Chen Feng said to Kang Ze: "Lao Kang, this year's harvest in Jiangnan is good, especially in the Lianghu area, where there is a bumper harvest of grain, I can authorize you to buy grain from these places, how much you will harvest, I think Chairman Jiang should be happy to do this business." ”

"Lao Deng, you immediately issued a ban on alcohol to our defense area, and no one in the defense area is allowed to brew liquor except for factories that produce medical alcohol. If you want to drink alcohol, you can buy it from other regions, and you will not mind spending an extra ocean on a drink. ”

In fact, whether it is Kang Ze or Deng Ping, they all know that Chen Feng is rich, and they know the high price of penicillin, and a box of 30 capsules of amoxicillin is sold for as much as 100 oceans in China, and it is said that it is even more expensive and scary to sell to foreigners. Even if it is provided to the armies of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, it is as high as 15 oceans per box, and there is a limit on the quantity. It can be said that all countries in the world are sending money to Chen Feng now, even if Chen Feng doesn't come to them today, they will go to Chen Feng for a few days. This is how they never thought that as soon as Chen Feng made a move, it was 100 million oceans, which is 100 million, which is equivalent to three years of taxes in Chahar Province.

In fact, they haven't realized the value of penicillin, and when they see that Chen Feng should have made money and made a fortune, penicillin is a cash cow. But in Chen Feng's eyes, penicillin drugs are a powerful weapon to change the world, it is the most reliable economic guarantee for the hundreds of thousands of troops under Chen Feng's command, and it is also the best medical guarantee for Chen.

Last month, he received a total of $285 million, and according to the exchange rate between the dollar and the silver dollar at this time, one dollar is equal to 1.5 silver dollars, and $285 million is equivalent to 427.5 million silver dollars. In addition, according to the agreement between Chen Feng and the United States and the Soviet Union, after the agreement was signed, the United States and the Soviet Union paid Chen Feng a total of 2 billion US dollars in cash at one time, which was a full 3 billion yuan in exchange for Dayang, so Chen Feng did not hesitate to take out 100 million Dayang to support the Chahar Provincial Government to continue the cash-for-work plan.

Sure enough, Lao Chiang was very interested in the trade of grain for the ocean, because the strength of the Japanese army exceeded Lao Chiang's expectations, and now the rich coastal areas have all been occupied by the Japanese, and the taxes of the Nationalist Government have shrunk by nearly half, but because of the war with the Japanese, the Nationalist Government's military expenditure has increased by about 10 times during the same period, and it can be said that the Nationalist Government's finances have tended to be on the verge of collapse.

Fortunately, a large number of citizens bought the treasury bonds sold by the Nationalist Government, otherwise the economic capacity of the Nationalist Government at this time would not have been able to support the war.

This year, there has been a bumper grain harvest in the two lakes area, as well as a bumper harvest of rice in Yunnan and Guangxi, and a mountain of rice and sweet potatoes on the Chengdu Plain. If all this grain can be exchanged for the ocean, it will certainly be a great good thing for the national government.

Lao Jiang attached great importance to this transaction, and under his facilitation, a special grain transportation line from Chengdu to the Eighth War Zone through Shaanxi was soon determined. Originally, Lao Chiang had some doubts about passing through northern Shaanxi, but after Deng Ping's coordination, Yan'an agreed to the transit of the Nationalist government's convoy from northern Shaanxi.

The food crisis is indeed a headache enough, but in the face of Chen Feng's strong economic strength, this crisis was easily resolved by him.

On November 22, a news came from Kangze, in order to prevent the Eighth Route Army from taking risks to rescue the children, the Japanese army actually hid those little guys in the prisoner of war camp in Baoding Mancheng, a total of 33 children, the oldest was 12 years old, the youngest was 3 years old, and the Japanese army specially captured 2 women to take care of these children.

After receiving the news, Chen Feng immediately passed it on to Chen Tiebao, and at the same time ordered Chen Tiebao to rescue these children at all costs.

Soon Chen Tiebao sent a telegram saying that they had arrived in Mancheng County and had also found the prisoner of war camp, but the situation was not optimistic, and they were looking for an opportunity to do so. (To be continued......)