The "Official Street" outside the Yongding Gate in Beijing, the "Kaihong Hotel" close to the compound of the Ministry of Communications, the main entrance of the archway style of five or six floors is covered with shiny royal blue glazed tiles, which is eye-catching from a distance. This covers an area of 780,000 square meters, surrounded by gardens and flowing water, full of Chinese style and elegant style of the government-run high-end hotel was originally a place to receive Chinese and foreign dignitaries and local dignitaries, shortly after the empire entered the war, the two sides of the cement pillars painted vermilion below the archway, respectively, hung the "Ministry of Quartermasters" and "Economic Committee" two white ink plaques, since then this has become the empire's wartime economic organs are located.

The "Qingyi Pavilion" in the center of the hotel compound is a two-storey small wooden building surrounded by the weeping willows of the Qingchi rockery, compared with other buildings in the courtyard that carved the eaves and painted buildings are extremely exquisite, at first glance it even looks a little simple: all the wooden structures are not deliberately carved, not even painted, only a few layers of tung oil are painted, the texture of the log is clearly visible, the tiles covered by the roof are the most common but the coarse tiles of the earth, only the guards around the small building are arranged tightly with guns and ammunition, only the secret here is revealed.

In a hall on the second floor facing the ice pond Lingliu, the current owner of this compound, Qirui Hou Mafeng, was looking at the snow from the railing, and slowly spoke in a consistently elegant and calm tone.

“…… The indemnity of the Treaty of Shimonoseki plus the ransom fee was only 230 million taels of silver. The Xinchou Treaty has a fixed indemnity of 450 million taels of silver, which will be repaid in 39 years, with a total of 980 million taels of principal and interest, which seems amazing, right? ”

"But do you know how much interest we have paid on so many foreign debts in the past 25 years? After the First Sino-Japanese War, the net balance of foreign debt was only 450 million pounds, and after the Asian-Russian War, it broke through the 500 million pound mark, and before the war, it rolled to almost 1 billion pounds, and at an average annual interest rate of 50 percent, it would cost 50 million pounds a year just to pay interest, which was almost one-seventh of the empire's fiscal revenue in 1913, 300 million and 400 million taels of silver at the silver price in 1894, and 375 million taels at the 1906 price - almost equal to the total budget expenditure of the Qing government in 1911 at that time and space. It is important to know that the budget deficit that year reached a new record of 84.39 million taels since the Qing Dynasty. ”

"Four hundred million, the cumulative interest paid in twenty-five years exceeds four hundred million pounds, or three hundred thousand taels of silver at 1906 rates, which is six times the total revenue of the empire in 1902, and almost ten times the profits of all British investments in India in 1910. What do you think? Does it sound a bit like a fantasy that the great powers earned more interest income from borrowing on debt in the rising Chinese empire than they did on the indevastation of the decaying Manchu dynasty through aggression? On the other hand, one Shimonoseki treaty a year, one Xinchou treaty every three years, we still held on, and we rushed out to fight the world war, isn't it very nonsense? ”

One of the listeners who drank tea around the table in the room, Yang Yuxiang, who was dressed in a dark uniform skirt with tights and high heels, and was full of charm and charm, commented with a smile: "Qi Ruihou said that it is a joke, borrowing money to run an industry, supporting a business with a business, enriching the country and strengthening the army, and unilaterally scraping the ground and paying compensation. ”

Fang Tianhua, who was dressed in a suit and leather shoes, gently twisted the lid of the tea bowl with one hand, and flicked his fingertips on the square table of the log with the other: "Is it possible to understand it in this way, everything in this world is interrelated, on the one hand, we are strong and strong, no one can bully us, and we don't have to bear the indemnities in history." However, in order to develop, and even more in order to compete for hegemony, it borrowed more foreign debts than it did in history, and paid huge amounts of interest more than the indemnity. If you are backward, you will be beaten, that is, you will be robbed with guns; Development requires borrowing and introducing foreign capital, but it is robbed by people with capital. At the end of the day, they all have to make money, not as some people say, when we develop, they decline, and when we make money, they have to die. ”

Ma Feng turned around and nodded, shook his head again, and walked back to the table: "It's not so absolute, after all, our own industry has developed, and the profits made by foreigners from manufactured products in that time and space have finally been fought for." According to the rough statistics of scholars of the Republic of China in the 1920s, from the second year of Guangxu in 1875 to the ninth year of the Republic of China, that is, in 1920, the foreign trade inflow in the 45th year exceeded 3.2 billion taels of silver, of which industrial products accounted for about 65 percent of the imported goods, which means that due to the sluggish industry in China at that time, as much as 2.1 billion taels of silver flowed out to foreign countries in less than half a century, far exceeding the total amount of foreign indemnities before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and equivalent to twice the total amount of China's total foreign debt in the fifth year of the Republic of China, that is, in 1916. ”

"It's shocking." Fang Tianhua lowered his eyebrows and sighed.

Ma Feng sat down, twisted the tray with one hand, and uncovered the lid of the tea bowl with white glaze with the other hand, leaned close to his mouth and "hissed", and gently put the tray back with both hands, and then continued unhurriedly: "Before the Asian-Russian War, we also imported a large number of manufactured products, in addition to some daily necessities, mainly the introduction of rails, locomotives, steamboats and other transportation-related equipment, steam engines, internal combustion engines, generators, electric motors and other power-related equipment, as for complete sets of metallurgy, machinery, machinery equipment, Including the most critical machine tools, not to mention......"

"These large things are very expensive, at the beginning of the operation often can not compete with foreigners, the products are much more expensive than imports, and in the later stage because of too much debt, have to mortgage part of the tariffs, the most important shield of tariffs often does not play a role. Therefore, it is usually necessary to give a privileged monopoly position, plus government subsidies, to maintain. ”

"At the beginning, the main thing that made money was the daily necessities of the public, such as matches, cigarettes, candles, soap, Western medicine, electric lights, cement, small hardware, woven fabrics, and machine-ground flour.

"The small and medium-sized landlords who were forced by the land reform are accustomed to making a living by renting land, and it was not too reluctant for them to specialize in business and sell goods, but it is not so easy for them to change to industry. In this way, the government has to take the lead, build a few demonstration factories, the formula process is not a problem, the patent is shared by our future people group - it is also considered a country, we Chinese use it ourselves, and the patent fee is easy to say. It doesn't matter if the imported machine is expensive or not, the scientific management method of Taylor is popularized, coupled with our early labor cost advantage, the efficiency will come out, and the cost performance of the product will go up like a rocket. In the first few years, these demonstration factories read the book on the fastest shareholders are crazy, this leading effect came out, and all directions also rushed to learn from experience, within a few years, the use of the same patents, similar operating models of all kinds of factories have sprung up all over the country. ”

"Of course, if things are done well, they can't prevent foreigners from stealing from learning, and most of them are private companies all over the country, so they can't prevent it. No way, steal it, learn it, you can steal the formula process, you can learn from the management method, but is your manpower as cheap as mine? The per capita cultivated land here is more than 3 acres, and the peasants account for more than 80 percent of the total population. Our Chinese peasants have one of the best endurance in the world, accustomed to famine and famine, accustomed to knocking out bones and sucking the marrow, and foreigners seem to be no different from the hard work of being slaves, but we can Chinese be able to make a decent living...... Well, it may be a bit harsh to say this, but the fact is that China has the cheapest manpower, so under the same conditions, we can make the cheapest products. Taking a step back, even if the conditions are a little worse, we can make up for the other gaps with cheap manpower. ”