The voyage from Sanya Port on Hainan Island to several major ports in the South Seas is more than 1,000 nautical miles, and the voyage between Batavia and Batavia has even exceeded 1,500 nautical miles. This is also one of the reasons why some Daming maritime merchants did not dare to open up trade routes in the South China Sea without authorization, although they coveted the huge profits of ocean trade.

However, Haihan's medium- and long-term strategy was to enclose the entire South China Sea under its own name as its own territory, and to use this as a basis to achieve a monopoly on maritime trade between the East and the West. In order to achieve this long-term vision, controlling the main shipping lanes from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean is a necessary means. A Manchurian and a Batavia are both battlegrounds for the future, and of course, a strong navy must be used to conquer such distant targets.

Although the strength of the militia navy is now one of the best in the South China Sea, the scope of its activities is still very limited, and it does not have enough ability to swing its forces south to compete with the old maritime power Netherlands for ports in the South Seas. This is clear not only to the generals of the military, but also to people in other departments. At the beginning, the Executive Committee was anxious to obtain the land and development rights of the four southern ports from the Imperial Court of Annam, and it was precisely in preparation for the future layout in the direction of the South China Sea.

What Yan Chujie wanted to emphasize was the important role that the navy would play in the southward expansion of Haihan's layout, as well as the scale and necessity of fleet expansion required to accomplish these tasks. Linking the expansion of the navy to the overall strategic planning of the Haihan makes it difficult for others to oppose the military's budget proposal.

However, having said that, Yan Chujie's report did not exaggerate too much, the current scale of the militia navy is indeed unable to support the executive committee's strategic intention of expanding southward, and if the simultaneous expansion of commerce and military is to be realized, then the expansion of the navy is indeed a measure that must be implemented immediately. In fact, considering the shipbuilding cycle, the time for the next batch of warships to enter the list will definitely lag behind the expansion of trade routes, so Yan Chujie knew that proposing such a budget would be met with fierce opposition, but he still insisted on his opinion.

Yan Chujie put forward his reasons from a professional point of view, and it is indeed too difficult for opponents to refute him in this field. Tao Donglai saw that Gu Kai and Ning Qi were dumbfounded, so he asked, "Do other people have any additional opinions on the military's budget?"

"I would like to say a few words on behalf of the Ministry of Shipping. Yue Zhiyun raised his hand and said, "Everyone, the cost of building and using steam-powered sailing ships is still very high, but this is indeed the future development direction of shipbuilding technology." All kinds of technologies that are ahead of the times need to be applied in the military field before they are gradually popularized in the civilian field, not only for warships, but also for our merchant ships to use more advanced power systems sooner or later. The current high cost is mainly due to our limited production capacity, and for our current situation, mass construction is the most effective way to reduce costs, and I am sure my colleagues in the Ministry of Industry will agree with me. Military spending aside, on the matter of shipbuilding programs alone, our Ministry of Shipping is very much in favor of the military's proposal. ”

Xiao Yue does have a point. Bai Kesi, who represented the Ministry of Industry, took over the conversation and said: "Before we produced the steam engine for the navy, we made a prototype and two mass production models, and then stopped work, but we have been preparing for this for more than a year, and the equipment, personnel, and site are all prepared for this steam engine. Everyone thinks that the cost of new warships is high, so can the cost of building one in the east and one in the west not be high?"

The Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Industry successively expressed their attitude in support of the military's naval expansion plan, which silenced the opponents. In the end, although the Navy did not get the amount of the military budget requested, it still increased by 80% on the basis of this year, which can be regarded as a victory.

This controversy is only one part of the agenda of the budget and final accounts meeting at the end of the year. In fact, with the rapid acceleration of Haihan's expansion, various departments are demanding to increase their budgets and expand their departmental establishments. Representatives of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education, who have spoken out against the military, also need higher budgets to function. As far as the overall situation of Haihan is concerned, the land and population obtained by the rapid expansion in the past one or two years have not been fully converted into economic gains, and there have been almost no war dividends in the past year.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if the budgets of the various departments can be approved, then we have only one way to go, and that is to go bankrupt immediately!" Schneider had to give a brief explanation of the current situation to those present: "According to the number I have recorded at the meeting in the past two days, and comparing the budgets proposed by the various departments with this year's fiscal revenues, we will probably have ...... $2.7 million deficit. This means that unless our income rises by more than 2.7 million next year, we will not be able to make ends meet in the following year, and we are likely to be in trouble due to the problem of capital turnover. ”

"What is the Treasury Department's projected revenue for the next year?" someone asked very perceptively.

"Our conservative estimate is to maintain this year's level, as we all know, our fiscal revenue mainly comes from foreign trade, because it is impossible to predict how much impact the Qiongbei region will have on our foreign trade, and the investment in Qiongbei may not stay on the budget figures proposed now, and the deficit may further increase. Schneider did not give detailed figures, but walked around very tactfully: "But I can now be sure that if there is no particularly big breakthrough in foreign trade, then the fiscal deficit will be inevitable!"

Since the crossing, the biggest factor hindering the development of Haihan has always been manpower, if it can have abundant human resources, the development speed of Haihan can be at least half a year faster than now. Relying on cheap industrial products produced by various advanced means, as well as a centralized financial system, Haihan has amassed wealth at the fastest speed of its time. In the past few years, finance has not been a problem that plagues the development of Haihan, but with the acceleration of expansion, Haihan has to face new problems in an endless stream, the fundamental way to solve these problems is money, and now the speed of making money has been a little unable to keep up with the rhythm of spending.

"I know that you will probably ask me what the solution is, in fact, there must be a solution, to put it bluntly, it is nothing more than four words, open source! throttle!" Schneider said unhurriedly: "From the point of view of increasing income, we must increase the scale of foreign trade, and the only obstacle to this road is manpower, in the face of the Ming market, our production capacity is far from enough." Increasing fiscal revenue is a predictable goal, but to some extent it will be affected by the speed and scale of immigration from outside the island in the coming year. Of course, if there are other ways to make quick money, such as starting a local war that ensures considerable returns, I personally have no objection to a more radical approach. ”

"As for the ...... of throttling," Schneider glanced at the people present and said slowly: "I believe that the budget submitted by you is the result of repeated deliberation and calculation, but considering our financial situation, we will eventually reduce and cut some items that are not so necessary, I hope you can understand." ”

"Can't we raise some of the funds through other means, such as selling bonds?"

"It is theoretically possible to offer bonds, but we have to take into account the actual situation. Schneider explains: "If we were to sell bonds, we would be telling the outside world that we don't have enough money." It took us a lot of time and effort to get the outside world to accept our financial system, so that the merchants of the Ming Dynasty were willing to keep their gold and silver in our banks, but these people did not necessarily understand the actual meaning of bonds, and once they felt that their money was at risk, then our banks could face a run. To put it simply, our current financial credit is not enough to support the sale of bonds, and perhaps this situation will gradually change after the establishment of our regime, and when the naturalized people under our rule have a real sense of belonging, we can try to slowly issue government bonds internally. In short, to use this method, it will take some time to wait for the external conditions to mature. ”

Among these people here, Schneider is the only real financial expert, so this kind of problem is basically his personal final word. It is difficult for others to engage in an in-depth debate with him in such a professional field, even if they want to question it, just as no one can refute the CMC gang in the military field with lip service.

The results of the meeting were not satisfactory, and with the exception of a few departments, most department heads did not leave the conference room with a very good look.

Yan Chujie was undoubtedly one of the final victors of the meeting, and although the final approved budget did not meet the level the military expected, the military should have received one of the largest budget increases compared to other departments. In addition to the immediate resumption of construction of a third Majestic-class battleship, the military will also place a major order with the Port Victory shipyard to build at least three more Majestic-class warships, as well as one Explorer-class and Explorer-class warships in the current standard fleet configuration. The total tonnage of this order will be close to 10,000 tons, and the shipyard will definitely be busy in the coming year.

Yan Chujie had just arrived at the gate of Victory Fort, and before he could get into his special carriage, someone stopped him from behind. Yan Chujie looked back, this can be regarded as one of the winners of today's meeting, Hao Wanqing, vice minister of the Ministry of Security.

"If Mr. Yan is not in a hurry, can you have a few words?" Hao Wanqing came up and shook hands with Yan Chujie, and then said concisely: "There are some work matters, I want to discuss with Mr. Yan." ”

"Okay, no problem, go to me or you?" Yan Chujie said very generously.

"It's time for dinner, let's find a place to eat and chat!" Hao Wanqing made a gesture of please: "I'll do the east!"

The restaurant Hao Wanqing is looking for is in the Shengli Port Business District, but Yan Chujie is the first time to come to eat here. The dishes on this table are not very rich, they are basically home-cooked things, but the taste is very good, Yan Chujie couldn't help but praise after a few bites: "The chefs here have good skills! Why haven't I heard of this before?"

"It's only been open for half a month, and the chef is an apprentice brought out by Fan Wei, and his skills are definitely not bad. Hao Wanqing pointed to the outside of the room and said: "Don't look at the small courtyard and few rooms, and the decoration is not as luxurious as the restaurants on the street, but this business is good, and you have to queue up to make an appointment when you eat here at night." ”

"This is the way to take high-end private dishes, it's good......" Yan Chujie put down his chopsticks, stared at Hao Wanqing and said, "This place is also from your security department, right?"

Hao Wanqing smiled noncommittally: "Sometimes we need to meet some people outside, so we have to find a suitable place in advance, and we can't pull people to the security department every time." ”

Yan Chujie nodded and said, "Your place is indeed a bit cautious, and it feels like you are going to be arraigned, and you can't talk well...... Let's get down to business, I know you're also a busy person, so you don't have to go around in circles. ”

Hao Wanqing said: "Mr. Yan is so refreshing, then I will get straight to the point." At today's meeting, I heard President Yan say that one of the purposes of the military's fleet expansion is to expand the scope of activities on the sea to the south.

"Yes, that's exactly what we do. Yan Chujie nodded and said: "This step has to be taken sooner or later, the sooner you start to prepare, the sooner you can reap the results." And it's not just our military that wants to do this, as you can see, the Ministry of Shipping and the Ministry of Commerce are on our side. ”

"After all, the stakes are at stake, understandable. Hao Wanqing responded: "Then I want to take the liberty of asking, what are the specific plans of the military for Nanyang?"

"What do you want to know?" Yan Chujie did not answer his question, but asked rhetorically. Although the authority of the Ministry of Security is very large, it is only outside the military system, and when it comes to military secrets, Yan Chujie can completely not sell face to the Ministry of Security.

"Mr. Yan, don't get me wrong, my purpose in asking this question is not to probe the military's secrets, I just want to understand it from the side and see if there is any possibility for our two departments to cooperate in Nanyang. Sensing Yan Chujie's vigilance, Hao Wanqing immediately explained.