"Borrowing new debts, filling old holes, and eating grain every year is also a wonder." In the office of Dongfang County, the capital, Zhou Shenwo, the Central Executive Committee, the Minister of Finance, and the Director of the General Administration of Precious Metals, picked up a large seal, "viciously" and covered the end of a document, and then said angrily: "If it weren't for the news of transporting a large amount of silver back from the Far East that stimulated the market, and our government has a relatively high credit over the years, how could it be so easy to raise 2.5 million yuan in the two major markets of Qingdao and West Lake, and it was a ten-year bond?"

The army can do some good things sometimes! This is what Zhou Shenwo thought in the past two days. It's nothing else. The silver from the Far East had just returned to China with the immigrant ship. The ship was loaded with a full 1 million taels of Kuping silver and gold worth 150,000 taels of silver, which suddenly solved the urgent needs of the officials of the Ministry of Finance. This money mainly came from the battle to conquer Huai'an Prefecture in 1658. Qingjiangpu, which was rich and rich, was defeated by the people on the east coast. A large number of gentry, wealthy businessmen, and retired officials had saved many years of property, were looted, and the tax silver on the canal ship,

The tax and silver in the Qingjiangpu Chaoguan and the money collected from many nearby counties (Liao Xiaoyao took a hand when he retreated) were also swept away, and the total amount was extremely scary. People from the Ministry of Finance were even suspected that the Blackwater Development Team and the Southern War Zone Command had seized the tax on the more than 200,000 taels of money originally planned to be distributed to the Shun Army, but the reason was that the Shun Army could not defend Huaian Prefecture, so there was no need to leave any money for them to recruit soldiers, which made the relationship between the two armies extremely tense.

One million and fifty thousand taels of silver in the Qing Dynasty, equivalent to about 1.4183 million East Coast silver dollars, which is a huge amount of money! This money plus the gold coins stored in the Army's First Prison and foreign currency have been nearly 2.4 million yuan. If we count the profits drawn by the Executive Committee from the State Grain Reserve Depot, Nanhai Fisheries Company, Ping An Weaving Factory, Northern Arsenal, East Coast Building Materials Company and other large and medium-sized state-owned enterprises, the money can be increased to up to nearly 3 million yuan.

However, although large state-owned enterprises are the reservoir of national finance, excessive blood draw is obviously undesirable. Therefore, the limit of withdrawing hundreds of thousands of yuan this time is already there. These enterprises may not be able to recover within a few years. Therefore, to survive this debt crisis safely, we still have to think of another way. However, no matter what, the more than one million yuan cash sent back from the Far East is of great significance and has made great contributions to the country's repayment of foreign debts.

"This year, the total principal and interest of the maturing bonds will be paid for more than 420,000 yuan. In addition, the State Administration of Precious Metals will also prepare about 500,000 yuan in cash to pay for the maturing bills, treasury bills, gold exchange vouchers and other bills for redemption. In addition, there is a Southwest Railway bonus paid to Italians, with a subsidy of about 350,000 yuan (parts have been paid last year). Some Italian labor workers who have not yet completed the contract period have been nearly 100,000 yuan. These are all prepared before April, and of course they have been included.

In the fiscal budget..." Zhou Shenwo picked up a cup of matte tea and said while drinking: "But we still have a huge pit to fill this year, and it is not included in the fiscal budget, or the amount is too large, close to our total fiscal revenue in two years, which will directly lead to the government's fiscal bankruptcy. 10 million yuan, I didn't agree to build this railway at the beginning, and some people were very happy and disregarded the reality, forcibly launched the horse without the conditions, overdrawing national strength..."

The tragic Hai Dafu sat in Zhou Shenwo's office again. After seeing his boss pointing at the fingertips and making a big fuss, he became even more restless on the chair. He didn't dare to say anything or pretend not to hear it. Not to mention being too depressed. Fortunately, Zhou Shenwo did not continue to "torture" him, and he quickly said: "Forget it, the Army finally has a little conscience. It was a surprise that he got so much money back in one go. Let the Shipu Coin Institute mints into silver dollars as soon as possible, and prepare to pay it as part of the road purchase after the railway is completed."

Speaking of which, the ******* people are really "not picky about food". The Spanish silver bars, Rials and others collected, Ducat and Gulden of the Netherlands also collected, and the "yuan" minted by the East Coast people even more refused. Because the quality of the "yuan" has not changed for 30 years, it has always been 27 grams of silver and 3 grams of copper, and the currency value is extremely strong. It is many times better than those currencies in the old continent that were extremely unstable due to war. In recent years, it has been widely popular in the Black Sea, White Sea (Aegean Sea), Livornia and some Spanish territories. The **** people are naturally willing to accept these currencies. Since the **** people are willing to accept, the East Coast people are naturally willing to export "yuan" to them. After all, there are huge seigniorage taxes available.

As for the soon-to-be-built Southwest Railway, the people who don’t see the hope of profitability are determined to activate the repurchase clause, which means that the East Coast people have to pay 10 million yuan in cash for the railway, and this clause is mandatory. If the East Coast people do not want to destroy the relationship between the two countries and lose credibility, the money must be paid.

Of course, the money needs to be paid, but how to pay is also negotiable. From last year to this year, the ********** has sent several groups of representatives - this year's representatives even came from Italy, representing multiple consortiums involved in the construction of the railway, including the famous Saint-Georges Bank\/Trade Company - to negotiate with the East Coast people, but the details of the payment of railway funds have not been fully agreed.

The part that the two parties have reached is limited to the general framework of payment, that is, the East Coast people pay a total of 10 million yuan in cash, goods and trade concessions. Among them, the amount of cash has not been fully determined and agreed, but the general scope is between 4 million and 5 million yuan; and the ********** is not rejected by the way of replenishing goods, but the specific type and quantity of goods will be determined by them, and the price will be negotiated by both parties, and the two parties also agreed that the total amount of this item should not exceed 3 million yuan;

The most controversial side should be about the price of the 20-year trade concession in the New Spain market. The East Coast people hope to use this trade concession, that is, allow the ******* people to sell goods from the Old Mainland into the New Spain market. Anyway, the East Coast people can only provide a part of it - sold for three million yuan, but the **** people think it is too expensive and are only willing to pay 2 million yuan for it. The focus of the debate between the two sides is this, and it is estimated that several more rounds of negotiations will be needed to reach an agreement.

But no matter what, the Far East sent back such a large amount of money, which suddenly shortened the funding gap of the Ministry of Finance, so that Zhou Shenwo, who was originally planning to borrow heavily from Bank of La Plata, Bank of Sao Paulo, Bank of Palermo, and Bank of St. George, increased his confidence because this means that the degree of exploitation of people from ******* is greatly reduced - you should know that the annual interest rate required by those guys is 6.5%. With such good financial reputation as the East Coast Republic, this interest rate is really not low - you only need to borrow 1-2 million yuan to solve the problem.

As for the 2.5 million yuan cash they raised from the domestic market issuing bonds (ten-year, annual interest rate of 4.5), in addition to taking out some support for the army to build roads and prepare war materials, the rest of the majority can be slowly invested into the domestic market in two or three years to produce all kinds of goods needed by the ******* to offset the arrears. In this way, the debt crisis caused by the Southwest Railway repurchase can probably be greatly alleviated, and everyone in the Ministry of Finance can also breathe a sigh of relief.

However, what they didn't know was that Baron Angel Bravo, who was rushing from Lima to the Eastern Port, was coming with an important mission as the special envoy of the Kingdom of Spain - well, an extremely expensive mission. Simply put, the Spanish could not withstand the pressure and would probably marry the eldest princess Maria Theresa to Louis XIV, and this was always what the French insisted on, otherwise it would be a war. The Spanish local army could not even defeat Portugal, let alone deal with the powerful French army. Therefore, even if Austria, the East Coast, **** and other countries "dissuaded" by many parties, after the French army conquered Russillon, Celdani, Artúva, the Principality of Liège and some areas of Luxembourg, the Spaniards could no longer hold on and in principle agreed to the marriage between Princess Theresa and Louis XIV.

The French proposed a dowry of 500,000 Jin Eju as in history (including war reparations). As the French Bourbon royal family gave up compensation for the Spanish throne, the Spanish agreed to this request without any help. After all, this is not an exaggeration for the eldest princess to get married, especially considering that Spain did not pay war reparations to France, this clause can be called loose.

However, 500,000 gold coins, this is not a small amount, because it is priced in gold, not the Turliver whose currency has dropped sharply because of the war. The 500,000 gold coins, worth no less than 15 million East Coast silver dollars (even maybe close to 16 million), can be called a huge sum, which is much more than the total number of gold and silver bars that the Spaniards got back from the New World in a year. No wonder the Spanish Kingdom has never been able to pay the dowry in history, which has made the French count

Ten years later, using this as an excuse to make demands on the Spanish throne, and then the Spanish throne succession war broke out. The amount of money was too large. The Spanish Kingdom was squandering too much, and the finances were like a big funnel, and it was quite tragic to think about it - but this is all for the future. What the people of the East Coast should worry about now is to overcome the current financial difficulties, especially when the Joint General Staff was about to move and were about to send troops to Brazil.

"Forget it, forgot, at this time, it's not interesting to talk about these old sesame and corn." After drinking tea for a while, Zhou Shenwo said happily: "The bastards in the army are so vigorously in the north. Although they verbally said they don't need central support, how could our finance department not pay a penny for this? In the worst case, they have to pay back the bad debts they had on credit in the national grain reserve warehouse, Dafeng Food Factory, Nanhai Fisheries Company, Canned Food Factory and local state-owned meat plants, otherwise they wouldn't be able to poke their backbone and say strange words. It's really boring."

"Well, Director Hai, this month, you can go to Dingjunshan and see how the situation is there. Don't let the army's gangs cheat me." Zhou Shenwo took out a list from the drawer, signed a few transactions, and handed it to Hai Dafu, saying: "I know the 2.5 million yuan of funds obtained from the domestic bond market this time. The process is difficult. This is endorsement with the credibility of the government, and it cannot be overdrawn. Well, after reading the evaluation report submitted to me below, I initially planned to use 500,000 yuan of funds as preliminary preparation costs for war, such as the raising and procurement costs of materials.

Use the cost of personnel transfer and resettlement, railway construction costs (most of the costs have been digested by the State Railway Administration and the Army Department), etc. This is the biggest effort we can do. The remaining two million funds seem to be quite large, but once they are invested in the war, they may spend them for you in less than a year. Besides, this money cannot be spent randomly, and it has to be paid to domestic enterprises on orders to repay part of the railway repurchase funds. Maybe in the end, the money is not enough, and we have to find a way to add a part. Alas, there are holes everywhere, this family is really hard to be used..."

Speaking of which, since the military operation against Brazil was decided, the Army Department and the State Railway Administration, which was deeply influenced by it, have really spent their energy. The State Railway Administration found a lot of railway equipment to credit, while the Army Department tried every means to transport slaves to the railway construction site - it was really used as slaves, rather than the "gentle" usage of labor workers in the past. Not only did they not have a penny of wages, but their working hours and work intensity were greatly enhanced, so that a large number of Crandi, Guarani, and Sakarava died on the construction site, and even Poland and Lithuanian contract slaves died. The only better situation was probably those hired workers from Italy and Russia, but they were also limited.

These slaves have resisted, but the three regiment supervisors formed by the Qing army prisoners were also ordered to die. They were fully armed and stared at these pitiful slave workers. Once there was any abnormal movement, they would mercilessly come forward to suppress them to ensure the completion of the construction period. This move naturally caused a large amount of consumption by railway construction workers, but their superiors did not use this to assess them. On the contrary, they just wanted to know how fast the railway construction progress was, so what else to be afraid of?

After spending so much effort, the progress of the Northern Railway is really surprising. As of this month (March), the 65-kilometer journey of Liuding Line has been completed two or three months ahead of schedule. Now the railway construction army has begun to move to the Diankha Line (about 34 kilometers), the Khasheng Line (about 58 kilometers), etc. The foundations of these two places have been flattened a lot, and some sections have the conditions to lay railway tracks. It can be said that the progress is also quite fast. If the Ministry of Army and the State Railway Administration were not both short of funds and could not purchase enough railway equipment for the time being - a very embarrassing thing - these sections would probably have started laying railway tracks. Once the financial system allocates some funds and disposes the accounts they owe to the Western Forging Factory, then this section of railway can immediately enter the full-speed construction state, which will be self-evident.

"Okay, Minister Zhou, I will take time as soon as possible to go to the north in the past two days and report the actual situation." Hai Dafu nodded immediately after hearing this. After pausing, he remembered another thing and said, "By the way, Minister Zhou. Someone told me two days ago that the amount of movable property tax owed by various counties is huge, and it has accumulated over the years and has exceeded 2 million yuan. Moreover, the public has complained about these two tax types.

There are many problems and need to be cancelled urgently. Of course, I know that these two taxes are the main taxes of the national finance and cannot be cancelled, but this matter is not a solution after all. I thought about it, can we ask the Army Department to think of a solution? They have a very good way in the private sector, especially in the countryside. Many things that our government cannot do can be done indirectly through grassroots influence. This levy of arrears can mostly be accomplished. Do you think..."

"Okay, Hai Dafu, your idea is worth a try." Zhou Shenwo felt that this method was good after hearing this, so he immediately agreed: "You will go to the Director of the Taxation Bureau in a while and ask him to coordinate with the Army Department with you. We don't want more than 2 million tax arrears, late fees, interest, etc., and it's thankful to take back the tax principal. The Army Department has a high prestige at the grassroots level and usually cherishes feathers, which will make them a bad person. Hehe, the people who collect tax arrears are the most annoying. Even if there is any chaos, their army will naturally hold on to the situation and will not let them work in vain. Hai Dafu, you will tell them clearly that if you collect the tax arrears, they will give them a million to return it to their country and treat it as a strong support for the army to expand its territory."

In fact, the collection of movable property tax and real estate tax has become a chronic disease at the grassroots level. It is collected every year and there are a large amount of arrears every year. The main reason is that the tax amount of these taxes is difficult to estimate, and the upper part can only be distributed layer by layer. Once it is distributed to the countryside, village cadres and tax collectors often collude with each other and do not assign taxes according to the actual situation, which makes many people feel unfair, and then disputes and even refuse to pay taxes. This situation occurs especially in villages and towns where new and old citizens live together. Old citizens often form tacit understanding and transfer the tax burden to the new citizens as much as possible, which leads to many problems (seriously, even caused local ****, but was quickly suppressed), which in turn affects the collection of movable property tax and real estate tax.
Chapter completed!