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Chapter 51 Armed Forces to prepare for war

At the end of January, Mu Haoyang submitted a second phase of arms adjustment plan to the State Council through the General Staff and the Ministry of National Defense.

A few days later, Li Mingyang came up with an unquestionable piece of information at a high-level meeting: Japan is stepping up the construction of large warships including four aircraft carriers, eight cruisers, sixteen destroyers, and eight submarines, and arms companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are building several fighter production lines.

At this meeting, Li Pingko persuaded Yi Yuanchao in only half an hour.

To be precise, it shattered Yi Yuanchao's fantasy.

Japan has increased its military construction speed to wartime and is fully expanding its military preparations. China has no reason to continue its original policies.

Subsequently, the high-level meeting passed the "Financial Budget Adjustment Plan" submitted by Li Pingkoo.

After adjustments, the military budget will increase to 1800 billion yuan in the fiscal years 2033 to 2034. Of the 2200 billion yuan increase, 1900 billion yuan will be used for arms procurement, of which 1200 billion yuan will be allocated to the Navy (including the Marine Corps) and 500 billion yuan will be allocated to the Air Force.

This is already the upper limit of the fiscal budget.

In order to increase the military budget of 220 billion yuan, Li Pingko not only used a special budget of 120 billion yuan, but also clearly issued a expenditure reduction plan to various departments. Even the General Office of the State Council, that is, the administrative department that directly serves the Prime Minister, has reduced administrative expenses by 130 million yuan.

Li Pingko set an example, and dozens of ministers had nothing to say.

According to the newly submitted administrative budget, the administrative expenditure of the forty-two central ministries and commissions has been reduced by more than 100 billion.

The problem is that this is still not enough to support all arms projects.

Take the Navy for example. Even if the third batch of Kunlun Mountain class aircraft carriers are not required to be completed before 2035, construction orders for more than 50 large warships must be added, including eight Taiwan class cruisers, eight Kunming class destroyers, sixteen Weihai class frigates, eight Weihe class attack nuclear submarines, and more than ten large landing ships. These warships must be started before the end of June to ensure that they are launched before 2035, complete the installation in 2035, and join the naval combat sequence. This alone, an additional equipment construction cost of 800 billion will be implemented before the end of June 2033. Of the increased naval equipment budget of 1200 billion, at most, only 600 billion yuan can be allocated before the end of June, and other weapons and equipment are also included.

According to Mu Haoyang's estimate, the funding gap for building large warships alone is between 400 billion and 500 billion.

If the third batch of four "Kunlunshan"-class aircraft carriers are also arranged to start construction before the end of June, the construction funding gap for large warships will reach more than 800 billion yuan.

In response to this situation, Li Pingko proposed a second solution: issuing national defense bonds.

Strictly speaking, it should be a war debt, but the war has not yet broken out, so it is called "national defense debt".

According to the report submitted by Li Pingkoo, 1400 billion national defense bonds will be issued before the end of June, of which 1200 billion will be used for private financial enterprises and 200 billion will be used for individuals. The result is far beyond his expectations. By the end of June, the issuance of national defense bonds had exceeded 2800 billion, and there was still a shortage of supply. At that time, only 28 private commercial banks purchased 2400 billion and all submitted additional purchase applications.

To this end, Li Pingkoo, to be precise, Huang Hanlin (on July 1, Li Pingko became the head of state and Huang Hanlin became the prime minister of the State Council) had to adjust the issuance method of national defense bonds, and the third batch, mainly 20 years, began to be issued in July, with a total issuance amount of 1400 billion yuan.

This is mainly to avoid injecting too much liquidity in the short term, which leads to market disorder.

You should know that when private commercial banks subscribe to defense bonds, they do not pay the entire amount in one lump sum, but instead deposit the subscription amount into the State Council’s account in a certain proportion, and then mortgage the defense bonds as assets to obtain more financing from the central bank. In other words, based on the average subscription ratio of 20%, each one yuan of defense bond is issued is equivalent to injecting four yuan of currency into the market. Extending the debt term can reduce the debt financing amount. For example, the financing ratio of 20-year defense bonds is only 60%, which is equivalent to reducing liquidity.

No matter what, by this time, China's preparations for war finally got on the right track.

In addition to internal affairs, war preparations also include diplomacy.

In his last few months as prime minister, Li Pingko visited all friendly countries including North Korea, Pakistan, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries that signed alliance treaties with China, and also made official visits to some major countries with important influence in the Western Pacific region, such as Australia. After officially becoming the head of state, Li Pingko first paid a state visit to the United States.

In order to take the initiative in the diplomatic battlefield, from mid-July, Executive Vice Premier Du Xiaolei, who is specialized in diplomatic work, also embarked on a foreign visit, first visiting influential countries such as Russia, the eight European countries, Canada, Brazil, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

During this period, Japan took tit-for-tat measures, with major national leaders such as the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, and Speaker of the House of Representatives visiting separately.

At this point, the Sino-Japanese confrontation finally developed to the diplomatic level.

As before, Mu Haoyang did not pay attention to the struggle on the diplomatic battlefield. In his opinion, this was just a warm-up activity before the outbreak of the war, or creating an atmosphere for the war.

The real focus is to prepare for war.

Teng Yaohui fulfilled his promise and after becoming the Chief of Staff, he gave Mu Haoyang all the right to make decisions and rarely directly involved in the military work. Mu Haoyang also gave Teng Yaohui the greatest respect, and asked Teng Yaohui for almost all major decisions and submitted work reports every week.

Everyone knows that the focus of arms is on the Navy and the Air Force.

Only by defeating Japan on the marine battlefield and the air battlefield can the Army and the Marine Corps have a place to use it.

Needless to say, the naval planning is, even if Mu Haoyang doesn't care about it, Teng Yaohui will try every means to solve the problem for him and ensure that the navy's shipbuilding work goes smoothly.

That's why in the first half of 2033, Mu Haoyang focused on the Air Force.

In the Air Force's arms project, the j-30 is definitely the top priority.

Initially, Mu Haoyang proposed to produce 400 aircraft before 2035 to replace the main aviation division's j-20 and 200 j-32 aircraft, replacing all j-15bs and four j-25 squadrons in the four carrier-based aviation companies, so as to increase the combat effectiveness of the Air Force and HNA by one level.

Cheng Fei's reply was very direct: it was impossible.

The j-30/j-32 project only entered the engineering stage in 2030, and before 2033, the project test flight was carried out as planned. Even if the test flight progress was accelerated immediately, it would have to wait until the end of 2034 to solve all the problems encountered in the test flight.

At that time, the most serious problem was overweight.

By the beginning of 2033, j-30 had a weight loss task of 750 kilograms, while j-32 had a weight loss task of 1,200 kilograms.

It is definitely not easy to reduce weight to a fighter jet that has completed the basic design.

For this reason, Cheng Fei has long issued a reward rule, that is, for every kilogram of weight loss, the design team can get a bonus of 100,000 yuan, and engineers who make significant contributions can get an additional bonus of 20,000 yuan. There is no doubt that this is a very powerful encouragement policy. If all the weight loss work is completed, more than 500 engineers of the j-30 team can share a bonus of 100 billion yuan, while more than 300 engineers of the j-32 team can share a bonus of 1.5 billion yuan.

The problem is that even so, weight loss work is still very difficult and the progress has been delayed by at least one year.

In response to Mu Haoyang's request, Cheng Fei put forward a suggestion, namely, the Air Force and the Navy lowered tactical indicators.

At that time, this was the only feasible solution.

For example, reducing the maneuvering overload of j-30/j-32 to fifteen g can remove the pilot's load resistance system and reduce it by 300 kilograms at a time. If the later improvement is not considered, the structural strength of the fuselage can be reduced by at least 400 to 500 kilograms.

In this way, the j-30 can complete all project test flights by the end of 2034.

Although the progress of j-32 is a little slower, it is also possible to complete 95% of the engineering test flights by the end of 2034.

After discussing with his mother Qi Tie and Yang Yufang, Mu Haoyang adopted Cheng Fei's suggestion.

However, he also put forward higher requirements, that is, the J-30 must not only complete the project test flight by the end of 2034, but also complete the preparations for mass production, and deliver the first batch of forty-eight mass production models (including 18 small-scale mass production models for test flights) at the latest by the end of January 2035, and deliver twenty-four sets of simulated flight training equipment to the Air Force before the end of September 2034. The Navy's J-32 must also complete the preparations for mass production by the end of 2034, and deliver sixty j-32s from three squadrons at the end of the first quarter of 2035 (including 12 small-scale mass production models for test flights) at the latest, and deliver twelve sets of simulated training equipment by the end of 2034.

At the end of July, Mu Haoyang signed a contract with Cheng Fei on behalf of the military.

In order to motivate Cheng Fei to complete the contract as soon as possible, the reward method is also stipulated in the additional terms, that is, Cheng Fei will receive an additional reward of 1.5 million yuan for every day of completion of the contract. If Cheng Fei can complete the four contracts one month in advance, he will receive an additional reward of 160 million yuan.

It must be admitted that Mu Haoyang is a little stingy.

However, there is also a penalty clause that exists at the same time as the reward clause, that is, Cheng Fei will compensate the military for three million yuan in liquidated damages every day after completing the contract.

Obviously, the punishment clause is more motivating.

The j-30 is the Air Force's main equipment project, but not all.

For the Chinese Air Force, which has completed its role transformation and has changed from defensive to offensive, the j-30 is just the most basic air-control force.

In offensive air force, bombers are the absolute main force.
Chapter completed!