Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1882 Great cause and military expenditure ([-])

"Chairman, this is last year's revised fiscal revenue." In a well-decorated office in the administrative building of the Executive Committee of Dongfang County in the capital, Liao Xiaoyao, chairman of the Executive Committee, was carefully reviewing a report sent by the secretary.

The report is about the state's finances, and it is quite detailed, with more than 20 pages in total.Liao Xiaoyao flipped through it roughly, and then set his sights on page 18, because this page stated the country's revised total income for the latest complete fiscal year (1681-1682 fiscal year): 3083.84 yuan .

"Exceeded the sum of taxation in currency and in kind in the pre-Ming period in mainland China (about 2000-3000 million taels of silver after being converted in kind), and there were 500 million people in the pre-Ming Dynasty, and we counted non-national laborers only [-]. How much, this production efficiency is twenty times that of theirs." Liao Xiaoyao asked the secretary to bring a cup of milk tea, and said with a light smile.

Liao Xiaoyao's tone was full of sighs, but more of a sense of pride: the financial revenue of 3000 million yuan has surpassed France on this planet, and is only inferior to the United Provinces—well, maybe the Mughals of India The income of the emperors of the dynasty may not be lower than that of the East Bank, but let’s put this aside-indeed, they have enough reasons to be proud.

Of course, the 3000 million yuan is just "revised fiscal revenue", not really that the central government has received so much money.This revision means that the sum of the fiscal revenues of the local government and the central government, the funds that can really be controlled by the central government, is actually far less than that, and it only looks like 1500 million yuan.The reason for this is that at the latest General Assembly of the Founders held at the end of last year (1682), a new round of revenue division between the central and local governments was established. Profits are distributed according to shares (some enterprises and local governments also hold shares), and the total tax revenue of more than 1880 million yuan has also been redistributed. In general, the central government and local governments will share [-]/[-]. These measures have greatly strengthened the financial resources of local governments. To encourage them to carry out local construction more effectively, because the efficiency may be higher in this way.

If this calculation is done, the financial revenue of the East Coast government may not be so obvious, because the local governments of the old continent countries also have a lot of messy revenue (many of which are pledged by wealthy businessmen or landlords), and ordinary construction in general does not The central government needs to pay for it. At best, its income is not so stable, and it is not as much as the income of the local governments on the east coast.

However, even the so-called central fiscal revenue of 1500 million yuan is enough to do a lot of things, especially after they get rid of a lot of burdens on education and medical care (the construction and maintenance of primary schools and the coverage of basic medical care will mainly rely on local government investment), and can concentrate on investing in some large projects and projects, such as infrastructure construction, scientific research investment, military expenditure, etc.

"Bring over the documents related to military expenditures from the Joint Chiefs of Staff." After feeling for a while, as if thinking of something, Liao Xiaoyao asked the secretary to bring him a series of reports submitted by the military department a while ago.As the chairman of the executive committee, and also the chief of staff of the national armed forces—the chief of the military’s general staff, this is the first time in the history of the East Bank, and probably the last time, because the civilian group has long been very dissatisfied Now, if he is not the most suitable living traverser, this situation will not happen at all-he has always been very concerned about army building, and he will carefully study every resolution on the navy and army in the past few years, and write his own Views.

After the tone of the tax-sharing system reform was established and officially implemented at the end of last year, many items and departmental expenses that are currently spent by the central government need to be reconsidered, and military expenditure is undoubtedly an important one.From the beginning of this year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began to prepare a series of new budgets, and then submitted them to the executive committee for review.As the highest officer of the military department, Liao Xiaoyao naturally got the report immediately, and even many parts of it were written under his instruction.

"The Navy's voice is very high this time. Lao Sang also greeted me several times, asking for an appropriate increase in the navy's military expenditures. At least the sealed ships must be re-commissioned and the demobilized personnel recruited again. This is only the first time. Let's go." Liao Xiaoyao said helplessly as he brought the milk tea that had been properly cooled in the cup to his mouth.

The "Old Sang" he mentioned just now is called Sang Kai. He is one of the only remaining veterans of the Navy. He is currently serving as the Minister of the Navy. He has always been a staunch "big navy faction". The army has always been worried about the "occupation" and has been competing with the army system for various resources and military expenses in the Ministry for several years. Liao Xiaoyao also has some headaches about it.

This time, with the changes in the European situation and the gradual strengthening of the country's strength, the navy proposed a plan to increase military expenditures. To be honest, it was approved by many founders in the parliament, especially the second generation of young men who were around 40 years old. MPs.Therefore, even if Liao Xiaoyao is the chairman of the executive committee, he has to seriously consider their voice, and intends to actually meet some of the navy's requirements.

According to the new round of "Five-Year Construction Plan" put forward by the Navy, by the end of 1688, the Navy's three major fleets will have 5-6 "Executive Committee"-class three-deck battleships, 24-30 "Jieqi"-class escort gunboats, 50-60 "Star" class light cruisers, in addition to some old ships or logistics supply ships of the "August 90th" class that have not been decommissioned, the total number of ships should be 120-[-] ships, from the number It is close to the naval powers of England, the United Provinces, and France, but the tonnage and quality should be completely exploded.

A navy of this size has close to 500 personnel (including officers and soldiers of domestic coastal defense forts), and the annual maintenance cost alone is just over 350 million yuan, which is very astonishing.Of course, considering the times of peace, it is impossible for the navy to be full-staffed. Like France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, some warships will be sealed up and some personnel will be dismissed (only officers and business backbones will be kept) to save money. The annual cost of 400-[-] million yuan is definitely indispensable, which is still an extremely heavy burden.

This is just the navy, the army also spends a lot!Now the East Coast Army has 12 mixed battalions, 2 independent cavalry battalions, 1 independent field artillery battalion, 1 independent engineering battalion, 2 independent supply companies, plus some other scattered personnel, and the full number is almost 2 The appearance of people up and down.Moreover, the army has been quite ghostly in the past few years. Marshal Mo, who was also the Minister of the Army a few years ago, has been using various incidents to make small moves to fill up the non-full battalions that accounted for more than half of the time. It was strongly protested by the Government Affairs Council, but so far there are still 9 mixed battalions fully staffed, and the annual maintenance cost will be around 250-300 million yuan, which is quite a lot.

Calculated in this way, the navy and army will add up to 700-800 million yuan a year in maintenance costs in the future, accounting for more than half of the central government's fiscal revenue. Anyone who is in charge will carefully weigh it.You must know that although the central government and the local government have reached an agreement to "split the spoils" and dumped the two huge pits of education and medical care, this does not mean that the central government has less places to spend money!Regardless of military expenditures, the amount allocated to the Science Spring Program every year exceeds 60 yuan. Adding in the investment in other scientific research and supporting factory construction, machine design, and personnel training projects, this expenditure will never be less than one million yuan. Yuan.

The investment in scientific research is only one of the huge expenditures of the central government. There is also investment in infrastructure projects that can be called gold-eating behemoths. It is true that the third-class national highway and below are now the responsibility of the local government, but the first-class national highway and some The construction and repair of second-class national highways are undertaken by the central government, not to mention the construction and maintenance of railways and trunk canals (feeder canals are also in charge of local governments). Income is used as a supplement, but it is still far from enough, requiring continuous appropriation from the central government.

Therefore, considering the above factors, it is indeed difficult to make the determination to ask the central government to allocate almost half of its annual income to maintain the salaries, logistics supplies, and daily training of the navy and army.Their ideal situation is to spend 500-600 million yuan a year on military expenditure, supplemented by some spoils subsidies, so that the troops can be maintained without reducing the combat effectiveness too much, but how is this possible, unless the army is willing to accept Disarmament, reducing the number of fully staffed battalions back to what it was more than ten years ago.

"The reason why the navy wants money is very good, and now many congressmen are leaning towards them, so it's hard to handle." After reading the document for a while, Liao Xiaoyao put down his glasses and said with a wry smile: "In this day and age, it's hard to say a word. If it sounds good, who doesn’t link it with overseas trade? When it comes to naval construction, this group of people is a hundred supporters, but when it comes to the army, they all talk about him. In fact, they all want to talk about the country. The benefit is to let a powerful navy help them carry out overseas trade more smoothly."

The secretary smiled wryly when he heard that, and didn't say anything.He knew that his "boss" was from the army, and he had a deep affection for the army. Marshal Mo, the founder of the new army on the east coast, handed over the army to him, so he would take care of the army even more rationally.But the question is, in this era, why does the army compete with the navy for resources?As Chairman Liao himself said just now, among the country's ruling class, which one doesn't have a corner sea trade business?And since most of those in power have been more or less involved in overseas trade, the navy's right to speak will naturally become even greater.In this case, the army has not been completely marginalized, and they are already able to fight effectively.

"Okay, okay, since everyone wants to build a decent navy, then I naturally don't want to ignore everyone's opinions, so let's increase the investment." Liao Xiaoyao poured the milk tea in his cup Drank it all, sighed and said: "The young people today are all ambitious. But this is also good, our previous generation can be regarded as laying the foundation, leaving them with a well-functioning country and a relatively wealthy country. Material foundation. In their generation, it is time to use this country and this material foundation to do something that is beneficial to future generations. Without a relatively powerful navy, it is true that many things cannot be done. I also understand this. I'm not going to stop them, so be it."

"By the way, let the Admiralty Department send someone to come to me tomorrow. These reports are too rough, so send them back to me and rewrite them all. I don't know how much it will cost for so many battleships Well. To think that the report was so badly written for me, it is enough." Liao Xiaoyao picked up the pen and said "gritting his teeth" while writing opinions on several reports.

He knows that if the Navy really completes the so-called "Five-Year Shipbuilding Plan" and has 6 "Executive Committee"-class battleships, 30 "Jieqi"-class frigate gunboats, and 60 "Star" light cruisers (this type of ship) In the Indian Ocean and the Far East, they are still relatively good warships. In the Atlantic Ocean, they can also break diplomatic relations and suppress smuggling, and there is a great demand) and other miscellaneous ships, then the army is bound to be overwhelmed. It is no longer a relationship of equality, but a question of who is dominant and who is subordinate.This kind of cognition will of course make Liao Xiaoyao, the old army, very upset, but there is nothing he can do about it, after all, the general trend cannot be violated!

Of the 6 three-deck warships, the second and third fleets may each get one as their flagship—in fact, Liao Xiaoyao doesn’t like this kind of warship that is too ostentatious because the price/performance ratio is not high enough—the remaining 4 ships will surely Both deployed in the First Fleet. The 30 "Jieqi" class warships are similar to this, and most of them will be assigned to the First Fleet, which will form the backbone of the fleet's battle line and play a mainstay role in sea battles.

In this way, the strength of the First Fleet will be unprecedentedly strong, and if the main force gathers, it can indeed do a lot of things.Even if it encounters the fleets of the three maritime powers of Britain, the Netherlands, and France, as long as it does not use all the power of the country to carry out the main decisive battle, it should not be a big problem, or it is enough to win the battle steadily.

And such a radical construction of the East Coast Navy will probably scare these European guys a lot!Since the war with the Portuguese, they have been very low-key for many years. They have decommissioned some old ships and commissioned some new ones. They even sealed up many warships due to excessive expenditure, which is also very low-key.At the same time, European countries are developing their navies one after another. Of course, there is no need to talk about the old enemies of Britain and the Netherlands. Even the Kingdom of France, which has always been backward, has implemented the construction plan of "65 heavy warships in five years". All three countries have caught up with or surpassed the east coast in terms of the number of ships. This undoubtedly annoyed the east coast navy, but there was nothing they could do.

Fortunately, now they can finally feel proud!The East Bank is about to implement its own version of the "65 heavy warships in five years" construction plan. Once they are formally assembled and drilled, they will surely become the sharpest long sword in the hands of the Executive Committee.

I've been really busy recently, with various things at the end of the year.I just came back from a business trip for more than a week a while ago, and I didn’t have to rest after I came back. There were all kinds of work and various dinners at night, so I didn’t have much time to code.I'm going on a business trip tomorrow, and I'm so busy, I try to spare as much time as possible, and I hope everyone will bear with me.I can see that the current elder brothers are all true love, this book will not be eunuchs, don't panic.

(End of this chapter)