Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1916 Influence ([-])

"With the redeployment of the navy in the future, the country will be completely empty." The chairman of the executive committee, Liao Xiaoyao, who just returned from the military dock of Dongfang Port in a carriage, thought thoughtfully.

However, he soon laughed again.So what if most of the naval power is deployed outside?It is enough to keep a certain number of anti-smuggling warships in the mainland!Could it be that there is really any country that is so idle that it sends more than fifty large warships to the South Atlantic Ocean?Crazy!

What's more, the mainland is still building new warships.The giant tropical logs from the Brazilian region in the north were sent to the three major shipyards one by one, and even New Courland and New China tried every means to send the round and straight hardwoods to the east. to provide sufficient masts for the intensifying tide of shipbuilding.

With the production capacity of the China East Coast Republic, a pre-industrialized country, as long as the investment is in place and the raw materials are sufficient, then producing various ships like dumplings is just a matter of leisure.For example, now that the east coast government has tried its best to raise a large amount of funds to invest in the field of naval construction, many warships, including the "Executive Committee" class three-deck battleship, have begun to crowd the berths of the three major shipyards. , so that the construction of civilian ships was affected for a while.

Therefore, as long as the immediate period is over, the East Coast Navy will be able to take a breather by the middle of next year.And in the year after next, there will be a fairly obvious increase in strength, and the old warships with messy models that will be eliminated by then can be dumped on the Far East and New China colonies.Even the Caribbean Shipping Company may receive a batch of old ships eliminated by the Navy, which is a good thing for both parties. The Navy can take the opportunity to finally recover a certain amount of capital, and they can strengthen the strength of the fleet.

The only threat to the navy's shipbuilding is probably that the funds are sufficient and can be in place in time according to the time node.The latter point is especially important, because if the funds cannot be provided in time, it will have a great impact on the shipyard's spare parts procurement plan and production plan, which is difficult for the navy to accept.

To be fair, the East Coast government has indeed made great efforts to secure the funds for naval construction, and cut off the budget of many civilian projects for this reason.However, because the cost of forming an army for the navy and army is huge, and the maintenance cost after forming an army is not a small amount, the pressure on finances is still considerable.Especially in the past year, many civil affairs officials from all walks of life have come to the executive committee to "cry" and complain that military expenditures have taken up precious construction funds, leaving them without rice to cook, which is very embarrassing.

It would be fine if one or two families come, but almost one after another, various ministries and commissions have sent people over to run funds, which is very annoying to the big bosses.In desperation, they respectively convened a meeting of the main officials of their respective departments, and clarified to them the country's major policies for the next period of time, requiring them to obey the national arrangements, strictly restrain officials at all levels of their departments, and carry out an inventory of existing projects.

The principle of counting is: if the project has been approved and under construction, the cycle should be relaxed, and the financial pressure should be distributed over a longer period of time; projects that have been approved but have not yet started construction (or just started) should all be stopped, so as to Precious funds are saved and invested in more critical projects.

Of course, some people may ask, since there is such a shortage of funds, why not ask the government to issue more bonds to raise funds?This involves a question about the total amount of bonds!Just at the beginning of last year, because of the huge debt scale, the executive committee convened relevant personnel from the Ministry of Finance to discuss countermeasures, and finally established the principle that the total debt scale of the central government should not exceed 400 million yuan.And the number of 400 million has been reached in the middle of this year!

In other words, now that the central government wants to issue bonds, the possibility is already zero, because it has already reached the set debt ceiling.Therefore, it is conceivable that in the next two to three years or even longer, all ministries and commissions will have to get rid of the past "spend and spend" habits and become careful and careful.Don't you see, the Yanbu Railway Project, a national key project that has been put in the heart of Liao Xiaoyao, Chairman of the Executive Committee, has also been temporarily suspended due to a shortage of funds?The State Administration of Railways has been informed that state subsidies for the Yanbu Railway have been temporarily suspended, and they can only draw from the funds allocated to the railway department in the annual budget for the construction of the Yanbu Railway.If it is not possible, the government will consider temporarily increasing the special tax for the construction of the Yanbu Railway for one year to help them tide over the difficulties.

This is true for key projects such as the Yanbu Railway, and the others are of course useless.Ever since, after recognizing the situation, these officials dispersed one after another, and began to go home and re-formulate various construction plans, with the main purpose of living a "hard life".Compared with these central ministries and commissions, some local projects have continued well.Although the lack of central financial subsidies still makes them uncomfortable, the financial resources of the local government have been strengthened to a certain extent after the reform of the tax sharing system, and with the growing population on the east coast, the income from land sales has increased day by day. The year is indeed a lot more generous.Because of this, they have a certain amount of funds to invest in local construction. It is not a problem to build third-class national roads, build one or two small reservoirs, and build some barns or grain storages.

All in all, the executive committee really racked their brains and spent countless hands and feet in order to protect military expenses.Even, they once planned that if the funds could not be transferred in time, they would once again use the reserve gold stored in the Army's No. [-] Prison (it has accumulated a little over a ton at present) to fully guarantee the construction of the warship schedule.

For the construction of the navy, if it is said that the east coast government is not a small one, no one will believe it, right?This country is really different from before, especially after absorbing a group of middle-aged people into the highest government agencies, this tendency has become more and more obvious.

After Liao Xiaoyao returned to his office, he only rested for about two hours before meeting the newly appointed ambassador of the Republic of Venice to the east coast who came from the Morosini family to present his credentials in the conference room next door. Leonardo.This gentleman is not very old, not yet 30 years old, with a beautiful mustache. It is said that he is a rising star of the ancient Venetian consul family, Morosini.

In addition to submitting his credentials, Leonardo Morosini's mission this time is also one of the key points to discuss with the East Coast officials about the aftermath of the Ottoman situation.Therefore, Liao Xiaoyao sent someone to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to send several senior officials to sit down and discuss together in the luxuriously decorated conference room.

To be fair, in the offensive and defensive battle of Vienna that broke out last year, after seeing the Ottoman Empire defeated like a mountain, the Venetians were gearing up and preparing to do a big job.That is, they planned to mobilize a large number of warships and armies to attack the Ottoman Empire from the sea, and focused on the Greek peninsula.

At that time, the East Coast Plenipotentiary Envoy to Europe, Mr. Gao Wengang, who had a clear prediction of the situation, found the Venetians immediately, and through various soft and hard methods, forced them to agree to suspend their attack on the Ottoman Empire.The reason Gao Wengang gave was that the Ottoman Empire was severely damaged by this battle, and internal conflicts were likely to accelerate, and the threat to the Republic of Venice had been greatly reduced.On the contrary, the Kingdom of Austria, which won this battle, has grown rapidly both in terms of prestige and strength (incorporating many forces that were originally useless).For the Republic of Venice, the threat of Austria has surpassed Ottoman at this time and has become the country's main enemy.

The Venetians were not fools. They knew that what Gao Wengang said was true. The Habsburg dynasty did have some territorial ambitions for northern Italy, which had always been prosperous, and they had to guard against it.But the problem is that this alone cannot persuade them to stay out of the army at all. Even if the people on the east coast then gave more commodity agency rights, allowing the Venetians to occupy more commercial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is still not enough.Therefore, at the meeting of the consuls, representatives of a total of 12 families had a full two days of heated debates. In the end, hatred dominated the meeting. The Venetians finally decided to send 20 warships and 3000 soldiers to attack some Ottoman territory bordering the Republic of Venetia to seize this golden opportunity.

However, although the Venetians finally decided to send troops, in terms of scale and intensity, it was indeed much smaller than originally planned, and the goal was also smaller: they just wanted to take advantage of the time when the Ottomans had no time to take care of them. It's just to take advantage of it, and I didn't want to weaken the Ottomans too much, because after the Austrians became famous in World War I, they hoped that the Ottoman Empire would still maintain a certain strength, so that the Austrians would not have too much thought to be unfavorable to many regions in northern Italy.

And since this kind of thing has been done, the Venetians of course have to find an opportunity to communicate with the east bank, and Leonardo Morosini is the representative.He told Liao Xiaoyao exactly the fierce debate and final choice at the meeting of the Consul of the Republic of Venice, and said that before he set off for the east bank, the army of the Republic of Venice had stopped advancing, and currently only the navy It is still active, occupying some Greek offshore islands that the Ottomans have not controlled well, and has basically ceased fire with the Ottomans.

Of course, Liao Xiaoyao had already listened to the intelligence department's report on this matter before this, so he still had a certain degree of understanding of the development of the situation.In fact, he still has some understanding of the various actions of the Republic of Venice, and he is happy that the opponent has greatly reduced the number of troops sent because of Gao Wengang's pressure, because this proves the influence of the Republic of the East Coast.

But when I think about it, some beatings are indispensable.Therefore, after thinking about it, Liao Xiaoyao still planned to give a warning to the Venetian's behavior, and at the same time analyze the situation more clearly to the Venetian.

(End of this chapter)