Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 678 Gradually recovering economy ([-])

The morning sun gradually rises from the distant horizon, and sprinkles the light on the flat east coast prairie.The grassland is as green as a beautiful carpet, dotted with sparkling rivers and lush artificial forests, but there are more neatly planned red brick and blue tile buildings at regular intervals. It was a folk house in the countryside on the east bank.

At this time, if you look down from the sky, you will find that there is a winding railway extending into the distance in the endless wilderness, and on the railway is a galloping train.The train moved forward at a speed of more than 30 kilometers per hour, carrying about 70 tons of various materials in the carriage and a carriage of passengers from one town to another, which facilitated the lives of residents in villages and towns along the line.It is like the arteries of the human body, continuously delivering nutrients to every node in the entire country, supporting the operation of the entire system.

This is the Luomei Line, the busiest traffic artery in the Eastern China Republic.On this railway line, which is less than 150 kilometers long, there are seven large and small towns and towns across three counties.

However, with the development of the economy and the increasing burden of transportation tasks, the frequency of trains running on the Rome line every two or three days began to fall behind. Therefore, the State Railway Administration had to purchase steam locomotives, Wagons, train drivers and mechanics, and constantly modify the departure schedule and increase the number of trains, so that they can effectively undertake the transportation tasks that are now several times better than in the past.

From the newly adjusted train timetable in late March, we can see that the current Luomei Railway runs three trains in opposite directions every day, and can transport more than 3 tons of materials from Luoqia Port to Meilin Port in one day. It fully supplemented the shortage of shipping power.If calculated according to the speed of travel and cargo capacity, one train is worth more than three 72-ton inland river/offshore general-purpose small steamboats.Through these trains, the grain and industrial products in the Duck Lake area in the north can be transported very quickly to the south for shipment to the sea, and the livestock, soybeans, construction materials, metal tools, and seafood in the south can also flow north continuously, which is a powerful adjustment. Commodity markets everywhere have reduced the cost of material circulation.

According to the survey by the Bureau of Statistics, the seven townships along the Luomei Line currently have frequent movement of goods and people, prices tend to be the same everywhere, and a unified market is gradually taking shape.Some merchants who were originally active among the three counties also withered because of the opening of the train. They had to drive the carts westward to go deep into Ningjinbao and Onuma Township, which are relatively closed inland in the Yihe area. , Sell the cheap goods in the coastal areas at a relatively high price and earn some hard money.

Moreover, the factor that prompted these businessmen to look for opportunities elsewhere is not only the opening of the train. In fact, there is another very important reason that, with the Spanish army in Santa Fe, the last battle site in the La Plata area Gradually defeated, a large number of militiamen or masters began to return home.Especially those militiamen, they got a lot of cash from the booty. If allowances and subsidies are added, these militiamen who have been away for a year get an average of more than 140 yuan per person, which is already more than the principal of some small businessmen too much.

After these people return to their hometowns, even if only a very small number of them use the money to do business, it will push the intensity of local business competition to a new peak.A large amount of hot money is surging among the people, and the price index is under the desperate control of the government. Except for a few basic consumer goods that are subject to price controls, the rest have repeatedly hit new highs.All this has made the bureaucrats of the Executive Committee and the Government Council begin to realize that the capital power of the domestic private sector other than the public is forming.

Only a very small number of these private capitals have completed primitive accumulation from agricultural production, the so-called agricultural capital, which accounts for about 15%. In addition, the amount of capital that has made fortunes due to commercial trade far exceeds the income from agricultural accumulation, about [-]%. It accounts for about one-third; the rest is the capital artificially "created" by the government, that is, the huge cash held in the hands of returning soldiers.

Of course, among these returning soldiers, the non-commissioned officers of the regular army had the most money. Among them, there were three or four hundred yuan less, and five or six hundred yuan more. The per capita capital exceeded 420 yuan.Ordinary soldiers and militiamen, even though they don't have as much money as non-commissioned officers, still have an average of about two hundred yuan.These huge amounts of capital, which may be as high as 200 million yuan, are accumulated in the private sector like a time bomb, which will mess up the already fragile and small domestic market on the east coast at any time.

The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Precious Metals, which issued a large amount of banknotes during the war, were worried about this. After several economic work conferences organized by the Executive Committee, the keynote was finally set: 20. Let go of private capital access in some industries Permission to allow private capital to invest and set up factories in these industries under the strict supervision of the state; Second, the establishment of a bond market, allowing more than a dozen large state-owned enterprises to issue low-interest bonds in the first batch to supplement the lack of financing channels; The highway and river transportation joint-stock company guides domestic funds to invest in the transportation infrastructure industry. The investment and interest can be collected in [-] years by setting up toll gates; [-]. Guide domestic funds to invest in overseas territories to obtain excess returns, such as fishing in overseas fishing grounds, overseas trade, overseas plantations and more.

It has to be said that the executive power of the East Coast government is still quite strong, especially when those who hold a large amount of cash are obedient soldiers, a considerable part of the funds will be diverted out quickly.Among them, conservative people invest in large-scale agricultural production under the guidance of the government, that is, to carry out large-scale land reclamation in undeveloped areas in the west of the country. Investors can lease the land they have reclaimed from the Ministry of Agriculture at a relatively cheap rent, and then carry out large-scale agricultural production.

After the 50-year lease period ends, the government can decide whether to renew the lease according to the situation. If the lease is renewed, the previous lessee has the priority to renew the lease. If not, the land will be taken back for other uses.To some extent, this policy circumvents the state's repeated orders and repeated declarations that individual land ownership should not exceed the upper limit of [-] mu, and it also creates conditions for large-scale agricultural production.

Of course, as far as the current stage is concerned, there are still many difficulties in engaging in large-scale agricultural production.The first is the problem of labor. In today’s East Coast Republic, the government basically monopolizes labor resources, that is, the “property rights” of the new immigrants every year belong to the government, and it is difficult for private individuals to intercept the labor they have been dreaming of.

Under such circumstances, labor brokers who have been active on the east coast for many years have come into everyone's attention.These people have a lot of labor resources at hand, and at the same time, they are also very capable in the Old World, so the two parties almost hit it off: that is, labor brokers are responsible for "getting" young and middle-aged labor from the Old World, and then transfer their ownership to labor contracts. Transferred to the agricultural pioneer capitalists on the east coast.This method must invest a lot of capital in the early stage, but once these cheap labor forces are available, it will be difficult to obtain excess profits through the mechanization of large-scale farms (horse harvesters, steam plows, steam threshing and grain raising, etc.) became possible.

If the problem of labor force is not easy to solve, it will be much easier to solve the problems of agricultural machinery rental and maintenance, breeding stations, veterinary stations, and agricultural technical consultants that are compatible with mechanized farms.At present, in Xihu County and Zhenhai County in the north, there are already four active agricultural machinery leasing companies, with more than 30 agricultural machinery of various types (mainly horse-drawn harvesters and steam plows).

An agricultural machinery maintenance company has also emerged. This company, which is jointly operated by a technician invested by Transit and two technicians who resigned from Dafeng Agricultural Machinery Factory, also has considerable agricultural machinery maintenance capabilities. With the deepening of the national agricultural machinery to the countryside With the development and the gradual increase in the number of domestic agricultural machinery, the scale of this enterprise is also constantly expanding.It is believed that with the passage of time, when domestic large-scale agricultural production activities gradually get on the right track, the agricultural machinery industry will surely enter a long-term growth channel.

In addition to opening up wasteland and running farms, some veterans who have a certain sense of adventure but dare not invest overseas choose to raise funds and form partnerships to build roads.The roads are mainly gravel roads between towns and villages, which can pass various types of trucks with a certain amount of cargo.The cost of these roads is high, but the expected income after completion is not low, which is very suitable for stable investors like them.At present, the government's policy on this area is to build county roads and township roads with private funds. After the construction is completed, tax collection can be set up. After the 20-year tax collection period expires, it will be handed over to the Ministry of Communications for maintenance free of charge. At the same time, the tax collection gate will be cancelled. Change to a free road, and the future maintenance costs will be borne by the state finances.

Road construction is also facing the problem of labor shortage. Unlike the farm operators trying to find people from the old continent, these ex-veterans who plan to build roads have their ideas on black Africans.With the cooperation of some of the elders who passed through, they selected some representatives and planned to go to South Africa to meet the chiefs of the Eight Banners tribes, Keral and other nobles, and then see if they could find a way to get some labor from them.For this reason, even if they support them with some weapons and let them plunder slaves, they will not hesitate. After all, it is much cheaper than buying people from slave traders.Moreover, the plundered black slaves also signed a formal labor contract, that is, after doing 5-7 years of heavy physical labor, they will be given the banner status of the Black Eight Banners tribe, which is equivalent to increasing the strength of these Eight Banners nobles in disguise, so why not? for what?

(End of this chapter)