Chapter 226 Financial Dilemation

In December, Zhao Dongyun, who had just arrived in Shenyang, held a defense conference of the three eastern provinces on the first day and determined the defense deployment of the three eastern provinces in the future and the subsequent military reorganization and expansion plans.

Its core content is to ensure the plan to fill the existing three divisions and five brigades. The staff of the headquarters is optimistic that it will be able to complete the existing part in the next six months. At that time, the total field force of the Soviets will reach 73,000, including more than 8,000 cavalry troops and more than 200 70 Five-millimeter barrel artillery, more than 500 mortars of various caliber, nearly 400 heavy machine guns, and more than 600 light machine guns.

In addition, there will be a patrol force with 12 regiments.

The military even proposed to train an infantry division in the second half of next year, that is, after the existing troops are full. Of course, this division only exists in the plan.

And this series of consolidation and expansion costs money!

Zhao Dongping, director of the Ordnance Department, who is responsible for the military expenditure of the whole army, put forward a request to get 12 million silver next year, and said that this is the minimum requirement. If you need to expand another division in the second half of the year, you will have to spend about 3 million taels of additional military expenses.

This military expenditure is actually no longer as good as the military expenditure of the seven towns in Yuan Shikai's era. In the past, Yuan Shikai only invested more than 1,000 yuan in the army every year.

The high military expenditure of the Feng army is that many of them in Chengdu need to purchase a large amount of ordnance for the expansion of troops and hoard a large number of shells and bullets in preparation for the war.

In the face of such huge military pressure, Zhao Dongyun held a three-day financial meeting to discuss the financial situation in 1907. The core topic is how to get enough money to support the army next year.

Xiling of the Finance Bureau put forward the 1907 budget plan at the meeting the next day. The expenditure situation in the plan is very simple. The military expenditure composed of the army and patrol police occupies the majority, followed by the three provinces and one district under the jurisdiction of the three eastern provinces (Fengtian Province, Jilin Province, Heilongjiang Province and eastern Zhili Administrative funds inside and outside the Fengjun-controlled area, including salaries and office funds for employees of officials at all levels, civil servants, police and other government agencies. The third place is economic development expenses, which includes reclamation funds, transportation construction funds and municipal construction funds, and the fourth place is education funds, which are mainly used to maintain and build new schools and provide funds for government-funded international students.

There are other messy expenses for various purposes, and the final total amount is 32 million taels of silver!

This is the minimum expenditure, that is to say, it is based on the early stage when the Feng army does not break out a large-scale war with other forces, and there are no natural or man-made disasters, or even the army does not expand.

And what is the corresponding fiscal revenue?

Agricultural tax, commercial tax, salt tax and other taxes add up to about 26 million silver, and the expected difference between income and expenditure is as high as 6 million taels of silver.

Although Zhao Dongyun maintained a huge military expenditure, it was also related to the huge financial burden caused by the area east of Heilongjiao, Jilin and Rehe.

At present, in the three provinces and one district controlled by the Soviet system, the financial revenue is mainly contributed by Fengtian Province. Tangshan also has a certain number of contributions, which can contribute about millions. Although Jilin is small, it also has about 4 million a year. Heilongjiang is a typical fiscal In the weak province, almost all the income in previous years relied on the allocation of the Ministry of Household and the subsidies of the provinces. Now that the Qing Dynasty is finished, these incomes are naturally gone, so the fiscal revenue contributed by Heilongjiang itself is only more than one million!

In 1907, among the various expenses of the above provinces, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Chengde are indispensable!

In other words, the current finance of the three eastern provinces is used to support the entire Soviet-controlled area with the finances of Tangshan and Fengtian!

This also creates a huge financial gap!

How was the finance of the three eastern provinces maintained in the Qing Dynasty? Not to mention, from 1905 to 1906, Heilongjiang and Jilin were almost heavily dependent on the allocation of the Ministry of Household and the cooperation funds of the provinces. Even when Zhao Dongyun was just served as General Shengjing. At that time, he had the nerve to ask the Ministry of Household and the southern provinces for cooperation.

To put it bluntly, except for Fengtian and Tangshan, the other three eastern provinces in 1906 lacked economic capacity and relied heavily on central allocations!

This is also a good thing that Zhao Dongyun has been operating in Fengtian for several years, especially after 1905, Fengtian's economy has shown explosive growth, with an annual income of more than 20 million taels of silver. Although this income is not as good as Jiangsu and Guangdong, it is also a big financial province in China, otherwise Zhao Dongyun can't make 50,000 to 60,000 troops.

Therefore, from an economic point of view, Jilin, Heilongjiang and even the eastern part of Rehe River are accepted as loss-making businesses. Instead of bringing much economic benefits to the Soviet system, they have to spend a lot of money every year to maintain local rule and support local economic development.

However, many problems cannot be considered from a simple economic perspective. We can't give this place to Wang Yingkai because the maintenance of the rule in Rehe and the garrison is a loss-making business, let alone simply give them to the Russians because the financial income of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces is not enough, or even the need subsidies from the Finance Bureau. !

The financial situation in the three eastern provinces has deteriorated so much that it is not surprising that Zhao Dongyun has convened many civilian officials to hold financial meetings for three consecutive days.

In the three-day meeting, the leaders of various departments put forward various suggestions to try to open source and save expenditure!

For example, Cheng Dequan of Heilongjiang said that Heilongjiang Duojin can increase the development of local gold mines, but this suggestion has no effect in a short period of time. Why? It is not a secret that there is a gold mine in Heilongjiang, especially in Mohe, and this is not the first day of mining. Even if the mining effort is increased, it will not be much more than now. As for finding new gold mines? If you can find a new gold mine, do you still need to say? He sent someone to dig gold, but Zhao Dongyun did not bring a detailed division map of Chinese minerals from later generations. There was no way for the golden finger to tell the people below on the map: there is a gold mine, here is a silver mine!

Compared with the words of Cheng Dequan, the governor of Heilongjiang, the proposal of Zhao E, the governor of Jilin, is much more realistic. He said that now Fengtian's reclamation has reached a scale, and the future reclamation can continue to expand to the north, that is, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. There are a large amount of desolate land in these two provinces, as long as there is a desire to emigrate. In other terms, the local government is even willing to distribute these land to immigrants for free. Of course, the agricultural tax should be paid. Otherwise, the local government will distribute land to immigrants. Isn't it just an agricultural tax?

And Zhao Dongyun has also been doing this matter of immigration. Since he took office as General Shengjing, he has set up the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau. The Agriculture and Forestry Bureau has set up dozens of reclamation stations in Zhili, Shandong, Henan and even Shanxi to recruit landless farmers to reclaim in the northeast. This work even started in October. At the beginning of the Beiyang Civil War, there was no stop. Every day, a large number of immigrants took the train or dragged their families to walk thousands of miles to 'break through Kanto'.

Now that Jilin and Heilongjiang are in the Soviet-controlled area, it is normal for the reclamation work in these two provinces to be on the agenda.

However, this move still cannot provide a large amount of revenue to the finances of the three eastern provinces in a short period of time!

The only thing that can provide a large amount of cash income in a short period of time can only rely on Fengtian Bank to issue *. As long as it is overissued* in a certain proportion, it is equivalent to an extra sum of money out of thin air. As long as this * credit is maintained, it can be used to spend it all the time!

In addition, the Mint under the Finance Bureau can also contribute a lot of cash income. This Mint manufactures silver dollars and copper dollars officially issued by Fengtian, which is very profitable and can earn at least one million yuan a year.

The silver dollars and copper dollars manufactured and issued by the Mint are because of the word 'Feng' on the front, and the north is 'one circle', which is called 'Fengyang' and 'Fengyuan' by the local people.

Now in the Republic, the word '32nd year of Guangxu' on the edge of the silver dollar has been replaced by 'the first year of the republic', but in the eyes of the population, this is still 'Fengyuan'.

This kind of Fengyuan is also the physical currency of * that will be issued. One yuan * is exchanged for a piece of Fengyuan.

In addition to coinage and issuance*, the Finance Bureau has also proposed several other methods, such as following Fengtian's example, rectifying agricultural taxes and various miscellaneous taxes in Jilin, Heilongjiang and Tangshan, and Fengtian's agricultural tax also needs to be rectified on a large scale.

This agricultural tax rectification is the core financial measure of Zhao Dongyun's governance. Its purpose is not only to rectify taxes and increase fiscal revenue, but also to reduce the burden of various miscellaneous taxes borne by farmers. The rectification of agricultural tax is the same as the integration of commercial taxes. It is Zhao Dongyun who takes the financial power. A major measure to return to the central government.

It can even be said that the political significance of this policy is greater than its economic significance!

Of course, this is for Zhao Dongyun, and for the Finance Bureau, the biggest motivation for the rectification of agricultural tax and commercial tax in Jilin, Heilongjiang, Tangshan and other areas is to obtain more tax.

Tax reform, * issuance, monetary and financial reforms, supporting industry and commerce, reclamation and many other measures are long-term plans. These measures cannot be taken in a short period of time, especially in these months to allow the Finance Bureau to obtain a large amount of funds.

The military's consolidation plan is basically concentrated in the first half of the year, especially from January to March, when a large amount of funds are urgently needed to purchase ordnance and pay for the expenses needed to recruit new recruits. Zhao Dongping, a representative of the military and director of the Ordnance Department, proposed that in these three months, the military needs to obtain at least Eight million taels of funds, most of which have to be used to purchase various ordnance.

Not to mention anything else, now the military owes a lot of money to the Fuyuan Machinery Factory. The previous 600,000 yuan has not been paid, and in the next few months, the Fuyuan Machinery Factory will provide more than one million worth of ordnance. If the military does not take out the money, the Fuyuan Machinery Factory will go bankrupt.

Zhao Chenbin, the chairman of Fuyuan Machine Factory, came to Zhao Dongyun in person. Zhao Chenbin did not complain that the military did not pay. He just said: If the Fengtian military still did not pay for the arrears this month, then they would have no activity funds to purchase various raw materials. If it is delayed for three months, Fuyuan Machinery Factory will go bankrupt!

Who is most distressed if the Fuyuan machine factory is dragged bankrupt? It was not the shareholders of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but the large generals of the Fengtian Army, otherwise they would not have gritted their teeth and first took out two million from the small vault for ordnance procurement.

At the same time, it has repeatedly put pressure on the Finance Bureau and even the entire civilian system to ask the government to solve this batch of ordnance payments. If the remaining two million in the military treasury is spent and the government has not raised enough funds, it is estimated that the military general can wield a saber to kill. Go to Xiong Xiling's Finance Bureau.

And when the military generals saw that the government's group of people had held meetings for a few days and had no good way to solve this urgent need, they shouted slogans such as government incompetence and Xiong Xiling deserved to put forward the so-called 'warship ticket plan'

said that since we have no money, we should print money, not more, print millions of military tickets, and then serve as military pay, and force all sectors of society to recognize and earn these military tickets, and redeem them one by one when the military has money in the future.

Once this military ticket plan was thrown out, it has been opposed by the civilian system, especially the financial system personnel led by Xiong Xiling, believing that it will cause irreparable heavy damage to the economies of the three eastern provinces.

Zhao Dongyun is also not very interested in military votes. As an ambitious warlord, um, no, it should be said that there is an ideal politician. Zhao Dongyun still cares about his territory. If he gets a military ticket, it is estimated that the people in the three eastern provinces will scold themselves to death.

However, the military ticket plan is not good. This military expenditure gap, especially in the last two or three months, must be solved. Finally, Zhao E proposed a solution.

This plan is very simple, just one word: borrow!