Chapter 502 I'm going to the navy
@@@@@@@@ The aftertaste of the New Year's Eve dinner was still in his teeth. Li Mo hid in the study and gave the outside to his wife and noisy children. Now it is the fourth son just born by Xianqi above. The royal family has four princes and three princesses. The eldest Li Zhen is seventeen years old, and the youngest is only one month old. .
The reason why he comes here is not because he doesn't like the bustle, but because this habit has been maintained for nearly 20 years, and he will always unconsciously hide in his own world after dinner.
The two walls are filled with high bookshelves, and there are thousands of books of all kinds. Although it is not as exaggerated as the emperor in the movie to take a ladder to find a book, the number is also quite a lot.
On the only empty wall on the front, there is a large world map that has just been printed. Even Li Mo himself can't remember how many times he has changed the map. From the first British world map bought in 1890 to the current special super-large world map, this huge one he has built. The country is constantly changing in this frequent change of maps.
The latest version of the map in front of it not only marks the current territory of Xinhua, but also indicates the location of the garrison for the first time, including the most important Greater Kuwait area.
Seeing this area marked as blue, Li Mo was also very proud. In addition to the black gold, which accounts for 13% of the world's total reserves under the desert, it is also because this is the first time that Xinhua has stationed troops outside the mainland. Just like the United States in later generations, the whole world is full of military bases.
But it's not easy for white people to like all this.
If Britain and France were not trapped in Europe, if Germany were not eager to prove itself, and if the United States had not lost the opportunity too late, no white European country would have allowed New China to station troops overseas.
This is the ideological gap, something that can't be medied at present. To put it in my own words, foreigners and ghosts!
In his previous life, he still felt that this was the words that he scolded because he was dissatisfied with the United States at that time, but today he finally understood that although he received large orders from Britain and Germany one after another, compared with the United States at this moment, Xinhua is still far away.
Xinhua has the advantage of low cost, and the United States has the advantage of convenient transportation. The price of the two is the same. It seems to compete with each other, but in fact, it is not easy for Xinhua to sell goods to Europe at this moment.
White people have rules of behavior for white people. Whether it is Britain, France or Germany or Austria, the first choice is still the United States. In addition to oil and rubber resources, Xinhua exports cotton textiles and Japanese supplies the most. As for the large profits of complete sets of machinery, weapons and ammunition, etc., it is basically rare.
Why?
It's very simple. In later generations, everyone knows that World War I has been fought for four years and spread to most of the world, but no one expected it at this time. Therefore, except for Britain, France and Germany, other countries are basically still watching, at most to strengthen some military spending.
And this war has been a war of white Europeans in Europe from the beginning. No matter how stupid the whites are, no matter how disputes there are, they don't want the yellows to participate. The Asian-Europe confrontation did not start from this era. At that time, the Mongols made Europe suffer enough, so at this moment, none of them dared to let the so-called "yellow disaster" enter. Enter.
So now you just want to sell materials, and others will think that you have ulterior motives. But once the war breaks out, because of the existence of the maritime hegemon, Britain, the channel from Asia to Europe is all closed. At that time, you can only sell it to the Allies, otherwise it will be hostile. There is no need to say more about the relationship between the Allies and the United States, so only the United States, a country on the other side of the Atlantic, can use the skin of white people, but even in the end, he had to stop providing supplies to the Allies.
At this moment, he has a thick data in his hand, which is a comparison of the data of various national economic indicators and major countries last year. After opening it, he has both joy and worry.
Fortunately, after the strategic adjustment in the first few years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the population and internal market advantages began to explode. In recent years, there has been a continuous growth rate of more than 10%. As of last year, the gross national product has reached 39 billion blue coins, about 28 billion US dollars, of which agriculture accounts for 30%. The industry has risen from one percent ten years ago to four percent, while the export of resources has fallen by one percent.
Compared with the United States last year, it was $39 billion, the United Kingdom was $11 billion, and Germany was $10.5 billion.
But the second place in the world did not make Li Mo too excited. A few decades ago, the Qing Dynasty was still the first in the world! What's more, from the perspective of per capita, Xinhua is only 58 dollars, compared with 412 dollars compared with the United States!
According to last year's statistics, the country has a registered population of 480 million. If you don't count the colonies, the whole Europe and the United States are not as many as their own. Leaving aside the loose colonial political structure and directly using the means of expanding and building provinces to rule, you can concentrate on doing a lot of things, plus a lot of political investment, even After more than ten years of equity replacement, after providing small entrepreneurial loans through banks, setting up new technology support funds and other economic stimulus policies, it has not only created a large number of millionaires, but also a considerable middle class. In addition, after the free implementation of education and public hospitals, many people have begun to have leisure. Money, even if you are reluctant to buy a car, at least bicycles, sewing machines and other things will be added.
So this speed is not fast, but too slow!
In history, after the beginning of World War I, the U.S. economy will have an explosive period, which will soar from nearly 40 billion to about 80 billion. This cannot be changed. Even if it has its own competition, it will not work, because many people forget that Xinhua can establish an industry so quickly because it is imported from the United States. A large amount of mechanical materials have helped people boost the economy.
Even now, the United States has shown an advantage. Last year, the total amount of exports and loans to Europe exceeded 10 billion US dollars, while Xinhua only had 3 billion US dollars, including 800 million from Germany, 100 million from Russia, and 800 million from Britain and the Ottomans forcibly dug out by force. It means that only 1.7 billion commodities have been exported, most of which are low value-added and resources.
The first three items in industrial exports are still automobiles, complete sets of large alternators and electronic products. There has been a slight increase in shipbuilding. Orders have been received for 200,000 tons of cargo ships, five of which were ordered by European shipowners, which is also a big breakthrough.
In addition to the economy, other figures made him much happier at that time. First of all, steel production. The United States still dominates the world, reaching 30 million tons, followed by Germany with 18 million tons. After the construction of the Great Northwest Steel Plant, Xinhua successfully surpassed the United Kingdom and soared to 15 million tons in one fell swoop.
As for the dominant reserves of rare resources such as oil and copper, as well as the early development of aluminum, tungsten is far ahead of the United States. Of course, the earliest power revolution has also made Xinhua's total power generation reach 1.5 times that of the United States!
This thick statistics is the painstaking efforts of my 20 years. There are good points and bad points. I am not very satisfied with the export, but this is not because of the lack of production capacity and technology, but because I have restricted the export of certain technologies, such as the ship engine, if I open it. If it is sold, it can increase the export value by at least 2 billion yuan per year.
In addition, economic growth is not as fast as expected. Another important reason is that Xinhua's control of the private exploitation of resources industry is very strict. Whether it is private or national, the discovery of mineral deposits anywhere inland, including Siberia, needs to be filed with the Ministry of Land and Resources before mining, even local government axes and parliaments. There is no right.
This ban is very strict. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, at least 5,000 mine owners were arrested for this matter, and 2,000 of whom were sentenced to death and all their property was confiscated.
Even last year, there were still a few people who wanted to take risks. Although they did not dare to say that it was completely eliminated, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Land and Resources, the police and other departments cooperated to strictly control the channels for the flow of important resources into the market, and reduced indiscriminate mining to a minimum. However, this also made the domestic resource exploitation industry never It's very prosperous.
Li Enfu and others also suggested whether to relax, but Li Mo still insisted on his own practice and insisted on domestic protection. However, in order to develop the private mining industry, he finally adopted the liberalization of the ten provinces of Nanyang and parts of Siberia, and at the same time helped enterprises go abroad to North Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, Australia and Entrepreneurship in Canada.
Although this effect is slow, after all, the local complex of the Chinese people is very heavy. Nanyang is willing to go because it already belongs to Xinhua, and there are dozens of ships with the mainland every day, but there are still relatively few people going abroad, so there are not many large enterprises at present.
After putting down the annoying numbers, Li Mo picked up the information that had just been sorted out and looked at it. The information on it made him laugh involuntarily.
The Balkan war continued to begin. His greed and the control of the great powers made that place a real gunpowder barrel. If he had before, he was worried that there would be no war because of his appearance, but now it seems that as long as the Balkans are not good, then Europe is a bomb bag.
This scene reminds him of the words of the deceased German Prime Minister Bismarck, "One day the European powers will fight a European war for a few Balkan fools."
Yes, this sentence bears witness to Bismarck's far-sighted political vision. If it weren't for the traveler, he would not have given him a ladder to the sky, which would not be as good as the deceased old man.
The chaos in the Balkans was the result of the intervention of major powers, and this game eventually forced them to face a greater threat.
In the case of insufficient production capacity, Germany used a loan to order 100,000 tons of Kryp surface carburizing armored steel in one go. In order to ensure the quality, it even did not hesitate to borrow the formula to exchange the loan and asked for production according to their standards, which also gave the Materials Department of the Academy of Sciences a great opportunity to further improve. Xinhua's VH steel makes its hardness and toughness completely surpass the Kryp technology, and it also greatly saves time.
It is also profitable for Germany. The technology can not only be exchanged for funds, but also hand over the most time-consuming armor to Xinhua production. They can try their best to build the last six Bavaria-class battleships.
But this news is undoubtedly bad news for Britain, because Britain has only five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the same calibre and the same class, so not long ago, the British Parliament once again approved a plan to purchase eight battleships and six battlecruisers.
According to intelligence, in order to save time, Britain rejected the possibility of designing a new battleship, and chose to continue to build an improved version of the Queen Elizabeth class, that is, the famous King class (also called the Avenger class in China). The battle patrol only improved the fourth Lion-class Tiger, and then reclassed it. It is a tiger class, and its shape and tonnage are basically similar to the lion class.
At the same time, the intelligence department also found that Fisher is currently developing a new warship with several designers of Armstrong, but due to the tight cover, there is no way to know what it is for the time being.
In addition to the British and German continued ship-building frenzy, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary have also accelerated the construction of battleships. Even Nicholas I is ambitious to build eight more super battleships on the basis of the current four Gangut class and the subsequent four Queen Maria class.
The United States, which was instigated, showed no weakness. After seeing the wave of European ship-building and the first four Hebei-class ships launched one after another, it was anxious and announced that it would build four New York-class improved models, named Nevada-class.
In addition to battleships, the United States has also started the construction of the second batch of eight Northampton-class heavy cruisers, with a front and rear backpack layout, directly installing the four-door double-link 356mm/L45 gun currently used in the New York class.
If the first batch of U.S. re-trols were unexpected, then he is not in a hurry at all at this moment, because the first batch of 16 F4 fighters have been fully interviewed. According to the report of Adel and the Aviation Research Institute, they can take out the air force model in a year at the latest, and complete the navy model within a year and a half. It is an improved torpedo machine.
In this case, it is no longer worth continuing to build battleships with the United States and Europe, so he sent a telegram to McKinson not long ago, asking him to start the design of the second batch of aircraft carriers.
The ship-building frenzy in Europe is much higher than in history. According to current data, by 1915, Britain will have 50 battleships and battlecruisers (including those built at that time), and it will definitely intercept the seven turrets of the BB Party in Turkey and Brazil, so it is equivalent to 52. .
Germany is a little poor. The main reason is that the gap in the war patrol is too big, so it only has 31 ships. As for Uncle Sam, he is not weak, with 36 ships!
Although it seems that Germany is weak, it is impossible for Britain to concentrate all its strength. At present, six Nelson-class and two invincible war patrols have been dragged in the Far East and dare not go back, and the addition of six war patrols this time is definitely for the safety of the Pacific Ocean, so the disadvantage will not be very big.
"Ha ha."
Seeing this, Li Mo laughed out loud. This round of competition is really tragic. Whether it's an alliance or an alliance, if there is no war. Then there is only one way to go bankrupt.
Just as Li Mo was about to look through the last few pages, there was a knock on the door. Then he saw Li Zhen standing at the door in a brand-new navy uniform. He couldn't help asking in surprise, "Today is New Year's Eve. Why do you have to go out for activities?"
"No, my father." Li Zhen looked up at his military uniform and said, "I just passed by the study and heard my father laughing, so I wanted to come in and see your father."
"Look at me?" Li Mo touched his forehead and laughed from the bottom of his heart that the boy's mouth had been much sharper since he was mixed with Long Guozhang's daughter. It seemed that he wanted to find an opportunity to talk to Xiaoxiao and make a settlement for the two of them.
Li Mo smiled and walked over and closed the door. Then he pointed to the chair opposite the desk and said with a smile, "Okay, don't say it's nice. Now let's talk about it."
Looking at his father, Li Zhen thought for a moment and suddenly summoned up his courage to say, "Father, I have applied for the Naval Academy, and I will go there to report after the New Year."
"What!" Li Mo jumped up and looked at his eldest son's straight military uniform in surprise. Finally, he knew why he wore this during the Spring Festival. He dared to be ready to attack suddenly!
"Does your mother know?"
"I just told her, but."
Looking at his eldest son who wanted to stop talking, Li Mo knew why he came to him. He must be small and not prepared for his sudden attack. Although he was also in favor of going to the army to exercise, this way was wrong, so he hummed, "Well, they are bold, aren't they? If you don't discuss such a big thing with your parents, do you think we don't exist anymore?!"
"I dare not, but I'm afraid that I will tell you and your mother in advance that you will object." Li Zhen was so scared that he lowered his head, but when he saw the military uniform, he immediately raised it up again. Instead, he learned the stubborn appearance of the soldier.
Looking at his immature face, but still pretending not to bow his head, Li Mo was also secretly funny, but at this moment, as a father, he still scolded coldly: "How did you know that we would oppose it? The prince has been in the army since ancient times. Besides, the navy is also a good place to train people. Why should we oppose you?!"
"Really! So, father, you agreed!" Hearing this, before Li Mo finished his words, Li Zhen jumped up.
"Stop." Li Mo quickly shouted to stop, stopped the boy's pride, and said seriously, "Remember, don't do it again. Don't hide anything from us in the future!"
"Yes, Father!" After a military salute, Li Zhen suddenly thought of his mother who was still worried, and the corners of his mouth suddenly collapsed again: "Father, that mother's side."
"All right, I'll talk about it." After Li Mo waved his hand and drove Li Zhen away, he looked at the documents on the table and sighed. The children finally grew up and had their own thoughts. Although this was a good thing, it was really difficult to be small.
This girl has been following her for decades, and her temper has been very clear for a long time. Although she is weak in appearance, she is very independent in her heart. This time, Li Zhen made a sudden attack, and it must be very unhappy. Besides, there is no mother in the world who wants to see her son born and die, so this is really a big problem.
Thinking of this, Li Mo couldn't help but feel a little worried. The documents full of the table could no longer be read, so he had to walk out of the study. When he got outside, he found that the sky was already full of stars.
The new year is coming...
(to be continued)