In the lakeside pavilion

After talking about the war on the Eastern Front for a while, Li Fushou talked with his ministers about domestic economic construction for a while. He said that it was a political discussion, but in fact it was more like a chat.

The music outside the water pavilion is melodious, and the beautiful scenery is seen through the gauze curtain. It is really not pleasant to savor exquisite tea and discuss the major events in the world.

"Loves, how long do you think this war will last?"

"The emperor said, I personally think that the world war today is about to enter its fifth year, with unprecedented scale and great harm to society and economy. The vast Russian Empire could not bear the collapse, and followed by a large-scale civil war. The dilemma encountered by Tsarist Russia is of varying degrees among the warring countries. I expect that the record will be seen in the third and fourth quarters next year, and will not be until the first quarter of the following year at the latest."

"The Lord Caishang's words are very reasonable, but they are still a little conservative. The "showdown action" prepared by the Allies next year will break the illusion of victory in the Allies and completely end this unprecedented human disaster. From a military perspective, there is hope for the end of the war before the end of next year."

"I have different opinions on the judgment of the Marshal. The German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire uphold the Germanic spirit of indomitable fighting, and are not so easy to defeat. Even if the war spreads to German territory, I don't think that the war can be resolved within one year, at least two years."

"In another two years, the French will be dragged down first. The empire has imposed a full embargo on the allies, and they can't hold on for that long."

"This is inappropriate. It is a foregone conclusion that the Allies will win the Eastern Front battlefield. The 2nd Army can only defend the battlefield in western Ukraine, and there are still some battles in this battle."

"It's light to say that since the outbreak of the World War, there are as many as 36 countries participating in the war, affecting 1.5 billion people in the world, and the official confirmed casualties exceeds 15 million. As we all know, the number of casualties in the war has more than doubled. Take the Russian Empire as an example. Its population of 160 million before the war is now less than 147 million. If it continues to fight, all people will die. Even old empires like Britain and France cannot withstand such huge consumption."

"Overall, Europe really can't continue to fight. If it weren't for the advantage on the Eastern Front battlefield and still had some expectations for the final victory, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Allies would have long since collapsed."

"I agree with the Marshal's professional opinion. The end of next year should be a watershed in the war, and it will not take long."

"Wei Chen agreed."

“Additional.”

Argued for a while

The ministers generally reached a consensus. After several years of war, the strength level of all parties was on the surface.

The Allies Group has a total of 32 countries, beating the Allies Groups Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman and Bulgaria. While having an absolute maritime advantage in all, the main battlefield on the Western Front has been advanced to the border between Belgium and France and Germany. It is only a matter of time before the war burns into Germany.

The world war was mainly located on the Eastern Front and Western Front battlefields, all located in Europe, and Europe is the core area of ​​the entire world war.

The battlefields of the southern European front, the battlefields of North Africa, the battlefields of West Asia and the battlefields of the Far East are all insignificant in terms of scale and intensity of the war, and are not enough to affect the overall situation.

The Western Front battlefield is the well-deserved main battlefield. Germany has invested more than 80% of its total troops here, with a total number of casualties exceeding 3 million.

The Eastern Front battlefield was just a flank battlefield, mainly composed of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the German army as the auxiliary. The two surrounded Tsarist Russia, and the war was also bloody and tragic.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire alone lost more than 3.6 million troops on the Eastern Front battlefield. The Russian army suffered more than 9 million losses.

Such a large casualty is unbearable for any country.

When discussing casualties in other countries, the ministers of the Ocean Empire were quite rational, because the Ocean Empire army had a brilliant record on the European battlefield and had not suffered major casualties.

Therefore, the ministers have a strong attitude of guiding the country, and they have a sense of condescending power.

Since the Imperial Expeditionary Force participated in the war, hundreds of battles of all sizes have been fought, with losses of about 41,000 people, of which about 10,000 people were killed, and the others were minor and serious injuries of varying degrees.

This was only a slight loss for the Expeditionary Corps, which had arrived on the European battlefield for a total of about 1.2 million people.

Li Fushou looked around the ministers and pointed out the key to the next problem; "Since all my dear ministers believe that the war will be announced around the end of next year, today is December 5, and there are 20 days before Christmas and less than a month before New Year's Day in 2018, should we prepare for the future and plan the overall national economic rhythm in advance so as to avoid the serious impact of the war-time economy that ends suddenly?"

Once this statement is made

All the ministers suddenly realized, looked around, stood up together, bowed and said, "Your Majesty is wise, and you are wise, and you are ashamed of seeing thousands of miles."

"Sit down, all my dear friends, one country is a family. My family members think more about it. Everything is planned, and if you don't want it, you will be abandoned. This is the reason." Li Fushou greeted everyone with a gentle expression, picked up the teacup and drank it, and then said calmly;

"Since you're talking about it, let's discuss how to safely withdraw from the wartime economy."

This topic was pointed out, and the ministers sat down and thought about it carefully.

Although there are casual chats in pavilions and water pavilions, there are still royal secretaries who record the words and deeds of the ministers and reach consensus on the opinions. They will then be promoted by the cabinet and various departments. In fact, it is just a court discussion, but it will be carried out in a relaxed and comfortable environment.

Therefore, you must never speak nonsense.

Think about it for a while

Finance Minister Tang Zhaoyi took the lead in speaking;

“Report to the Lord;

Weichen believes that financial policies should be the first to withdraw from the war, and the Imperial Federal Reserve Bank should gradually tighten its money bags, implement conservative economic policies, and gradually reduce the current economic heat.

This includes increasing the bank reserve ratio, reducing the scale of currency issuance, increasing bank interest rates in several steps, and sending a clear cooling signal to the market.

In order to cooperate with financial policies, all departments of the cabinet should introduce relevant measures, including but not limited to regulating market behavior, cracking down on related financial illegal and criminal activities, sorting out tax payment behaviors of factories and mine enterprises, strictly enforcing import and export management systems, tightening bank loans for the production and export of military weapons, and tightening loans to certain industries that blindly expand production capacity, such as steel, mining, military-industry machinery and equipment and chemical plants that produce explosives.

Pass the above measures

It can send a clear signal to society, get rid of the wartime economic state one step ahead of time, and return to normal social and economic operation.

The Imperial Ministry of Finance will conduct a comprehensive study on this, deploy targeted fiscal policies, unify and regulate the market, and promote a stable landing of the overall economy.

I have a foolish opinion, please correct me.”

What Tang Zhaoyi said was a bit informative and was highly praised by Li Fushou and the ministers of the cabinet.

The emperor said, "What Zhaoyi said is very consistent with my heart, and this should be the words of Lao Cheng's plan for the country!"

This evaluation was extremely high, and immediately aroused the competing spirit of the ministers under the table, rushing to give advice and suggestions. For a moment, you finished singing and I made a debut, making it very lively.

Earl Fan Zhongzhai, Speaker of the House of Nobles, said, "The current wartime economy is like cooking oil, with many illegal and disorderly behaviors, and economic chaos is rampant. It is necessary to strengthen legislative work and implement the "Ocean Empire Trademark Law", "Imperial Empire Control Law", "Commercial Product Quality Law", "Imperial Household Registration Law", "Traffic Law", "Transportation Law", "Golf and Gun Control Law" and other bills under review as soon as possible, so that relevant departments can have laws to follow and administer according to law, and further promote the improvement of the social system of rule of law..."

Viscount Jia Donghe, the Minister of the Colonial Ministry, said;

“In view of the transformation from wartime economy to peaceful economy and withdrawing from an overheated economy, the huge impact brought about cannot be underestimated.

The millions of people engaged in the military industry in the empire, as well as more than 16 million employees in the related industrial chain, will inevitably be seriously affected. The disappearing overseas orders and demand may cause a large number of enterprises to go bankrupt and unemployed.

The specific situation requires close cooperation between the Colonial Department and relevant cabinet departments to conduct a comprehensive survey and screening to draw authoritative conclusions.

But before that

The empire should fully tighten immigration policies, reduce the impact of the migrant workers, and leave more job opportunities for workers within the empire.

The temporary labor tension will definitely be fundamentally alleviated with the large number of unemployed people generated by withdrawal from the wartime economy and reduce the impact on the imperial economy and society.

According to statistics from the previous year

The empire's newborn population has reached more than 3.69 million a year, and it already has strong population growth capabilities. When the economy is facing transformation, it is necessary to control the entry of a large number of low-quality immigrants.

The current immigrant population is about 2 million to 2.1 million per year. After taking effective measures, the inflow of 400,000 to 500,000 high-quality population can be controlled every year.

This way

It is expected that the demand for adult employment will be reduced by about 3 million next year and the year after, and greatly enhancing the empire's ability to resist the risks of economic transformation is a powerful measure.

After the empire's economy is fully restored, we will gradually relax the policy of strict immigration control..."

Viscount Jia Donghe served as Minister of Industry and Transportation. He has often worked in the field of the imperial macroeconomics for many years. He is a senior cabinet secretary. His words are very insightful and his measures are decisive and sophisticated, which has won unanimous echoes from the cabinet ministers.

The so-called low-quality immigration means young people who have no money or education can only engage in simple and repetitive labor in factories, or engage in low-wage labor such as dock transportation, urban cleaning, or agriculture and animal husbandry in society. They belong to the bottom of society.

From the perspective of economic development

Now that the Ocean Empire has entered a highly industrialized society, the demand for low-quality labor has decreased accordingly, and the demand for high-quality labor in culture has increased is an indisputable fact.

The so-called high-quality immigration refers specifically to some students from mainland China who went to Australia to study, old people and young people in the Qing Dynasty, wealthy businessmen's children and families, landlords and actors, literati and poets, and new immigrants from good families and educated.

Therefore, this concept of high-quality immigration refers to immigration with a certain level of cultural level and economic ability, and does not cover moral standards and political tendencies, which has exceeded the scope of the management of the colonial department.

Open the window

As the wind pours in, not only birds singing and flowers scenting, but also dust and dregs, which is an inevitable situation.

Seeing this proposal, Li Fushou was approving the majority of cabinet ministers, hesitated for a while, and nodded in agreement.

Over the past two years

He rarely overturned the results of the court's controversy. Even if some of them did not conform to his governing philosophy, he would not easily use the authority of the emperor to reject it. Instead, he fully respected the democratic agenda and carefully maintained the general trend of gradual decentralization.

After the war, the empire would implement major political reforms, enter the process of comprehensive decentralization, and gradually move towards the British constitutional monarchy system.

There will also be several major measures, including the "Equal Rights Law", which concerns the vital interests of every citizen of the Empire, aims to promote the same power of aristocrats and civilians, without distinction between high and low in the face of law, without distinction between high and low in the face of human rights, without distinction between citizen responsibilities and obligations, and without distinction between enjoying political and social resources. All of this is brewing.
Chapter completed!