Master Yuan, start!

"Well, you really are worthy of being a businessman valued by Crown Prince Nicholas!" Lieutenant General Baranov patted Ji Fengtai on the shoulder and encouraged him.

Hearing this, Ji Fengtai looked at the vacant land on both sides of the Songhua River and said:

"Your Excellency, although we have collected so much food in a short period of time, these lands are at risk of being abandoned. I think..."

Ba: "Well, what are you thinking?"

2 “I wonder if the Lieutenant General could send someone to inform these Chinese civilians to return to the fields.

Otherwise, even after victory in the war, great Russia will still face the risk of losing all its money to the Chinese.”

Ji Fengtai spoke sincerely. He looked at the docks on both sides of the river and slowly spoke to the Russian in front of him.

...

What he wanted to explain was the fundamental reason why the Russians launched this war.

After Acheng was established as a county, the county continued to extend northward, all the way to the banks of the Songhua River, echoing Hulan County in the north of the river.

The docks of the two counties, one in the south and one in the north, together control nearly 6% of the water transport share of the Songhua River section.

Grain and specialties from outside the Great Wall passed through here and sailed eastward to the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, all the way to Russia.

Most of the supplies brought by Russian merchants were also delivered here. After moving westward along the Songhua River, they either went north to Qiqihar through the Nenjiang River or were loaded onto the railway and sent to Fengtian.

The items sent out included but were not limited to flour, grain, livestock, vegetables, tobacco, tea, liquor, textiles, and various medicinal materials from the Jilin mountainous areas.

The Russians urgently need these things to fill the growing population consumption in the Far East.

However, the Chinese do not particularly need things from the Russians.

Or perhaps it could be said that the Russians in the Far East have nothing to offer to attract the Chinese.

Use industrial products?

You know, although Russia is an industrial country, that is only aimed at the European region.

The Russian Far East, with its large population and limited land, was not much stronger than the Qing Dynasty, which launched the Westernization Movement.

So in the end, the Russians in the Far East could only rely on hard currencies such as silver ingots, gold sand, and silverware to complete transactions.

Since Yuan Shikai took control of the areas outside the Great Wall, the Russians have imported about 200 million rubles worth of goods from here every year on average.

However, the export of precious metals can only cover about 10% of the share.

This means that Russia's Far East region has a serious trade deficit of nearly 180 million rubles each year.

180 million rubles, converted at the current exchange rate, is nearly 30 pounds, or 120 million taels of silver.

120 million taels of silver are enough for Yuan Shikai to buy another fully armed Hailong!

In fact, the economic situation in Russia's Far East in recent years is very similar to that of Britain before the outbreak of the Opium War.

At that time, the British urgently needed China's tea, silk and porcelain, but China was not interested in British cloth and industrial products, which led to a serious trade deficit for Britain.

In order to reverse the trade deficit, the British had no choice but to resort to the deadly weapon of smuggling opium, but the opium market was banned by the anti-opium campaign led by local governors-general headed by Lin Zexu.

After eradicating opium, the British lost their bargaining chips in commercial means and could only watch the trade deficit expand.

In the end, the exasperated British had no choice but to start a war to forcibly open the Chinese market and sell their goods.

And the opium of the Russians is precious metals.

However, the mining of precious metals in the Far East is restricted by weather, manpower and other factors, and the output has not been able to be increased.

On the contrary, the population in Russia's Far East is increasing, and the demand for Chinese food is increasing.

As a result, Russia's trade deficit continued to expand.

By 1895, it had even reached 300 million rubles per year, equivalent to about 150 million taels of silver.

The Russians were naturally unwilling to see the Chinese making so much money, so they had the same idea as the British.

War, plunder!

Ji Fengtai came here to implement the order that Crown Prince Nicholas had previously given him, which was to incorporate the occupied Chinese land into the economic plan of the Russian Amur Governor's Office as much as possible!

Let the Far East be self-sufficient and no longer have such a huge trade deficit!

The meaning of the national flag is explained with pictures

img src="

The flag is called

"Yellow Sun and Twelve-Star Red Flag"

still is

"Red Flag with Twelve Stars Accompanying the Sun"

Everyone please vote, I will standardize the names from now on.

Meaning,

The yellow sun represents the Huang Han and the descendants of Yan and Huang.

The twelve stars represent the twelve Earthly Branches and the twelve zodiac animals.

It means that all Chinese people with twelve zodiac signs should unite to build a Han country of the descendants of Yan and Huang.

In addition, there is a more interesting flag below, which I just discovered two days ago.

img src="

This is the flag of the revolutionary army in Yunnan during the Xinhai period, but I always feel that it seems more suitable for use in Henan.

Hahaha, just kidding. I mainly want to ask everyone if it is necessary to make a "provincial flag" for each province in this book.

Chapter 338: Mobilizing the Masses to Attack the Enemy

"Ivanovich, you must abandon your Oriental thinking!"

After listening to Ji Fengtai's account of the Far East's economic situation, Lieutenant General Baranov was somewhat unimpressed: "If there's not enough, we can just rob more. Restoring the economy can wait."

"But...but..." Ji Fengtai opened his mouth, wanting to explain that this was what Crown Prince Nicholas meant.

Baranov waved his hand without waiting for Ji Fengtai to finish speaking, and said to himself:

“When it comes to producing grain and brewing wine, who can compare with the Chinese?

However, the Chinese have made so much money from the Far East, but they haven’t been able to defend their territory.”

After saying this, Baranov raised his right foot and knocked his brand new military boots on the deck.

Filter "Da"

"clatter"

Make a crisp sound.

"This is perfect evidence!"

Under the feet of the two men was a gunboat that the Russian army had seized from the Qing Dynasty's Heilongjiang Navy.

It has two 2mm guns and two 90mm guns.

The types of guns are exactly the two calibers commonly used in the National Revolutionary Army.

After Yiktang'a took office as the governor of Heilongjiang in 1893, he asked the Qing court to purchase gunboats.

The Qing government originally planned to purchase warships from Britain and Germany.

But after Yuan Shikai learned about this, he took over the project at a price 3% lower than that of Britain and Germany, and handed it over to the Incheon Shipyard for design and construction.

Regarding the navy, Yuan Shikai had previously discussed it with Xu Shichang, and generally adhered to the principle of "it is better to buy than to make".

It’s not that Yuan Shikai was short-sighted, but that in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the military weapons and equipment of various countries were advancing at a rapid pace.

This is especially true for the navy, where new design ideas emerge almost every year.

Now is the critical period before the appearance of the dreadnought. If too much cost is invested in the design of the pre-dreadnought, it will be counterproductive.

After all, China is not yet a country with strong talent and industry, and good steel should be used on the blade.

Therefore, Yuan Shikai adopted the concept of "buying ships from abroad for military use and building ships for civilian use" when it came to shipbuilding.

Rely on self-built merchant ships and cargo ships to train workers and technicians.

As for naval warships, we will purchase mature foreign examples.

The Beiyang Fleet's four Hai-class cruisers were modeled after the fully equipped Zhiyuan.

Anyway, the design concepts of these ironclad ships will be outdated in a few years. Instead of spending time and money to follow the old path of the foreigners, it is better to use them first.

When the dreadnought era arrived, we would leverage the already developed shipbuilding industry to build our own large warships.

However, this does not mean that Yuan Shikai did not build warships at all.

As for small warships such as coastal and inland gunboats that are not easily obsolete, he is still willing to build a few to practice.

You should know that North Korea has the Pyongyang Iron and Steel Works, Incheon Machinery Bureau, and Incheon Shipyard.

That is, the seven aspects of warship construction, including lin steel, guns, and hull design, can all be met.

Most of the personnel in the Incheon Shipyard came from the Fuzhou Shipyard, which had designed the "Pingyuan" ironclad ship, so R&D capabilities were not a problem.

In 1894, the Pyongyang Iron Works' steel production had reached more than 3 tons, which was sufficient to provide support.

More importantly, for inland gunboats, there is no need to pursue large tonnage, the heaviest is only 2000 tons.

Coincidentally, Incheon Shipbuilding has been building cargo ships of about 2100 tons, so manufacturing small-tonnage ships is not a problem.

Therefore, in the year 1893-1894, the Incheon Shipyard built a total of three 3-ton gunboats for the Heilongjiang Navy.

At the end of the 19th century, the inland gunboat with two 2mm and two 90mm naval guns was not as good as the Russian gunboats, but at least it could protect itself.

However, no matter how good a weapon is, it needs the right owner.

After the Russian invasion, two gunboats anchored on the Heilongjiang River outside the city of Aihui were sunk on the spot by Russian gunboats coming from downstream. The remaining gunboat fled in panic without even firing a shot when it saw the enemy approaching.

But because he escaped in such a hurry, he did not observe the water level carefully and accidentally ran aground.

Eventually, the gunboat was captured by the Russians and used again.

...

"Ivanovich, you often say that China has a history of thousands of years and has created a brilliant culture."