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On New Year's Day 1860, Guangdong had gradually begun to get used to this new calendar holiday. Because on this day, those who used a wall calendar and a desk calendar would have to change to a new one. Even if they couldn't afford a desk calendar, they would get a single-page calendar and stick it on the wall. The new calendar of the Viceroy's Office was also simple. Even the simplest single-page calendar would be marked with the lunar calendar and the corresponding solar terms under the Western calendar. Compared to the perpetual calendar that had to be checked in books, this was much more convenient.
This year was the Year of the Monkey. The single-page calendar either had a variety of monkeys as the main pattern, or according to the Guangdong custom, the main pattern was the God of Wealth holding a gold ingot. In short, it was a festive occasion. The calendar had a different pattern for each month. The more extravagant calendars had richer content and even had daily taboos.
Of course, the most important thing was that all the characters within the jurisdiction of the Viceroy's Office were unified in simplified Chinese.
On New Year's Day, Vézé delivered a New Year's Day speech as usual. By 1860, the Viceroy's Office had occupied Guangdong for nearly five years. For more than four years, with the repeated wars, internal and external, the Viceroy's Office had finally gained a foothold after winning all the wars.
Vézé's New Year's Day speech was not about this. He put forward the standards and ideas about the country, the system, and the judiciary. "All people are protected by the law. Except for the public power of the country, there is no other power that can force people to choose their own life. The standards of the public power of the country are the same, and everyone is equal before the law... "
It was not easy to expect Vézé to say something very close to the people, because at Vézé's level, everything he said represented the governance philosophy of the Viceroy's Office. Vézé's New Year's Day speech was published after discussion by the representatives of the National Conference of the Recovery Association. And what was published was the content that the Viceroy's Office wanted to implement back then, which was not a joke.
In addition to the philosophy, the Viceroy's Office also had more specific major matters. For example, the Viceroy's Office moved back to Guangzhou after three years. The return to Guangzhou of the Recovered Viceroy's Office, which was once forced to hide in Foshan under the military threat of the British, meant that the Liberation Army's military strength was enough to defend the capital of the regime. As for the orders for the Liberation Army, there was nothing about defending Guangzhou. Vézé simply asked the troops to prepare for war.
The existence of the army had always been for the sake of fighting. Such an understatement was basically not noticed by outsiders. Not being noticed didn't mean that he didn't take action. In the current body of power, the National Assembly of the Restoration Council, the budget department and the General Staff Department were arguing endlessly over the issue of military expenditure.
"The war this year will be more intense. The military expenditure has to be doubled!" Ju Junfeng, the Chief of Staff of the General Staff, made a request from the standpoint of the army.
The Minister of Finance, Li Yuchang, immediately retorted, "According to the commander-in-chief's plan, this year's war will only happen in the second half of the year. What was the point of doubling the military expenditure? The second half of the year will naturally have a plan for the second half of the year. Before the troops are dispatched, the commander-in-chief will definitely give the order. At that time, it will not be too late to carry out the financial establishment! "
Ju Junfeng responded bluntly, "Do you think you can make it in time to carry out a temporary financial establishment with only a few people in your Ministry of Finance? Do you have enough manpower? Other than poaching people from the logistics department, what else can the Ministry of Finance do? "
"Ha! Haha! " Li Yuchang sneered. "To be able to poach people from the logistics department and make good use of them, this is the capability of the Ministry of Finance. The affairs of the Ministry of Finance are not under the jurisdiction of the General Staff Department! "
Such tit-for-tat quarrels were the norm between the various departments and the Ministry of Finance. As someone who had been troubled by the Manchu Qing government in the past, Li Yuchang always had the courage to fight when facing other departments. Of course, as the highest body of power, the National Assembly of the Restoration Council adopted a democratic system. Other than matters that had to be decided by the Standing Committee, other matters were decided by voting. Not only did they quarrel, but they also had to come up with reasons that could convince these national representatives.
For example, Li Yuchang won over the issue of military expenditure. Most of the national representatives believed that Vézé, as the commander-in-chief of the Liberation Army, would make a decision a few months before the troops were dispatched. There would definitely be time to discuss it at that time. In fact, what everyone did not want to say was that as long as Vézé said it, it would not be a problem to ask for additional military expenditure. At this time, arguing about this nonsensical issue was really Ju Junfeng looking for trouble. Did he want the General Staff Department to get rid of the leadership of Military Governor Vaize and gain financial power?
Li Yuchang did not argue with every ministry. For example, the Ministry of Education had doubled its budget for three years in a row. In addition to implementing literacy classes in the villages where the land grants were located, the Recovered Viceroy's Office also promulgated the Law on Compulsory Education for Military Families. This was the first phase of the Compulsory Education Law that would be implemented throughout the country in the future. As the foundation of the Recovered Viceroy's Office, military families under the age of 14 were obliged to receive a four-year compulsory education. Military family members under the age of 24 were required to receive four months of education during the slack farming period in the local area. In addition, they had to complete the prescribed subjects within six years.
In China's cultural tradition, reading was a good thing. However, it could be said that 99% of the Liberation Army's current conscription targets were families that could not afford to send all their children to school. This was not to underestimate the families of Liberation Army soldiers. Compared with other families in China, the families of Liberation Army soldiers were by no means poor. In the whole of China, families that could send all their children to school accounted for at most 1% of all families in China.
Even though the Commander-in-Chief's Office had built kindergartens in both the cities and the countryside, it was still a very costly project to improve the social services enjoyed by military families. In other words, it was a very wasteful project. Over the past year or so, there were fewer and fewer signs of the British trying to use force against the Restored Commandery. Although they had lost the tobacco trade in Guangdong, the British had greatly increased their opportunities to make money because of the sharp increase in normal commercial trade.
Raw materials such as copper ore, sulfur, and oil, light industrial cotton cloth, woolen, industrial trains, textile and silk reeling machinery. As long as it was a product that the Restored Commandery could not produce for the time being, the British could make money by shipping it to Guangdong.
In the past, among the normal trade commodities, the largest foreign export to China was the silver dollar. It accounted for about 22% of all commodity trade. Since the establishment of the customs settlement and clearing bank, the British did not need to ship silver dollars to China. As long as they had an account in the customs bank, they could obtain various quotas according to the list of commodities. The British provided the internal settlement of the British part in Hong Kong, and the Restored Commandery was responsible for the internal settlement of the China part. At least the British did not need to take the huge risk of shipping large amounts of silver dollars to China.
Such a large amount of trade, such a large amount of industry, led to a sharp increase in the labor force. To feed these people, a large amount of food was needed to stabilize the demand. For example, if the Ministry of Education wanted to increase the coverage of education, the teachers would certainly eat grain and not grow grain.
Therefore, as soon as the Ministry of Education's discussion ended, the governor of Guangdong, Bi Qingshan, jumped out and made a request. "According to the investigation, we have raised the price of rice in Vietnam by 20% in less than half a year. Although Vietnam wants to increase the purchase of our weapons, they can't buy tens of thousands of our rifles every year. This year, how much grain we can buy from Vietnam is a big problem. What do you think, Governor? "
Everyone's eyes fell on Vézé. Vézé had opened up a large scale grain trade route with Vietnam, which had indeed eased the heavy food pressure of the Restored Commandery. But people were like this. If it was in the past, when people starved to death was the norm, everyone would have let it go. Now, they could finally not starve to death. Moreover, in 1859, which was last year, the Restored Commandery sold a large amount of Vietnamese rice on the market and forcibly suppressed the price of rice. The government knew that the root of their glorious victory was completely dependent on the intervention and procurement of other countries' markets.
Regarding this result, everyone felt a sense of crisis, not a sense of security. Once Vietnam could not provide such a large amount of grain, the food supply of Guangdong and Guangxi would immediately become a problem.
Vézé laughed: "My idea is very simple. Not only do we have to do business with Vietnam, but we also have to do rice business with Siam. Siam is rich in rice and has no military industry. They are closer to the British, so we can persuade them to buy the rifles we sell to Vietnam. I estimate that we can sell tens of thousands of rifles. If we exchange rice for rifles, we can probably last for a year or two. "
Bi Qingshan frowned and asked: "In other words, if the trade with Siam goes smoothly, we can at most guarantee a stable supply of food until 1864?"
This kind of frown meant that Bi Qingshan was not optimistic about the future. Even after learning about Vézé's plan to import food from overseas, Bi Qingshan still had doubts about the ability of Vézé's leadership to lead the Restored Commandery. Vézé did not feel that this kind of doubt damaged Vézé's own face. On the contrary, he felt that Bi Qingshan was a good comrade.
Vézé knew about the Great Irish Famine, which was the famine between 1845 and 1852. During these seven years, the population of Ireland under the British rule plummeted by nearly a quarter. This reason was because the British annexed almost all of Ireland's land. As an industrial country, Britain naturally needed a large amount of agricultural products. The Irish could only make a living by growing potatoes on a small piece of land. The sharp decline in potato production caused by the potato disease caused the Great Irish Famine that lasted for seven years.
Even during the famine, the British still imported a large amount of agricultural and livestock products from Ireland. After all, the private agricultural capitalists engaged in agriculture and livestock for money. The poor in Ireland did not have purchasing power. The beef, milk, and wheat supplied to the British could not be bought by the poor in Ireland. Since the poor in Ireland could not afford it, then the poor in Ireland should just die.
Obviously, Bi Qingshan did not have the idea of letting the poor in China die. Only by stabilizing the channel to obtain food from overseas could the food supply of hundreds of thousands of workers in Guangdong be guaranteed. Only then could the farmers in Guangdong be guaranteed a stable life that they had painstakingly obtained.
Without waiting for Vézé to say anything, Minister of Commerce Levis said, "Now we are importing more and more. If we can't get tea from Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan, and other places, and only rely on tea and silk from Guangdong, it is only a matter of time before the trade deficit appears. I wonder when the Governor will use troops to fight? "
As soon as these straightforward words were said, the national representatives of the Restored Society all shut up. Even the representatives who were reading various agenda documents raised their heads, and everyone's eyes fell on Vézé.
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