Chapter 606 State and Capital, Industry and Revolution
Office on the second floor of the converter workshop of the General Steel Factory under Xuzhou Iron and Steel Coal-Railway Administration.
Chief engineer Bei Semai put a piece of cooled slag on his desk, and the gray-brown slag blocks were shining with a metallic luster under the light. "This batch of alkaline refractory bricks are much better than the previous batch," he deliberately slowed down to let the translation keep up. "It seems that it can last longer. Maybe one hundred furnaces of molten iron need to be replaced once, which will increase our output by a percentage..."
Before he finished speaking, the No. 1 converter suddenly spewed out a fire dragon about a foot long. The foreman wrapped in an asbestos apron tugged in a copper bell, and the workers wearing vine helmets pushed the ladle car on the rails. One thousand and hundreds of degrees Celsius of steel poured into the mold casting pit, and the steaming white mist instantly swallowed half of the workshop.
Maria raised Luo Yaoguo's "Tiantian Mirror" (mobile phone), took the scene, then turned around and took a photo of Luo Yaoguo, Moore and Friedrich, who were watching the steel-burning out.
"How many tons of steel does this furnace have?" Moore asked.
"About 5 tons!" Beise McDonald.
"Ten thousand pounds" Bai Siwen gritted his teeth and whispered, "In less than two quarters of an hour."
Ten thousand kilograms of steel in two quarters of an hour! Such production efficiency cannot be caught up in the Qing Dynasty in Xi'an no matter what!
The Qing Dynasty must escape quickly, and can't stay in Shaanxi
"God..." Wen Xian took out a handkerchief to cover his mouth and nose. He had calculated in his mind that according to the time it takes to melt a furnace of molten steel by Beisemai converter, this Beisemai converter alone can produce more than 200 tons of steel in a day! Considering the time it takes to repair equipment and replace the furnace lining, it takes 250 working days a year to produce 50,000 tons of steel in a year!
The annual output of the UK before using the shellfish converter to steel was only 120,000 tons of steel.
In other words, the successful operation of the Beisemai converter at the Xuzhou Steel Plant has brought the steel output of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the United Kingdom to the same level - the steel output accumulated by the UK over the years is only equivalent to two Beisemai converters.
The second phase of the Xuzhou factory is planning to launch two larger shellfish converters at the same time, which is really getting bigger and bigger!
At this moment, he seemed to have seen the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom "help" Australia to liberate its productivity.
Luo Yaoguo grabbed the wet towel beside the cast iron observation window and threw it to Moore: "Cover your mouth and nose, and slag powder is sucked into your lungs and cough up blood."
But the "Carl Heavenly Master" seemed to have never heard of it. He wrote a pencil on the parchment book and asked: "The average daily working time of workers in the converter workshop? The standard for compensation for work injuries?"
Luo Yaoguo smiled and pointed to the cheerful scene in the workshop: "Teacher Carl, look at how happy the workers are, and you will know how they are treated?"
Friedrich, who was standing by, had calculated it in his notebook: "Now the price of a ton of steel in Europe is converted into more than 300 yuan in Taiping silver dollars. Even if the Beisemai converter has begun to be put into use, the price cannot be less than 200 yuan, which means that the value of that furnace of steel exceeds 1,000 Taiping silver dollars."
Moore sighed: "The profit is so generous. This proves that the country's investment in building large factories is completely feasible."
Bai Siwen coldly interjected: "The investment in the steel mill is probably very considerable, right? It is an iron mill, a coking mill, a railway, a coal mine, an iron mine, and a city for workers to live in. There are schools and hospitals, but there are no millions of silver dollars?"
Luo Yaoguo turned his head to the Qing Dynasty heritage and said: "Millions are not enough. The total investment of the first phase of the steel-coal-Railroad Administration in Xuzhou is 10 million Taiping silver dollars!"
When the whistle of the steam locomotive heading to Haizhou Port sounded on the eastern foot of Yunlong Mountain, Moore suddenly asked in English: "What is the collateral for the Shengku public debt?"
Maria's translation was drowned in the noise of wheels crushing the rails.
Luo Yaoguo unbuttoned the brass buckle of the briefcase and took out a sample ticket for the public debt. The three big words "Yi Baiyuan" pressed the vermilion seal. "The freight income of the Beijing-Shanghai Railway in the next five years," he bounced the ticket face, "and the salt tax income of the Lianghuai Salt Industry General Administration in the next five years."
"That's all?" Friedrich took the sample bills of the government bonds and looked carefully. "Can these mortgages send out 50 million Taiping silver dollars? The interest is so low?"
The reason why Moore and Friedrich were concerned about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's government debts was because today's conversation involved the source of funds for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's industrialization.
The productivity of industrialization is amazing, and the investment is also amazing. The total investment in the first phase of the Xuzhou Steel-Coal-Railroad Administration alone is as high as 10 million Taiping silver dollars!
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has invested much better in major projects that are comparable to this project, such as the Beijing (Tianjing) Shanghai Shanghai Railway, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the Jiangnan Pharmaceutical Bureau in Shanghai, the Tianjin University Hall, the Xuzhou General Administration of Chemical Industry in Xuzhou, the Kaiping Mining Bureau in Beizhili, etc. The first major project to be planned for investment in the five-year plan alone would cost tens of millions of Taiping silver dollars.
In history, the Qing Dynasty’s Westernization Movement lasted for so many years, and only spent more than 50 million taels, while Japan spent about the Westernization Movement at the same time.
Therefore, the failure of the Qing Dynasty Westernization Movement and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 were largely due to the lack of money spent.
Of course, Luo Yaoguo has to learn from his lessons, so he has made a huge investment and plans to invest billions to ten billions in the next thirty years!
Of course, this money cannot be obtained by the financial income of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
"How is the fiscal revenue and expenditure of the Kingdom of Heaven?" Moore asked, "Is it convenient to disclose?"
"Of course, that's open." Luo Yaoguo took the budget book from Maria, and the mulberry paper specially made by Suzhou Official Paper Bureau was covered with fly-headed small calligraphy. "Last year, 71.2 million were actually collected, of which 50 million were raised 300,000 elite army and more than 20 large and small steam warships. In addition, eight million had to support more than 40,000 registered officials of the Ministry of Personnel, and the rest were basically spent on education funds."
Friedrich stopped his pen: "The number of officials in your country is twenty times that of the Prussian central government?"
"The Ministry of Personnel is registered, but it is not considered an officer yet!" Bai Siwen interrupted sarcastically, "It is more than 20,000 more than the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty."
Luo Yaoguo smiled faintly and said to Friedrich: "Our population is twenty times that of Prussia!"
Of course, the more than 40,000 registered officials mentioned by Luo Yaoguo were only "officials" who served in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom court or assigned to the local government by the Ministry of Rites, and did not include "officials" who served in the local government or in the court. The number of the latter had to be increased tenfold!
However, most of them (local officials) do not take money from the central government, which is the expenditure of local governments.
In addition, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also had two "non-governmental organizations" such as the Datonghui and the Zhenyou Sect, as well as a large number of local militias, and their funds did not go from the finances.
Among them, the funds of the True Talk mainly come from the West Coast and the South Ocean, while the funds of the Datong Association came from Luo Yaoguo's early investment (industry) in Shanghai's commercial ports and the "donation" of the True Talk. As for the militia's funds, the funds came from local financial appropriations.
The newest ⊥小⊥小⊥ said⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥!
"But your fiscal revenue and expenditure are not optimistic," Wen Xian felt something was wrong after hearing Luo Yaoguo introduce the fiscal revenue and expenditure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. "How could your public debt be sold so well? Who is buying it?"
"I don't know this," Luo Yaoguo smiled and shook his head, "Public debts are unnamed, and anyone can buy them."
Of course, Luo Yaoguo knew who was buying the government bonds?
The largest buyers of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom’s government bonds are True Quepai Bank and Prophecy Foundation. The former’s funds are Chinese immigrants from Nanyang and gold diggers on the West Coast - that is a bank endorsed by Heavenly Father! The latter’s funds are the money earned by Luo Yaoguo’s sales of prophecy, which is also a large sum of money!
It is precisely because of these two foreign financial support that Luo Yaoguo's industrial investment can be so large.
The turbid waves on the coast of northern Jiangsu were slamming the side of the paddle-wheeled steamer. Friedrich was smoking a pipe while looking at the endless coastline of northern Jiangsu: "The King of Wu also believes that Europe will inevitably have a working country in the future? Is this because proletarians from all countries will eventually unite?"
"On the contrary, it is the backlash of industrial capital that pushes nationalism toward extremes." Luo Yaoguo held a cup of coffee and took a sip. "Although industrialization has already begun, the industrialized war has only seen clues. The war against Russia that just ceased to fight was not a real industrialized war, and nationalism has not been pushed to the extreme. The reason for the outbreak of the war was only the Tsar's personal ambition, not the Russian industrial capital wanted to obtain resources and markets through war. So this war was stopped by the Tsar if he wanted to stop. For Britain and France, the situation was the same."
Moore looked through the industrial plan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and asked, "Do you predict that the future industrialization war will destroy the bourgeoisie in Europe?"
"It's not all, but part," Luo Yaoguo smiled, "This is obvious. When industrial capital faces overcapacity and insufficient raw materials, it will inevitably push nationalism in their respective countries to extremes. The war under the scale of industrialization is no longer a war between a few soldiers and aristocrats, but a total war involving the whole people. This means."
Friedrich's eyes lit up: "It means that workers will master weapons!"
"Yes!" Luo Yaoguo nodded, "Only by allowing workers to master weapons can countries maintain a huge war of casualties! To deceive workers into entering the barracks, extreme nationalism is needed. This means."
Moore said: "War will not stop when the ruler feels it is not worth it."
"Yes!" Luo Yaoguo smiled, "War can be promoted by the rulers. It is promoted, not launched! But it cannot be stopped by the rulers. Once a large-scale imperialist war begins, what awaits them is victory or revolution!"
Chapter completed!