"Ivanovich, I leave these agreements to you. Keep them well and pay attention to your people. If the agreements are leaked, I will be the first to find you and establish a second organization. Not only will you not be that important by then,
, I’m afraid I still have to suffer.”
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Ivanovich's face tightened and he responded respectfully.
Then Peter took a deep breath and said with bright eyes:
"Now the meeting with you has officially begun. You have each had your responsibilities before. I don't care what you are responsible for. If it is outside my scope of attention, you can continue."
Hearing this, Vorontsov couldn't help but be a little surprised.
He looked at Bestudev, but Bestudev did not look at him. Vorontsov snorted coldly. With Bestudev as Deputy Minister of General Affairs, few people remembered that he was the Minister of General Affairs. Bestudev was arrogant.
I'm used to it, isn't His Majesty still pressing me now?
Peter spoke:
"Let me first briefly talk about the direction of the national strategy, including population, military, economy, culture, administration, people's livelihood, defense, and war reserves."
"Population, if anyone wants to say anything, please speak."
Peter pressed his hands on the table and looked at the ministers.
Everyone's expressions became strange. Bestudev's rigid expression finally changed. He looked at Peter and was surprised.
Is this what Teacher Peter taught?
wrong.
Romanosov and Andnov were here, and their expressions were very surprised.
And this classification method is quite interesting.
Duke Dallye's eyes were already glowing with blazing light. He was very excited and was shouting in his heart.
He knew it! He knew it!
Peter is definitely not who he was rumored to be, and now he is!
If it were the rumored Peter, how could he have written such a shocking work as "Peter Love"? How could he have such a clear and firm line of thought?
"Your Majesty, I have lived for most of my life, and I finally get to be reused one day!"
Although Daliye didn't know how the emperor would arrange for him, he also knew that he would never be able to just teach him to sit in on the meeting.
At this level, who is qualified to observe?
After hesitating for a moment, Lieutenant General Apraxin spoke first:
"Your Majesty, when you say population, do you mean the number of people?"
Peter nodded: "Yes."
Lieutenant General Apraxin immediately became energetic and said:
"Your Majesty, our population in Russia is already very powerful. Who else can compare with our country except France?"
Trubetskoy also nodded in agreement.
Bestudev glanced at Peter and said:
"Your Majesty, what the Lieutenant General said makes sense. France has the largest territory and the most developed agriculture. This is something we cannot compare with."
Bestudev sighed as he spoke, very envious of France's geographical environment. It is not as big as Russia, but the cultivated area is so small.
There was one thing he didn't say: Population cannot be increased by just talking.
Everyone knows that wars are more powerful when the population is large, but how can it be possible to increase the population out of thin air?
What to feed on?
After looking around and seeing basically these opinions, Peter frowned and said:
"I ask you to suggest increasing the population, and you just tell me the reality?"
Seeing that Peter was not satisfied, Vorontsov immediately said:
"Your Majesty, do you think otherwise, can we use tax cuts to allow the serfs to greatly increase the population?"
"And since your Majesty has just ascended the throne, you must have this kind of grace."
After hearing what Vorontsov said, Trubetskoy immediately expressed his opposition. The use of funds from the treasury must be approved by the parliament.
Of course, in the past, the Queen used it whenever she wanted, and the Parliament did not dare to say anything.
Trubetskoy said:
"You still want to reduce taxes now? Your Majesty! You don't know that there are only 5.6 million rubles left in the treasury. Now the money for fighting on the front line has not been paid to the soldiers for two months. Dear Your Majesty, if you want to show favor to the people, you must completely
Some prisoners can be pardoned, but tax cuts are definitely not enough!"
Everyone was surprised when they heard how much money was left in the treasury. Peter said:
"Can't the annual poll tax collect more than 8 million? Why is there only this little money left?"
Trubetskoy smiled bitterly:
"Your Majesty, the more you receive, the more you spend. Every year is tough..."
Then he said a lot of bitter things. Peter listened for a moment and interrupted:
"Without telling the treasury in advance, it is not feasible to reduce taxes to increase the population. Russia has not yet reached this extravagant level. Is there no other way?"
Romanosov hesitated for a moment, Peter looked at him and said:
"you say."
Although Romanosov and Andnov had a teacher-student relationship with him, he had already ascended the throne and called himself emperor, and there was no reason to use honorific titles on such occasions.
Here, everyone is his subject.
Romanosov said:
"Your Majesty, there are only two factors to increase the population. One is that the living conditions are better and the people are more stable, so they can think about having children. The other is..."
Romanosov hesitated to say:
"Waging war to plunder the population."
Aprakhin, a lieutenant general, immediately objected:
"Your Majesty! Now we are helping Austria, France and Prussia fight. Although we are not the main participants in the war, we have not taken any advantage. The soldiers are tired of fighting after fighting. There are too many powerful countries participating in the war. We cannot start from here.
Let’s start with this aspect.”
Peter agrees:
"That's right, don't think about helping Austria fight France and Prussia for now. The benefits of launching a war to plunder the population are indeed huge, but the prerequisite is that it is successful and there are no consequences."
"Frederick took away more than 1.5 million people from Theresa. Although it is enviable, it also put himself in the spotlight. Romanosov's other good idea is to improve the people's living conditions if he does not start a war.
.”
Hearing Peter say this, everyone looked at each other.
Doesn’t improving living conditions also require money?
But the problem is that there is no money.
The millions of rubles in the state treasury are a drop in the bucket compared to the whole of Russia.
Seeing everyone's expressions, Peter sighed. He really envied France, but at the same time he also despised it.
I am envious because France has the most fertile land in Europe, and its food self-sufficiency rate reached 300% in the 18th century.
In 1740, under Louis XIV, the population exceeded 21.5 million. At that time, Britain still had 5.45 million, the wealthy Netherlands only had 1.95 million, Spain had 7.4 million, and Russia had 13 million.
Now forty years have passed, and Russia's population has reached about 16 million.
What I despise is that France introduced potatoes before Russia, but they only treated them as ornamental plants.
Potatoes are a magical tool for population growth. In the past life novel, potatoes were planted as soon as they traveled through history. Although it is cliché, it does make sense.
This thing can be grown in large quantities on land that is not suitable for farming. If he remembered correctly, the population of Tsarist Russia rose to 35 million in 1800, and the population grew astonishingly, relying on potatoes.