"Why talk with Liang Qichao!" Yang Du returned to Longmen Inn and couldn't help but relay the conversation between him and Liang Qichao at dusk to Yang Rui. After listening to a few passages, Yang Rui became impatient. He felt that finding Liang Qichao to return to China to work in politics was simply a waste of time.

"Although Liang Zhuoru's disciples betrayed with Sun Wen and others, he left immediately when he arrived in Kunming. Whether it was to know the current affairs or be timid, at least he did not treason." Yang Du defended that the Yunnan treason case had been open for public trial, and Liang Qichao was lucky again, just assisting in the investigation, not wanting, and although his reputation was bad, he did not know the crimes of Zhang Shizhao of the Tingwei Mansion, so he wanted to bring this person back to his country to use it.

"Some people are not as good as treason." Yang Rui said. "But..." Thinking of Liang Qichao's remarks, he had to nod and said, "This person is still talented. From the perspective of the entire nation, it would be better for him to stay in the world than in the temple. This person is very confused. Once he becomes an official, he is the official position, and only in white clothes can he spit out some ivory."

After hearing Yang Rui's comments, Yang Du was surprised, "What he actually means is that he is right?"

"Well. His real position is two. One is that although the West has declined, the East has long died, so the world in the future will definitely rule the East. He said this from a cultural perspective. I agree with his inference, but I may not agree with this result. The East has an East set of things, and on a technical level, we may not lose to the West in the future. The use of technology or technology determines military advantages. For example, although the culture of the Mongols is behind the Song Dynasty, it does not prevent them from destroying the Song Dynasty. The military advantages of barbarian nations over civilized nations have often changed world history.

Another one is his theory of empire. How to say that, before education is popularized, the most suitable way of rule is actually the imperial system, because once it really becomes a republic, as he said, obedience to the people and slaves cannot establish a republic. When the old history has not been completely eliminated, it can only be changed slowly. What we can do is to replace the pillars through education. Now, most of the people are slaves and the people, which are left over from the Qing Dynasty. People born after the founding of the country will never become slaves and the people through education, economic and political means."

Yang Rui talked freely, and the concerns caused by Liang Qichao's remarks soon disappeared in Yang Du's mind, but there was another question that Yang Du was unsure. He said: "In Liang Zhuoru's statement, from a cultural perspective, this country is difficult to maintain its current territory except *. Is this saying? Once the people are not obedient to the people or slaves, and the pass evolves into a real republic, then the country will be divided? In other words, is it impossible for the great empire to be maintained under the new world pattern?"

Yang Xizi asked exactly what Yang Rui avoided. From the perspective of the imperial system, the current territory is naturally to be preserved, and from the perspective of the Republic, if this territory contains most alien elements, the political situation and society will inevitably become extremely unstable. Because of this, Americans will never annex Mexico or the Philippines, because these tens of millions of voters will completely change the political landscape of the United States; India will not retain Pakistan, because tens of millions of Muslims are definitely the dead end of Hinduism.

What is a Republic? A Republic is a country established by the same people. The size of its territory depends on the land and living scope of these same people. What are the same people? It depends on who the reference is. Compared with white people, all yellow people are the same; compared with English race, all people who speak Chinese characters are the same; compared with the north bank of the Yangtze River, Jiangnan is all southerners. Different references have different results, but as far as Greater China, Mongolian, Tibetan and Hui are definitely foreign races, and they are difficult to include in the category of republic.

Imperial system is the concept of the East. Republic is the concept of the West. It cannot require a territory as large as the imperial system under the republic political system; nor can it establish the concept of ethnicity in a multi-ethnic imperial country, and then implement constitutional monarchy or republic constitution. Because the empire only has subjects, no ethnic people, and no voters, otherwise this two-sided pleasing behavior will only make the entire country inconsistent and contradictory. She may be imperial. Then she then implements a fake republic; perhaps it is republic, and then it is named as a province, but in fact it is colonized to rule other alien regions. However, whether it is imperial or colonial, Greater China cannot be maintained for a long time under the existing world pattern and thoughts. This is the fatal point of Greater China. She will eventually be divided due to too many external forces and internal heterogeneity.

"Liang Qichao said..." Yang Rui thought about it in his heart, but found that he was unable to do so. "How to say it? There is a certain reason. The key to this is that the West will definitely overwhelm the East. As long as the West wins, no country that threatens them cannot exist. There will only be one superpower in the whole world, that is, the United States. This is actually the consciousness of capital, that is, no administrative power of any country except the United States cannot be controlled by it. Wherever there are resources, whether it is mineral resources or human resources, it will go. Do you know? Foreigners are reviving their Rome, the world Rome."

When Yang Xizi was thinking about what to say, the Ministry of Revenue came in with Wang Yongjiang, a representative of the delegation. It was obvious that there was something to report. Yang Du had to withdraw. China was like Britain. Under the Prime Minister, the Minister of Revenue was the largest. Wang Yongjiang was recognized as the deputy of Yu Huizu and the next Minister of Revenue. This was something he, as a strategist, must not offend. Wang Yongjiang didn't know why he was favored by Yang Rui and he didn't know his place in another period of history. He only knew that it was a pie that fell from the sky and smashed his head with a thud.

"Prime Minister, the franc is depreciating!" Wang Yongjiang, who never asked for a meeting without reporting, said this to Yang Du's first sentence after leaving.

"Mom, they want to betray the debt!" Yang Rui liked Wang Yongjiang and spoke to him in a completely Northeast accent, "Old Wang, tell me, how much has they depreciated, how much has we lost?"

"It depreciated by about three times. Last year, it was one pound to twenty-six francs, and now it was one pound to seventy-eight francs [Note 116]. The most serious thing is that domestic prices have also risen by fifty percent." Wang Yongjiang said.

"What about our losses?" Yang Rui asked anxiously, he was not afraid of exchange rate depreciation, because as long as he used francs to buy things in France, there was no need to worry about exchange rate fluctuations, but the rise in domestic prices was fatal, which directly led to the decline in the purchasing power of francs in his hands.

"We have more than 1.54 billion francs. In this round, it is... in terms of exchange rate, it is equivalent to losing one billion francs; in terms of purchasing power, it is equivalent to losing five hundred million." Wang Yongjiang said.

"Is there no way to avoid it?" Yang Rui asked anxiously. This is really a robbery. "Is this a government act?"

"It should not be a government action. The battlefield is in France. So the most damage has been suffered. In order to rebuild these damaged areas, a large amount of materials are imported and few materials are exported. The balance of payments cannot be balanced, and the trade deficit is increasing. This will inevitably lead to a sharp drop in the exchange rate and a sharp rise in domestic prices. Even if someone makes trouble, it will only add fuel to the fire." Wang Yongjiang said. "As for avoiding home, there is really no good way, so it can only be an urgent purchase of a batch of French materials. Many factories in France are now bankrupt. There are not enough workers. The factory owners think they will be very happy to sell machines they don't use."

"Then let the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Commerce do it right away!" Yang Rui said anxiously.

"Prime Minister, we are already doing it." Wang Yongjiang wiped his sweat.

"That's good! I was also stupid at the beginning. Seeing that the Frenchman had a lot of gold, I thought his currency was strong. It was really..." The 1.5 billion francs in his hand disappeared in an instant, and it was really a ghost. "The pound won't depreciate like this, right?"

"Prime Minister, the pound has depreciated. Now this price should be stable." Wang Yongjiang said.

"What is the current price?" Yang Rui forgot the exchange rate for a while, and he asked again: "Where is the US dollar? Besides, how much money have we made after depreciation factors? Why has the Ministry of Revenue still not a correct score?"

Yang Rui's questions one after another. Wang Yongjiang could only answer one by one. He said: "The current price of the pound is 3.66 against the US dollar. It has been maintained at only 4.86 before, which is equivalent to depreciating by 25%. We hold 1.5 billion francs. According to the exchange rate before the war, this is more than 600 million Jinhua yuan, and after the war it was about 400 million. Now the exchange rate has plummeted, so there is only about 1.5 billion Jinhua yuan left. Fortunately, many of the francs collected during the war were spent. Otherwise...

The pound has more than 1.6 billion yuan in its hands, and the exchange rate before the war was more than 1.55 billion yuan. But now the exchange rate has dropped to 1.72 pounds against 6.72 pounds, which is only more than 1.70 million yuan; the US dollar has not depreciated. Now there are more than 3.8 billion US dollars in its hands, totaling 7.7 billion yuan in Jinhua yuan..."

Foreign exchange is the US dollar, pound and franc. Now all of them are less than 10 billion. Yang Rui asked: "Are you minus military expenditure?

"Yes, Prime Minister. This minus the military expenditure of the expeditionary force and part of the military expenditure of the Western Regions. The war has stopped now, so the Ministry of Revenue can obtain a correct number." Wang Yongjiang said.

"Seventy-seven plus ten.7, plus one-seven, and counting the fraction, this is nine billion yuan." Yang Rui calculated and said, "Is this our profit in this war?"

"No, Prime Minister. Before the war started, there were 2 billion taels of silver in China, and it flowed into 3 billion during the war. Now it is about 1.4 billion, and more than 1.5 billion silver is depreciating, but it will not depreciate significantly like the francs. So in terms of hard currency in the entire country, we have 1.5 billion taels of silver; there are about 2,000 tons of gold; and finally there is foreign exchange worth 9 billion.

According to the current exchange rate and gold-silver price comparison, in terms of Jinhua yuan, the entire country's money is 13 billion Jinhua yuan. Subtracting the 2.7 billion Huayuan before the war, the entire country's profit should be around 103 billion. But this is what the entire country makes, not what the government makes. The only thing that is really in the hands of the government is foreign exchange and 1.5 billion taels of silver inventories. These silver are the biggest problem. It will soon depreciate. If one is not good, it will lose nearly one billion Jinhua yuan like foreign exchange."

Wang Yongjiang was even more worried about the depreciation of silver. After all, the francs were small, and the depreciation of 600 million to more than 100 million was the limit; the pound must be firm, and even if it fell, it would not fall anywhere. Only the silver market was the most troublesome thing. During the war, because countries prohibited gold from leaving the country, the price comparison of gold and silver actually increased by 1 to 15, but now, it fell by 1 to 40 like a roller coaster, and it was still falling.

"Hey, just say it, insurance estimates, how much can this one hundred and three billion really become Jinhua Yuan?" Yang Rui asked.

"Probably, there will be about 700 million or 80 million. The key is whether we will throw out all the silver. If we have to throw out the 1.5 billion taels of silver, we will lose at least half of it." Wang Yongjiang said.

"Who bears this loss?" Yang Rui suddenly realized that the silver in the hands of the people had been replaced with gold or Jinhuayuan, and then he realized that he seemed to have been fooled and suffered a loss.

"This is naturally borne by the State Bank." Wang Yongjiang looked strange, which was discussed before. If he wanted to immediately change from the silver standard to the gold standard, the silver dollar circulating on the market would have to be exchanged for Jinhua yuan. The price of gold and silver of 15 to 15 in the war immediately made the people of the country make a big profit. Fortunately, the exchange was only for residents with household registration books in China. In the war, gold was prohibited from leaving the country like other countries, and Japan also reached an understanding. Only then did the fat water fall into the fields of outsiders.

Even so, the people's property is measured on the gold standard, which is equivalent to double the value. Two thousand tons of gold is not enough, and the Jinhua Yuan is more than doubled, but in the world, this kind of super-issuance is the least. Other countries are the government looting the people, and China is doing the opposite, and the people looting the government. Although this is the necessary price for the exchange of the silver standard for gold standard, it also stunned Japan on the side. The Chinese theory of benevolent politics has great pressure on the Japanese cabinet.

"Well. I remembered it." Yang Rui thumped his head. His thinking was still drilling into Liang Qichao's thoughts. He was shocked by the depreciation of the franc. He didn't remember what he remembered before for a while. "This actually means that based on the Jinhua Yuan held by the people, the 2,000 tons of gold in the national treasury is not enough. We still have to fill in billions of dollars to balance the balance sheet?"

"So that's what it means to say on the books. One to fifteen to gold, the people earn more than double the money. Three billion taels of silver were converted into gold according to this price. It was 2000 taels of gold. That is 7500 tons, but we only have 200 tons of gold now, and the insufficient part can only be supplemented with foreign exchange. This requires 3.75 billion US dollars, which means 75 billion Jinhua Yuan is gone again. In this way, we only have 1.5 billion taels of silver that we did not spend, as well as more than 100 million US dollars, more than 100 million pounds, and 1.5 billion francs." Wang Yongjiang said.

"But the account is never calculated like this. No country can accept the gold and dollar bonds it issued. Before the war, Britain could only accept four percent of the pounds it issued, the United States was fifteen percent, and the francs were twenty-five percent; and we were twenty-six percent, which was higher than the francs before the war. That was enough. The money that the government could really mobilize was more than 3.85 billion US dollars, 1.6 billion pounds, 1.5 billion francs of foreign exchange, and 1.5 billion taels of silver. At the current exchange rate, the price of gold and silver was... more than 107 billion..."

Wang Yongjiang was like an abacus, and countless numbers came out of his mouth. Yang Rui was a little impatient when he heard this and asked, "How much did we make?" After asking, he saw that he was confused, Yang Rui made another addition, "Take Jinhua Yuanji."

"As the exchange rate before the war, by the end of last year, the balance of payments had a total profit of 16.3 billion Chinese yuan, and the domestic market originally had 2.7 billion silver dollars, but military expenditure and depreciation had lost more than 6 billion yuan, and now there were 13 billion yuan left. This 13 billion yuan was exchanged with the 3 billion taels of silver in the hands of the people when the gold and silver price was the highest. As a result, according to the government's balance sheet, the government only had more than 100 million US dollars, more than 100 million pounds, more than 1.5 billion francs, and more than 1.5 billion taels of silver. However, according to the practice of various countries, the money the government can spend is more than 3 billion US dollars, more than 100 million pounds, more than 1.5 billion francs and 1.5 billion taels of silver. These are 10.7 billion gold coins at the current exchange rate and gold and silver ratio." Wang Yongjiang said.

"So, do you only count the price of Jinhuayuan circulating in China as two thousand tons of gold?" Yang Rui asked.

"Yes, Prime Minister. No matter how much Jinhua Yuan is found, it can only be exchanged for 2,000 tons of gold. However, 2,000 tons of gold is enough to stabilize its currency value. Except for import and export companies, travelers from home and abroad, no one needs gold or foreign exchange. Now foreign exchange and silver in the treasury can be used." Wang Yongjiang said. He glanced at Yang Rui and reminded: "Francs, silver, and even pounds must be spent as soon as possible."

"Francs and silver..., Francs and silver..." Yang Rui kept muttering: "Francs can only rush to buy supplies in France, machines, artworks, mines..."

"Prime Minister, many soldiers have married French women, and some have to stay here. Can they not give Huayuan a franc? These people always have to buy real estate here." Wang Yongjiang reminded.

"How many people are there in total?" Many young French men died, and the ratio of men and women in China was unbalanced, so many things happened naturally. Lin Wenqian had reported this before, but Yang Rui didn't care.

"There are 30,000 or 40,000 French women, and many of them want to stay in France. There are roughly more than 10,000 people. The salary, subsidies and rewards of these people will be added together for several years. They will borrow a settlement fee to pay them. It will probably cost more than 100 million francs." Wang Yongjiang said.

"This is a small head, 1.5 billion is a big head. Silver is even more a big head." Yang Rui suddenly thought of Russia and said, "How is Russia? How much gold is it bought? Do they still receive silver?"

Wang Yongjiang shook his head, "They only need weapons and food, and both sides are like this. The gold was bought by the Japanese for more than 100 tons, and the rest of the flow was basically in our hands, and more than 300 tons had not been put into storage. However, Kolchak still has a lot of gold in his hands, and now all countries are surrounding him, especially the French. If he handed over the gold to the Allies, things would be difficult to deal with."

"I have only got more than 300 tons?" Yang Rui was very dissatisfied and his face was extremely serious. "The gold in the Russian treasury and the gold of the Tsar are now in Kolchak's hands." He was very unhappy when he said this, and gritted his teeth and said, "If I hadn't been worried about the interference and accusations of various countries, I would have sent troops to rush over and robbed them."

"European food sales are expected to receive more than 500 tons of gold, and there may be more," Wang Yongjiang said. "No one knows how much gold is in Russia's Kolchak. We have not yet entered the warehouse to calculate that there are almost 3,000 tons of gold in the treasury."

"How many Americans are there?" Yang Rui asked. His ultimate goal was to hope that he would have more gold than the United States.

"There are 5,000 tons in the US treasury. As for the people, it is estimated that it is about 3,000 tons." Wang Yongjiang said. "The numbers in my country's private sector are not easy to estimate, but at least 1,000 tons are recognized by everyone."

"Then it's still a short distance... more than 4,000 tons. Half the difference." Yang Rui was a little upset. Going further, countries are the gold nuggets. Expatriates cannot exchange gold. They can only use foreign exchange to exchange gold to other countries. With the amount of foreign exchange in their hands, it would be a subverting the economy of other countries. In this way, if they want to increase their gold stock, they can only accumulate over and over again and save little by little.

Yang Rui thought about financial matters and called Xu Huafeng over again. He had been to Germany once a few years ago. He was warmly welcomed by all sectors of industry and business, and the Sino-German industrial cooperation plan was negotiated almost without resistance. However, the plan was formulated. The real key is the Paris Peace Agreement. If the peace agreement is extremely harsh on Germany, many intentional contracts will be affected more or less.

Germany had just finished the talks, and France came back again. Although the big agreement could not be negotiated, France paid the price of the Indochina colony in exchange for China and France to form a confrontation with Germany and ensure European peace, the small industrial part was negotiated. After the war, the French economy needed to be revitalized, so it was urgently needed. Due to the lack of labor, it was most appropriate for France to export high-end industrial technical services and trade in high-end industrial master machines. However, the price of this trade is that when China's industry takes shape, France will always lose the Chinese industrial products market.

If before the war, the French company would never do this kind of trading that lost long-term interests, but now he would do it if he didn't do it. In order to make China closer to him, he would send troops in the next war; in order to revitalize the domestic economy and seize the opportunity to recover production capacity, the French could only give up.

"Old Wang said that the francs are depreciating. Now they are one Huayuan to ten francs. Last year, they were only one to three to five." Yang Rui complained as soon as he saw Xu Huafeng. "You have the Ministry of Commerce, and then organize the National People's Congress to purchase immediately! As long as they collect francs, they can buy anything, don't look at the price."

"The Ministry of Works has a clear plan." Xu Huafeng didn't want Yang Rui to call him over quickly. "And most projects have been confirmed. If you want to buy it again, you have to add new projects, and add new projects and..."

"Have the French project signed a contract?" Yang Rui asked anxiously, pointing at him with one hand. "Is it a franc or something?"

"I have signed all of them, some have already paid the deposit in advance; basically it is francs, but the amount involved in Northeast automobile projects is too large. French Citroen requires half of the payment for the goods in pounds or US dollars on the grounds that many equipment must be purchased from abroad." Xu Huafeng said.

"How much is the total project fund?" Yang Rui asked again.

"Automotive, aluminum industry, coal mines, power plants..." Xu Huafeng himself couldn't tell how much the total amount of all contracts was. He thought about it for a few minutes before saying, "I really can't remember the specific numbers, but it should be vaguely 700 million to 800 million francs."

"Seventy-eight hundred million is too little. Now we have 1.5 billion francs in our hands. You can organize someone to set up some projects for me to spend." Yang Rui was immediately dissatisfied when he heard that there was so little.

"This..." Xu Huafeng was so amused and crying. It is of course a good thing to force money to spend, but any industrial project has to be strictly demonstrated. When the Expeditionary Force was fighting, the Ministry of Industry, Transportation, Commerce, Land and Academic Department were also fighting in China. The demonstration and planning of the national economic zone, the construction planning of the logistics network communication network, various industrial circles, and specific project planning all took a lot of effort and time to demonstrate. At that time, considering that there was no pressure on funds, the plan had been made very large, and it was indeed difficult to spend more money now, but now the money depreciated, Xu Huafeng had to say: "I will go back and think about it immediately and try to spend all the money." (To be continued)
Chapter completed!