A meeting about expenses just ended in nothing. The financial income of the Lions Empire itself is only a little, so fixed expenses are naturally indispensable.
For example, regarding investment in education, under the influence of the Tang Empire, all countries are working hard to build schools. This is the main way they believe they can catch up with the technology of the Tang Empire and retain talents.
Paying attention to education and retaining talents... has become a direction that monarchs or the ruling classes of various countries are very willing to invest in.
It's a pity that after so many years of hard work, apart from raising a group of white-eyed wolves who will always say how great the Tang Empire is, the effect is actually very limited.
Funds for education cannot be misappropriated, investment in agriculture cannot be shaken since it is the foundation of the country, and industrial matters... cannot be easily changed.
This is the hardest-hit area that various nobles are involved in. Most of the conflicts between the imperial power and the interests of the nobles are concentrated in this area. If Lions II dares to make any move in this area, the waves may drown him.
For example, a certain steel plant is invested by a certain big noble, or a certain parts factory is owned by a relative... In short, if one thing affects the whole body, Lions II does not have the courage to carry out this kind of reform. .
If it were Lions I, it might still be possible. After all, he didn't need the support of nobles and landowners like Lions II did.
Reigns II, who had a chaotic process when he ascended the throne and had an unfair reputation, also lost the support of too many nobles in the assassination of the old prime minister, so he did not dare to provoke those nobles who were already on the verge of breaking out.
Therefore, Lions II was unwilling to interfere with the various industries that made the nobles make money, including factories, stock markets, land, etc.
After calculating it like this, for such a huge empire, there really wasn't much money left for Lions II to squander. Reigns II felt uncomfortable when he remembered that the emperor's car he was riding in was given to his father by the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty.
Unfortunately, he really has no way to change the status quo: in order to prevent the Tang Empire from threatening the imperial coast, all ports and coastal areas, including Bunas, must strengthen security.
This is the established national policy of the Lions Empire, and it is also a plan approved by Lions II himself. In order to support this plan, the Lions Empire can be said to have spent all its resources. Therefore, Lions II's plan to repair the palace can only wait.
We can only wait a little longer... Most of the craftsmen have been deployed to build fortifications. Starting from Bunas Port, there are bunkers every less than a hundred meters along the coast of the Lions Empire. The entire fortification area, Stretching for hundreds of kilometers, it is a spectacular sight.
The Lions Empire also gave the entire project a resounding name: Endless Barrier! The entire Endless Barrier plans to build 11,000 bunkers of various sizes, 15 large forts, 150 small forts, and 250 kilometers of reinforced concrete trenches. It is intricate and large-scale.
Behind this line of defense, there are also a large number of anti-aircraft gun defense positions, radar stations, field airports and other facilities as support.
The entire line of defense has 50 large ammunition depots underground, and telephones connect each position to improve anti-interference. They even cleverly used electromagnetic signals to set up many false positions to deceive the Tang Empire's attack power.
This is also one of the most effective defense methods that the engineers of the Lines Empire came up with without thinking of countermeasures.
In addition, there are more than 500 artillery pieces of various types distributed along the entire position, with calibers ranging from the terrifying 300 mm to 75 mm. These artillery can cover almost every inch of coastal beaches and can accurately hit landing troops through the firing table.
Of course, this can only be done after the entire defense line has been constructed and well preserved during the war.
If the Tang Empire's attack can be effective, then there is a big question mark as to how effective the above-mentioned so-called impenetrable defense line can be.
Moreover, during the actual construction, due to insufficient funds and time, the completion level of the endless barrier defense line of the Lions Empire actually had to be compromised.
I won’t go into details about the aristocrat who undertook the project withholding payment. Everyone knows that the remaining construction materials are actually substandard.
There was no way. After all, the construction period was too tight and the workers' construction skills were limited. The final product was slightly different from the actual design drawings... which is not incomprehensible.
For example, the original plan for a 3-meter-thick concrete roof turned out to be only half a meter thick. It was really too much. In order to cope with the inspection, it is also a routine operation to cover the top of the bunker with thick soil to make up for the damage.
In short, this is a very interesting numbers game: when the finance department of the Lions Empire allocated funds, it could not get so much money, so it had to borrow money from the nobles. When an aristocrat pays 1,000 for a loan, he only pays 900. This is the custom.
After the finance department got the money, it had to keep some "loss", so after getting 900, it only gave 800, and the rest was left to the people below to figure out their own solutions.
The aristocratic businessmen who received 800 first put 300 into their pockets, and then everyone had to share the profit when purchasing cement, steel, and various materials. Only one or two hundred was actually left.
When these two hundred were handed out to the workers, there would naturally be complaints, and everyone was fooling around to make a deal.
Then the army got a lot of them... They looked okay on the surface, but in fact they were all shoddy defense lines.
And even such a defense line actually did not meet the requirements in terms of scale: the originally planned defense line of more than 130 kilometers was actually only more than 80 kilometers long, and the original planned depth of more than ten kilometers was actually only two or three kilometers.
No way, no money!
Later, this kind of thing developed to such an outrageous level that it was shocking: the money that the nobles lent to the country did not need to be actually taken out at all. After going around in the books, almost all of it returned to their own pockets.
Sometimes even taking into account the additional money invested by Tan Mo and the state, they can still earn a little bit. This little bit greatly stimulated the patriotic enthusiasm of the nobles, gentry and businessmen. They worked hard to "donate money and materials" to the country, which was a lively scene of loyalty and courage.
The high-ranking new emperor of the Lions Empire didn't know these things at all. He was still worrying about repairing his palace every day, and was thinking about how to extract this money from ministers and people.
(End of chapter)
