The Great Chu Empire's development of the Northeastern region has been going on since the defeat of the Eastern Capture.
In the early days, various settlements were organized. Later, after a large number of high-quality iron ores, coal mines and other metal minerals were discovered in the local area, the Industrial Department of the Dachu Empire invested in and established a number of coal mines and coal mines in the northeastern region, mainly Liaodong Province. iron ore as well as other types of minerals.
At the same time, several smelting plants were established to refine various local ores on site, and then transported large amounts of smelted pig iron and now wrought iron to coastal ports by sea.
Subsequently, it invested in the development of several machinery industries, such as soybean oil, grain processing, and the production of daily iron products, mechanical equipment, and other iron products to develop the local economy and produce high value-added products.
After more than ten years of continuous development, the population of Liaodong Province has now increased to more than 8 million. Of these 8 million people, in addition to about 2 million, it is the local population and subsequent births.
The remaining six million are basically immigrants from the provinces within the Guanhai Pass, mainly from the three provinces of Shandong, Hebei, and Shanxi.
This refers to the local registered population. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in Liaodong but have not actually immigrated with their families. These people basically come to work from other places.
For them, Liaodong Province is a place where they can work and make money, but their home is still their hometown.
Adding up the entire population, the permanent population of Liaodong Province can reach more than nine million, which is not far from the ten million mark.
However, in the entire Northeast region, only Liaodong Province has a large population, while Liaobei Province and Heishui Province further north have a small population.
Northern Liaoning Province is a little better. They have a large area of northeastern plains that can be developed and cultivated. Although the degree of development is not high and the cultivation is mainly along the major rivers, Northern Liaoning Province currently has a population of more than three million.
But Heishui Province is truly vast and sparsely populated. In terms of area, Heishui Province is the largest province in the Chu Empire.
Its jurisdiction includes the Songhua River Basin and the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang River, and then extends to the Arctic Ocean in the north, Sakhalin Island and the Bering Strait in the east, and borders the Xiaobeihai Prefecture in the Lake Baikal area to the west.
This huge place is under the jurisdiction of Blackwater Province. So far, even the Dachu Empire itself is still unclear about its total area... because the people of the Dachu Empire have not really penetrated into the Arctic ice sheet, nor have they traveled through it. Cross the Bering Strait to the Arctic Ocean.
The empire's preliminary estimate based on the map of Mohu is that the total area of Blackwater Province is between three million square kilometers and four million square kilometers. The exact size will have to wait until the Chu Empire actually enters the Arctic region. Only after we have a clear understanding of the terrain of this place can we know.
But no matter how many there are specifically, there is definitely a base of three million square kilometers. In this way, Heishui Province is very large compared to other provinces in the country, especially the traditional Chinese hinterland. After all, many provinces in the country have a large area. It’s just over 100,000 square kilometers…
However, in such a huge area, there were very few people in the Chu Empire!
In such a large Heishui Province, there are only a few hundred thousand soldiers and civilians in Dachu... and most of them are concentrated in the Songhua River Basin and the Nen River Basin, that is, the Songnen Plain...
There are very few ordinary people in other places. There are also some officially organized immigrants, hunters and businessmen engaged in fishing and hunting, etc.
The main local economy, apart from farming, is fur...
The middle and upper classes of the empire are very fond of furs from the north and are willing to pay high prices for them... This has also prompted many professional fur hunters to continue to march north, hunting furs on their own, and on the other hand through and Some local barbarians trade in exchange for furs...
The local population is small, and the further north you go, the smaller the population becomes.
After passing through Heilongjiang and continuing to go north, it is difficult to see large cities built by pure agricultural immigrants in its hinterland.
The existence of the Chu Empire in the area north of Heilongjiang mainly existed in the form of small and medium-sized garrison fortresses and fur trading strongholds.
What's interesting is that these strongholds north of Heilongjiang were basically snatched from the Russians.
The Dachu Empire basically would not go directly to build any colonial strongholds, but it would send troops to patrol the vast northern ice field. When Russian colonial strongholds were discovered, they would attack them.
After the Russians were killed, the colonial strongholds established by the Russians often served as garrison fortresses for the Chu army and carried out certain military settlements. Then they attracted the arrival of some fur merchants who were desperate for money, garrison troops and furs. Businessmen gradually attracted other types of businessmen and other adventurers.
In the end, a small stronghold will gradually be formed, starting with garrison, mainly fur trade, and supplemented by farming.
These strongholds have at least two to three hundred people and no more than a thousand people. They are generally established along the coast or along rivers. Transportation with the inland mainly relies on shipping during the summer.
As for land transportation... Unless there are special circumstances, such as urgent military needs, no one will foolishly walk on the ground on the Arctic ice sheet.
That's a few hundred kilometers at a time, and it's a deserted journey. Summer is better, but if it's autumn or winter, don't expect to be able to move at all.
In the winter here, if you pee outdoors, the urine will turn into ice flowers before it hits the ground!
The extreme cold and long distances greatly hindered the empire's northward expansion.
There is no way to solve these problems in a short time, and the empire has no need to solve them, at least for decades.
The empire's core strategy for the northern region, especially the region north of Heilongjiang, is to drive away the Russians first and draw these territories into its own bowl. As for when they will actually eat them... we will talk about it later.
Therefore, the empire will not spend a lot of manpower and materials at this time and have to go to the freezing Arctic region to carry out any development.
As it is now, it would be good to build a fortress and garrison some troops, and then get some furs or something.
What Luo Zhixue wants to develop is not the area north of Heilongjiang, but the area south of Heilongjiang.
To be precise, they are the three major plains in the Northeast, including the Sanjiang Plain, Songnen Plain, and Liaohe Plain. In the past ten years, the empire mainly developed the Liaohe Plain and part of the Songnen Plain.
Now, Luo Zhixue wants to increase efforts to further develop these three major plains in the Northeast, so that the Northeast will be completely transformed from a place of crying in the traditional sense into a land of plenty.
This is not impossible. In the past ten years or so, the Great Chu Empire's development of the Liaohe Plain has been very effective. The development of the Liaohe Plain has allowed the Great Chu Empire to add millions of people to the local area, and has also made the Northeast region more populous. It completely got rid of the embarrassing situation of needing to import grain from the customs.
The food produced locally is completely self-sufficient and can in turn export food to the customs.
What Luo Zhixue has to do is to further increase efforts to develop the Liaohe Plain, then invest manpower and material resources to focus on the development of the Songnen Plain, and then tentatively develop the Sanjiang Plain.
Such large-scale development naturally requires the empire's policy and financial support.
There is nothing to say about the policy. In the past ten years or so, the Great Chu Empire has developed various immigration policies. Whenever there is a natural disaster in many places in the customs, officials will be organized to recruit official immigrants.
Funding is a little more troublesome. Even though the central fiscal revenue of the Great Chu Empire has increased year after year, it has now reached 260 million Chu yuan in central fiscal revenue, but there are still many places to spend money.
The annual military expenditure alone is tens of millions, and administrative expenses are also tens of millions. The annual investment in various infrastructure fields, especially flood control and irrigation and other water conservancy facilities, roads, bridges and other transportation facilities is also very large. huge.
Then there are various agricultural support funds. You must know that the agricultural tool subsidies of the Dachu Empire have never been canceled since they were implemented... Then there will also be some subsidies for large horse farming farms run by some enterprises in places with many people and little land.
Every year, there are various kinds of relief and disaster relief... The Chu Empire is so big, its territory spans from the Arctic ice fields to the tropical heat of the south, with various climates. In such a huge territory, there are always some places that are affected by various natural disasters every year. There are disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, etc., and farmers' self-rescue ability these days is also very weak, so every year the government invests a certain amount of funds in various relief and disaster relief.
Then there are various supporting development funds for industry and commerce. For example, if you set up an industrial zone, the government must invest in the construction of various infrastructures. This is all money. This money is usually partly provided by the local government and part by the central government. of.
Then there are the expenditures on education. Among these education expenditures, the largest expenditure is on education. The Dachu Empire established many government-run primary schools on a large scale.
The Great Chu Empire was not interested in popularizing higher education, but it was still very concerned about the popularization of primary education. In the past ten years, it has continuously established various elementary and higher elementary schools.
The establishment of these government-run schools is all funded by the government. Not only does it cost money to build the schools, but the teachers and administrative staff in the government-run schools also rely on the financial system.
Although nominally, the salaries of these local administrators, teachers and other personnel are borne by local finance, in fact many local finances do not have much money and cannot afford large-scale universal education relying on their own financial strength.
In many places, even the salaries of ordinary administrative staff cannot afford the financial input.
And these all need to be supported by higher-level finances.
The central finance of the Great Chu Empire needs to allocate tens of millions to poor areas every year to maintain the operation of local administrative agencies and educational institutions, and to build infrastructure such as flood control and road transportation.
All these things added up, although the central finance of the Great Chu Empire was large, it could not afford more places to spend money.
Over the years, the central fiscal revenue of the Dachu Empire has increased year after year, but in fact the use of funds is very tight.
Of course, this also has something to do with the fact that the monarchs and ministers of the Great Chu Empire acted on their own... they just wanted to do something if they had some money!
Saving money or something like that doesn't exist for the empire, so it's good if it doesn't create a fiscal deficit.
Under such circumstances, it would be difficult for the empire to get a large amount of money to develop the Northeast.
Once this money is transferred, some spending projects will be squeezed out from other places.
When it comes to matters such as the use and allocation of funds, there are often very big disputes. Naturally, Luo Zhixue will not give up easily. Instead, as usual, he will continue the task of developing the Northeast and ask the ministers to assist in the task. Ministers had to find ways to raise money on their own.
Luo Zhixue would never end up doing this kind of thing that offended others and undermined his prestige personally. Instead, he would sit on the throne and be the referee. After the ministers quarreled among themselves, they would discuss a compromise plan. The decision will be finalized.
In the midst of the quarrel, a group of ministers from the Great Chu Empire finally reached a compromise and planned to allocate a total of 12 million Chu Yuan for the development of the Northeast region in the next five years.
This 12 million Chu yuan includes immigration fees, construction costs of various local infrastructures, resources and mineral development, subsidies for setting up factories, etc.
In addition to immigration and infrastructure costs that require direct cash payments, other support funds for the industrial sector will be promoted in the form of tax refunds.
This is also a method that the Chu Empire often uses to support industry and commerce, that is, various industrial and commercial financial subsidies, which does not mean giving money directly to enterprises, but through tax exemptions and refunds.
The most established one is the export of machine-made fabrics!
In order to further improve the competitiveness of the Dachu Empire's machine-made fabrics overseas and strive to eliminate the indigenous textile industry in overseas areas as soon as possible, the Dachu Empire has a tariff return policy for the export of machine-made fabrics to many regions. To put it bluntly, it is zero. Export taxes.
Of course, these export tax refunds are only limited to some areas where the Chu Empire's machine-made cloth has not yet occupied and defeated the local homespun cloth industry.
For those regions or countries that have fully opened their markets to the empire, or have not fully opened their markets, but do not have their own advantageous textile industries, the Da Chu Empire continues to collect export tariffs.
There are also more typical agricultural tool subsidies. For agricultural machinery companies, tax exemptions were adopted in the early days. After the tax exemption period, agricultural machinery companies can continue to receive subsidies by applying for tax refunds.
And these tax exemptions and tax rebate subsidies are quite huge figures every year.
However, even so, the tax revenue provided by the industry and commerce of the Da Chu Empire has been rising steadily, and has long surpassed the agricultural tax and has become the main tax revenue of the Da Chu Empire, accounting for more than 80%.
