Chapter 32: Crazy Borrowing (3)

  In late April, China has begun to be busy with spring sowing nationwide. This year's spring sowing is different from previous years in that the Huadong Group has entered the agricultural production link on a large scale.

  Crop breeding bases established in Hainan, Subei and other places have carried out hybridization and other breeding experiments on many varieties of rice, wheat and other crops after two years of development.

  At present, China has taken the lead in the world in terms of technology to increase crop yields. Last year, a variety of rice with a yield of 500 kg per mu was successfully cultivated, but it does not meet the requirements for promotion.

  The yield per mu in the experimental field can reach 500 kilograms, and it is estimated that it will be around 300 kilograms when it reaches the hands of farmers.

  Although no hybrid varieties with higher yields have been found yet, the specific hybridization method has become very sophisticated. In order to increase crop yields, Jiang Yu again allocated 5 million yuan to the rice research base in Hainan, which is already the largest funding scale in agricultural experiments globally.

  Maybe in a few years, China's agriculture will be able to take off.

  In the absence of high-yielding crops and large-scale agricultural machinery, Jiang Yu ensured agricultural supply by having the Huadong Bank provide loans to farmers, encouraging them to purchase small-scale agricultural machinery to increase productivity, allowing farmers to devote more time to developing animal husbandry to keep up with growing demand for eggs, meat, and dairy products.

  The arrival of spring sowing has made the administrative office of Huaiyang busy with agricultural development, especially as summer approaches, the construction of flood control projects is more urgent.

  Most of China's economically developed regions are actually under threat from flooding.

  To solve the flood problem, the Huaiyang Administrative Office first began to reinforce the river embankments and set up reservoirs on major rivers, using lakes such as Hongze Lake as natural flood diversion areas.

  Once a flood occurs, agriculture production is still the one that suffers the most severe losses.

  Huadong Group, which has invested a large amount of money in agriculture, naturally does not want to see this happen. As a result, Jiangyu added another 100 million yuan to invest in water conservancy construction.

  In terms of electricity, it is still mainly thermal power. The hydropower resources in East China are not rich, although there is a lot of water, the drop is not big. In East China, the region with the richest hydropower resources is Fujian, but currently, Fujian is not under control.

  And the fishery in the river course is also a key development project. However, compared to the ocean, the fishery resources are more easily damaged. Therefore, Jiang Yu used the power of the two rivers patrol officer to stipulate that the Yangtze River must have six months of closed fishing period every year, and made rigid regulations on the size of the mesh opening of the fishing net.

  At the same time, trawling boats are also prohibited from entering the river for fishing.

  Since Jiang Yu returned to China 10 years ago and invested in Hangzhou Shipyard, the shipyard has produced the world's first trawler.

  Trawlers are typical of extinction fishing.

  Sweep them all away with one net, regardless of big fish or small fish, and catch them all.

  At this time, global offshore fishery resources are still in a very rich stage, and those rich fishery resources of the high seas have not been divided into territorial waters.

  All the fish in the public sea are yours for the taking.

  One of Hangzhou Shipyard's flagship products is fishing vessels, specifically large ocean-going trawlers.

  After these large trawlers were launched, they were directly handed over to the China Distant Water Fishing Co., Ltd. for use and then sailed to the rich fishing grounds in the open sea for trawl operation.

  Not long ago, the Huadong Group finally developed a reliable refrigerator technology, which enabled the construction of large freezing rooms on trawlers, providing a guarantee for long-term freshness and also solving the hard problem of deep-sea fishing development.

  In the past, it was not that no one went to develop distant-water fishing, but due to technical conditions. Fish must be processed immediately after being caught, otherwise they will rot.

  Therefore, the deep-sea fishing industry in this era was not very developed.

  For a China lacking in meat, ocean fish can provide the nation with a large amount of protein, and is not a bad way to currently solve the problem of insufficient meat and dairy supplies.

  While producing a large number of ocean-going trawlers, Hangzhou Shipyard is also manufacturing large ocean-going cargo ships.

  At that time, advanced cargo ships were of the 10,000-ton class, with German cargo ships being the most advanced, although their total tonnage was not as high as that of Britain, but they were all large cargo ships.

  As ships are built larger, less power is required and more cargo can be carried.

  In comparison, British merchant ships were even fifty years old, with a profit efficiency at sea far inferior to that of Germany. However, the Germans had only over 50 million tons of merchant ships, while the British had over 200 million tons. Although the rise of German ocean transport reduced Britain's profits from ocean transport, Britain still obtained ￡100m in freight earnings every year from around the world.

  After two years of construction, the first batch of five 12,000-ton merchant ships finally launched. This type of 12,000-ton merchant ship was named "Yangfan-class Merchant Ship" and began manufacturing a second batch of 10 ships, striving to complete them within one year to form an annual shipbuilding capacity of 100,000 tons.

  In addition to the shipyard invested by his father-in-law, it is expected that a shipbuilding capacity of 200,000 tons can be formed after World War I, but compared with Britain's annual shipbuilding capacity of 1.2 million tons, it is still small magic versus big magic.

  The rapid development of shipbuilding just absorbed those steel production volumes.

  At this time, after comprehensive consideration in various aspects, the British government finally agreed to organize a loan, but it was a five-country bank loan.

  This made Jiang Yu somewhat surprised, but even more delighted.

  Once World War I breaks out, Russia will be directly destroyed, and the strength of Britain and France will also be greatly weakened. The United States is too far away to control China, and only Japan has the ability to invade China.

  Even if I owe money at that time, what can you do to me?

  Of course, from a credit perspective, if Britain and France can be sensible at that time and return the concessions and customs to us, then we can still pay back the money.

  After all, after the end of World War I, the pound will depreciate by 21%, and during the war, it will depreciate by about 50%. In other words, when the time comes to repay the loan with pounds, you can pay back 21% less money.

  During World War I, industry profits skyrocketed by 100%, with some increasing by over 300%. Moreover, there was a shortage of supply, and as long as there were sufficient industries, the loans during World War I would be easily repaid.

  While the Five-Power Loan was being negotiated, a French businessman named Franck came from America to China with a large sum of money from the American Flag Bank, amounting to $350 million.

  This is a mortgage loan obtained by Jiang Yu after investing in exploration of mines and oil fields in the United States.

  Taking out a loan in the US is relatively easy and doesn't involve all those complicated political issues.

  $350 million is equivalent to 700 million silver dollars, but Jiang Yu has other uses for the money, that is, building a navy and establishing a maritime defense of important ports in East China.

  Jiang Yu immediately secretly used this money to contact Germany and ordered coastal defense guns in Germany, and secretly hired German naval soldiers to come to China.

  Jiang Yu specifically asked Wilhelm II for officers and soldiers who could operate submarines, as it was too late to build battleships and other types of warships, and the only thing that could be built now was a submarine fleet.

  Submarines are inexpensive and can be used for guerrilla warfare, making them the best choice to deal with island nations like Japan. With a sufficient number of submarines, it is entirely possible to stifle Japan's development during World War I.

  As long as Japan's goods cannot be transported out, Japan's capital cannot be developed. Of course, the Japanese Combined Fleet has a large number of surface warships, which can also launch a war of disruption against China. However, compared to this, China's coastline is longer, and with aircraft participating in coastal defense in Jiangsu, it is not easy for Japan to disrupt maritime traffic.

  As long as there is a certain scale of submarine force, once the fight starts, Jiangsu and Chongqing can also guarantee that they are not completely powerless.

  ————

  These three days have been updated one by one, and now the physical condition is still repeating itself. I'm unable to speed up the update, and I'm really sorry to all my classmates!

  ;