Chapter 51: Return to Huai'an (First Part)

  By the end of August, Jiang Yu formally returned to East China, and the Revival Army left ten divisions in Outer Mongolia, all of which would be reorganized according to the first-class division system.

  Type-A divisions are the main force of future warfare, Type-A divisions are also armored divisions, responsible for breakthroughs and penetrations, while Type-B divisions with less heavy equipment follow behind, soldiers armed with submachine guns charge at the enemy from all directions to annihilate them.

  The second type of teacher is responsible for training and drilling those who produce soldiers.

  The war is over, and the consumption of the Huadong Group's frontline operations can be stopped. Business is gradually returning to normal operation.

  On the way back, the staff were still calculating how much money was lost in this battle.

  "The compensation for the casualties is almost 10 million yuan, and this is under the circumstance of minor injuries. If the casualties are high, with such a high compensation, it's really unbearable!" Jiang Fangzhen sighed, "If there were tens of thousands of casualties, wouldn't that be hundreds of millions?"

  If it were a full-scale war, casualties of one million would be considered minor.

  "Yes! Is our compensation not too high?" Zhou Zhengye and Tang Hanmin also started thinking, Jiang Yu shook his head and said: "For the time being, it can only be like this. Later on, when we can print money, the value of money will depreciate, and this compensation is nothing."

  "So that's how it is!" Several people suddenly realized, it seems that General had been prepared early on!

  "It doesn't matter how much money we get at once, what's important is to take care of the families of martyred soldiers and settle the disabled veterans. As long as we do this well, they won't be disheartened and can fight with peace of mind." Jiang Yu said to them, "As long as we do a good job in this regard, those below will not be disheartened and can fight with peace of mind."

  Everyone who heard it nodded in agreement.

  "We spent 200 million on ammunition, 300 million on food, medicine and transportation, and if you add up the other odds and ends, we've spent at least nearly 3 billion."

  "It's just a small disturbance." Jiang Yu sighed, although 300 million was spent, these munitions and the like were all provided by the Huadong Group, calculated at market price, so the Huadong Group still made money, with costs estimated to be around 200 million. However, if they didn't fight, this labor force could engage in production, and the Huadong Group could also produce other goods, so the actual expenditure exceeded 400 million.

  This is the enormous consumption of war.

  Of course, during a period of total war, accounts are not calculated in this way. At that time, it is equivalent to a people's war, and everyone has to make an effort. At that time, no wages are needed, and food and living materials are supplied according to the number of people, which means there is no financial problem, and as much national strength as possible is used to fight the war.

  In today's China, it is also impossible to organize a total war. Once the war breaks out, it is very difficult for even a quarter of the 400 million people to truly participate in the war, which is a weakness of an agricultural country in modern warfare.

  The returning troops of the Revival Army were warmly welcomed by the common people along the way, and at each place they arrived, there were local organizations that led the people to come out and offer sacrifices to the army.

  The common people welcomed them along the way, enthusiastically putting all kinds of food and gifts into the soldiers' hands.

  This war made the Revival Army thoroughly famous, of course it's no longer called the Revival Army now but the National Defense Army. Jiangsu and Sichuan also began to transform into semi-warlordism.

  They moved closer to the center, and everything gradually went according to the rules, starting to integrate into the system of the Beiyang government.

  Many young people also want to join the national defense army at this time, hoping to wear the powerful military uniform like those soldiers of the national defense army and take up arms to defend their homes and country.

  It's not just because they won the battle, but also because at that time the social status of national defense soldiers was relatively high.

  Soldiers of the National Defense Army do not have to worry about food and clothing, as long as they focus on training and fighting. Moreover, after this victory in the war against Russia, it is easy for soldiers of the National Defense Army to get married, and even when looking for a girlfriend, they can 'choose' one.

  The status of skilled workers has also been continuously improved, which can be attributed to the upgrading of their technical grade. With this comes an increase in income, and a more regular and stable life for skilled workers.

  Young people in East China provinces either join the army or become skilled workers.

  Nowadays, most of the production requires skilled workers, and even agricultural production only needs to know how to operate farm machinery. Those skilled workers who can endure hardship are sent to Germany for training, and the number of apprentices sent to Germany is increasing.

  It's still considered studying abroad!

  Of course, the technical workers who go abroad are not considered as capital. Everything is still the same as domestic technicians, assessed and spoken by level. If you can become a top-notch technician of grade 8, earning three or four hundred yuan per month is easy. Currently, there isn't even one grade 8 technician in China.

  The best learner is currently only a level 7 technician.

  So at this time, Huadong Group's industrial products often appear slightly rougher.

  The big army quickly sat back in the car and returned to East China, while Jiang Yu was going back by car. He was afraid of taking the train, what if he got blown up like Zhang Zuolin?

  To know that Jiang Yu is now a target for the Japanese, spies are everywhere, and who knows when they'll throw bombs at him or something. So Jiang Yu is always careful when going out, it's best to take a car.

  The car Jiang Yu was riding in had been specially reinforced to be bulletproof. As a martial artist, he was less threatened by firearms and could sense the killing intent during an assassination attempt, allowing him to dodge in advance. What he feared most were explosives like bombs.

  After returning to Huai'an, Jiang Yu simply had a celebration party and immediately began to carefully review the development of various aspects over the past few months.

  Zhao Haizhou, Zhou Ziyue and Chen Guangfu also rushed to Huai'an to report the situation to Jiang Yu.

  "How was the summer harvest this time?" Jiang Yu still cared about agricultural issues and asked Zhao Haizhou about the summer harvest. At this time, the first batch of rice in Jiangnan had already matured and been harvested, while the winter wheat had long since matured.

  "General, this summer harvest in the provinces of East China has been almost entirely bountiful. After so much investment in agriculture, there aren't many areas that have suffered disasters this year, except for Anhui province which had a bit more damage. Due to the large-scale use of fertilizers, grain yields per mu have increased by 40%. Additionally, with the prohibition on private wine brewing and the exclusive sale of liquor, fewer people are drinking, so food supplies are extremely abundant."

  "It's a good harvest, just keep up the good work for autumn harvesting." Jiang Yu said with a relieved heart, thinking that so much money had been spent, at least there should be some effect!

  "What's most important is that while agricultural yields have increased, the labor force input in agriculture has decreased by 30%, mainly as a result of the widespread adoption of small-scale farm machinery. We have not yet popularized large-scale farm machinery, but once we do, it is expected that the labor force required for agricultural production will decrease by more than 90%."

  "Now that our industry has started to wildly expand agricultural machinery manufacturing capabilities, what you need to do is grasp the popularization of large-scale agricultural machinery in these few years. Any landlord who does not use agricultural machinery will be severely punished with high taxes." Jiang Yu said to Zhao Haizhou, those landlords don't buy agricultural machinery to increase production, no problem, just raise taxes later, either way, it's spending money, buying agricultural machinery is still their own, paying taxes means it's not their own money.

  "What about taxes?" Jiang Yu asked Zhao Haizhou.

  "In terms of taxation, for the past three quarters, the total output value of Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces reached 5.5 billion yuan, and we collected 500 million yuan in taxes. Generally speaking, the financial situation is still quite tense." Zhao Haizhou reported that it's indeed very difficult to collect 500 million yuan in taxes with the scale of these three provinces.

  And the tax is not heavy, only one tenth is deducted.

  Of course, the tax policy of the Administrative Bureau of the Two Huai Rivers is obviously biased towards the Hua Dong Group. All industries monopolized by the Hua Dong Group have relatively light taxes, while for industries that the Hua Dong Group is currently monopolizing, the Administrative Bureau of the Two Huai Rivers has raised taxes to a relatively high level in order to coordinate with the Hua Dong Group's monopoly.

  And most of this value was created by the Huadong Group, so businessmen outside the Huadong Group still feel that taxes are relatively high.

  It's just that ordinary people feel like taxes have almost disappeared.

  The government hardly collects money from ordinary people, but only through means such as value-added tax on goods to collect taxes, so the common people all feel that they pay less taxes.

  Of course, taxes are still collected, but very little is collected. Each ordinary citizen only needs to pay a very low tax, mainly to cultivate the consciousness of paying taxes among the people, just going through the motions.

  Five hundred million yuan in taxes is a lot, the Beiyang government may not even be able to collect five hundred million yuan in taxes. The results of Jiangsu's large-scale development of industry and commerce in East China have already emerged.

  The expenditure of Lianghuai Administrative Office was also very large, and a lot of infrastructure needed to be built by the government. This time, the war against Russia was also funded by Lianghuai Administrative Office.

  This system, similar to that in the US, is such that financial groups are openly embezzling government funds, and then the government cannot pay back the money, so it can only gradually hand over various privileges to financial groups, making them continue to expand, eventually becoming a monopolistic giant.

  The existence of financial groups allows a country to mobilize more power when it goes to war with other countries, and once the war breaks out, it is the financial groups that continue to lend money to the government.

  It was through these means that Jiang Yu gradually turned the large tracts of land confiscated by the Lianghuai Administrative Office into land owned by the Huadong Group, which had originally been contracted to the Huadong Group for operation.

  Zhao Haizhou then reported on some other aspects of the situation, generally speaking, the social operation in East China is good. Although Zhejiang is not under the jurisdiction of the Lianghuai Administrative Office, the model is the same as that of the Lianghuai Administrative Office. The total economic volume of Zhejiang has also started to grow, but it hasn't grown much due to the short time.

  The people of Zhejiang are intelligent and hardworking, and I believe that after the liberation of the people's labor force in the recovery, the people will be able to burst out with great productive energy on their own.

  Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan have also been almost secretly controlled by the two Huai administrative offices because a large number of administrative personnel have been inserted into them.

  A significant portion of taxes from these three provinces were also withheld, but the withheld portions were all invested in local construction.

  After the report, Zhao Haizhou followed Jiang Yu's instructions and immediately set out to implement the policy route set by Jiang Yu. Later, Zhou Ziyue and Chen Guangfu entered Jiang Yu's study, and the three of them were in a secret meeting again...

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  First shot fired! Requesting fire support!