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Chapter 85 Steel Empire (1)

Datong North.

The blue-gray all-steel locomotive spitted steam and dragged more than 30 carriages to speed up the field. The doors of the tank carriages were closed, and only the patio was opened above, and the situation inside could not be seen from the side of the railway.

There were temporary beds inside the carriage, and the strong National Defense Forces soldiers were singing the song Manjianghong, which was sung in the Jiawu year of the 1894-1894-1994:

"...Driving a long cart, breaking through the Helan Mountains. Ambition to eat the meat of the barbarians in hunger, laughing at the thirst and drinking the blood of the Huns. Waiting to stop, clean up the old mountains and rivers, and go to the sky."

Once involved in the Beijing Incident, it later became the focus of the cleaning target. The 32nd Division of the National Defense Forces, which had been trained in Baoding for half a year, had only one thought: to defend the country to the death and to cleanse the humiliation.

Every day during the training, they recited oaths under the flag army, made a promise in front of the portrait of the late emperor, and overdrawed all their physical strength and spirit on the training ground. Every night, they had heart-to-heart talks with the training officers and political instructors, talked about what they saw and heard, discussed the country's new policies, and listened to the future blueprint drawn by the officers.

These soldiers who had been humiliated had gone through this re-training process, like a sharp blade that was repeatedly quenched, and they would drink the blood of the enemy as soon as they were unsheathed.

Wuhan. Hanyang District.

A large building complex was formed by a brick-concrete fence, with dense sentries outside and high alert.

One of the most important military factories in the Chinese Empire, the important gun production base of Wuhan Military Industry Group, is located here.

Inside the factory area, it was no longer the scene of handicraft workshops in the Qing Dynasty. The strong reinforced concrete factory building was tall and neat, and the complete set of ventilation and drainage devices and industrial electric fans ensured the appropriate working environment. The electrified assembly line transported parts and semi-finished guns down the conveyor belt. Male workers or female workers wearing uniform dark blue work uniforms at each station were skillfully assembled the parts onto the guns.

It has been six months since it entered wartime economic control.

Some of these workers are skilled workers in the military industry group, some have been hired with certain experience in the past two years, and some are laborers who were urgently recruited after the war. However, both skilled workers and novice workers, the passing rate is not bad. The reason here is not complicated:

First, the maturity of the assembly line model has completely decomposed the complex processes. Each worker basically only needs to repeat simple movements, while all movements are scientifically decomposed using photography capture, and the highest efficiency standard movements are stipulated to minimize the workers' unnecessary movements;

Second, high salary and high benefits, as well as the combination of basic salary and piece-based salary, this system introduced from the royal industry has inspired workers to be loyal to their work. Especially the family-like factory culture, these young people from poor rural areas feel a big family atmosphere, and also see hope for the future from their predecessors who have accumulated a lot of savings. In addition, the assessment mechanism, the last place is eliminated, and the team competition, and they all work very hard;

Third, the labor force was scientifically allocated. The factory took measures similar to the royal industry: in some links that had to work in extremely small spaces, dwarfs were used; in some workshops with excessive noise, workers with hearing impairments were even deaf.

Fourth, strict process control, strict monitoring is provided in the middle and finished product links, and quality supervisors can stop the entire production line at any time;

Fifth, all technical backbones and middle and senior management personnel participated in the profit sharing plan, with a total sharing ratio of up to 15.

This series of measures, coupled with the fact that military factory managers generally have a high cultural level, have received professional business training, and even the patriotism and dedication craze caused by the national war, has brought about a high morale in the entire military industry group.

The assembled firearms, guns, shells, blasting equipment, and flowing water generally enter the transfer room from the conveyor belt, and are directly pushed by the trolley to the waiting truck, shipped onto the train, transported to the train station and transported to the front line, and will be shipped onto the arms train.

In all parts of the empire, all factories included in the wartime control system have set minimum wage standards under the unified requirements of the central government, and this standard is even far exceeding the wages they originally paid. Because a large number of young and middle-aged men joined the army, or applied for military work, the labor force in the rear was scarce, and the tasks suppressed by the base economic group were very heavy, and the punishment measures were also very straightforward: if they could not complete it, they would be fined at a light level, and if they were to be imprisoned, the people would be imprisoned.

Everyone knows the meaning of the so-called labor reform. Fortunately, the limit of 5% after-tax profits, on the one hand, certainly limits corporate profits, and on the other hand, ensures that companies will not lose money. In any case, they can only grit their teeth and raise their wages, and provide medical and pension security under the mandatory regulations of the base camp to share costs with workers. In addition, part of the central government provides workers with pension and medical insurance accounts in banks, and the Imperial Social Security Center established by the base camp is managed uniformly.

High wages and high welfare, and contributions to the national war are both face and inside. In addition, combat readiness recruitment is generally organized by the government and the base camp coordinates the distribution of labor, which gradually attracts more and more rural surplus labor to work in factories.

In order to complete military tasks, many factories either actively or forced to update their machinery and equipment, improve their process standards, and improve corporate management under the guidance of base camp professionals. State-owned banks, Royal Banks and chaebol Banks provide low-interest loans for purchasing domestic equipment in accordance with the regulations of the base camp, and the interest rates are consistent with bank deposits during the same period. Low-interest working capital loans and civil engineering loans are also provided for expansion activities, which prompted enterprises to expand production. In order to win more orders, factories have to work hard to reduce material consumption, improve efficiency and reduce waste while labor costs are rising. The eight-hour working system of three shifts has also been launched, and has become the mainstream of industry together with two shifts.

A large number of surplus rural laborers entered the city. Under the unified dispatch and arrangement of the base camp, public rental housing was built in major industrial cities and industrial areas and rented it to the working class at a low price.

Generally speaking, primary workers who have just entered the city will choose collective dormitories in factories, but these people do not have families and care about the local labor force. They cannot truly find a sense of belonging to the city in their collective dormitories. They will eventually become migratory birds and may return to their hometowns at any time.

In order to promote urbanization and to ensure the results of industrialization, the public rental housing structure that is rapidly built with standardized prefabricated parts is simple and uniform, but it is sturdy and durable, with all necessary facilities. The six-story brick-concrete building is specially designed for workers with certain senior or professional technical capabilities, and meet their family needs with relatively low rents, so that they truly become urban residents.

Crop rotations of different crops are also adopted, such as wheat and peanut rotations used in royal farms in the Northeast and Hetao region of Inner Mongolia, and annual rotations of corn and wheat.

In farms in Hetao, it is generally paid attention to planting trees at the same time to maintain water and soil. In addition, no deep soil turning has been carried out to avoid the drying of deep moisturizing soil, loose soil, and ultimately desertification.

In the pastures in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, an excellent sheep breed called "Little Tail Cold Sheep" has been widely bred and raised in the pastures of the royal family and the border army.

After going north to unify the country in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894, the animal husbandry industry received unprecedented attention from the imperial government. According to Zheng Ying's request, the Imperial Ministry of Agriculture widely selected excellent sheep species from home and abroad for breeding and comparison, but the final selection was the sheep species produced in the eastern and western Shandong, northern Anhui and eastern Henan, which was called the "little-tailed cold sheep".

This sheep was brought from the grassland when Mongolia went south and was bred by the Han people for many years. Due to the local tradition of fighting sheep, people deliberately chose tall and strong rams as breeding sheep to cultivate strong and aggressive sheep. Over time, they bred the world's top-notch and excellent sheep breeds, whether in wool or mutton, their growth rate is world-class.

Zheng Ying and others did not know that this little-tailed cold sheep was in another time and space. Although it almost degenerated due to improper policies due to certain impurities in some time and was almost degraded, it eventually became the world-recognized top sheep species and was called the "super sheep".

In any case, the results of the comparison made Zheng Ying and others ecstatic, and immediately began large-scale breeding and breeding, and vigorously promoted it in the ranch of the royal family and the border army, gradually becoming popular.

Similarly, in the same area as Xiaowei Han Sheep, the best comprehensive cattle breed - Luxi scalper, has a delicious meat, a very fast growth rate and a strong pulling force, and has gradually been promoted.

The introduction of these excellent varieties has greatly improved the efficiency of the imperial animal husbandry and increased the supply of meat. In the past two years, the Empire has begun to try to mandate beef in free lunches in some primary and secondary schools, so as to use the sarcosine in beef to greatly promote the development of the human body's muscles and use its high protein to promote brain development, thereby subtly improving the physical and intellectual development of the imperial residents.

These farms are organized by agricultural companies, and 60% of the harvest is distributed within agricultural companies. Due to the high productivity, relatively few people and vast land, even grassroots agricultural workers have a considerable income.

These farm managers are basically retired officers of the Imperial Guards, as well as professional and technical talents from Cining's background in agricultural science, and workers are also retired Imperial Guards. This kind of organization with great family characteristics ensures cohesion and stability within the royal industry.

In this year, although some border areas experienced wars and many laborers also invested in this cruel war, the 1.8 billion mu of arable land in the Chinese Empire still produced 234 million tons of grain, with an average yield of 135 kilograms per mu (excluding fallow land), which exceeded 115 kilograms per mu in the late Qing Dynasty, and the total output also exceeded China's highest grain output before 1949 - 1.5 billion tons.

Compared with a population of 450 million, this is enough to ensure universal food and clothing, and have the spare time to support the large-scale consumption of the frontline and supplement the strategic food reserves of various places. It even exports part of the food to Central Asia and Europe.

In the Pacific, bulk carriers with rice-shaped flags were carrying large amounts of materials produced by the United States to New Zealand. Where will they turn north and transport the materials ordered by the Chinese Empire to Guangzhou and supplement the huge war machines of the Chinese Empire. A large part of these goods were purchased from the US dollars raised from the bonds according to the requirements of the China-American second-phase bond.

The United States' heavy rails, steel ingots, canned beef, springfield sniper rifles, a large number of military and mining explosives, lubricants, special clothing, cowhide knee pads, agricultural machinery, excellent seeds, breeding chickens, breeding pigs, dairy cows, beef cattle, even general machine tools, precision measuring tools, and even the best Holstein cows, Flanders Red Bulls, and German black and white cows raised in pastures opened by Chinese immigrants in Australia and New Zealand are continuously transported to China.

In the Chinese Empire, with the help of a series of political reform measures, the power of local administrative departments was greatly weakened and was strongly restrained by both upper and lower levels.

The local Senate has the right to approve the fiscal budget and direct monitoring of fiscal expenditures. All local governments' expenses are from banks and every move is under the nose of the local Senate. This makes the local governments unable to control resources as they please and seek profits through power after the great purge.

National organizations and local public opinion media are staring at the government with one eye and the other at the local Senate. The powerful departments under the central vertical control are omnipresent monitoring of the movements of grassroots agencies and searching for clues of violations of regulations and discipline.

The independent judicial department is now becoming increasingly confident. The Supreme Court justice group, which consists of students studying in the UK and the US, has issued a declaration, "Every judge shall be free to judge impartially on the case based on his evaluation of facts and his understanding of the law without being subject to direct or indirect restrictions, influence, induction, pressure, threat or interference from any aspect or for any reason."

Although due to the control system during the war, the base camp has strongly controlled the coordination of social resources, the judicial department still stubbornly fought against the acts of eroding judicial independence under various banners with the support of the center. In the trial of suspected treasons, the judicial department sent back cases with insufficient evidence or prosecution for cases with problems. Even under the strong pressure of the procuratorate, it insisted on independent judgments on some cases with problems in the review. Many cases ended up in front of the imperial court, and under the instruction of Zheng Yu, the efforts of the administrative and procuratorial departments failed. Although they were finally protected by the intervention of the highest power, judicial independence was finally maintained.

A large number of young cadres who were temporarily replaced after the cleaning showed relative idealism and dedication at least at this time, and implemented the central policy more effectively. Under the wartime system of unified control by the base camp, these young officials who were enthusiastic and decisive, who were a little naturally disgusted with the traditional unspoken rules of the officialdom fully demonstrated their value, and also had a strong impact on the officialdom that had been followed for a long time.

The bureaucracy that has been temporarily purified has shown relative integrity and efficiency at least in this war. Although there are many simple and crude phenomena, especially those that cater to the superiority, compared with the previous local government officials who blatantly intensified and sentencing, the burden on the people has been significantly reduced. Coupled with mandatory price limits and guaranteed supply, the lives of ordinary people have not only not deteriorated due to the war, but have improved. This has made the new government's prestige among grassroots citizens increasing day by day, and has also provided a strong support for the overall mobilization of the country...
Chapter completed!
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