Chapter 1403: 1404 A farce
Chapter 1403 1404 A farce
A meeting about expenses just ended in nothing. The Lions Empire's financial income itself is only a little, so fixed expenses are naturally inevitable.
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.
Attach importance to education and retain talents...has become a direction that monarchs or the ruling classes of various countries are very willing to invest in.
It is a pity that after so many years of hard work, apart from raising a group of white-eyed wolves who are sure to say how excellent the Tang Empire is, the effect is actually very limited.
Educational funds cannot be misappropriated, agricultural investment cannot be shaken since it is the national capital, and industrial matters... cannot be easily changed.
This is the hardest-hit area that various nobles are involved in. Most of the conflicts between imperial power and noble interests are concentrated in this area. If Lions II dares to make any move in this area, the waves that will be set off may drown him.
For example, a certain steel plant is invested by a certain big noble, for example, a certain parts factory is owned by a foreign relative... In short, Lions II does not have the courage to carry out this kind of reform if one thing affects the whole body.
It might still be possible if it were Lions I. After all, he didn't need the support of nobles and landowners like Lions II did.
The procedure for ascending to the throne was chaotic, and Lions II, whose name was not justified, 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.
Hence, the various industries that allow the nobles to make money, including factories, stock markets, land, etc... Lions II was unwilling to intervene at all.
After calculating it this way, 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.
It is a pity that 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 stretches. Hundreds of kilometers, that’s a spectacle.
Lines 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 is equipped with 50 large ammunition depots underground, and telephones are connected to 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.
Furthermore, in actual construction, due to insufficient funds and lack of time, the degree of completion of the endless barrier defense line of the Lines Empire actually has to be compromised.
I won’t go into details about the aristocrats who undertook the project but withheld payment. Everyone knows that the remaining construction materials are actually substandard.
There is no way. After all, the construction period is too tight and the workers' construction skills are limited. The final product is slightly different from the actual design drawing... It is not incomprehensible.
For example, the concrete roof that was originally planned to be 3 meters thick ended up being 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 number.
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 financial department got the money, it had to keep some "loss", so after getting 900, it only gave 800, and the rest had to be left to the people below to figure out their own solutions.
The noble businessmen who received 800 first put 300 into their pockets, and then everyone had to share the profits when purchasing cement, steel, and other materials. Only one or two hundred was actually left.
When these two hundred were handed out to the workers, there were naturally complaints, and everyone fooled around and considered it a business deal.
Then the army got a lot of them... They looked okay on the surface, but in fact they were all shoddy defense lines.
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!
This kind of thing later 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 paid out at all. After going around in the books, almost all of it returned to their own pockets.
Sometimes even taking into account the money invested by Tan Mo and the state, they can still make 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.
And the aloof new emperor of the Lions Empire didn't know these things at all. He was still worried about repairing his palace every day, and was wondering how to get this money from ministers and people.
(End of this chapter)