And even if they put a target there themselves, these problems cannot be solved in a short time.
The development of military weapons is based on the progress of industrial technology. Today, domestic industrial manufacturing capabilities are only at such a level that they cannot meet the requirements of the army and navy.
For example, Li Xuan cares more about the medical issues raised by the military than anyone else. However, it has been going on for more than ten years and it is still in the primitive theoretical research stage. Even though those lunatics from the Department of Medicine at the Royal Institute of Technology have also done it.
There are a lot of new treatment options, but without the support of modern medicine, especially antibiotics, many so-called treatment options are unreliable, such as surgical operations, etc., the chance of death from postoperative infection
But it's quite big.
There is also the issue of artillery. It is not that the Tang Dynasty did not study rifled cannons, but there are theories and design drawings, but they cannot be built, or if they are barely built and cannot be used, what is the use?
As for the Navy's steam steel ships, they are only in their infancy, and many technologies are very immature and expensive.
The cost of building a Jiangnan has reached more than 600,000 yuan, while in the past, the cost of a pure sailing battleship of the same tonnage was only more than 300,000 yuan.
The Navy has said that it will speed up the fielding of steam steel battleships. It will replace all the main bodies within a few years. This will cost a lot of money. Although Li Xuan supports the navy's development of steam steel battleships, there must be a gradual cycle.
The process is to build a few every year and continue to build them for more than ten years. Basically, we can almost achieve the goal. However, the navy must complete it within three to five years, otherwise it will face major challenges in the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and other waters.
Li Xuan simply ignored this!
However, Li Xuan is quite satisfied with the Army and Navy's desire for new technologies reflected in this report.
Because to a certain extent, war is the best catalyst for scientific development!
In order to win the war and establish an equipment advantage over the enemy, the military will definitely vigorously promote the development of science and technology to obtain more advanced weapons.
In the past, the Navy vigorously supported the research and development of steam engines, which is a very typical example!
This is a good thing, so although Li Xuan felt that the suggestions and plans put forward by the Army and Navy were too optimistic, he was still prepared to support these actions of the Army and Navy.
Of course, verbal support is enough for the time being. Li Xuan doesn't care about funds or anything like that. Let the army and navy figure it out on their own. The army and navy add up to tens of millions of military expenditures a year. Squeeze here and move here and there.
Can squeeze out relevant research and development funds.
Besides, the Tang Dynasty's finances are still relatively tight today. In order to completely defeat the Portuguese and control the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean coast, the Tang Dynasty is prepared to bleed a lot of money.
This year's military expenditure alone has reached 52 million, not to mention that before the war started, Li Xuan allocated an additional 5 million in temporary war expenditures to the army and navy. The total amount added up to 5,700.
All in all.
Such a huge military expenditure was very difficult even for a huge country like the Tang Empire.
What's more, Li Xuan has made up his mind to get through this fiscal situation as long as it can and try not to issue government bonds.
He was frightened by the fact that he had to use a large amount of fiscal revenue to repay the national debt every year for more than ten years. He borrowed 100 million and ended up paying back 200 million.
You must know that there is no such thing as currency depreciation these days. The Tang Yuan is a currency directly linked to gold.
Tang Yuan is a collective name for a mixed precious metal currency and banknotes.
A standard gold coin worth one yuan has a gold content of 6.2 grams, and a Datang banknote worth one yuan can be exchanged for a standard gold coin at Datang Bank.
Although the Tang Dynasty still adopts a gold and silver mixed standard currency system, in fact, the settlement of overseas trade and domestic bulk trade is basically based on gold, or in other words, the Datang Yuan is used as the pricing standard.
Instead of using the value of silver as the calculation standard.
In this way, although silver coins, copper coins, etc. are still issued and used, the value of one standard silver coin cannot be exchanged for one dollar, and a little more needs to be added to make it worth it.
Because in recent years, although the import of silver from America, Fuso and other regions has become more and more serious, the value of silver in the domestic market has depreciated rapidly, and the gold-silver exchange ratio has increased from 1:6 in the early years to 1:6.3 now.
This increase has aroused great vigilance from the Ministry of Finance and other institutions of the Tang Empire. For this reason, it has been strictly enforced for a long time that all foreign trade must be settled in gold, and silver is not allowed.
Of course, many foreign merchants would still come to trade with shiploads of silver, especially the Spaniards, who basically had nothing but silver.
But nowadays, traders in the Tang Dynasty no longer trade this silver as currency, but simply trade it as precious metals, and when exchanging silver, it is still the domestic price.
Because now in the Tang Dynasty, as people generally accept the Tang Yuan banknotes, in addition to continuing to issue standard gold coins on a small scale, the official no longer mints and issues silver coins on a large scale.
To a certain extent, the Tang Dynasty still implemented gold and silver bimetallism, but it had already entered the stage of transition from gold and silver bimetallism to the gold standard, and the transition was almost complete.
With the implementation of this series of measures, it is possible to ensure the stability of Datang Yuan's monetary policy and not cause financial turmoil due to the rapid depreciation of silver.
The currency of the Tang Dynasty remained stable, so inflation was unlikely to occur.
Under such circumstances, it is very uneconomical to issue large-scale government bonds and pay high interest rates.
For this reason, Li Xuan has been very cautious in controlling Datang's fiscal revenue and expenditure in the past two years, spending as much money as he has and refraining from large-scale issuance of national debt.
Unless it's really a necessary moment, such as a life-or-death situation.
But at present, there is really nothing in Datang that can make them feel that they are facing a life-or-death situation.
The war with the Portuguese was, to put it bluntly, a war to compete for colonies and overseas trade markets, and the Tang military also had a huge advantage. It was hard to see that the Tang Dynasty was facing a life-and-death situation that required the Tang Dynasty to issue large-scale national debt.
Under the premise of not issuing national bonds, Li Xuan now spends money based on how much money is left in the treasury, what can be spent and what cannot be spent.
Obviously, military expenditures have been significantly overrun, and Li Xuan does not intend to increase military expenditures for the military.
After all, in addition to fighting, the country also needs to spend a lot of money.
Even if there is no special development, just to maintain the operation of many official institutions of the Tang Dynasty and to maintain the rule of the Tang Dynasty in the country, the administrative expenses spent are an incomparably huge number, much more than the military expenditure.
Those who rely on the government to make a living include not only middle- and high-level officials in the conventional sense, but also ordinary low-level officials, grassroots section officers, patrol policemen, and the like.
Then there are many teachers in schools who serve as teachers in the government-run schools of Datang. They are also high-level and eat public food. Although their salaries are paid by the school itself, and the school also has tuition and other income, but
Many schools cannot make ends meet and require government subsidies.
In addition, there are a large number of government employees, such as coachmen, watchmen, cleaners and a lot of other miscellaneous things in many schools. Although these people do not have any rank titles and are not considered officials, they still have official titles.
The money is paid by the government.
Calculated in this way, the number of people across the country who need to be supported by central and local finances is not a small number. On the contrary, it is still a quite huge number.
Although fighting external wars is important, retaining enough funds to maintain domestic rule is even more important.
Therefore, Commander Li Xuan verbally supports various plans of the navy and army. Generally speaking, this is the attitude. If the military has money, you can do it yourself, but if you don’t have money, don’t bother me!
Soon, both the army and navy received instructions from Li Xuan!
However, the senior military officials do not expect to receive any funds from the beginning. They just cry a lot as a habit. After all, only children who can cry will get milk!
So if there is no money, there is no money. As long as the Holy Emperor nods and has this policy support, they will do it themselves.
As a result, not long after, the Army Privy Council established a military hospital with a very strong research and experimental nature, called Datang Army Hospital, and prepared to study medical technology.
At the same time, the Army convened many manufacturers affiliated with the three major domestic weapons companies to invite bids for new artillery and artillery shells.
Of course, the Army doesn't expect to have one immediately, so for this kind of bidding, it is more about selecting R&D institutions and then preparing to spend money.
Soon, several companies obtained research and development contracts. They impressed the Army Ordnance Department with their designs, and then each received varying amounts of research and development funds.
The Army is preparing to cast a wide net to catch fish. In terms of new artillery, it has selected five companies or research and development institutions. Each of the three major weapons companies has an artillery manufacturing subsidiary and the artillery research group of the Royal Institute of Technology. What is very surprising is that
, Dangtu Special Machinery Company also received a research and development contract. This Dangtu Special Machinery Company is not a state-controlled weapons manufacturer, which means that they have no qualifications to develop and produce weapons at all.
It is also different from the Royal Institute of Technology, which is a very special official research and development institution.
It is just a private company. Its main business is to provide various key components to other domestic machinery and equipment manufacturing companies. It is worth mentioning that the giant steam cylinders of large steam engines are their flagship products.
The core components of the large shipboard steam engines equipped on the navy's warships today, namely steam cylinders, are produced by this unknown company.