Chapter 1777: The bold country thief will kill you
Because Datang used diplomatic means to purchase the entire colony on the western coast of Portuguese Africa and multiple Spanish colonies in South America at a superficial price of millions, but actually spent less than a million.
Behind these colonies, there are also large colonial interests represented.
Such a low price made the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so popular that the slogan "It's better to buy than to fight" was shouted in the court.
This made the army and navy, especially the navy, feel deeply malicious.
Although the Army is also very unhappy, at least there is still a Western Front to support it. Whether it is the Tatars, the future Ottomans, the Safi Dynasty, or the Mughal Dynasty, these are the Army's meals.
But it is very difficult for the navy.
Originally, the navy had no serious enemies. The most important thing it does now is to escort merchant fleets around the world, including all colonial ports.
As a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was lucky and directly purchased a large area of the colony, which embarrassed the Navy.
What is the use of maintaining such a huge navy?
This is a question, and it is an extremely important question!
During the winter of the thirty-sixth year of Xuanping, the military, especially the navy, was quite nervous, and even came up with some alien threat theory. Behind these were the concerns of the military.
And these worries are gradually becoming reality.
At the imperial distribution meeting at the end of the 36th year of Xuanping's reign, cabinet officials such as Xie Yiwei, Jia Wenbo, and Chen Lifu demanded reductions in military spending.
They demanded that conventional military expenditures be reduced from 25% in Xuanping 36 to 20%.
Conventional military expenditures refer to military maintenance costs in peacetime, such as personnel salaries, training costs, equipment replacement costs, military base construction and other costs, and also include the costs of small-scale wars.
However, it generally does not include temporary war expenses for launching a large-scale war.
For example, during the Third Western Expedition, Li Xuan promised to give the army 50 million in war expenses. This 50 million was not included in the regular military expenses, but would be paid in addition.
The military's regular military expenditure has been stable at around 25% of the fiscal expenditure budget for many years. Although it is more or less in some years, it is only one or two percentage points.
But now, the cabinet wants to continue to lower the proportion of conventional military expenditures, trying to lower it to 20%.
This caused severe dissatisfaction among the military.
But the reason why the cabinet is so unified in its opinions is because it has produced detailed data.
That is, they came to a conclusion after carefully analyzing the military strength of the Tang Dynasty and the military strength of other opponents around the world.
That means that the military power of the Tang Dynasty was seriously excessive!
Continuing to maintain such a large army is a waste of money, and it is time to disarmament part of it.
And they are not just talking nonsense, they have directly produced a lot of evidence.
For example, the most important weapon: guns.
The combined rifles equipped by the army and navy are already at least two generations ahead of the Tatars and other indigenous peoples.
Today, the Tatars and Ottomans are still using flintlock guns. As for the Mughals and other indigenous people, they are still using matchlocks. As for other inferior indigenous people, they are still stuck in the cold weapon age.
But what weapons did the soldiers of the Tang Army and Navy use?
They used a combination rifle, which was a breech-loading rifled rifle with an effective range of more than 400 meters and a rate of fire of more than twelve rounds per minute.
Regarding artillery, other natives were still using smoothbore cannons, but the Tang Army and Navy had already used breech-loading rifled cannons.
In terms of guns and artillery, Datang's army and navy almost had an absolute advantage.
Not to mention the naval battleships, let alone those battleships exceeding 10,000 tons, not even those armored cruisers of 7,000 to 8,000 tons.
Even those cruisers with only two or three thousand tons or even frigates with more than one thousand tons can sweep across the world.
But the key point is that there are not so many enemies for your navy to fight. Why are you building so many expensive and large-tonnage warships?
If you want to maintain global sea power, it's simple. Just build a few cheap frigates with a capacity of 1,000 tons. You don't need 10,000-ton battleships or armored cruisers with a few thousand tons.
All in all, the cabinet believes that the military's strength is seriously excessive, and there is absolutely no need to maintain huge military investment every year and build a lot of expensive warships or cannons.
That's pure waste!
With this money, it would be better to invest in the construction of transportation, water conservancy, etc.
This directly made the Army and Navy furious.
The Army jumped out first!
General of the Army, Deputy Envoy to the Privy Council, and Minister on Duty in the Imperial Study Room, Deng Xide, slapped the table and snarled: "In order to control and defend the empire's territory, our army has been fighting fierce natives all over the world. Over the years, I don't know how many army soldiers have died due to lack of guns and ammunition.
And you died at the hands of the barbarians, and you actually want to reduce the military expenditure of our army. You treacherous people, I will kill you and other dogs even if I risk my life!"
"In the early years, you said you wanted to engage in construction and asked our army to endure a little or two. Our army is not ignorant of the general situation and disregards the overall situation, so we endured it and maintained a million-strong army every year with a little military expenditure.
At the same time, fight for the interests of the point guard empire around the world!"
"For the sake of the overall situation, millions of hard-blooded men in our army, the most elite talents in the contemporary empire, have put down their guns and replaced them with hoes to cultivate and cultivate crops. In the past ten years or so, all the food that our army's millions of soldiers have eaten has come from us.
What you grew and raised yourself!”
"But now, you are going even further!"
"I put my words here, if anyone dares to lose one of our army's top men, I will bring artillery into their hinterland. I want to see whether your bones are stronger or my cannonballs are stronger!"
Deng Xide's words directly detonated the atmosphere in the imperial study room!
As a representative of the civil service and an absolute supporter of disarmament, Xie Yiwei showed no fear at all and sneered directly: "An army of one million people, tell me when the time comes, what is the use of your army in maintaining an army of one million people?"
"Tell me, that barbarian is worthy of your army of millions!"
"Or, you are using all the new guns and cannons that require countless equipment to burn fire sticks, and you need to use the number of people to pile them up! In this case, I doubt whether you still need to continue to equip these advanced guns and cannons!"
Deng Xide was sprayed by Xie Yiwei, and his blood suddenly surged. He stood up and shouted: "You are a bold national thief, I will beat you to death..."
Then, he rushed forward, raised his fists, and greeted Xie Yiwei.