Chapter 410: No money, only pigs to kill.
Chapter 400: No Money, Only Kill Pigs
St. Petersburg, since the end of the Battle of East Prussia, in the center of the maelstrom of the tsarist government days are not easy.
Despite the fact that the generals of the front line took the blame, Alexander II understood that the real reason for the great defeat of the Russian army was not the problem of the command of the generals.
Without that one order to fight quickly, perhaps the Battle of East Prussia would still be going on. According to the initial strategy, the Russian army only needed to hold against the Prussians and rely on the superiority of the sea to attack for victory.
Offense and defense were not the same concept at all. If the Russians had adopted a defensive strategy, they would never have lost so quickly. With the Prussians’ sudden reinforcement, they would have lost a few lines of defense at most.
“Money” was the main culprit for the failure of the battle, followed by the poor transportation in the Russian Empire, the corrupt bureaucracy of the Tsarist government, and finally the “decree of war”.
Minister of War Hramed reported: “Your Majesty, we have already mobilized, and the loss of troops on the front line can be replenished in the next two months.
The loss of weapons and equipment, the domestic military industrial enterprises are ready to work around the clock, the shortfall we have ordered from Austria, to ensure that before the beginning of spring next year equipment to the troops.”
Heramed very wisely neglected to pursue the matter of responsibility, the main officers of the front line, although they took the blame, and were not removed from their posts, accountability, all were ordered to wear the blame.
On the whole, their performance was passable. These officers were the Russians’ biggest gain in the Near Eastern War, the elite of the Russian army.
Now there was still a war to be fought, and self-destruction was something that the shrewd Alexander II naturally would not do.
“It’s still a question of money, isn’t it?”
Alexander II helplessly asked, from his tone can be heard, “money” problem has not appeared once or twice.
The Minister of War, Herald, replied affirmatively, “Yes! We have already defaulted on too many payments, and many of our partner companies are in financial difficulties because of this. Now they are demanding payment before they will organize production.”
It was a common occurrence for the Tsarist government to owe money to enterprises, but it was a rare occurrence for it to be owed as much as it was this time.
The capitalists were not fools, knowing that the tsarist government was in financial trouble, naturally they would not continue on credit.
In this regard, the tsarist officials and they are allies, enterprises can not earn money, what to give them as a kickback?
Not only the military-industrial enterprises, where the tsarist government’s cooperative enterprises, now have a large backlog of debt.
These problems are not solved, the Russian Empire does not have to think about next year’s war, directly bowed down and admit defeat.
Alexander II asked expectantly, “What plans does the Ministry of Finance have to solve the current crisis?”
Minister of Finance Kristanvar replied with a haggard look on his face, “There are two solutions: one, to impose another war tax; and two, to borrow foreign debt.”
The lack of bond issuance and internal borrowing was a sure sign: the credibility of the Tsarist government had collapsed and there were problems with domestic finance.
In fact, when the Russian army had just occupied the East Prussian region, there were still many people outside who looked favorably on them, and the Ministry of Finance used this opportunity to sell a number of bonds.
Then there was no more, and now their bonds were once again unclaimed. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself wasn’t sure that the bonds would be paid off.
War is the beast that swallows gold, and Russia is a feudal empire in the midst of an overshoot of capitalism, with very limited funds that can be mobilized.
Of course, this does not mean that they have no money, but the shrewd financiers, at this time, have to pretend to be poor, did not have the slightest intention of pulling the Tsarist government a hand.
Alexander II sneered and said: “Is not the domestic financial sector can not think of a way? As far as I know, they still hold the foreign debts of many European countries in their hands, right!”
There was nothing wrong with it, the tsarist government borrowed from foreign banks, and Russian banks lent money overseas, this was all normal financial activity.
The only thing that was not normal was the reluctance of these banks to lend money to the Tsarist government.
Of course, this is not all the problem of the banks, it is more or the successive tsars played too hard to get, there are borrowing without repaying things happen more, people are not willing to continue to fall for it.
This topic is stuck, and now that the government’s finances are collapsing, domestic banks are justifiably afraid to borrow.
Seeing that no one answered, Alexander II did not continue the topic. He knew that for bureaucrats: some things can be done, but not said, otherwise it is easy to leave a political enemy handle.
“How much money can be raised?”
Finance Minister Kristanvar thought for a moment and said, “The preliminary estimate is that 86 million rubles can be collected in war taxes. As for finding foreign bank loans, the exact amount cannot be determined.
It depends on how much collateral we can put up, and there are also political factors that need to be factored in.”
The “86 million rubles” seemed an astronomical sum, but in reality it was not enough to pay off the debts of the enterprises, and in the war it was a drop in the bucket.
It’s not that rubles are worthless, the point is that war is so expensive that hundreds of tons of shells are shot off in a day, and that’s just basic operations.
In fact this has been very frugal, 500,000 to 600,000 troops fighting on the front line, even if each person consumes 5 rounds of ammunition per day, that’s still more than three million rounds.
So many armies, on average, how to save every day, at least a few thousand rounds of artillery shells.
Just the most basic ammunition consumption, hundreds of thousands of rubles per day are gone. In addition to the consumption of various logistical materials, the daily expenditure of several million rubles how is not less.
After all, the cost of supplies on the battlefield, not cost price. A lot of strategic materials, from the rear to the front of the Russian army hands, the price has doubled several times.
Alexander II frowned and asked, “Say, what are you prepared to mortgage, how much can you borrow?”
Alexander II was very unhappy with this feeling of being out of control, but unfortunately the reality left him no choice, can’t give the European hegemony away, right?
Even a small Prussian kingdom can not handle, I am afraid that Russia’s international status from the top, all of a sudden fell to the British, French and Austrians after, or even ranked behind the Prussians.
Most of the political gains made in the Near East War would be lost in this defeat.
Finance Minister Kristanwal did not hesitate to choose to kick the can down the road: “It depends on the outcome of the negotiations, it’s not about what we give now, it’s about what the other side wants.
It’s possible to approach a few more countries and choose the most favorable terms for us as possible, the Foreign Ministry is the professional in this regard.”
Foreign Minister Clarence Ivanov gave Kristanvar a hard look, this was clearly a pitfall.
International loans were never good, loans with no strings attached might exist, but unfortunately the Tsarist government couldn’t borrow them.
Once the additional treaty was signed to the detriment of the country’s interests, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the one to take the blame, Clarence’s mood was instantly bad.
“Your Majesty, the current funding gap is too large, there are only a few in the world that have the strength to provide this loan, our options are almost non-existent.
If we have to rely on international loans to solve the financial crisis, I’m afraid we’ll have to pay a big price to be able to borrow the money.
Why don’t we think of something domestically, the huge Russian Empire is not so big that we can’t even raise a few hundred million rubles.”
Clarence’s position was very clear, it was better not to borrow money. The funding gap this time was just too big, and even if he borrowed money he wouldn’t be able to pay it back in the future.
Now they can take out as collateral chips are not much, in addition to the vast country, Clarence does not think that there are other things, can mortgage loan so much money.
It was easy to renege on a debt and not pay it back, but a secured loan was different. Now have the strength to provide them with loans to the gold master, there is not a soft persimmon, when people want to take away the collateral, can not fight a war, right?
This is obviously impossible, if there is money to fight a war, they would have already paid off their debts. War is actually the most extravagant toy, not suitable for the poor to play with.
Instead of making things difficult when the time comes, it would be better to overturn the table in advance. If the government doesn’t have the money, they’ll ask for it from those who have it. It’s not the first time they’ve done it anyway, there’s experience left behind by our ancestors.
If we do a big job, not only can we solve the debt crisis in one fell swoop, maybe we can even put some money in our pockets. The pig has been fattened up, now it can be killed.
Alexander II nodded, this may not be the best choice, but it is the most suitable choice for the tsarist government.
With the tacit agreement of the higher echelons of the Tsarist government, the Jews began to fall. The upper echelons were targeted only by Jewish financial capitalists, but the Jews of the middle and lower echelons suffered just as much.
The aristocrats naturally did not let go of this opportunity to get rich, and both the reformers and the conservatives were unprecedentedly united in their stance on this issue.
(End of chapter)