1855 United States Tycoon

During the uprisings in Hangzhou and Anqing, the Guangfu Society confiscated some treasury banks from the Qing Dynasty, which greatly improved their current ability to pay. However, whether it is buying weapons or hiring personnel, it is a very expensive thing. In any era, war is always very expensive. When these treasury silvers were just seized, Tao Chengzhang and Qiu Jin were still naive and felt that the money would allow them to support them for a long time without collecting taxes from the private sector. As a result, they waited until Tao Chengzhang got the quote from the United States. , I found out that according to this quotation, according to Xu Xilin and Qiu Jin, who had already rushed to Anqing, all the money spent in it would not be enough. When the Liberation Association propagated the revolution, a very important point in their propaganda was to declare that no taxes would be collected after the revolution.

After the propaganda revolution, tax is not collected. This kind of trick is actually not pioneered by the Liberation Council. Generally speaking, as long as a dynasty is full of rebels, it will often fall into a weird vicious circle, that is:

To suppress the rebellion, we must fight, and if we want to fight, we need money, and if we want money, we must increase taxes. Increasing taxes will further increase the burden on those who have not yet rebelled. And the reason why there is rebellion everywhere, is it not because everyone's life is getting worse and worse? Even those who did not rebel, the life situation is often already extremely embarrassing, but barely support it. Once taxes are increased, even a little, it will make their life completely unsustainable, so they will naturally join the rebels. Then the tax-collecting areas controlled by the court were further reduced, and there were more mobs to be suppressed, which required more money, so heavier taxes fell to fewer places. Then...At this time, if someone on the rebels chanted the slogan of no taxation such as "equal land and free grain", it would naturally be "all people go to heart."

For example, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, not only did Li Chuang make the ballad that "the king won't pay for food when the king comes", even I Daqing made the so-called "never add riches". Of course, I always say what I say counts, saying that there is no increase in taxes, and there is no increase in taxes. It's just that I have invented something called "donation" in addition to taxation.

Since 1840, with the failure of foreign wars, more and more foreign reparations have been made. On the other hand, the loss of customs control and the import of various foreign goods have also caused a huge impact on China’s economic situation. Under the blow of foreign commodities, various domestic handicrafts and other industries went bankrupt. In addition, in order to repel foreign opium, large-scale opium cultivation in the country, plus... Anyway, the financial situation of the Qing Dynasty is getting worse. The more embarrassed, but the more and more expenses. So although I Daqing specifically talked about credit, saying "Never add a gift", then "Never add a gift", but "donation" or something does not count as a tax, adding this is not a word or a word, so... …The signs of a vicious circle are emerging.

But on the other hand, the revolutionaries also have vicious competition here. First of all, Sun Wen came up with the idea that the government does not collect taxes. He said that as long as the land is state-owned, and the country does not collect taxes, but only collects land rent, it is enough to cover all government expenditures and provide all government services. He promised that he would not charge anything other than land rent. Of course, let’s not talk about Mr. Sun’s level of economics. Anyway, he shouted loudly in the original history, but after he took control of Guangdong, he never implemented it, just like his ten. The 10,000-mile railway plan is the same. And his latecomer Chang Kaishen, even if he moved to Taiwan, completed the "land reform" with the funding of United States, and made the land state-owned, he still failed to realize Mr. Sun's ambition of collecting only land rent and not taxes. The Tutou, who claimed to be Mr. Sun's successor, developed the famous "land finance", but still failed to collect taxes. It is estimated that when Mr. Sun said this, it was out of propaganda considerations.

With Mr. Sun’s example, the Recovery Association must naturally show something. Especially after they parted ways with the League, they naturally have to have an own argument to attract support. Mr. Sun’s government non-taxation plan is based on the state-owned land, and the Liberation Council has always opposed the state-owned land. (On the Tongmenghui side, expelling Tatar is called a nation, establishing the Republic of China is called civil rights, and equal land rights are called people’s livelihoods. Together, they are called "three. People. Lord. Righteousness." The Liberation Council only asked for the expulsion of Tartars. They were not interested in the Republic of China. They even thought that dictatorship might be better. As for equal land rights, they clearly opposed it. As for the jokingly called "uni-minist"), they would naturally not engage in land rent in lieu of taxation, but they also promised not to collect taxes when they did not separate from the Alliance before. This kind of propaganda method has been raised. It is difficult to reduce it, and the result is that although the land cannot be nationalized, the tax cannot be collected. Of course, this is absolutely infeasible, everyone at the senior level of the Liberation Association knows this, but during this period of time, they are busy preparing for the uprising, and no one is going to take care of this issue. Speaking of propaganda, the Liberation Society is really not very good in this respect.

Nowadays, if taxes are to be collected suddenly, let alone the problem of dishonesty in the world, and the Revival Society will not have the ability to collect taxes at all. The Revival Society does not have so many manpower to control the place and raise taxes. However, the original Manchu Qing system, if they were to collect taxes, not to mention whether they would fill their pockets, and whether they would be guaranteed in the end. There is a problem of one-tenth of the total. For now, this system has been paralyzed in the revolution, and it will not take a day or two to re-establish it.

So after discussing with Xu Xilin and Qiujin, Tao Chengzhang decided to hire a small unit from the United States first and booked a batch of artillery and ammunition. They also attached a condition. If the situation changes when the arms arrive, and they no longer need these arms, then Pacific Line can help them sell these arms on their behalf. Of course, the freight and depreciation fees still have to be paid by the Liberation Association.

...

As Qiu Jin arrived in Anqing with the elite of the Liberation Association, Anqing's situation has improved somewhat. To be honest, the elite members of the Liberation Association have received some military training. These trainings lasting less than three months are placed in Western countries. They can only be regarded as playhouses. No foreign power country has only trained. The reason why a figure of three months can be used as a basic-level military officer. You know, three months is not enough to learn military drawing.

But in China, the situation is different. There are not many talents proficient in modern military affairs in China. Occasionally one or two who have been educated in a systematic military academy abroad are immediately used as middle and high-level officers. These people hold their own identities and will not seriously teach the military theory of lower-level officers. In addition, there are many lower-level officers who are illiterate, even if they are taught, they may not be able to do so. Therefore, the quality of the lower-level officers in the Manchurian Army is generally very low. The manifestation on the battlefield is that the bottom of the army lacks the ability to adapt to changes. Once the army is frustrated, it is easy to collapse. Precisely because of this, in the original history, after Mr. Sun took the thigh of the Soviet Union, he took the gold ruble to run the famous Whampoa Military Academy. To be honest, compared with West Point or Frunze, the Whampoa Military Academy, which has a school system of only three months to one year, is considered a crash course at best. Most of the graduates who are placed in the powers of the country are directly unqualified as the platoon leader. However, under the command of the Soviet advisers and relying on this student army, KMT beat the Beiyang warlords to their feet. Here, the higher quality of grassroots officers is a reason that cannot be ignored.

As far as the quality of the members of the Free Recovery Association who have been trained in Heishui are concerned, I am afraid they are still a bit worse than the Huangpu Crash Course, but they are much better than most of the low-level officers of the Hubei New Army. Therefore, as soon as the team with this group of people arrived in Anqing, the Hubei New Army who came to attack Anqing immediately discovered that things were not quite right.

Prior to this, the level of the new army in Anhui was actually known in the minds of the new army in Hubei. Not long after the formation of the Anhui New Army, although they bought some foreign guns and domestic guns, and also bought a few guns, but not long after the training, in the view of the Hubei New Army, they did not have time to form combat effectiveness, just The old-style army with foreign guns is nothing but the new army. The previous gun battle between them and the Hubei New Army’s gunboats also proved this the best. Generally speaking, land artillery has a natural advantage over warship artillery. Because on land, the ground is stable, which makes the shooting of land artillery more accurate, while the naval gun is on the water, the platform will shake, which will reduce the accuracy of the artillery. Although warships move, which increases the difficulty of the opponent's shooting, as long as you have played shooting games, you know that the difficulty of shooting static vs. motion is always much higher than that of motion vs. static. In addition, just a little preparation on the land, digging a hole in the ground, and pushing the cannon in, is a good fortification. In the match with the naval gun, the naval gun must hit directly to effectively kill it, but the land gun only needs to hit the warship, and this target is much larger than the gun position. If you encounter land artillery with well-trained and favorable terrain, the land artillery can hide behind the reverse slope and shoot with the target parameters given by the observation post. When the warship is hit, you can’t even see the shooter. Where to hide.

However, these things are too tall for the Anhui New Army. They simply do not have the ability to shoot according to the parameters given by the observation post, and they will not build bunkers for cannons, so they can only push the cannon to the top. By the riverside, the gunboats of the Hubei New Army fired directly at each other. As a result, due to lack of training, the battle was slow and inaccurate. As a result, the gunboats of the Hubei New Army were blown up. Those cannons were wasted for nothing.

However, when the army of the Hubei New Army arrived near Anqing, they immediately felt that the Anhui New Army did not seem so unbearable, because they dared to leave the city wall and set up positions outside the city. And that position seems to be quite regular.

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