Wild North America 1846

a few days later

The royal train stopped at the Chang'an East Railway Station in the imperial capital. The returning emperor was given a grand welcome by the people of Chang'an. Hundreds of thousands of Chang'an citizens poured into the streets and beat gongs and drums to welcome the emperor back to the Western Capital.

Only what is lost can be cherished. The original "Imperial Capital Chang'an" has now become the "Western Capital Chang'an". It would be pure lies to say that the citizens of Chang'an do not have a strong sense of loss.

This time, the people's spontaneous grand welcome was simply enthusiastic.

This caught the Imperial Police Headquarters and the Royal Guards off guard, and they had to urgently dispatch tens of thousands of additional military police to maintain order to prevent the situation from getting out of control.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly. Under the heavy security of the military and police, hundreds of black royal motorcades with royal emblems hanging on them passed through the streets filled with welcoming crowds and returned to the Daming Palace amidst thundering cheers.

As Christmas approaches, the festive atmosphere in Chang'an, the imperial capital, is not strong.

The Chinese, who account for more than 90% of the city's population, are not used to celebrating foreign festivals. In people's traditional concepts, the lunar winter solstice, which is ten days later, is an important festival, followed by stove sacrifices and New Year's Eve.

What kind of "Christmas" is this, only those ghost families will celebrate it.

Not long after Emperor Richard returned to the Daming Palace, he received good news from the Ministry of Commerce;

Dozens of British traders on the Chicago Agricultural Products Futures Exchange have continued to buy agricultural products for delivery in February and March of the next year, with a total amount of 110 million yuan.

The scope of agricultural products includes tens of thousands of tons of refined flour, 100,000 tons of soybean meal, tens of thousands of tons of frozen meat, oil, various types of fish, braised meat and canned fruits, thousands of tons of dairy products, sugar, coffee

Cocoa and so on, the quantity is amazing.

Enough to supply more than 400,000 troops for more than half a year.

In addition, the British also waved their banknotes and purchased large quantities of leather equipment for soldiers, such as cowhide belts, cowhide armed belts, cowhide magazine bags, cowhide boots, and cowhide holsters, with the number often reaching 100,000 sets.

There are also hundreds of thousands of plastic raincoats, tens of thousands of tents, various plastic utensils and an astonishing number of guns and ammunition, with orders worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Only a highly industrialized country like the Tang Empire with strong production capacity could meet the British's urgent massive material needs.

That's not all

The British military placed an order worth more than NT$50 million to Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals, placing a large order for the new drug "King of Sterilization" to treat British wounded soldiers in the South African War.

The so-called "King of Sterilization" is sulfonamide, but Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals gave it an easy-to-understand name.

The price of this new type of medicine is very expensive, almost 4.5 times the price of gold of equal weight. A box costs only 22 Tangyuan, which is equivalent to 4 pounds and 5 shillings, and can be used for almost a week.

After several years of large-scale commercial application, as well as its outstanding performance in the East Indies War, it treated a large number of wounded and reduced the mortality rate of wounded soldiers by 90%. This has rapidly developed the reputation of the "King of Antibacteria".

This "King of Sterilization" that came out in a flash has a wide range of uses and has now become an extremely popular life-saving medicine around the world. It has also become a must-have medicine for nobles and wealthy people in various European countries, and has also entered the large purchase list of the military in various European countries.

middle.

Another flagship product of Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals, Secret Gold Medicine, also won a large order worth millions of dollars from the British military.

This is a Chinese patent medicine that is refined through modern technology. It can greatly promote wound healing and has comprehensive antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. It is the best-selling drug of Royal Coast Pharmaceutical Company.

With these two flagship products, Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals, which was established only a few years ago, has rapidly grown into a world-class company. It is also a large pharmaceutical company controlled by Royal Absolute.

The establishment of the Royal Coast Pharmaceutical Company was another back-up left behind by Emperor Richard. It was intended to preserve a golden mountain for the royal family to inherit and participate in world competition in the future.

The address of the company is still a top secret. It is hidden in the heavily guarded Holy Emperor Valley. The loyal family members of the soldiers guarding the mausoleum participate in the production of drugs, so confidentiality is extremely high.

Production and sales are two completely separate systems. The purpose is to maintain the long-term high value of drugs. The production costs are so low that they can be ignored, and almost all of them are profits.

It is precisely because of the strong royal background that the imperial dignitaries and overseas countries have no chance to get involved. Even if the British want to get it, they have to spend money to buy it.

The British's huge order worth 10 million pounds only amounts to more than 2 million boxes of "King of Sterilization", which can treat about 200,000 to 300,000 injured people.

Based on the one-week course of treatment for each box of Sterilizing King, the wounded with gunshot wounds generally need 5 to 6 boxes, while those with severe injuries of limbs and limbs need double the dosage, and the treatment time is longer.

To achieve complete recovery, it is common to use twenty or thirty boxes during the entire treatment period.

There are now more than 17,000 wounded soldiers in the British Army in South Africa. The first batch of 400,000 boxes of medicines arriving in early January next year will be distributed soon.

Even if many British officers were not injured, they would use their authority to intercept some and keep them with them.

Whether it is for personal use or as a favor, it is better than real money and silver, and many British people cannot buy it.

It can be used to treat colds, typhoid fever, pneumonia, coughs, bruises and other illnesses. The potential market is too huge, and there is also huge demand in the society of the Datang Empire.

Due to the shortage of supply, there have been frequent price increases at home and abroad, and the value has increased three to four times or even more. For a time, "Luoyang paper is expensive".

This tight supply situation will continue for several years until production capacity is gradually expanded.

With its "King of Sterilization" products, Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals earns huge profits worth hundreds of millions of dollars every year.

Part of this huge profit was fed back to the imperial government through taxes, and part was given back to the poor at the bottom of society through the medical aid projects of the Royal Charity Hospital and the Royal Renji Hospital.

The above parts combined account for about 30% of the total profit.

The remaining 20% ​​is used for the construction of new royal colonies, such as Kalimantan’s ring road, wharves and ports, emerging town construction, wasteland colonization and other projects.

The scope of funding includes the vassal states in Central and South America, the mainland and the Western Pacific vassal states, etc., increasing efforts to support local colonial rule and construction.

The remaining 50% of profits are deposited in major banks controlled by the royal family, mainly in the form of gold reserves, used for royal strategic reserve funds or to pay for external expansion and colonial war expenses.

fifteen years later

The principal and interest of this fund will accumulate to a scale of more than one billion. With the rapid expansion of the production scale of Sterilizer King and the popularization of the market, it may be 1.5 billion or 2 billion or more, becoming a stronghold of the Tang Empire.

A powerful trump card.

Such a huge amount of funds is enough to calmly cope with a world-class war, to cope with the impact of a world-class economic crisis, and to strongly stimulate domestic demand.

This seems to be the balancing stone of national security and the true foundation of a great power.

Among the world-renowned eight banking consortiums of the Tang Empire, there are Royal Red Oak Bank, Bank of America, Royal Chang'an Bank, Bank of Los Angeles, Bank of Communications, National Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, North American Bank of America and Royal West Coast Bank, five of which are controlled by the Royal Bank.

, three other royal companies hold large shares.

The five major consortiums of Royal Holdings are Royal Red Oak Bank, which ranks first, Bank of America, which ranks second, Royal Bank of America, which ranks fourth, Royal Bank of America, which ranks seventh, and Royal West Coast, which ranks eighth.

Bank, accounting for approximately 68.2% of the eight major banking consortiums.

The number one Royal Red Oak Bank alone has a reserve of 766 tons of gold. Royal holding companies represented by Royal Coast Pharmaceuticals distribute profits and dividends, which are continuously injected into major banks every year, and are precipitated through the purchase of gold.

More gold reserves can issue more banknotes, provide much-needed currency circulation in the national economy, and increase the amount of money issued while earning interest income.

Currency is the lubricant of the economy. While injecting vitality into the Tang Empire, the world's largest economy, currency can also maintain and increase value, achieving a stable growth of 4% to 5% per year.

Among the eight major banking consortiums in the empire, the gold reserves controlled by the royal family alone exceed more than 2,740 tons. Including all the gold reserves held by the imperial government, this is doubled. This does not include the hundreds of tons of gold jewelry consumed by the private sector every year.

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The Tang Empire is the second largest gold-producing country in the world today, and is also the world's largest gold importer. It now imports more than 170 tons of gold from countries such as Britain, France, and the Netherlands every year.

The British Empire, which owns South Africa, Australia, and India, is the world's largest gold producer. The Witwatersrand gold mine, the world's largest gold mine discovered in South Africa in 1884, alone accounts for 30% of the world's total gold reserves.

The annual output of gold reaches more than 340 tons, accounting for about 28% of the world's gold production. It is a huge wealth that makes everyone enthusiastic.

This was a devastating disaster for the Boers in the Transvaal Republic.

The discovery of the Rand gold mine changed everything. The Boers quickly became rich relying on the huge output of the gold mine.

As descendants of Dutch immigrants, they once again ignited their ambition for hegemony stemming from the Age of Discovery. They decided to squeeze out the British and enjoy this astonishing wealth alone.

The Boers took the initiative to contact Germany and imported a large amount of military equipment from Germany. As a result, they went on a crazy road to death and never returned...

The majestic British Empire saw the Boer's tricks at a glance, so how could it suffer at the hands of these farmers?

The current intensifying Boer War in South Africa is a clear reflection of the strategic misjudgments of both sides. Soon the heads will be beaten into dog brains.

Fight, fight to your heart's content!

Whether it is a war in Africa, a war in Europe, or a war in other regions, as the world's most powerful industrialized country, the Tang Empire can get a share of the pie.

Due to the Chinese people's obsessive love for gold, the Tang Empire imported gold for civilian use and reserve gold every year, and the scale increased year by year.

At the end of this century, 60% to 70% of the huge orders placed by the British for the South African War will be paid for in gold.

In other words, in the first year of the new century and the next two or three years, the quantity of gold imported from South Africa will increase sharply, reaching a scale of 190 tons to more than 210 tons per year.

According to the actual price ratio between gold and pounds, 1 million pounds is equivalent to 7.33 tons of gold, and 210 tons of gold is worth about 30 million pounds, which is equivalent to about 150 million Tang yuan.

The Tang Empire exported medicines, petrochemical products, infantry leather equipment, large quantities of weapons, ammunition, and food in exchange for British gold and pound hard currency.

It is expected that the Tang Empire's gold reserve holdings will increase rapidly in the past few years, which is in line with its status as the world's largest economic power.

Not only the United Kingdom, but now that the arms race between the two major military groups in Europe is becoming increasingly fierce, gold from France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and other countries is flowing into the Tang Empire through different channels.

Especially Germany, the gold it took from the Boers was handed over to the Tang Empire before it was warmed up.

Nothing else to say

The kerosene that can make the noble manor as bright as day all night long, the lubricating oil and diesel oil known as the "industrial blood", the life-saving "antibacterial king", cheap and high-quality petrochemical products, such as chemical fibers and plastics, all came from the Tang Empire

import.

These precious resources are completely unavailable in Europe. Even if Germany could achieve independence in its steel industry, coal and grain, it would still have to spend precious foreign exchange or gold in exchange for these resources exported by the Tang Empire.

Germany is like this, France, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and other countries are all like this.

Unless they want their palace to be as dark as a ghostland, with factories not running, and death from a slight fall or minor illness, they have to import these necessary supplies and medicines.

In the long term

The convergence of world-wide wealth into the Tang Empire is a long-term and stable trend that is almost impossible to change.

Unless oil fields with huge reserves are discovered in other parts of the world and advanced refining technologies are available, it will be difficult to change the status quo.

Among them, the most depressing one was undoubtedly the Russian Empire.

The Tsarist Empire owned the Tyumen Oilfield, which has the earliest mining history in the world. However, backward petroleum refining technology resulted in extremely high costs, and the oil extracted and processed was not as cheap and high-quality as imported oil.

It loses every barrel of production and has massive oil reserves, but it spends precious gold and foreign exchange on importing millions of barrels of kerosene and lubricants every year.

Due to the cold bilateral relationship between the Tsarist Russia Empire and the Datang Empire, Russia could not even get a bank loan and could only use francs or gold to purchase it, because the Datang Empire did not recognize the ruble and did not need to purchase any supplies from Tsarist Russia.

The agricultural products that Tsarist Russia had were available in the Tang Empire, and they were better, with more complete varieties and greater output.

The Tang Empire also had things that Tsarist Russia did not have, such as cane sugar, spices, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, natural rubber, various meats and canned fruits, and its output ranked among the top in the world.

There are too many good things in the export list of the Tang Empire, the categories are so rich that it makes people drool, and the scale of production is huge.

As long as you have money, you can buy almost anything.

It is a pity that Tsarist Russia has almost nothing to offer in the agricultural field, let alone industrial products.

France provided huge franc loans. After more than 20 years of industrialization efforts, Tsarist Russia only formed a preliminary industrial system in the areas around the Black Sea.

So far, its industrialization process has not even reached 20% of Chengdu, and the main body still belongs to a relatively backward agricultural economy. What industrial products are exported to the Tang Empire?

In the trade with Russia, the only things the Tang Empire was interested in were gold and francs, and everything else was on the sidelines.