Nanyang Storm 1864

Chapter 445: Report on the Development of the National Economy in 1882

On the desk of King Zheng Guohui of Chu, there was a thick document entitled "Overall Report on National Economic Development in 1882", which was presented to him and detailed the development achievements in various fields such as politics, economy, colonization and military.

First of all, the total population is still on the track of rapid growth. The two carriages of immigration and newborn population are dragging the trajectory of Chu's population growth in a steep upward trend.

By the end of 1882
The total population of Chu State increased from more than 1879 million at the end of June 6 to more than 3617 million at the end of 1882. In just two and a half years, it increased by a full 4685 million.

This also allowed the total population of Chu to surpass Germany's total population of 4577 million, making it a populous country among the world's great powers.

world-wide
It ranks sixth after the five most populous countries: Qing Dynasty, Britain (including Indian colonies), France (including Algeria and Indochina colonies), Russia and the United States.

The total population of the United States reached more than 1882 million in 5330. It is also a major immigration country. The domestic population is in a stage of rapid growth and appears to have great potential.

From 1820 to 1882

The United States has received at least 1200 million immigrants from Europe, which has played an important role in promoting its continued rapid population growth and accumulated a solid population base.

In this regard, the State of Chu was not inferior.

Backed by the almost infinitely populated Chinese continent and with immigration being extremely convenient, China will only be stronger in the field of population importation, and will not be inferior in the slightest.

According to Chu's current population growth rate, in about three years, it will surpass the total population of the United States and rank fifth among the world's most populous countries.

If you want to go further, it will be even more difficult.

The top four most populous countries in the world all have a total population in the billions. Tsarist Russia, which ranks fourth, has a total population of 4 billion. Moreover, the Eastern Slavs are very fertile, with an average of eight children per family.

Even if we exclude the children who died prematurely, the growth potential cannot be ignored.

In the area of ​​childbearing, Chinese women have no obvious advantages over East Slavic women, and are even slightly inferior, with an average of only 6.7 children.

If we look at it from a long-term perspective

The current population of Tsarist Russia is as high as 1 billion. If it continues to develop for more than a hundred years, it will easily reach a population of 03 to 140 million. It will definitely not be reduced to just over million, which was the population level years ago.

But if you think about it, the UK now has a population of 3512 million, France has a little over 1 million, and Tsarist Russia has 03 billion. After 140 years, there has not been much growth.

The biggest reason is that the German Empire, the victim of the white people in Europe, launched the First and Second World Wars in the world in its original historical trajectory, causing severe damage to these powerful countries.

Tsarist Russia lost 5500 million people in World War I and World War II, and its own purges and the Great Ukrainian Famine resulted in the loss of more than 700 million people. It was a serious blow to its vitality, and its population size was completely devastated.

France and the UK are not much better. Although the number of deaths is small, the overall population size of these two countries is also small.

Large-scale wars that mainly occurred in Europe were extremely detrimental to the national strength.

The United States hid aside and developed quietly, and its population grew to over 300 million. This was mainly because it was not affected by these brutal wars around the world, but instead gained a lot.

When I think of this
King Zheng Guohui of Chu became more favorable towards the Germans. After thinking for a moment, he gave the order:
"Please arrange for this king to meet with the newly arrived German envoy, Count Heinrich, in the near future. Um, have Foreign Minister Zheng Xin and Colonial Minister Wu Qingfeng attend the meeting, along with Minister of Commerce and Culture Zhong Qiu, to discuss the possibility of expanding trade between the two countries. We must attach importance to our relationship with Germany."

"I will obey your Majesty's order and make arrangements immediately." Zhang Huaizhong, the deputy secretary-general of the royal family who was on duty at the side, replied respectfully.

After giving the order, King Zheng Guohui of Chu continued to flip through the thick "Report on the Overall Economic Development of Chu State in 1882" and read it attentively.

Since 1869, the Chu State has been comprehensively and systematically collecting national economic data, including steel production, total import and export volume, tax revenue, industrial and agricultural output, etc., and has obtained detailed and reliable first-hand data.

We have been doing this for 13 years now, and we can see that the total GDP output value has shown a clear upward curve, especially in recent years, the upward momentum has been quite strong.

In 1882
The total GDP of the world's major powers is US$21 billion for Italy, US$02 billion for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, US$28.62 billion for France, and US$49.92 billion for Germany. There is no relevant data for Tsarist Russia, but it is estimated to be around US$43.68 billion.

Considering that its population was three times that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, serfs were a large and backward social group. The economic scale of Tsarist Russia was only slightly stronger than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was in the stage of a completely agricultural society.

Tsarist Russia's industrialization had just begun. Its factories were small in scale, few in number, and of poor quality. It still relied mainly on the agricultural economy and was a relatively backward economy among the powerful powers in Europe.

The two most powerful industrialized countries are the United Kingdom and the United States. The UK's domestic economy has reached 65.93 billion US dollars. If overseas colonies are included, the total amount is about 117 billion US dollars.

British India is a super large market with a population of 2.87 million and a total economic output of approximately US$21.6 billion. In addition, there are South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and British colonies around the world, with a considerable economic output.

In 1882, the United States' total economic output reached 109.3 billion US dollars, completing the industrialization process and becoming one of the more powerful industrialized countries in the West.

An economic giant but a political and military dwarf is a true reflection of America’s current international image.

Compared with these world powers, the total GDP of Chu State in 1882 reached 31.5 billion US dollars, which was about 63.7% of Germany's total economy. Since the population of the two countries was not much different, the average economic output of Chu State residents was about % of that of Germany.

This ratio is not low, because the Chu State has about 360 million to 370 million new population every year.

Excluding the over one million newborns, the annual population increase from Chinese immigrants alone is over 240 million, which is a very large scale of population growth.

It is an indisputable fact that when these new Chinese immigrants first arrived, they mostly engaged in farming, which would have greatly diluted the per capita GDP output of the Chu State.

If the number of new Chinese immigrants is stopped or significantly reduced, the per capita GDP of Chu will show a significant increase, and the momentum is still strong.

But doing so is equivalent to neglecting the essentials and pursuing the trivial, which is not what a wise person would do.

The long-term policy of introducing Chinese immigrants has been the national policy of the Chu State since its founding. It has been adhered to for 17 years so far and will continue to be adhered to for a long time.

This is also the real reason why the population of Chu State reached a huge scale of 4685 million. The population of Chu State is generally young and has a long-term demographic dividend, which is the strongest driving force for the comprehensive development of the economy.
The northern Shenzhou court gradually tightened its control over the outflow of immigrants from various regions. Local governments strictly investigated the outflow of population with the intention of controlling more people on the Shenzhou continent.

But how big and vast is China?
The coastal areas have formed the inertia of immigration outflow, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Huguang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi, and other coastal and riverside areas, which are all major areas of population outflow.

These are also provinces with large populations. Every year, the population outflow ranges from 70,000 to 100,000 people. There is almost no sign of population reduction. The population only increases by a few thousand people every month.

However, with so many provinces, as well as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places suffering from continuous droughts, there are often waves of refugees pouring into the provinces along the river and eventually flowing to the Southeast Asia region.

Therefore, although inland provinces have strengthened control, there are still about 240 million Chinese immigrants flowing into Chu State through various channels each year, and self-funded immigrants account for a large proportion.

The Chu State's Royal Nanyang Bank and Nanyang Colonization Bank earned a combined profit of more than 7.72 million silver dollars each year from interest on immigrant loans alone. These were banks in which the Chu royal family and government controlled a major portion of the shares, basically accounting for more than % of the total, which shows how lucrative their income was.

In 1882
The steel industry, which can experience industrial smelting standards, has different production levels among the world's major powers, showing a clear distinction between agricultural countries and industrial countries.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was mainly based on agriculture, had an annual steel production of 13.94 tons, Tsarist Russia had 33.82 tons, and Italy had 0.3 tons. The steel production capacity of these powerful countries with agriculture as their economic basis was generally low.

On the other hand, the situation in the industrial powers of Britain, the United States, Germany, France and Chu is quite different.

The British steel industry, the world's number one industrial industry, has an annual output of 268.7 million tons and an annual production capacity of 420 million tons of steel. However, its steel production capacity has only been utilized to %.

This is mainly due to the sluggish world economy, which makes it difficult for Britain's steel production capacity to be fully utilized.

Same reason

The United States produces 185.3 million tons of steel, with an annual production capacity of 350 million tons, which means it is only operating at half of its capacity.

Germany's steel production was 155.42 million tons, France's steel production was 63 tons, and Chu's steel production was 121.68 million tons. None of them fully utilized their steel production capacity.

The State of Chu had an annual production capacity of 220 million tons of steel, but it used all its energy domestically to build bridges, railways, and large-scale reinforced concrete urban buildings and water storage dams, which meant that it consumed an average of one million tons of steel per year.

No matter how much is produced, it will pile up in the warehouse.

The remaining annual steel exports were 7 to 8 tons to the northern mainland, more than 2 tons to Fuso, and to surrounding areas such as Ryukyu, Siam, French Indochina and the Kingdom of Vietnam, totaling only about 3 to tons. Most of the exports were iron farm tools, iron pots, hammers and other tools. The total export volume was not high, and the export amount was not large either.

As for British India, due to the opening of the Suez Canal, a large amount of steel and cotton cloth from Britain arrived at the British Indian market continuously via large ships, and others had almost no access to them.

However, the Chu State's large colonies in West Africa and Patagonia were too far away from the mainland and the sea transportation costs were high, so it was more cost-effective to import them from Europe.

Therefore, the construction of these colonies far away from the mainland mostly relied on imported steel products, especially British steel, which helped to strengthen bilateral economic ties.

In the export sector

The largest export commodities of the Chu State were still crude oil, kerosene and copper. The former reached a huge amount of 3.2 million silver dollars per year, and the latter, just copper material, reached an average annual scale of 32 tons, worth 6200 million silver dollars.

The two items combined had an average annual export volume of 3.8 million silver dollars, earning a huge amount of income for the State of Chu.

Now in the European market
The price of kerosene per barrel has dropped to around 63 silver dollars, about half of the early price, but with the increase in the amount of exported kerosene, it remains stable at an annual export value of million silver dollars.

In the European market for imported kerosene, the United States alone accounts for 38.6% of the market share, the Chu State accounts for 19.3%, and kerosene from the Baku oil fields of Tsarist Russia accounts for 27.5%. The rest is the market share of small oil fields in Romania.

The Romanian oil fields were mainly supplied to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Central European countries and the three Nordic countries. The Baku oil fields were mainly supplied to Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Tsarist Russia for their own use. The main markets for imported kerosene in the United States were France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Spain and Portugal, and a small part was also supplied to the United Kingdom.

The main market for Chu's crude oil is the UK. It is also supplied to France and Central and Eastern European countries, but cannot enter the markets of the Netherlands, Belgium and the three Nordic countries.

This was because the Chu State had seized Belgium's Congo River colony, which prompted Leopold to hint to the king that he was resentful and refused to import any products from the Chu State, including crude oil and industrial products.

Not to mention the feud with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the relationship between Chu and the three Nordic countries is not good either. This all has its complex historical reasons. The economy reflects the level of cooperation in the diplomatic and military fields to a large extent.

For example, the kerosene exported from the Baku oil fields of Tsarist Russia could enter the German and Austro-Hungarian markets unimpeded. This was a true reflection of the political and military alliance of the Triple League reflected in the economic field.

The same logic applies to the crude oil exported from the Baku oil fields in Tsarist Russia, which cannot enter the French market.

France has always had close ties with the United States and a traditional friendship, so France is the main market for American kerosene, which the Chu State cannot compete with.

Fortunately, the Chu State had the largest British market in Europe. British residents generally had high consumption and strong consumption power. The country alone consumed almost 1/5 of the exported kerosene in the European market, exceeding 2.42 million silver dollars each year, which was unmatched in the whole of Europe.

As the saying goes, "reciprocate a favor", the State of Chu also actively imported British cotton, steel and other industrial products. Industrial imports were mainly imported from Britain, including rails and ships, refrigerated ships and mining machinery, etc. The annual transaction volume was close to 9000 million silver dollars.

It’s not that we don’t want to increase imports, but we have already tried our best.

This resulted in Chu's trade with Britain always being in a state of large trade surplus. The British were very nagging about this, constantly nagging about it and asking Chu to further increase its imports.

From King of Chu Zheng Guohui to Prime Minister Li Hezhang, Foreign Minister Zheng Xin, and Minister of Colonies Wu Qingfeng, the main leaders of the kingdom were all annoyed by the British, and there was nothing they could do about it.

The State of Chu wanted to import gold from Melbourne, but the British were unwilling to do so. They only imported a mere 1200 tons a year, worth more than million silver dollars, which was far from satisfying the State of Chu's appetite.

Even if the price increased tenfold, Chu could still import it. At worst, it could be kept in the bank's bottom drawer. The more of this stuff, the better. The major banks in Chu had been importing gold through various channels.

The annual gold imports from the United States alone are around 46 to 50 tons. In addition, South Africa, Canada and other places also import varying amounts of gold.

(End of this chapter)