Chapter 174, Population Production and Trade
Gu Hang nodded frequently as he listened to Ossena's report.
Gu Hang cares a lot about the increase in population.
According to the information she provided and the documents in hand, the total population directly ruled by the New Alliance has now reached 2.4 million.
Among them, the core governing area is the Fuxing Twin Cities.
The population of Weixing City has reached 550,000, and its main industries are heavy industry and military industry.
A series of industries based on alloy plastic steel refine large amounts of raw materials into alloy metals, which are further processed into various industrial components; Wu Jiarong's research institute constantly creates new industrial lines (through black boxes), which are then sent to the abandoned cave industrial zone to build new factories or expand the scale of existing factories.
The migrant population who enter the short-term high-intensity training courses organized by various factories and enterprises become unemployed workers after the short-term training. As long as the corresponding production lines are in place, new workers will immediately fill in and production will start immediately.
Fuxing City now has a population of 930,000, and urban construction is still ongoing. The main industries are various light industries and the production of consumer goods to meet population needs. For example, textiles, food industry, various electrical appliances, furniture, construction industry... are the main production industries.
In addition, Fuxing City is also an administrative and trade center, with a large population engaged in clerical work.
The higher population size has also given rise to a more developed service industry. There are still few cultural and entertainment industries, but there are already many catering industries.
This is different from Wei Xingcheng. In order to solve the problem of eating, Wei Xingcheng not only cooks at home, but also relies on the company canteen to distribute food according to job level.
Fuxing City does not have large, centralized factories like Weixing City, so the catering industry will become a supplementary solution to the problem of food.
Here we have to mention a new policy that Ossena has implemented to stimulate economic vitality.
In order to avoid the relatively fixed industrial development after the job level and position are bound together, to avoid the corresponding economic activities only when the Ministry of Industry issues orders to build factories, shops, urban construction, etc., and to encourage ordinary people to use their own intelligence and talents, Ossena has implemented policies to encourage entrepreneurship.
It's not about starting a big business; state-owned factories can handle those big things.
You can open a small restaurant, a small convenience store, or even just set up a roadside stall; if you go a step further and have some special ideas, you can open a small factory, set up a private engineering team, or a logistics team to transport goods to various construction sites, factories, and stores... In short, anything is possible.
The specific incentive measures are that people with corresponding job levels can use their own job levels as collateral to apply for start-up funds, submit relevant start-up reports, and after approval, they can open their business.
The higher the rank, the more support funds you can get.
If the business fails, the job level will be downgraded; if it succeeds, the job level will increase accordingly according to the identity of the manager of the new industry.
But similarly, the ownership of this industry, whether it is a restaurant, a small convenience store, or a factory, is state-owned, but a certain dividend will be paid.
To put it bluntly, it's like being in a large company and thinking that there is a project that can be carried out, then submitting a project report to the boss and management, and starting work if it's approved. If you win, you get a promotion, a raise, and options, and if you lose, the company loses money, and you are held responsible and demoted.
Moreover, if you just want to set up a stall, you don't need a particularly high level to do it, and the penalty for failure won't be very big, just deduct your allowance.
In addition, Ossena also opened another loophole: you can use your own funds to start a business, so there is no need for a guarantee. If you fail, you will not be demoted and lose your own money; if you succeed, your position will be promoted and the money you earn will belong to you.
This is equivalent to opening up a private economy outside the main public and planned economy to increase economic vitality.
At present, since it is encouraged, the conditions for job level guarantees and applying for start-up funds are relatively relaxed. Those with low job levels who have good ideas or who are in line with the industrial development direction set by the Production Department can easily obtain start-up capital. If they lose, the degree of demotion will not be too large, and generally under the guidance of the Industry Department, most people will not lose money.
Generally speaking, it is not a loss to open a small restaurant or even a synthetic starch block heating stall next to a factory or construction site.
In the future, when we feel that a certain direction has developed enough, or even overheated, or has suffered a lot of losses... In short, when something goes wrong, we will tighten the application loopholes, raise the threshold, and increase the penalty for guarantees. In short, there is a means of regulation.
In general, in the two cities, the collective state-owned economy is still the absolute main body, supplemented by the private economy to increase vitality and increase employment.
At present, according to the statistics of 'tax coins', the monthly total output value of the twin cities can reach about 80,000 tax coins. This is the absolute core area of the new alliance.
As for other areas, the total tax coins added up is about five to six thousand.
Apart from the Twin Cities, other areas of the currently planned Central Province, North Central Province, and Tower Province, those remaining small settlements, including Garbage Town, are also being transformed into the Twin Cities system, and their main production capacity is focused on consumer goods to ensure the basic needs of the population.
But in those small settlements, production efficiency cannot be guaranteed at all.
These places have a combined population of over one million, which may be similar to that of the Twin Cities, but their total output value may be only about 7% of that of the Twin Cities.
In this regard, Ossena's subsequent plan is to continue migrating people from these places into Weixing City and expand the industrial population.
In addition, various production machines will be put into use from some means of production factories in Weixing City and Fuxing City. For example, agricultural machinery, engineering machinery, trucks, textile machinery, food processing machinery... a series of gadgets will be able to improve the production efficiency of these small settlements.
There will be a lot of room for growth here.
After listening to her overall report, Gu Hang nodded with satisfaction.
He thought Ossena had done a pretty good job.
He had known about many things in this before, especially some of the major directions. He had given Ossena relevant instructions before boarding the starship, and Ossena formulated and implemented policies in the corresponding directions.
It is not easy to come up with a suitable policy; it is even more difficult to implement the policy.
But it seemed that Ossena had done well in both aspects. It was not just that she had lived up to his expectations, but that she had even exceeded his expectations.
This can also be seen from the character card.
When in the starry sky, Gu Hang saw from the character interface that Ossena's character card had changed.
First, she was upgraded to LV3; her 'rarity' rose from N to R; [Excellent Political Officer] was upgraded to [Outstanding Political Officer], with an additional political attribute; and an additional talent called [Comprehensive Planning] was added.
[Overall Planning: She has gained some insights into long-term planning of overall production and construction, which makes her even better in this area. Politics +1]
The superposition of these characteristics brings her most important political attribute to 15 points.
Such an Ossena has become a very outstanding civil servant, and Gu Hang can rest assured.
In this regard, Gu Hang was also generous in praising: "I think Comrade Ossena has done a very good job."
After saying this, he even clapped his hands.
Under his leadership, everyone also showed respect and applauded.
Ossena's role is very important. She is currently the top person in the government affairs department. She is in charge of the four major departments: civil affairs, commerce, finance, and production. She has great power and responsibility.
Although she is still called a minister, in fact, her work is very similar to that of a prime minister. Most of the government affairs are on her shoulders.
Even the military had to please her. After all, the production of the military factory in Weixing City also needed her support to thrive. The military logistics equipment department headed by Thadius had to keep in touch with her subordinates at all times to ensure that the equipment, ammunition, and military rations were adequately supplied.
Ossena was a little embarrassed by the compliment. She waved her hand and said quickly, "As for the business report, Mr. Bradford will give it. He has performed very well in this month's work."
Bradford stood up a little nervously, and especially when Gu Hang looked at him, the nervousness became even stronger.
He still remembered how desperate he was when he was captured by the governor's soldiers a few months ago; later, the conversation with the governor almost broke his mentality.
But he survived through his own "intelligence" and became a consultant to the New Alliance's Ministry of Commerce.
After Ossena took on multiple duties and essentially assumed the work of the Prime Minister of the Alliance, she was extremely busy. In addition, there was a serious shortage of civil servants and administrative workers in the new alliance, especially a lack of talents who could stand on their own. People like Bradford naturally took advantage of the situation.
He had ability, experience, connections, and was proactive in his work. He never tried to make money for himself - even if he had the intention, he wouldn't have dared to do that at least in the early stages of his career - so he naturally stood out from the crowd.
Although he was still a consultant, he actually began to exercise the power of the head of the Alliance Business Department. Ossena even raised Bradford's rank from E6 to D6 within her authority.
This is still just a lower-middle level, but it is enough to have enough food and clothing, and there are also good subsidies.
What's more, after all, he is the head of the Ministry of Commerce. Bradford is a smart man and he is not worried at all that he will have no room for development in the future.
And he never let Ossena down.
Before that, he mobilized his own connections and experience in managing commercial activities to organize caravans, restore blood supply to the capillaries, and alleviate the food crisis in the two cities; then, he restored the grain trade with the Western Desert, which further resolved the food crisis.
As for the other major artery for food imports, the Qinggu region in the south, there was no improvement. But that was not his responsibility. The main reason was that the Qinggu region was in the midst of war and there were major problems with food production, which could not be solved by trade.
In fact, the food problem in the Western Desert alone is still very tense, especially after the expansion strategy began. The areas around Fuxing City also fell into war, especially with two million people becoming hostile, and the capillaries were affected again.
This is also the reason why Gu Hang insisted that Yan Fangxu speed up the action, quickly deploy more troops and solve this problem: if it is delayed any longer, famine will occur.
However, in order to solve this problem, Bradford personally went to the Western Desert and just returned recently.
He brought back a new large order, and the scale of Ximo's grain trade with Fuxing City could be doubled.
The price that Fuxing City has to pay for this is a large amount of consumer goods. The extra output of Fuxing City is enough to cover this part.
In addition, there is another big business, which is that Bradford has brought a large order to Weixing City's automobile industry.
The Tieniu RN-100 truck is favored by a large number of caravans. It has good load-carrying capacity, good off-road performance, is durable, and can consume any fuel... This type of truck is very popular in the wasteland.
Bradford sold five hundred Iron Ox Trucks to Western Desert merchants in one go, paying with grain.
According to interstellar standards, the total value of this subsequent batch of food orders is more than 20,000 tax coins, which can basically meet the annual needs of the New Alliance's current 2.4 million people; and the 500 Iron Ox trucks are about the monthly output of Weixing City. If the taxes are paid, the total value is only about 5,000 tax coins - the Imperial Tax Department may not necessarily want trucks of this level of technology.
Although they made four times the profit, the Western Desert merchants were still ecstatic.
This truck sells for much less than the freight vehicles produced by Blackbird Heavy Industries in the west.
This deal is a win-win situation: the Alliance found a market for the automobile industry and bought back a large amount of food; the Western Desert merchants who got the trucks would use the trucks to transport food to the Alliance, and transportation efficiency would become higher.
If this isn’t a win-win situation, then what is?
Winning twice, I’m so tired.
Of course, this business was not completed in one go.
There is so much grain in the Western Desert, but there is no way to transport it all in one go. It takes time to collect it from various planting bases, and it also takes time to travel thousands of kilometers.
The delivery of the Iron Bull trucks was not immediate. Although Weixing City could produce 500 trucks per month, Fuxing City's transportation logistics also needed Iron Bulls; the military's logistics transportation also needed Iron Bulls; and the army's motorization also needed Iron Bulls.
Even the production capacity of 500 vehicles is not enough. The subsequent production department may focus on increasing production capacity on the Tieniu truck, and strive to increase the monthly production of this important transport truck to 1,000 vehicles.
In addition to grain trade, Bradford has recently solved another big problem: the import of industrial raw materials.
In terms of raw materials, the ore production capacity of abandoned mines has long been unable to keep up.
Due to the suspension of the war, Garbage Town has only recently resumed excavation of the ruins mine, and production has not yet increased.
The shortage of raw materials restricts the production in industrial areas.
However, related commercial work is gradually expanding, and the sources of raw materials are no longer limited to the surrounding areas.
The area of about 6,000 kilometers east of the ruins of the tower and all the way to the sea was the main urban cluster area of Angry Owl Star before the war. Super cities like the ruins of the tower were widely distributed in the eastern region.
But in this vast area, there are probably only about five million people living there. They are scattered among the ruins, struggling to survive among the mutant monsters and waste energy storms. There is no industry, and they mainly rely on picking up garbage and then exchanging it for food and daily necessities from caravans.
In other words, the former urban agglomeration area, which is 6,000 kilometers from east to west and 3,000 kilometers from north to south, is an oversized, extremely scattered garbage town.
But no matter what the ecology of that place is like, at least the new alliance has now opened up trade ties with the eastern provinces.
Various consumer goods and food resale are the traditional items of raw material trade between Fuxing City and the eastern provinces, and now, there is also the dumping of industrial products.
Among them, the two most important products are the Iron Ox truck and the arms.
The eastern provinces are like a super-sized garbage town, and this is not just a saying, the overall ecology is also very similar. The food production capacity is very low, mainly relying on imports from the Qinggu area; the main output is raw materials collected by digging up garbage from pre-war ruins, as well as some primary processing and basic industries.
The main force of "garbage picking" is naturally the many adventurers.
The G9 series of individual equipment is much stronger than those homemade guns.
And it just so happens that G9's current production line has a lot of spare production capacity, so we can just sell it to them.
As for these guns, will they become an obstacle to the new alliance's expansion into the eastern provinces in the future?
I have to admit that this is possible.
But the hindrance is not great.
If it is a large-scale battle, the value of individual equipment is not that great. Tanks, artillery, and land aviation are more critical.
When it comes to arms trade, G9 individual equipment is not only sold to the east, but the Qinggu area in the south is also an important selling point.
On the one hand, although the Qinggu region suffered from war and its food production capacity was severely reduced, there was still some.
On the other hand, the reason for exchanging arms for food was mainly due to the situation in the Qinggu area.
In the Qinggu area, where the natural conditions are relatively good, disasters such as the tide of mutant monsters would have almost subsided by this time of year in previous years, but this year they are showing a tendency to intensify.
The tragedy of Ossena's family being torn apart and killed is no longer an isolated case in the Qinggu area.
Even the landowners and planters couldn't bear it, let alone ordinary civilians.
The weapons and equipment sold to the Qinggu area are to help them better resist the monster tide.
In fact, it’s more than just selling arms.
When he was in heaven, Gu Hang heard reports about the Qinggu area, and he was also worried about the situation in the Qinggu area.
The situation where a tide of mutant monsters is rampant is definitely intolerable.
The Qinggu area has a population of 10 million. It is a huge peninsula area, spanning more than 2,000 kilometers from east to west and more than 5,000 kilometers from north to south. It becomes narrower as you go south. The overall terrain is a bit like the Indian Peninsula in the world before Gu Hang traveled through. The natural environment and geographical environment may even be better.
Vast and fertile land, abundant population... this is one of the rare and essential places on the Angry Owl Star.
Gu Hang could not tolerate the destruction of this land, nor could he tolerate the excessive loss of the population of 10 million in this disaster.
At present, the Alliance does not have enough power to send enough troops to such a vast Qinggu area to help them solve the mutant monster problem there.
But this does not prevent early planning.
Arms/food exchanges, and even the direct dispatch of military experts and diplomats to the Qinggu region.
Diplomats are helping displaced survivors to gather together; establishing mutual aid organizations among plantations that are still struggling to resist; and persuading plantations that have not yet been hit by the disaster to understand the principle of "the lips and teeth are in the same boat", so that they can contribute money, effort and manpower to help other neighbors.
The military specialists set out with the traded arms to assist the local teams in resisting the monster tide and building their army.
The local situation cannot be explained in just a few words, and Qinggu’s problems are not just the conflict between humans and monsters.
But let’s not talk about the more complicated situation for now. At least for now, Gu Hang hopes that the people he sends out can minimize the damage to the Qinggu area. Every extra life saved and every extra grain of food saved is a good thing.
When he has time to mobilize a real large force to go to the Qinggu area to recover the lost territory, any more vitality that can be retained there will be a good thing.
…
There will be relatively less important things to report later.
Patel talked about the industrial situation in Weixing City;
Lambert talked about the legal system construction in Shuangcheng, including the formulation of relevant laws and regulations, court construction, law enforcement team construction, intelligence system construction, anti-corruption issues, etc.
He has been specifically appointed to the position of Chief Justice of the Union. Under his management, there are three major committees: the Legislative Committee, the Executive Committee, and the Disciplinary Committee.
There are the fewest legislators, who just need to establish legal provisions according to the governor's wishes; enforcement mainly includes public security issues; and discipline mainly involves anti-corruption.
Gu Hang attaches particular importance to the work of the Disciplinary Committee.
He knew very well that under the current highly centralized and planned economic system of the New Alliance, it was best to concentrate resources to accomplish major tasks, and to do things that would bring little short-term benefits but huge long-term benefits. However, the two problems of institutional rigidity and corruption were fatal to the New Alliance system.
The system is rigid, and Gu Hang has seen that Ossena is looking for a solution, encouraging some private, market-oriented economies as the main approach.
As for the problem of corruption, there are no signs of it yet. After all, the new regime has theoretically only been in place for three or four months, so there won’t be any major problems.
But this matter must be prevented in the bud. If corruption is not solved until it becomes a large-scale, systemic problem, it will not be a painful thing.
————
Six thousand words.
Yesterday's promise was fulfilled.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
