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Chapter 1132 Crying to each other about poverty
This time, Hong Tao did not insist, and felt that he could enjoy the fruits of his hard work in governing the country to some extent, so he approved the proposal and planned to spend some money to renovate the three main halls.

This does not mean that there should be no pomp and circumstance at all, nor can it be regarded as luxury. Sometimes necessary pomp and circumstance can indeed play a role in enhancing the prestige of a country. There is no way around it, human nature is like this, if it cannot be completely changed, then we can only make more use of it.

However, the cost of repairing the three main halls is indeed high. On the one hand, the material requirements are relatively high, and on the other hand, the labor cost is also high. Which department should pay for such a large sum of money?

After much thought, Hong Tao felt that it was not appropriate to ask any department to pay for it. The budget system had been promoted with great difficulty, and every department had to be frugal and live frugally. No one had so much spare money. If they did, what was the point of having a budget?

The loophole of apportionment must not be opened. Once it happens, there will be a second time and an Nth time. In order to repair the three main halls and increase the national prestige, the system that was established with great difficulty was destroyed. The loss outweighs the gain.

It was indeed possible to allocate funds from the treasury, but Hong Tao felt the pain in his heart. This money was earned by himself through frugality, investment, and hard work. In addition to supporting the royal family members and bearing the expenses of the Royal Academy, he also had to use some money from time to time to fund various unplanned research projects.

As for rules, for regular projects, following the system and proceeding step by step in a planned manner can indeed improve efficiency. However, when encountering a relatively advanced project that is not very sure, rules become a rope for hanging, which often has a negative effect.

But scientific research has never been able to summarize a set of fully compatible rules, let alone measure value by success rate. Often, a particularly unreliable idea can bring huge success and even push all of humanity forward.

Faced with this dilemma, Hong Tao has no better solution but to try to make up for it within the scope allowed by the rules, such as encouraging private capital to invest in scientific research projects to obtain higher returns.

The auction of scientific and technological achievements held every year at the Sun Moon Bank headquarters on Qipan Street is a practical demonstration of the effects to the wealthy. The effect is also very significant, with more and more wealthy businessmen participating in the auction and the transaction volume also showing an upward trend year by year.

However, some projects cannot be invested by private capital. For example, the research results will be used in the military field. It is not enough to keep it secret, so how can ordinary people be involved? If the research fails, it will be fine. Once it succeeds, it may seriously challenge the empire's military leadership.

But we can't afford to delay, shelve or abandon these projects for the sake of confidentiality. What should we do? Hong Tao asked Wang Chengen to set up a special screening department, called the Science and Technology Development Department, which was affiliated to the Silijian.

All the members were from the Cuju team. After training every day, they had nothing to do but sort out the funding applications submitted by various departments. They ignored the more routine ones and passed them on to the departments for their own disposal.

The most professional ones were handed over to the Imperial Academy, where professors of various disciplines organized student debates, and finally a vote was held to decide whether to launch formal research. All the seemingly unrealistic, unreasonable, and irrelevant projects were sorted out and regularly sent to the Yangxin Palace for personal review by the emperor.

If interesting ideas are discovered, they will be initially funded by the internal treasury, and the Science and Technology Development Department will track the research progress and make regular summaries and reports to determine whether additional investment is needed.

Although this does not guarantee that there will be no omissions, it is already the limit of this era. In order to spread the net wider and denser, Hong Tao ordered all provinces, special zones and overseas territories to set up special funds in schools, factories and farms to fund various valuable inventions and creations. Anyone with an idea can write to the palace to explain it and then wait for a reply. Most of them may fall into the sea and never receive a reply.

However, as long as there is a reply, they will receive a corresponding amount of research funds, and even be sent to the capital by the local government. These expenses are also paid by the internal treasury, not in the budget of the Ministry of Taxation, and not supervised by any court agency.

Hong Tao is indeed good at making money. The industries run by the royal family are basically very profitable. He has also invested in many companies, farms, and plantations, and can receive large dividends every year without doing anything, including Sun Moon Bank.

But with more income, there are also more expenses. Especially when it comes to funding scientific research projects, most of them lose money. The few that succeed may not bring immediate economic benefits, or may simply become confidential and cannot bring any benefits.

In addition, there is a large amount of money in the treasury that cannot be touched. That is the special military expenditure prepared by Hong Tao. Once an unplanned military action is encountered and the treasury cannot be taken out in a short time, this money can be used to make up for it, and the military action will not be delayed due to lack of money.

Therefore, Oyani's questioning was ineffective. The only way to repair the three halls was to borrow money from the Sun and Moon Bank, and it had to be at a low interest rate. But Hong Tao didn't want to hand over millions of taels at a stroke of the pen. Doing so would not only fail to improve the quality of the project, but would also tempt some people to go down a path of no return.

He planned to have Sun Moon Bank make an assessment of the project first, roughly calculating how much it would cost, and then find professionals to divide the project into several small pieces and calculate how much each piece would cost.

In this way, payment can be made in batches and installments, and each small piece can be reviewed after it is completed. If it passes, further funding will be allocated and work will continue. If it fails, work will be stopped immediately to identify problems and correct errors.

Don't wait until the project is almost finished and most of the funds have been allocated before you start to talk about what went wrong here and what went wrong there. By then, no matter how many heads you chop off, you won't be able to get the project money back, and you can't tear it down and rebuild it. You can't even calculate many detailed costs. It's a complete mess.

"Your Majesty is right. The three main halls should indeed be renovated! However, the two naval bases in Colombo and Hawaii have taken up a lot of funds, and Enniao City also needs to build roads. It is difficult to raise the funds at once. How about giving it a year's grace period, or temporarily slowing down the construction of the naval base to free up some funds?"

Gulandam nodded his head in response to the emperor's request. Even the officials who were most disgusted with the new policy could not raise any objections on this issue. Looking through the history books, there was no emperor who had not renovated the palace and mausoleum for more than 30 years after ascending the throne. Emperor Jingyang could be regarded as a model of simplicity.

But she did not agree to the loan, instead she counted on her fingers the projects funded by Sun Moon Bank, all of which were large-scale and approved by the emperor. The implication of her words was that she was crying poor and was unwilling to pay.

Oyani was stingy enough, as if the money of Sun Moon Bank was hanging on her ribs, and it hurt if anyone moved too much. Gulandam, who was trained by her, inherited and developed this characteristic, and even dared to perfunctorily deal with the emperor's request!
(End of this chapter)