Volume 1 Tigers in Southeast Asia Chapter 62: The Chinese Empire
After Lin Fei finished speaking, he heard the crowd below start to discuss quietly, especially the Chinese craftsmen sitting on his left. Qian Wangling whispered to Guan Shanyue: "Country? What is a country?"
Guan Shanyue whispered, "The word 'country' contains the word 'home'. I think it has something to do with getting married and starting a family, right?"
After hearing this, Qian Wangling looked at Ling Xue with a wretched expression and said with a smile: "Sister Xue'er, what is a country?"
Lin Fei thought about it carefully and realized that the Chinese who traveled to Southeast Asia at this time had no political concept of "country" at all, otherwise they would not allow themselves to be bullied. Li Mingbai, Liu Daming and others knew nothing about politics and did not understand what a "country" was. The only person among them who had political ideas was Yu Xier, and only he changed color slightly.
Lin Fei cleared his throat and said, "Let me explain to you what 'establishing a country' means. You must have heard the historical story. Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty killed a white snake and started an uprising, overthrew the tyrannical Qin Dynasty, established his capital in Xi'an, and changed the country's name to 'Han'. Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Mongols and established his capital in Nanjing, changing the country's name to 'Ming'. What I mean by establishing a country is the same as them establishing a capital in a city and changing the country's name."
After Lin Fei said this, everyone nodded. Lin Fei stood up and said to everyone: "Some of you I brought out from the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, some I brought out from Ibayat Island, and some I rescued from the Filipinos. I once promised everyone that if you follow me, you will never starve or be bullied again. Now that we have established our own country, we will never be bullied by others again!"
Everyone was excited, and Lin Fei continued, "Our country needs a resounding name. I have already thought of this name, which is 'Huaxia Empire'! I am the emperor of this country, but you don't need to kneel down to me when you see me in the future, and don't call me 'Your Majesty' or 'Long Live'. You can call me 'City Lord', the soldiers in the army can call me 'Captain', and my brothers like Lao Liu and Lao Yu can call me 'Lao Lin'. Do you understand?"
After all, Lin Fei is a modern man and has no good feelings towards the imperial system, so he doesn't like others calling him emperor. Everyone agreed in unison. Lin Fei asked everyone to sit down and said, "The capital of our Huaxia Empire will be Yanhuang City. We will discuss the national flag and national emblem later. The most important thing now is to set up national institutions."
"Agriculture is the foundation of the country, so we must have a Ministry of Agriculture. I have decided to let Old Man Wang, the Tea King, be the Minister of Agriculture. With agriculture, we also need industry, especially since we will need to send troops to expand our influence in the future, and we will need industry to produce weapons and equipment even more."
"Now that our Huaxia Empire already has two major industrial cities, Yanhuang City and Chiyou City, I have decided to set up an Industry Department to manage the development of industry. Ling Xue will be the Minister of Industry."
"When we develop industry, we need to purchase some equipment and raw materials from overseas, so I need a department to be responsible for foreign trade. This department is the Ministry of Commerce. This Ministry of Commerce also needs to manage some domestic businessmen. Chen Fu will be the Minister."
"Business needs the support of money. In the future, the Huaxia Empire will use Huaxia currency. I need a special department to be in charge of the issuance of currency. This institution is the central bank , with Chiyo Mika as the president. In addition to issuing currency, the central bank will also be responsible for deposits, loans and other businesses."
Lin Fei took a sip of water and continued, "We already have a lot of land. We need to build roads and bridges on these lands, so we need to set up a Ministry of Transportation, with the road construction craftsmen from Lingji Construction Bureau as the minister."
"After the roads and bridges are widely built, many people will definitely enter Yanhuang City and Chiyou City, so we need to build more houses in the city. In our country, only two cities are far from enough. We need to build more cities. We must have a Ministry of Construction to be responsible for the planning and design of the city. The position of the Minister should still be given to the craftsmen of the Construction Bureau."
"As the land and population increase, disputes and fights between people will also increase, so I need to set up a Ministry of Public Security and a Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Public Security is responsible for establishing the police force, and the Ministry of Justice is responsible for establishing the courts. The duties of the police are very similar to those of the Qing court's detectives, and the things the courts do are very similar to the Qing court's yamen. There are no such institutions on the island now, which is absolutely not acceptable. As for the candidates for the Minister of Public Security and the Minister of Justice, I haven't thought of any suitable ones yet, so I will be in charge of them myself."
"We still need a Ministry of Education in our country. This Ministry of Education is used to educate children and adults, but now our island is short of teachers, so the Ministry of Education needs to be put on hold for now."
Lin Fei paused for a moment, looked at everyone and said, "I just mentioned the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Construction and other institutions. The ministers of these institutions are directly responsible to me. You should do whatever I tell you to do."
Several ministers appointed by Lin Fei nodded in agreement. Once these departments were established, the framework of the entire Chinese Empire was established.
After talking about the state administration, Lin Fei turned to Liu Daming and others and said, "Now let me talk about the military. We will formally establish the Chinese Empire Army and Navy. I am the commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy. All actions of the army must be under my command. Do you have any objection?"
At this time, the high-ranking officers of the army were all rescued by Lin Fei from the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. They were loyal to Lin Fei and naturally had no objections. Lin Fei continued, "I will set up two more departments in the army, one is the General Staff Department and the other is the General Logistics Department. Li Mingbai will be the head of the General Staff Department and Chen Jingui will be the head of the General Logistics Department."
"The navy will have a fleet consisting of the Nuwa ship, Pangu ship, and five transport ships. Since our navy is currently short of warships, we will not set up various organizations for the time being to avoid bloated personnel."
"Due to technological limitations, we are not able to build large warships yet, so the development of the navy is mainly based on research and development of technology. The Ministry of Industry is responsible for the research and development of technology. I will tell the craftsmen of the Ministry of Industry the principles of the technology."
"The most important thing for the army now is to expand its strength. We now have two and a half battalions of troops, about 1,000 people. The next step is to fill three battalions. One battalion has 420 people, so three battalions means 1,260 people. We need to recruit enough troops."
Lin Fei picked up the cup on the table and drank a sip of water. Li Mingbai took this opportunity to say, "Your Majesty..."
Lin Fei glared at him, and Li Mingbai quickly changed the subject: "Captain, why are you only recruiting 1,260 people? Isn't that too few?"
Lin Fei said: "1,260 people are already enough. The total population of our country is only 180,000. Excluding the 40,000 industrial population, the agricultural population is only 140,000. That is to say, every three farmers have to feed one person who is not engaged in agricultural production. This pressure is already quite large. The number of troops is too large for farmers to bear."
"Our troops are equipped with automatic rifles. Although I have ordered that they are not allowed to use continuous fire on the battlefield and only single-shot fire is allowed, and that automatic rifles are used as semi-automatic rifles, the consumption of bullets is still alarming. The consumption of bullets is caused by the consumption of copper ore, mercury fulminate and nitrocellulose. If the number of troops increases, we will not be able to afford it."
"You don't have to worry about the 1,260-man army being too small. Looking at the wars that have taken place in the history of the Philippines, including the war between Britain and Spain for the Philippines, the war in which the Spanish suppressed the uprising of the locals, etc., the number of Spanish participants was only a few hundred or a few thousand. The size of our army is completely sufficient."
Li Mingbai nodded after listening. At this time, the Tea King stood up, bowed and saluted, and said: "Today is the auspicious day for the establishment of our Huaxia Empire. I shouldn't say this, but I have to say it..."
