Mediterranean Hegemony Road

Near the end of the year, Ferdinand's work suddenly became busy. Just after dealing with the ethnic issue, the annual planning and financial budget in 1902 had to go to the last step.

In fact, these issues have been discussed many times, but many things are not determined by human subjective consciousness, but by changes in objective facts!

For example, now, Minister of Education Chekov said with a frown: Your Majesty, the Ministry of Education may not be able to complete the plan we made before!

Ferdinand's face changed slightly. In recent years, there have been very few Bulgarian departments that have not been able to complete their plans, especially their own plans!

What's the matter? Ferdinand asked suspiciously.

You must know that under the leadership of Chekov, the Ministry of Education has done a good job in various tasks over the years, and Bulgarian basic education has once become the world's first!

Now, the Ministry of Education's own plan has not had time to implement it, and it has announced that it cannot be completed. This is very abnormal!

Chekov said with a wry smile: Our Ministry of Education's estimate was wrong. Through the rough data of the census, we found that the actual number of illiterate people in Bulgaria is much higher than the previous estimate!

We now have a population of more than 13 million, of which the number of illiterates will not be less than 7 million. Even after deducting more than 2 million elderly people and children, there are still nearly 5 million people who need to receive literacy education. Nearly a million more than we previously estimated!

Not only that, but even the previous plan to build two comprehensive universities had to be suspended.

Now the number of high school graduates in the country is about 12,000, and 85% of the candidates are concentrated in our original territory.

If we expand the two universities now, then after the expansion, the number of students admitted each year will exceed 5,000.

Then the quality of the source of students will definitely drop significantly. Instead of blindly increasing the number of people and lowering the quality of teaching, it is better not to expand enrollment!

Ferdinand patted his forehead with a headache, thinking that the population quality of the Balkans ruled by the Ottoman Empire was poor enough, with an illiteracy rate of 70 to 80 percent.

Unexpectedly, there is no worst, only worse! The rest of the Ottoman Empire is really bad. According to the data, immigrants from the Ottoman Empire are basically illiterate!

Of course,

Maybe people are not illiterate, but they don't know Bulgarian script, and now they can only pretend to be illiterate in order not to expose themselves and be sent back to the Ottoman Empire!

It is no wonder that, except for a small part of Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire who returned to Bulgaria in later generations, the others gradually disappeared in the long river of history. After all, to assimilate a bunch of illiterate people really shouldn't be too simple!

With such a low literacy rate, the number of people who can apply for university will naturally be even less!

Obviously Ferdinand ignored that the basic education in Macedonia and Thrace has little to do with the Ottomans, it is the result of the efforts of successive Bulgarian governments!

Twenty percent of the fiscal revenue every year is invested in the export of religion and culture, and it has persisted for more than 20 years. How can it be fruitless?

Ferdinand thought for a while and said, We still need to pay close attention to literacy education, and the local government must take action to cooperate with the work of the Ministry of Education. The current plan is out of date, and the Ministry of Education should come up with a new plan!

Regarding the expansion of the university, let's build a science and engineering school first! We still have to continue to maintain the principle of “preferring shortages rather than excessive”, to ensure the quality of students first, and the number of students should not be too large!

Bulgaria implements basic education for all, with equal emphasis on elite university education. Ferdinand is naturally impossible to expand the enrollment. The resources of higher education in this era are limited. Even if you have to fight the crowd tactics, it is not suitable for Bulgaria!

If you blindly build a bunch of universities that only have quantity and no quality, what's the use other than wasting resources?

Is it really like what later generations say: University is not a place to learn knowledge, but a place to teach students how to learn?

Instead, Ferdinand might as well set up a few more technical schools. After all, the engineers trained by him can directly contribute to the construction of Bulgaria without worrying about employment issues!

It's better than cultivating a bunch of scumbags, not learning any professional knowledge, and not knowing anything after being born in society. Apart from being a fool, he has nothing to do all day, only to receive some messy thoughts, and then think of revenge on the society!

Therefore, the liberal arts majors that the education world has been striving for to enter the university, this time was taken away by Ferdinand. Anyway, giving priority to cultivating science and engineering talents is Ferdinand's established national policy, which can never be shaken!

It’s not entirely the case. Practical majors such as the law department and the foreign language department have long been included in the classification of Bulgarian universities, which is one of the few surviving achievements in the liberal arts!

Education Minister Chekov replied with a wry smile: Okay, Your Majesty! Our Ministry of Education will come up with a more suitable plan as soon as possible!

He knew that there would be a lot of trouble in the future, and literacy education was nothing more than that, and not many people cared about it; but the plan to build two more universities was no secret in the education world at all, and many people were still eagerly waiting.

In particular, the admissions of liberal arts majors that were prepared to be opened before are now closed again. This is absolutely unacceptable to many old masters!

Demonstration, looking for the government to protest? They can't do this yet. The government has good reasons for doing so. In Ferdinand's words, everything is centered on building Bulgaria!

This is recognized by all sectors of Bulgarian society!

Now Bulgaria has finally climbed to the edge of the second-rate powers. If you step in, it may not be able to become another European power after the six countries of Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Austria and Italy!

It is precisely because of this that many social conflicts in Bulgaria have been suppressed by this common goal, and everyone is willing to fight for this great goal!

However, just because you can't find trouble with the government doesn't mean you can't find trouble with the Ministry of Education. The old masters have no other way, but they are still very good at teaching!

Chekov can already imagine his ears in the future, so don't think about it!

Of course, Ferdinand pretended not to know about these issues. Even he did not give up on these highly respected seniors in the education industry!

People are really of high moral level, they love their academics, they also love Bulgaria, and they are willing to give everything for this country!

When the Bulgarian University was established before, Ferdinand cut off the majors of many people on the grounds of national development needs.

Now that the country has grown, it makes sense to come out again to fight for the interests of the cause that he loves!

Of course, there is also the most important reason. These people are stubborn royalists, the vanguard of rejecting all messy thoughts. This is the main reason why Ferdinand has always made them high!

...

Ferdinand is in a very depressed mood now. Bulgaria has basically eliminated illiteracy before, and the basic education ranks first in the world. Even in the field of higher education, it is still in the top ten in the world!

But now, the world's last number one is not enough, Asia and Africa still have a lot of worse bottom, but Europe's last number is coming soon, but fortunately, Montenegro and Greece next door gave them the bottom!

Of course, they were also pulled down by the new population!

After dealing with the troubles of education, Ferdinand thought it was over, but he did not expect more troubles to come.

The Minister of Industry first fired at the Ministry of Communications: Your Majesty, the current traffic conditions in our country are so bad that even many important cities are not covered by the railway network!

In addition, the quality of our road network is not up to standard, and carriages are very difficult to pass in many places.

You must know that the 20th century was a century of development and progress. Now that the car has appeared, it may not be long before the car will replace the horse-drawn carriage and become the most important means of transportation.

The roads in many of our areas are even difficult for horses and carts to run, let alone cars that have higher requirements for road conditions?

Now the domestic traffic in Bulgaria has restricted our economic development. The most important factor is that our Ministry of Communications is too ineffective!

Hearing the righteous words of the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Transport was immediately dissatisfied. The Ministry of Transport of Bulgaria is definitely the busiest Ministry of Transport in the world. The number of road construction troops under his command has exceeded 3% of the total population of Bulgaria for more than ten consecutive years!

Is this still called inaction? Why is it called as? For the traffic construction in Bulgaria, the officials of the Ministry of Communications have worked hard, either here or there, to supervise the construction to solve the problem!

Or to put it another way! Your Majesty, it is clearly the Ministry of Industry that they themselves do not want to make progress, how can they slander us?

Whether our Ministry of Communications has done anything, the length of new railways and highways every year is the best proof! The total mileage of road construction completed in Bulgaria last year was the first in the world!

On the contrary, their Ministry of Industry is holding us back. They can't even meet the steel we need to build the railway, and they have to use our precious foreign exchange to import from abroad, which is simply shameful!

The words of the Minister of Transport undoubtedly stimulated the Minister of Industry. Now the Bulgarian government has invested a lot of money in industry, but also squeezed the funds of other departments, and many departments have opinions.

Now the Ministry of Industry is holding a sigh of relief, and it is necessary to show the results and show them to the Chinese people to prove that the investment is worth it!

I saw the Minister of Industry stood up angrily and said, You are spitting out people. Why don't we work hard at the Ministry of Industry? Can't you see the growth of our industry?

The Minister of Transport said sarcastically: I can see, but if this funding was given to us, the current traffic problem would have been solved long ago, and it would not have grown as fast as you!

...

Ferdinand roared: Stop! What a quarrel, this is not the place for you to scold the street, you have to go back and quarrel slowly!

You are both at the top of the Bulgarian government, and you just quarrel over a few things. What about your quality?

Can fighting solve the problem? If you can, keep arguing, if you can't, sit down and think about a solution!

To be honest, Ferdinand just wanted to laugh now, the quarrel skills of these technical officials are really shameful and thrown into the grandmother's house.

The words spoken are full of loopholes, and they just come out of nowhere without going through the brain!

Even if you want to spray people, you have to scold people to expose them! They seem to be scolding people here and there, and they are clearly helping their opponent's skills, right?

As for the contradiction between the two sides, it is all caused by the word money. Before, Bulgaria's key investment has always been transportation construction. However, after the outbreak of the economic crisis, in order to bargain-hunting at low prices, the focus of investment was turned to industry.

The problems that the two of them are talking about are real, and no one can solve them for a while!

Ferdinand is a transmigrator, but he is not a god, nor does he bring a plug-in!

The road needs to be repaired one by one, and the industry also needs to accumulate bit by bit! And all of this takes time and cannot be done in one fell swoop!

Now the traffic problems in Bulgaria are mainly concentrated in Macedonia and Albania, as well as in Kosovo.

During the Ottoman Empire, the Sudanese government probably did not have the concept of construction, and the infrastructure was in a mess. Now it is Ferdinand's turn to have a headache.

From the start in 1897 to the start of construction in 1898, four years have passed. The construction of the main road of the transportation hub is only two-thirds of the initial completion, not to mention the branch line!

According to the plan of the Ministry of Communications, the total mileage of railways in Bulgaria will reach 40,000 kilometers, and the total mileage of highways will reach an astonishing 90,000 kilometers!

Of course, this plan is just a plan, and it is still a long way to achieve this goal. At present, the total railway mileage in Bulgaria is only 8,867 kilometers, and the total road mileage is only 18,365 kilometers, less than a quarter!

Oh, and the big industrial plan of the Ministry of Industry is really scary in comparison. Although the road plan of the Ministry of Communications is a bit big, and after working hard for more than ten or twenty years, Ferdinand thinks that Bulgaria can still complete it!

The big industrial plan? Ferdinand thinks it's better not to mention it, in order to catch up with Britain and France, it's enough to think about it when dreaming. Is the German Empire still fighting for this?

I haven't experienced World War I or World War II yet. Everyone in Britain and France is still in its heyday, and it is enough to dream with Bulgaria's current wealth.

If you want to achieve it, Ferdinand believes that you will first expand the country ten times and eight times, and then increase the population ten times and eight times.

Of course, the Ministry of Industry's dream of becoming an industrial powerhouse, Ferdinand did not wake them up. At least people have found a great goal and are striving for it, which is better than not having an ideal walking dead!

There are always more solutions than problems, this is an idealist!

There are always more problems than solutions, this is a social reality!

Good idea, Ferdinand didn't have it, and no one at the top of the Bulgarian government could come up with it!

In any case, the issues raised by the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Transport are objective facts and cannot be resolved by anyone in the short term!

After thinking for a while, Ferdinand said, You are all Bulgarian elites, guiding Bulgaria's way forward. If you encounter problems, find a way to solve them!

Industrial problems, your Ministry of Industry will handle it yourself, and I, a layman, will not interfere!

Regarding the traffic problem, I have a suggestion. According to Bulgarian law, it is a national military service system, but our current population base has increased a lot, and the army will definitely not be able to recruit all of them!

Then the remaining part of the military service, simply form a production and construction corps, specializing in production and construction.

Coordinate with the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Army, and borrow it for use first, so that a lot of labor can be created!

Ferdinand is very clear that the questions raised by various departments are all to get a share of the next annual funding allocation.

Obviously, they are all thinking too much, and it is impossible for the Ministry of Finance to agree to increase the budget! No money is the most commonly used and most effective reason for the Ministry of Finance!

No matter what reason you have, the total financial expenditure is only so much. If you have the ability, go grab it with other departments!

As for the idea he came up with, it was a total bad idea, at least for the Ministry of Communications!

The military is not so easy to talk about. If you want to borrow people, you can just give money. People's military expenses are also very nervous!

Otherwise, even if people go to reclaim wasteland and cultivate land, they will not come to help in vain. How much land is cultivated is also an income, right?

The facts are not what Ferdinand expected. The final allocation of funds is basically as planned before. If you want to grab food, you need at least one reason that Ferdinand agrees with!