My Italy

Although the Prime Minister interrupted, the scale of the shipbuilding still attracted the attention of everyone present, especially Tejela, who was the Minister of Finance.

"Admiral Yagir, what is the total scale of the warships you plan to build?"

As soon as the Finance Minister opened his mouth, Admiral Yagir knew that the core issue was coming, and money was the core issue.

"Our Ministry of the Navy estimates that the total tonnage of building these warships should be between 550,000 and 600,000 tons, and the total cost should be between 1.354 billion and 1.421 billion lire."

Admiral Yagir's words made all the ministers present take a breath. Isn't this cost too high? The government needs to invest an average of 130-140 million lire in shipbuilding every year. Is this investment too much?

Don't look at Italy's annual fiscal revenue of 1.7-8 billion lire, but its expenses are also huge. Infrastructure, industry, education and health, payment of principal and interest on national debt, salaries of government personnel, etc. are all basically fully booked, and expenditures are basically overrun by 100 to 200 million liras every year. This allows the government to spend more than RMB 100 million to build ships every year, which will definitely put more pressure on the government. Not to mention whether newly built warships require personnel training, daily maintenance, etc., which also cost money.

So what he said to Admiral Yagir immediately aroused everyone's rebuttal.

"This investment is too big."

"Does your navy plan to concentrate twenty years of expenditure into ten years?"

However, in the face of opposition from the government, Admiral Yagir was mentally prepared. "This is the result of careful consideration by our navy, because the current situation the navy is facing is more difficult and we need so many warships to protect our country's security and interests."

"This is still too much, and it has jeopardized financial security. Our Ministry of Finance believes that only 80 million liras of annual shipbuilding funding can ensure fiscal rationality."

Finance Minister Tejela's answer can be regarded as a blow to the main artery of the shipbuilding plan, directly reducing the total funding of the shipbuilding plan by 5.6 billion lire.

The finance minister is very shrewd. The shipbuilding cost is 80 million lire per year, which can be easily solved by the government by moving here and there. First of all, doesn’t the Navy have a shipbuilding budget of 20 to 30 million lire every year? If they are directly merged together, the Ministry of Finance only needs to spend more than 50 million lire.

Then it is feasible to operate on some unimportant funding items, coupled with the annual increase in fiscal revenue, to maintain a healthy fiscal situation. As for the increase in naval funding after the warships are commissioned, let's talk about it at that time. There is always room for more squeeze.

However, Tejela's beautiful thoughts were shattered when Admiral Agil replied immediately. "This is simply not possible. The annual shipbuilding cost of 80 million lire is simply not enough to meet the needs of the navy. The shipbuilding plan given by our navy is a minimum plan to protect our country's interests."

Having said this, Admiral Yagir looked at the Minister of Finance and said. "Your Excellency Tejela, our country can earn at least 200 million lire in fiscal revenue from the Far East and Borneo colonies every year. Such huge revenue is based on naval superiority. In order to maintain these interests, our navy must have enough If there is tension in the Far East and the mainland, the navy may not be able to deploy warships for deterrence operations. "

It's a threat, absolutely a threat. You must know that in the Far East, the relationship between Japan and Russia is very tense. Especially after Russia refused to implement the second and third phases of withdrawal from the Northeast, the relationship between the two countries has entered a state of explosive tension.

Not to mention anything else, in the Far East, Japan has a huge navy with 6 battleships and 6 cruise ships. Of course, this hugeness refers to the Far East. And Russia is not bad either. With 7 battleships and 8 cruise ships, it is slightly better than Japan in terms of quantity. However, the Russian battleships are limited in tonnage, so in terms of actual combat effectiveness, they are slightly inferior to Japan's combined fleet.

As for why the tonnage is restricted, because Russia can only maintain 13,500-ton warships at the largest shipyard in Lushun, so Russian warships can only choose to be below this tonnage.

One more thing, the two Genoa-class battleships purchased by Russia in Italy were assigned to the Pacific Fleet, and the first ship, the Crown Prince, became the flagship of the Pacific Fleet.

Because the two Genoa-class battleships are slightly better than the current Pacific Fleet battleships in terms of fire protection and speed. This shows how much the Russian Navy recognizes Italy's purchase of two Genoa-class battleships. This also fully demonstrates the strength of Italian shipbuilding. Of course, conversely, it shows how impressive Russia's shipbuilding capabilities are.

Except for the two Genoa-class battleships, the other Russian battleships have a tonnage ranging from 11,000 to 12,000. On the Japanese side, except for the two 12,000-ton Fuji and Yashima, the others are the latest 15,000-ton Shikishima-class battleships from Britain. The difference in tonnage alone can be imagined, let alone Talk about the performance of both.

On Tejela's side, she was very angry at Admiral Agil's shameless remarks. But in any case, the Far Eastern trade route and the annual revenue of nearly 300 million lire from the Borneo colony are important financial resources that the Ministry of Finance cannot ignore.

Yes, Admiral Yagir's intelligence is out of date. According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Finance, due to the substantial increase in rubber usage and the continued expansion of trade routes in the Far East, the Italian Ministry of Finance will receive 294 million lire in fiscal treasury from the East this year.

"Ninety million lire per year is the limit our finances can accept."

"Your Excellency Tejela, the number of ships built by the Navy is based on careful planning and comprehensive consideration. It does not mean that you can do whatever you want."

"One hundred million lire per year. If it doesn't work out, I, as the finance minister, will really have no choice but to choose someone else."

The finance minister's sudden words shocked everyone present. They were discussing the matter of naval shipbuilding in a normal manner, but why did the conversation suddenly change to the point of resigning?

Speaking of which, the Ministry of Finance is one of the top three most powerful departments in the government. However, due to Italy's previous debt arrears and its heavy investment in industrialization in recent years, the seemingly powerful Ministry of Finance can only be aware of its actual difficulties.

And Tejela, who has been in charge of the Ministry of Finance for more than ten years, has lost all his hair due to Italy's financial problems over the years, and he looks like a skinny old man in his seventies. You must know that Tejela is only sixty-four years old this year. When he became the Minister of Finance, he could still be described as young, powerful and proud. For more than ten years, it can be seen how hard he has worked to develop this virtue.

In addition, what he said that day was not actually an angry remark, but the result of Tejela's careful consideration, which was used to bring up this topic from the beginning. Because after entering this year, Tejela obviously felt that his energy was a little low, and he was much slower in handling various affairs of the Ministry of Finance.

Faced with the cold scene caused by Tejela's sudden resignation, Prime Minister Antonio quickly came to the rescue. "Actually, the problem of naval shipbuilding funding is mainly due to financial difficulties, so I think we can't just let the Ministry of Finance figure out a solution. Each department also needs to think about it, tighten the financial budget of each department, and let colleagues from the Ministry of Finance Take a breath."

Faced with the Prime Minister's rescue, the bosses of other departments also spoke out one after another. "The Prime Minister's proposal is very good. If we squeeze each department a little bit, we should be able to squeeze out some more funds from the budget."

"This is a good idea."

"I agree.

After some preliminary estimates, other government departments can squeeze out a gap of 12 million lire per year.

Faced with the actions of the government departments, how could Yagir, as the Minister of the Navy, not be on the right track?

"Since the government is indeed in difficulty, our navy cannot force it, so our navy can only accept 112 million lire of shipbuilding funding per year. However, our navy has made it clear that we can accept that the government's shipbuilding funding is based on financial difficulties. If the finances become better, we will also want to make up for the previous debts, and I hope the government will allow the navy to keep them.”

Seeing that the navy finally relented, the government was relieved.

After some discussion and research, the Navy's ten-year shipbuilding plan will build 12 new battleships, 5 battlecruisers, 21 new cruisers, 68 new destroyers, and 62 other special auxiliary ships, for a total of 45 -A large-scale shipbuilding plan of 530,000 tons.

Seeing that the two parties finally reached an agreement, Carlo, who had not spoken during the whole process, breathed a sigh of relief. You must know that he has spent a lot of energy to get the government to agree to shipbuilding. As for how much we can talk about, it all depends on the Navy itself. And the result is not bad, the talks are not bad.

But the fly in the ointment is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to quit. This is a problem. Because not everyone can be the Minister of Finance. He must have sufficient ability and also need to be recognized by him. Such a person is difficult to find.