#精品长文创作季#
For the Republic of China, many people's one-sided consciousness is that the government is corrupt, extravagance has become commonplace, people's livelihood is withering, wars are continuous, and the country is poor and the people are tired.
In fact, what many people don't know is that the Republic of China also has an ambitious economic construction plan, and the scale and duration are not too short.
Otherwise, there would not have been a short spring of national capitalism in the early years of the Republic of China, that is, from 1912 to 1919 (also known as the "golden decade" of national capitalism), which was a high-speed period of economic development of the Republic of China, and a large number of national capitalist enterprises emerged, such as match kings, textile kings, and flour kings......
To tell the truth, the economic construction during the Republic of China period was not backward, and on the whole it was at least much stronger than that of the late Qing government. If it weren't for the invasion of Japanese imperialism and the long-term warlord scuffle, it would only be a matter of time before the Republic of China leaps to become the big brother of East Asia.
Shanghai Tang during the Republic of China
Why do you say this? Let's take a look at the achievements of the economic construction of the Republic of China. Of course, before talking about the achievements of economic construction, we must mention fiscal revenue, and without money, we cannot engage in economic construction.
I will take the revenue of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of China in 1936 as an example.
According to relevant data, in 1936, the central fiscal revenue of the Republic of China government, including tariffs of 318 million legal currency, salt tax of 189 million legal currency, and bulk commodity tax of 130 million, these three types are the main sources of revenue and expenditure of the financial system, and they are also the principal of domestic economic construction investment.
Let's talk about some of the achievements of economic construction during the Republic of China.
In 1935, under the promotion of the government of the Republic of China, the earliest modern textile enterprise in Xi'an, Dahua Yarn Factory, was opened. It is precisely because of the emergence of Dahua Yarn Factory that Shaanxi has become an important cotton textile industrial base in the country.
During the Republican period, railway construction was also developed. Mr. Sun Yat-sen had already proposed a 100,000-mile railway plan, so the government of the Republic of China was also regarded as a generation after generation of railway construction.
Before 1935, the Longhai Railway was only built to Luoyang, and after 1935, the Luoyang-Xi'an section of the railway was built. As a result, Xi'an, a thousand-year-old city, finally has its own railway.
As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. Because of the smooth operation of the Xi'an Railway, which in turn also led to the prosperity and development of industry and commerce and the siphon flow of population, modern chemical factories such as flour mills, spinning mills, and match factories appeared in Xi'an.
In 1937, when the Japanese army began a full-scale invasion of China, the national situation was critical. However, domestic economic construction did not end with the war, and the national government accelerated the process of economic construction.
In 1937, the Xi'an to Baoji section of the railway was officially opened to traffic, Baoji also became an important representative city of the rear, the Rong family business moved to Baoji one after another, and the development of modern chemical enterprises in Baoji was also affected.
From 1911 to 1949, during the government of the Republic of China, a total of 17,100 kilometers of railways were built. If you add the railways built in the late Qing Dynasty, it is about 26,200 kilometers.
Republican railway workers are laying sleepers
Ordinary people crowded on the train during the Republic of China
Among them, due to frequent wars during the Republic of China and other reasons, 3,600 kilometers of railways were damaged. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's railway network was basically in shape, with 22,600 kilometers of railway lines.
At the same time, the average annual GDP growth rate from 1929 to 1941 was 3.9%, and the annual growth rate of GDP per capita was 1.8%.
In 1928, there were 29,127 kilometers of highways in the country, and by the end of 1936, there were 108,117 kilometers of highways in the country, and in 1931, the Nationalist Government drew up the "Ten-Year Industrial Plan" to vigorously develop railway construction.
However, many of the railways in the old China period were built by foreign powers to plunder China's resources. Therefore, in the category of railways, there is a small quantity, low quality, and the layout is also very unreasonable.
At that time, because the foreign powers invested more in the coastal area to build factories, so the coastal area of the railway construction was booming, and at the same time, the southwest and northwest inland areas, there were no railways at all, ordinary people almost always walked, better is to take a sliding pole, horse-drawn carriage.
Then, because the railways at that time were built by many stakeholders, there was no unified construction, operation and maintenance of the railways of the Republic of China, which led to the management of each railway almost independently, which greatly limited the development of railway transportation capacity during the Republic of China.
For example, during the Republic of China, Shanxi was the territory of Yan Xishan, and once trains from other provinces entered Shanxi, they could not enter because of the different diameters of the tracks. This is also the inevitable result of the inability to achieve unity in railway construction and operation during the Republic of China.
In 1948, the government of the Republic of China built a bridge across the Wei River in Baoji, which strengthened the internal and external transportation capacity of Baoji.
But, if you think about it, when was 1948?
At that time, during the Liberation War, even at the most fierce moment of the battle, the government of the Republic of China did not forget the construction of the bridge, and it was not until the end of the 20s that the bridge completely withdrew from the historical stage.
Spinning factory during the Republic of China
Then, by the way, I would like to mention the national economic construction campaign launched by the government of the Republic of China in 1935.
The main contents of the campaign include advocating labor requisition, revitalizing agriculture, encouraging land reclamation, regulating consumption, revitalizing industry, developing minerals, smoothing freight transportation, and adjusting finance.
It is precisely because of the development of the national economic construction movement that a series of progress and development have been made in the construction of industry, agriculture and transportation during the Republic of China.
By 1936, the world capitalist economic environment had improved, and the economic achievements of the Republic of China period were gradually emerging, and then it experienced a wide range of natural disasters, and after the Republic of China government repeatedly improved production, it did not cause economic collapse.
I mentioned the golden decade in the early years of the Republic of China, and then I will introduce the "golden decade" from the establishment of the Nanjing government of the Republic of China in 1927 to 1937.
Although it is said that the economic growth rate of the Republic of China is obvious. However, in terms of economic structure, apart from agriculture and investment, modern industry and service industries account for less than 4 percent of the country's output value, and naturally it cannot be compared with the "First Five-Year Plan" after the founding of New China.
Specifically, we can look at a data: the steel output of the Republic of China in 1927 was 30,000 tons, in 1935 it was 50,000 tons, and the cumulative steel output of New China from 1949 to 1956 was 14 million tons.
In 1905, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau of the late Qing Dynasty government could also manufacture 50-ton 300m mm caliber cannons, which could reach pure domestic production from steel to originals. However, by the time of the Anti-Japanese War, the industry of the Republic of China could not even digest the 50,000 tons of steel produced in China.
Then, the arsenals of the late Qing Dynasty were initially able to manufacture components independently. However, after the Republic of China government came to power, these arsenals, even the simplest leads, chose to be imported from the British original.
Therefore, the government of the Republic of China has indeed done economic construction and promoted the development of the industrial economy of the Republic of China. However, there were many factions within the government of the Republic of China, and in the later period, the four major families held power, coupled with only formal unification, the government of the Republic of China could not really promote the industrialization process of the country.
It can even be said that the degree of industrialization in the late Qing Dynasty exceeded that of the Republic of China.
Why, then, was the government of the Republic of China unable to complete the industrialization of economic construction? It was not only because of the chaebol and the comprador government in the south of the Yangtze River, but also because the chaebol was also an important source of finance for the government of the Republic of China.
A machine factory during the Republic of China
According to relevant information, since 1928, when the Nanjing Nationalist Government withdrew part of its tariff autonomy from 12 Western countries, including Britain and the United States, tariff revenues have indeed increased substantially.
From 170 million in 1928 to 300 million in 1930, and remained at 32-350 million for a long time. From 1930 to 1935, the national government's tariff revenue was about 3-350 million yuan per year.
This shows how important tariffs were to the country's economic construction during the Republic of China.
Although it is said that these are all economic constructions that are dependent on the comprador class, Chiang is not willing to be a comprador leader only.
Therefore, in 1930, the national economic construction vision of the Republic of China government began to focus on the national defense industry and heavy industry, and the "State-owned Basic Factory Design Committee" was established to plan for the national industrial development represented by heavy industry.
In the previous golden decade, although it is said that the national capitalist economy developed. However, its development is more light industry, heavy industry is very scarce, many heavy industry bases, or the Republic of China government from the Qing Dynasty to take over the old foundation.
Therefore, in 1936, the government of the Republic of China put forward a ten-year economic construction plan, which would build an intensive heavy industry base in Changsha, Hunan, and the means of building heavy industry by the government of the Republic of China were also very rude, directly confiscating private industrial and mining enterprises, and taking over the government-run industrial enterprises in the late Qing Dynasty.
However, due to the war and other reasons, the industrial planning blueprint of the Republic of China government has not been able to be substantially promoted.
In fact, the government of the Republic of China at that time did not want to vigorously develop the country's economic construction, especially to promote the development of military industry and heavy industry, but it suffered from its own ability and internal and external environment, resulting in the failure of its heavy industry development, which was also the powerlessness of the Republic of China government.
At the same time, the Resources Committee established by the government of the Republic of China at that time (first controlled by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and then directly under the orders of the Executive Yuan) also directly controlled the domestic heavy industry.
According to the information disclosed by the Republic of China, there are 96 units and 291 factories and mines under the Resources Committee, with more than 220,000 employees, and control the domestic production of oil, steel and non-ferrous metals, more than 50% of the electricity and more than 30% of the coal production.
Even so, the achievements of heavy industry in the late Republic of China are still not as good as the "First Five-Year Plan" after the founding of New China, which is affected by the social and national environment.
An aircraft factory during the Republic of China
Since the establishment of the Nanjing military government established by Chiang in 1927, the grassroots organizational capacity of the Kuomintang rightists has been completely stifled.
Since then, the government of the Republic of China has always relied on customs duties, salt taxes and unified taxes to maintain the operation of the regime, but it has not had too much money and resources to go deep into the construction of the industrial economy, and the social environment of its semi-colony is also the fundamental reason why its economic construction cannot promote the process of industrialization.
However, because the government of the Republic of China has tightened its control over the population, the financial and human mobilization of the government of the Republic of China is still better than that of many countries in the same period, but compared with the new China, its economic construction seems to be not worth mentioning.
Therefore, it cannot be arbitrarily said that the government of the Republic of China has not engaged in economic construction, but it can only be said that the government of the Republic of China has built industrialization through economic construction and the efficiency is too low.