The rise of great powers: starting from military industry

The whole country is short of foreign exchange, very short of it!

Liu Tao got a lot of foreign exchange last year.

But the national foreign exchange balance last year was less than 2 billion US dollars.

This also means that if the foreign exchange obtained by Liu Tao is not counted, the national foreign exchange balance last year was even negative, and it was not a level of negative billions of US dollars.

Liu Tao got foreign exchange, settled with the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building, and the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building settled with Huaxia Bank, and then the foreign exchange was quickly spent again.

Although the State Administration of Foreign Exchange was established in 1979 to be responsible for centralized management and unified operation of foreign exchange business in the country.

But in fact, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and Huaxia Bank are "one institution, two brands", and Huaxia Bank has a foreign exchange department to undertake foreign exchange management business.

In order to encourage foreign exchange earnings, the state began to implement the trade and non-trade foreign exchange retention system in August 1979, that is, each place, department and enterprise that earns foreign exchange can have a certain proportion of foreign exchange quota to solve the import of materials and technology needed in production and operation.

Each unit needs foreign exchange and needs to apply for it specifically. Since the beginning of last year, the review has been very strict. It is not possible to apply for foreign exchange just because you want to apply for foreign exchange.

Yunnan Province also needs foreign exchange, but it can't find a way to get it.

So Panshan Machinery Factory became the only way.

Liu Tao frowned: "Leader, I'm afraid I can't help you with this now. You don't know that the foreign exchange we earn from export trade has to go through the Fifth Ministry of Machinery, and we only have a quota of one million US dollars a year now."

"One million US dollars is not a small amount. We can't even get a quota of 100,000 US dollars!" The leader's eyes lit up.

Liu Tao smiled bitterly and said, "This one million US dollars is not enough for our Panshan Machinery Factory. Next, we will send cadres to study abroad, and we will have to use foreign exchange when we go out."

One million US dollars seems to be a lot, but it may not be enough for Liu Tao's plan.

He can't do such a thing as letting cadres go out and wash dishes in restaurants.

"But if it's next year, we can give the province some foreign exchange quotas." Liu Tao said.

The leader's eyes lit up, "Next year? That's also possible. How much foreign exchange quota can we have?"

"One million foreign exchange quota should be no problem." Liu Tao smiled.

This one million foreign exchange quota naturally did not come from the arms trade of Panshan Machinery Factory, because the money earned from the arms trade had to be settled with the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building.

As for the gold obtained from the trade at the border, Liu Tao was reluctant to exchange it for US dollars, which was really not worth it.

His foreign exchange quota came from Huaxia Jinlong Computer Co., Ltd.

Even if it was conservative, there would be no problem in manufacturing 100,000 computers in the first year, and these computers would not have trouble selling in Europe and the United States.

At that time, according to the foreign exchange retention system, Huaxia Jinlong Computer Co., Ltd. would naturally have a lot of foreign exchange.

When the leader heard that there was a million foreign exchange quota, he couldn't help but grin.

Liu Tao sighed in his heart, even in the era of scarce foreign exchange, if it was thirty years later, China would have nearly 3 trillion foreign exchange reserves, and everyone would even have a headache about how to spend foreign exchange. For such a leader, the leader would not even look at one million foreign exchange.

At that time, the huge foreign exchange reserves were definitely a happy trouble.

"Leader, we have to trouble the province to support these projects of Panshan Machinery Factory!" Liu Tao said.

Whether it is the construction of factories or these reservoirs and hydropower stations, they cannot do without the support of the province.

Now those reservoirs and hydropower stations are either in the design stage or in the planning stage. The procedures must be handled by the province. When it comes to construction, the province must organize a large number of people to carry out the construction.

The construction costs of these reservoirs and hydropower stations are not a large sum of money for the current Panshan Machinery Factory.

But it is extremely important to Panshan Machinery Factory.

Without water and electricity, these factories are useless no matter how big they are built and how advanced the machinery and equipment are.

Panshan Machinery Factory, the headquarters of the combined brigade.

All platoon-level cadres came to the headquarters because today they will meet the legendary factory director.

Except for the soldiers of the original combined battalion, no one else has seen Liu Tao so far.

However, although they have not seen him, they often hear about him and are always mentioned.

On the first day they came, they were constantly told that the combined brigade did not belong to the army, but to the armed department of Panshan Machinery Factory.

In other words, Liu Tao is their leader.

Liu Tao, Li Fuguo and Zhao Guoping came over, and everyone stood up.

"Brigade commander! Political commissar!" A group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms saluted.

Many people looked at Liu Tao with doubts in their eyes.

Zhao Guoping introduced: "Comrades, this is the director of our Panshan Machinery Factory, Comrade Liu Tao!"

"Hello, Chief!" The soldiers saluted Liu Tao.

Liu Tao returned the salute, "Hello, comrades!"

"Serve the people!"

"Director, this is Hu Ping, who previously served as the chief of staff of the 1st Independent Division of the Provincial Military Region." Zhao Guoping first introduced the chief of staff of the combined brigade.

The plan to streamline the troops first abolished the establishment of the independent division of the provincial military region, transferred some troops to the local area, and at the same time, some of the field army infantry divisions became simplified divisions.

Hu Ping, who previously served as the chief of staff of the independent division, is only over 50 years old this year and is in his prime.

And cadres like Hu Ping currently account for almost half.

Originally, the soldiers of the combined battalion accounted for half of the cadres of the combined brigade, and the other half were supported by the superiors. These supporting cadres came from all corners of the country, some from Yunnan Province, and some from other military regions.

Some came from the streamlined troops and were resettled, while the other part was young cadres who were trained as key personnel.

Almost all those who came to the combined brigade were demoted.

"This is Li Hua, who was previously the commander of the Independent 1st Division." Zhao Guoping introduced a middle-aged man.

Li Hua was the commander of the Independent 1st Division, and Chen Ping was the commander of the Independent 2nd Division. Now he is the deputy commander of the combined brigade.

This is not only the resettlement of the cadres of the streamlined troops, but also the consideration that the combined brigade is a young unit and needs mature and stable cadres to balance it, so these two were arranged to serve as deputy commanders.

Li Hua and Chen Ping saluted Liu Tao. Although they were much older than Liu Tao, both over 50 years old, and even a few years older than Liu Tao's father Liu Zhenbang, they did not take advantage of their age.

Before coming to Panshan Machinery Factory, they also talked to them and asked for their opinions.

They were unwilling to retreat to the second line. They knew about the combat record of the combined battalion and knew that it was an experimental unit, so they all chose to come to the combined brigade.

Besides, they were in the independent division before, and their administrative level was not as high as Liu Tao's now, so they were not reluctant to receive this military salute.

After coming to the combined brigade and getting to know this unit more deeply, they were glad for their choice.