Romanian Eagle

A bodyguard walked into Edel's office and spoke to the crown prince, who was engrossed in his work. "Your Highness, the Prime Minister has arrived."

After hearing the guard's words, Edel raised his head and twisted his sore neck. "Please come in."

Looking at the leaving guard, Edel took another look at the document he just picked up. Above is the price index of raw materials that Romania needs to purchase in recent years. With the increasingly tense situation in Europe in recent years, the prices of various raw materials are now more or less affected.

As far as Romania imports a lot of rubber, this kind of tree species spread from the Brazilian rainforest to all over the world, and now Southeast Asia is its main producing area, and the sap it secretes is rubber that is widely used in industry. The price of rubber has now risen from a low of two shillings and eighteen pence three years ago to six shillings and threepence now. Among them are the effects of increased industrial demand and the current tension in Europe.

"Your Highness, look for me."

Prime Minister Bretianu walked in in a dusty manner, and asked before he could breathe. Now the Prime Minister's Office still has a lot of things waiting for him to deal with, especially the personnel arrangement of the newly occupied areas, which is related to whether the territories captured by Romania can be quickly settled down.

"What about our new territory now?"

Eder routinely asked after seeing Prime Minister Bretianu.

"Now the people of the Bulgarian government are encouraging the local people to move to their newly acquired territories." Prime Minister Bretianu answered Eder's question, but he still asked worriedly. "Your Highness, do we just let them encourage the people to leave?"

"Yes, this can at least reduce the instability factor. Without these people who love their homeland, the remaining local residents can at least keep their peace."

In the face of Crown Prince Eder's answer, Prime Minister Bretianu still felt a little disadvantaged. Because now the Balkan countries are expelling each other's tribes, especially in Macedonia and Thrace. The local Bulgarian government drove about 200,000 Turks into its territory, and more than 100,000 Greeks were driven back to Greece. However, the Greek government is also unequivocal, and about 90,000 Bulgarians were also driven to Bulgaria by them. Now, several countries that have carved up the Ottoman Empire's territory in Europe are doing the same thing, driving the nations that do not belong to their own countries to their respective countries.

This expulsion resulted in nearly one million people forcibly changing their nationalities, of which the Ottomans received the most, with about half a million natives being driven from Macedonia and Thrace to the Ottomans. In the face of a sudden large number of their own people, they were successively resettled by the Ottoman government to live in various parts of Asia Minor.

At present, the evictions in various countries only allow the expelled people to bring their own clothes, banknotes, precious metals and other easy-to-carry items. As for their houses, farmland and other items that cannot be carried, they are directly expropriated and processed, and all countries are expelled for a while. People can only give up their hard-earned family business and flee to their respective countries.

The more than 100,000 Romanians living in Macedonia were not driven out, probably because Bulgaria was afraid of Romania's power. However, Prime Minister Bretianu has sent people to incite these local people to return to Romania. According to the Prime Minister's own estimate, there may be 50,000 to 60,000 people who can be instigated into Romania.

"I'm looking for you this time to find out, how much money do we have?"

After Prime Minister Bretianu heard that the Crown Prince wanted to know about the government's financial situation, he secretly raised his vigilance, fearing that the Crown Prince would try to make plans for the government's finances again. However, the financial situation, Edel can also find out about the finance minister. He only informed the financial situation of the crown prince government, but he still made a foreshadowing.

"Due to the high expenditures of the war, now our Romanian government has only 20 million lei emergency funds available,

Now we still need to face the domestic situation, and we need to wait until October when the food tax comes up before the financial situation improves. "

"Do we have any other way?"

Facing the Prime Minister's words, Eder also knew, but in the past two years Romania's fiscal revenue has been rising steadily, and there are not a few banks willing to lend money to Romania. It is obvious that Eder is playing this idea.

Hearing the crown prince's undisguised inquiry, Prime Minister Bretianu had no choice but to tell the truth. "If we need to borrow foreign debt now, several banks are willing to lend to us. In the short term we can probably borrow 100 million lei, and if we are willing to pay a little higher interest, then we can also borrow 200 million lei. Borrowed, but it all requires tax collateral.”

After hearing the words of Prime Minister Bretianu, Eder, combined with the royal family's own 110 million lei funds, can fully reserve the raw materials urgently needed by Romanian industry for two to three years. He calculated after excluding coal and iron ore, because both of them can be imported from the surrounding Austria-Hungary, Russia and Ottoman, and they have little impact on him.

Thinking that 8 years ago, he could only tie up Germany for 300 million lei of industrial start-up funds and reorganization of the army, and now Romania can borrow 200 million lei of funds at will, Eder sighed.

"Then let's borrow foreign debts according to the capital of 200 million."

Hearing that Crown Prince Eder wanted to borrow 200 million foreign debts, Prime Minister Bretianu was shocked. In his image, the Crown Prince had borrowed so much money for the start-up capital of Romania's industrialization only 8 years ago. Fortunately, Romania took advantage of its own advantages to develop aggressively, and with the completion of the military reorganization, it took two years of its own rule to relax. Now that he has to borrow foreign debts, what does His Royal Highness want to do?

Looking at Prime Minister Bretianu with a question mark on his face, Eder had to tell him his plans. After all, without government support, Romania's raw material reserves cannot be made.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, the situation in Europe is becoming more and more tense. Most of our imports are now going through the Ottoman Strait. I am afraid that the situation will become like the Balkan war, and our imports will be interrupted. You must know that it will not be us in the Balkans. The country is so simple to fight, it is estimated that it is the European war."

Hearing the anxiety of the crown prince, Prime Minister Bretianu also thought of the scene at that time when he worked hard to transport Romania's export goods by land, but whether the 200 million lei funds were too much to prepare raw materials. It should be known that the raw materials that countries need to reserve for themselves are at most half a year. The funds of 200 million lei are almost enough for Romania to reserve raw materials for a year. He still does not know that Crown Prince Eder does not plan to reserve coal and iron ore due to insufficient funds. Or more surprising.

"Is there too much money, and the amount borrowed is enough for our needs for a year?"

"When the war comes together, none of us know how long it will last. It's not a bad thing for the reserve at all."

Eder couldn't tell the Prime Minister that the war would take more than 4 years. Now it is generally believed in Europe that the war between the Allies and the Allies broke out. It is estimated that the war will last from June to a year. get extended.

In the face of the crown prince's rhetoric, the prime minister is not easy to say anything. After all, no one can tell how long the fight will last.

"Well then I'll let the government start stockpiling the raw materials we desperately need."

"No need I'm ready here."

After Edel finished speaking, he took out a list from the drawer, which he had made privately with the Minister of Industry Caraturi. Now that the nephew of the former Prime Minister Stulier has completely hugged Edel's thigh, it is of course a piece of cake for him to prepare the reserves of industrial raw materials in advance.

Prime Minister Bretianu took over the list, which marked the various raw materials that Romania needs to import, such as copper ore, manganese ore, nitrate ore, rubber, etc., which are indispensable to Romanian industry, most of which All three to four years of storage, but Prime Minister Bretianu found no reserves of coal and iron ore in this list. Even with these preliminary calculations, the raw materials on this list also require funds of 250-300 million lei, and the government borrowing 200 million lei is not enough.

Seeing the Prime Minister's puzzled expression, Edel told his own way. "The royal family can buy the 100 million lei foreign debt issued by the government to help the government buy these raw materials."

After hearing the words of the crown prince, Prime Minister Bretianu asked with a little worry. "Can we use up so much?"

"You can do as you are told. Even if we can't use it up, we can continue to use it after the war is over."

Seeing that the crown prince decided everything strongly, Prime Minister Bretianu nodded his head secretly, holding back his displeasure. "Okay, I'll arrange for government departments to start purchasing."

In the ensuing time, Romania borrowed heavily through banks in various countries, and then purchased all the various industrial raw materials it needed. No country can understand why the Romanian government did this. Thanks to Romania's aggressive purchases, various raw materials have grown a little bit.