In recent years, Great Zhou had gone all-out on development. Volcano Island, the Southern Territory, the Northeast Region—was there any part of their development and construction that wasn't burning money like mad?
The manufacture of Steam Trains and the laying of railways had indeed greatly accelerated the efficiency of development and construction in the relevant regions.
But! When the efficiency of development and construction increased, it often meant that the speed at which you spent money increased too!!
Not to mention that all the research and production departments below had to consume vast sums of fiscal funding every year.
This had money pouring out of their coffers with a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
The reason Zhou Xu had been able to carry on like this these past two years was that he had a family fortune accumulated through the war profits he had made in earlier years.
But to be honest, Great Zhou's foundations were still shallow, and their family fortune wasn't very large. After such a bout of reckless spending, they had ultimately hit rock bottom...
Simply put, they had no savings left. Now, within Great Zhou, the salaries of every department and the funding for every project all depended on the revenue from their state-owned industries and the taxes paid by the people each year.
If anything went wrong with either of those two sources, their fiscal expenditures for the new year would be in trouble.
The Minister of Finance had clearly realized this, which was why he had hurriedly spoken up to call a halt.
And what he had called a halt to wasn't merely the project to manufacture Steam Train No. 003. Many other projects had also been proposed for funding cuts or outright cancellation.
It was just that the Steam Train project was a relatively typical