The Third Reich: The Return of the King

Chapter 382

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: 0.318s Scan: 0.053sManstein looked at Speer in a strange way. He didn’t expect that this guy’s reason for opposition was this.

This surprised him very much. From this guy’s words and deeds, it sounded as if he was very fanatical about the war.

“The output of steel is sufficient for the time being. The problem with weapons production is not very big. The main consumption of steel is still in the infrastructure field!”

Mainz happened to have detailed data on Hans’ industrial production capacity. The three key points are coal, steel and oil.

Coal is Hans’ main energy source. Hans lacks oil, but there is no shortage of coal. In the Ruhr Industrial Zone, they have several large coal mines.

After the coal is mined, it will be immediately sent to nearby factories for their use.

It can be said that the consumption of coal directly reflects the industrial scale of Hans and is a barometer of their industrial strength.

And steel is easy to understand. One of the criteria for measuring the national strength of various countries in this era is the amount of steel produced by each country!

A large amount of steel production cannot mean that a country must be strong, but at least it can prove that the country has a strong potential for war, just like the Eagle Sauce before World War I. Before they joined the war, who would have thought that the Eagle Sauce from this frontier land of North America would have such strong strength?

As for oil, with the continuous development of the Second Industrial Revolution, especially the internal combustion engine revolution, the status of oil has begun to become higher and higher.

If a large number of ships and machinery used steam power ten years ago, then at this time, a large part of the power used in the newly built ships, vehicles and other mechanical equipment in various countries is provided by internal combustion engines driven by fossil fuels such as oil!

Hans’ current oil production is not high. Although a large oil field has been discovered in the Schleswig region, it is relatively conservative about the exploitation and utilization here. The number of oil wells currently mined in the North Sea is relatively small, less than one hundred, and the annual oil production is It is about 200.3 million tons, which can meet about 30% of Hans’ annual oil consumption.

As for the remaining oil consumption, it needs to rely on imports.

Hans’ current oil imports mainly come from America and Russia.

As the world’s largest oil producer at this time, the United States, and Goldman Sachs also have Mobil Oil, which controls Texas oil, to help them provide cheap oil, so the United States is the biggest source of Hans’ imported oil.

Because Russia has been blockaded and isolated by Western countries, they have been trading with Hans using resources such as oil, iron ore, nickel and chromium.

This kind of trade is actually not fair, and the reason is very simple.

Hans can obtain what Russia provides from other channels, but what Hans provides, Russia has not been able to obtain through other channels so far. He bought it through other channels.

This distorted supply and demand relationship makes the bears rely heavily on Hans, while Hans relies less on the bears. Therefore, in order to maintain trade between the two sides, the bears are forced to set the price of their resources extremely low when trading, at least far below the market price.

If not for this, Hans is unlikely to import these resources from the bears, after all, they already have Texas, a cheap source of energy!

So the supply of oil is actually not a big problem, the main problem is actually the steel production!

Hans’ current steel production has increased exponentially compared to ten years ago. Before Mainz took office as prime minister, Hans’s steel production hovered around 1 million tons. The plan to focus on the development of the steel industry in the first five-year plan was proposed.

In addition, the construction of a large amount of infrastructure has driven the demand for steel, and the number of steel mills in Slovenia has increased a lot.

In 1925, Hans’s annual steel production exceeded 30 million tons, reaching 3.2 million tons, which is currently the second largest producer in the world after Eagle Sauce.

And this number also exceeds the production of the Third Reich in all years except 1943.

30 million tons of steel does sound like a lot, but it is not enough to use.

In the case of large-scale construction, various infrastructures need to consume steel, and the most important one is the consumption of rails and railways.

Compared with their consumption, the army’s consumption is not much. The army consumed only about 2 million tons of steel last year, and not all of it was used to make weapons.

Therefore, Speer’s concerns are unnecessary. Even if the German army starts to produce warships and tanks and planes in hundreds, they can only double the consumption of steel on the existing basis.

Doubling is only 400,000 tons of steel, which is completely acceptable for Hans’s steel production!

“However, even if there is no problem with steel production capacity, continuing such large-scale construction will cost a lot of money, and this is not a good thing for our finances!”

The reason why Speer expressed his opposition so firmly was, on the one hand, because building railways consumes too much steel, and on the other hand, it is too expensive.

In his view, countries around the world are complaining about the financial crisis in the United States, and the economies of various countries seem to be in trouble. In this case, Hans will certainly not be able to stay out of it. At this time, the money in the hands of the government should be kept to deal with emergencies, such as the large-scale unemployment in the country, and a large number of people needing relief funds provided by the state.

“This question is not within your scope of authority. If the Prime Minister with a mustache were here, he could ask him to give you a good introduction so that you can understand the purpose and benefits of our national infrastructure construction projects!”

Mainz did not blame Speer. The other party was still young and had just graduated from school. He was full of vigor, but also seemed a little reckless due to his lack of experience.

Mainz admired the other party’s enthusiasm and drive, but some things were more complicated than he imagined.

“Just in time, Little Moustache is here, let him explain it to you!”

Speak of the devil, and he will appear. As soon as Mainz mentioned Little Moustache, Secretary Bauman came in to report that Little Moustache had arrived, and it seemed that he had something urgent to ask Mainz.

Mainz then asked Secretary Bauman to invite Little Moustache in.

“Prime Minister, these are the statistics of our domestic economic data for the past three months. Please take a look!”

The mustache guy came here in a hurry because he had something important to report. The financial crisis in the United States had turned into an economic crisis, and it had already affected Hans.

Because there were many investors from the United States in Hans, they had invested in many projects and opened many factories in Hans.

Affected by the economic crisis in the United States, these American capitalists who had invested overseas were eager to cash in their investments and withdraw them back to their homeland.

They felt that if they continued to stay in Europe, the money they invested would most likely be lost. After all, in such a serious economic crisis, countries would become more xenophobic because of social unrest.

These foreign investors were not only rich but also foreigners, so they would naturally be hated by citizens of European countries.

Moreover, if the situation in Europe was a little turbulent, war would most likely break out. Once a war broke out, they might not even be able to save their lives, let alone their assets!

Therefore, a large number of American businessmen and capitalists withdrew their investments, transferred their factories at low prices or even closed them down, and left Hans with their funds and returned to North America.

Despite the current situation in North America Some are not good, but at least there is no danger of war breaking out in North America. If they go to North America, they will not be excluded by their own people. The safety of life and property is much more secure than in Europe!

The withdrawal and departure of the Eagle Sauce businessmen has brought a lot of trouble to Hans.

Originally in the past few years, because Mainz’s first five-year plan was formulated very radically, a large number of projects were launched and a large number of factories were opened, making workers scarce.

Many factories could not recruit people.

In order to snatch labor, the factories had to passively increase the wages of the workers, making the wages of the Hans people rise year by year, the economic situation of the people has greatly improved, and social wealth has accumulated rapidly!

At this time, affected by the withdrawal of Eagle Sauce and economic turmoil, a large number of factories were closed, resulting in the workers working in these factories losing their jobs!

Such things have happened recently, causing Hans’ unemployment rate to rise greatly, which makes the mustache feel a little uneasy!