Chapter 349： Competition for funds (part 1)

After inspecting the results of this operation, Edel returned to the palace.

As for Milok and Carust, they naturally need to be busy with their work. There are still many finishing touches for this gold operation, and the current situation in Europe also needs attention. They are all busy.

However, shortly after Edel returned to the palace, a guard came to report, and the Prime Minister brought the Minister of Finance to ask for a summon.

After hearing the news, Edel smiled, it must be for this windfall.

This is also understandable. After all, Romania was considered wealthy before, and it relied on the neutrality of the early stage of the war to accumulate a lot of wealth, and these were basically made up for the debts of the previous industrial development. For example, investment in higher education, construction of primary medical facilities, improvement of transportation and so on. These are all gold swallowing beasts, no matter how much investment they can swallow.

When Romania was preparing to participate in the war, its financial balance was only 1.6 billion lei (a little over 300 million U.S. dollars). This is still the result of Edel's greeting in advance, otherwise there is not much left. Of course, Prime Minister Bretianu, the head of the government, also knows the importance of this war to Romania, so the government is very supportive of the kingdom's participation in the war.

However, as the war started, the money slipped away from the government like a tide. The purchase of weapons and ammunition, military pensions, restoration and construction of newly seized territories, etc. all make the government's funds feel completely insufficient.

The most important thing is to support Romanian industry, which also costs a lot of money. Because of the rapid change in Romania's diplomatic attitude (from being close to the allies to neutrality and then declaring war), a large number of companies engaged in exporting to the alliance have suffered considerable losses. The losses of these affiliated companies accounted for 70% of the total number of Romanian companies.

It can also be seen that in order to join the camp of the Allies, Romania, a country that has close economic ties with the Allies, suffered much loss.

Although the Allied Powers gave Romania some economic compensations and preferential policies, how much benefit can Britain and France, which rely on American loans, give? As for the United States, which is not under urgent pressure, its assistance to Romania is mainly based on materials. This has allowed large and small companies that are accustomed to eating alone in the Allied camps to obtain limited benefits in the fiercely competitive markets such as Britain and France.

Fortunately, Romania’s participation in the war eased this downward pressure on the economy. A large amount of labor has been incorporated into the huge machine of war, allowing these companies to rely on war for a period of time.

On the other hand, the government can selectively support this situation, and companies with technology and capability can develop and grow, so that Romania can shorten the post-war depression as much as possible.

So after Edel inspected the gold, Prime Minister Bretianu immediately brought the Minister of Finance to the door.

It's all in one sentence, money is making trouble.

So before a few minutes, Edel met Prime Minister Bretianu in his office, as well as Lord Albert, the chancellor of the Exchequer, who accompanied him.

This Lord Albert took over the position of the old finance minister who retired due to illness in 1916. His experience is also very inspirational. His father was a well-known banker in Romania at the time. He showed extraordinary financial ability since he was a child.

But as his father was fooled into bankruptcy because of a financial fraud, Albert's life also changed drastically. The rich and elegant life is far away from him, and he has to drop out of school to work as a helper because of the predicament of life.

But this can't dispel his thirst for knowledge, he helped others to study and enter university during the period of self-study. Among them, his hard work for studying allowed him to get funding from the family that worked. After he finished college, he first worked as a clerk in a bank, and worked as a branch president. Then he was introduced to the Ministry of Finance because of his outstanding performance, and then started his career in the Ministry of Finance for nearly two decades.

Through his own efforts, he successively served as Director of the Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance, Assistant to the Minister of Finance and Director of the Financial Division. Among them, he is responsible for the establishment of the Reserve Bank. It can be said that the fiscal and financial aspects are not clear to him.

"Two people, what's going on here this time?"

In his office, Edel leaned back in his chair and smiled and asked the two important ministers.

Facing the king’s question, Prime Minister Bretianu first took out a document from himself and handed it to Edel. "Your Majesty, this is a report on the reconstruction of northern Moldavia."

Edel took the document and he knew about the reconstruction of the northern part of Moldavia. Regarding this matter, it all needs to start with Admiral Courtois recovering his losses.

As a territory occupied by the Germans, the fall of several cities and vast rural areas in northern Moldavia caused Romania's losses. Moreover, because of the occupation, there was also a large-scale war refugees in Romania. More than 200,000 people who were unwilling to be disturbed by the war flocked to the rear with their families and mouths. Dispersing the fleeing people, maintaining order, and providing supplies all put a lot of pressure on the government.

Now with the old general led by the Moldavian Group Army to regain lost ground one after another (mainly because the German army faced the return of the main force of Romania, and the Allied forces that came from Bulgaria after the defeat of the war, took the initiative to retreat and occupied the majority.), then for this piece of Germany was taken by Germany. The reconstruction of the occupied territories is also included in the schedule.

As for the city, Suceava, whose buildings were basically destroyed by the war, needs to be rebuilt. The two cities of Homan and Iasi, where no fierce fighting broke out, were also seriously harmed by the German army Even the city of Bacau had many buildings destroyed by German artillery.

In the countryside, the Germans who are severely short of food cannot be spared. Numerous villages have been forcibly expropriated of their food. In the face of heavily armed soldiers, a large number of villagers who are reluctant to part with their property or can't leave have to hand over their food stocks obediently. However, these robbers who were wearing military ranks had some conscience and did not expropriate the villagers' rations. Looking at the German grain harvesting team that was fully loaded, the villagers could only look at the Deutsche Mark in their hands, crying without tears.

Before the German army planned to withdraw, many of the grains that were about to mature in the rural areas were also forced by the villagers to harvest them in advance and be transported away. This phenomenon also reflects the degree of food shortage in Germany. At the same time, the Romanian government's relief supplies have increased a lot.

All these add up to Romania’s loss of about 800 million lei, and the current government can only provide it with material assistance of about 50 million lei.

So when the Prime Minister took out this document, Edel looked at it for a while and signed the word agree.

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