After sending off Kuroshima Jin and other Japanese comrades, the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo continued.

"After reaching an agreement with the Russian Communist Party this time, it looks like the Russian Communist Party is going to succeed. The Russian Communist Party does not seek allies, but implements different cooperation methods according to different situations." Zhang Yu praised the performance of the Russian Communist Party greatly.

"Japan is clinging to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance now; is it determined to rely on force to threaten other countries?" Shang Yuan was relatively appreciative of Japan's diplomatic efforts at the Paris Peace Conference, but Japan's latest choice also made him feel quite regretful.

Chen Ke didn't want to discuss the superficial phenomena of these issues too much. He said: "The news brought by Comrade Belkov is that the Russian Communist Party is willing in principle to reach an agreement with us on the new border line."

"Isn't Comrade Hua Xiongmao advancing vigorously?" Chen Tianhua laughed. Being able to avoid a full-scale war with a political party that also believes in Marxism, Chen Tianhua was naturally quite supportive.

"Comrade Mu Husan has almost arrived in the designated area. However, we haven't been to the old border for hundreds of years, so the difficulties are still very great," Chen Ke replied.

The Far East and Siberia are indeed very vast, but this is a truly bitterly cold place. So bitter that even the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army complained endlessly. Severe cold, mountain forests, swamps, and wilderness. According to the air force, the scenery is beautiful. But that's looking from the sky. When one walks into the mountain forest personally, one knows how arduous it is there.

"Still the same sentence: making steel, building railways!" Without Chen Ke emphasizing it again, You Gou emphasized the established policy. The basis for the rise of American industry, and even the basis for the rise of European industry, was the railway network. Germany had the most powerful industry in Europe, and similarly, Germany also had the best and densest railway network in Europe.

"In recent years, our construction has been focused on infrastructure and heavy industry, right?" Shang Yuan asked.

"A large part is also in import and export." Qi Huishen added, "Almost one-fourth of the raw materials for our light industry are imported. I looked through the statistical data last time; there are signs that it is approaching one-third."

"It's okay. Russia will also be a big raw material supplier in the future," Chen Ke replied calmly.

"Now the international market is in a depression. Is the money we earned in World War I enough?" Chen Tianhua was somewhat worried about the future situation. The more he could look at the world, the more Chen Tianhua discovered that the entire China was actually built on a peculiar situation of integrating into the world trade system.

While the world needs Chinese goods, China is also importing world raw materials desperately. At this time, it can be seen that Chen Ke's layout thinking over the past ten years is extraordinarily clear, which is to develop trade desperately without incurring debts and increase employment opportunities. So far, this thinking has indeed allowed China to develop rapidly. But such development gives people the feeling of "being controlled by others."

Chen Tianhua said slowly: "I didn't understand what kind of system the colonial system was before. Because we were bullied, I felt that the colonial system was a kind of sin. Why do I feel now that the colonial system is not without inherent rationality?"

Chen Ke couldn't help laughing loudly. Having such thoughts shows that Chen Tianhua indeed has real progress. He replied: "Everyone wants to get larger raw material producing areas, and everyone wants to get larger commodity sales markets. This is naturally an inherently rational choice. However, imperialism has no future. Everyone will be able to deeply realize this matter later."

"How much later?" Zhang Yu said jokingly.

"Not too long. From this year to next year, imperialists will start selling ropes." Chen Ke was quite confident about this, "Economic crisis, once every ten years. This economic crisis has already begun."

"Who will come to sell the rope this time?" You Gou said expectantly.

Chen Ke didn't know who would come to the door. History has changed so much that it's not surprising whoever comes to the door. "Comrades Shang Yuan and Zhang Yu have already contacted many countries at the Paris Peace Conference. The seeds have been buried, waiting to grow into towering trees slowly. Let's not worry blindly. There is one thing, though. Kolchak has sent someone to contact us, wanting to go to Japan through our territory, hoping to make a comeback. I want to discuss this matter with comrades."

"Is there any big profit?" You Gou was very curious. Chen Ke spoke so calmly; there must be something tricky inside.

"It is said that Kolchak brought out the gold from the Tsar's treasury." Chen Ke replied. Before the comrades' faces changed significantly, Chen Ke continued, "The problem is that there are as many as one million people in Kolchak's group. They are all people extremely hostile to the Russian Communist Party. So these people can't be very friendly to us either. Everyone, don't think about getting all this gold anymore. It's best if we can make them take out some; getting it all is not realistic."

"How much gold is there exactly?" You Gou's eyes were already bright.

"Maybe four or five hundred tons?" Chen Ke replied.

All the Standing Committee members' eyes instantly became bright, and the conference room instantly became quiet.

"Hey, hey! Everyone doesn't have the idea of killing people and robbing goods, right?" This silence frightened Chen Ke.

Even though Chen Ke warned so, the comrades still remained silent. What the People's Party lacked most was hard currency. Fiat money could circulate greatly, but currency backed by precious metals was obviously more attractive. The Ministry of Finance had proposed several times hoping to issue gold yuan notes and silver yuan notes with gold and silver as collateral. Later, it was rejected by the Politburo. At that time, the quantity of gold and silver owned by the People's Party itself was very limited.

After the First World War, China's gold and silver reserves increased rapidly. And after unifying China, the Renminbi has now exchanged for a large amount of gold and silver. The Ministry of Finance once again proposed the suggestion of issuing gold yuan notes and silver yuan notes. The reason was also very sufficient: "With the improvement of people's living standards, the quantity of commercial grain that can be used as collateral now is not increasing, but decreasing. Perhaps it is time to change the collateral for the Renminbi."

Heavy industrial products cannot be used as collateral unless steel can be hoarded for speculation and profit through reselling. Otherwise, what use is it for the people to put a few tons of steel at home? Light industrial products that can make the most money, however, because China's resources are tilted towards heavy industry, adopted a mode of distorting supply and demand for daily necessities. Forcibly depressing the prices of daily necessities directly led to huge problems in monetary policy. The whole country fell into a deflationary situation.

Fortunately, the People's Party has always emphasized foreign trade, and with the boost of World War I, the country's economy can still develop at high speed. Before World War I, the People's Party adopted industrial transformation in time and adjusted the investment proportion, so at any rate, the external impact was not too strong. Even so, all departments faced the problem of lack of money. The Ministry of Finance was forced to jump up and down, even lobbying the Politburo members and Standing Committee members.

After presenting facts, reasoning, and even repeatedly studying and analyzing Chen Ke's past economic policies, the rhetoric of the Ministry of Finance made people feel more and more that they had made great progress. If they could really get hundreds of tons of gold from Kolchak, the possibility of issuing gold yuan notes and silver yuan notes would be greatly increased. Other departments might be able to ignore this matter temporarily, but You Gou, who managed the industrial department, could not turn a blind eye to this.

"Changing the current economic policy is absolutely not allowed." Chen Ke replied immediately. The economic situation faced by the People's Party now is much, much better than in the first 30 years of New China. Just a coconut business, two billion buttons a year. Even if one button can save one gram of cotton, two billion buttons can save two thousand tons of cotton. How much cloth can be spun from these two thousand tons of cotton? How much employment can such an industrial chain drive?

"I know how hard this stage is to endure. This is not about walking past it; this is about enduring through it! Being in deep water and scorching fire." Chen Ke said. In Chen Ke's time and space, many people used the economic achievements of the latter thirty years to negate the policies of the first thirty years. Chen Ke felt this was utter nonsense. China in 1949 was an agricultural country, while thirty years later, China was already a semi-industrial country with a preliminary industrial system. Even the worst industrial country is not comparable to the best agricultural country. Otherwise, Argentina was once one of the top ten powers in the world; why did it reach the point of bankruptcy several times in the second half of the 20th century? What decent foreign trade did New China have in the first 30 years? In the current time and space, the People's Party even exchanged industrial products for raw materials with the posture of a "high-tech" country in many industries, desperately improving the living standards of the entire country.

"According to the latest census, our national population is almost 600 million. Now the world population is only 2 billion; we account for 30%. We are not those capitalist countries that let the people live or die. Calculating this per capita, we know to what extent the Chinese people can live. We now feel that the work is very difficult and painful, which is inevitable. What we have to do now is to bury our heads in work, engage in education, infrastructure, production, and technology. When the level of productive forces increases, the standard of living will naturally rise. If engaging in a monetary policy could solve the problem, would we need to wait for that group of people from the Ministry of Finance to say it?" Chen Ke was not angry when saying this, but felt very helpless. He had also listened to many lectures when he just entered university. Looking back now, the policy proposed in the lectures for the rapid free convertibility of Renminbi was utter nonsense. But at that time, as an extremely pure silly youth, Chen Ke felt that this idea was really reasonable and had propagated this policy in many places. Every time he thinks of it now, Chen Ke feels ashamed. If a person commits the stupidity of thinking there is a shortcut, he will be stupid without a bottom line.

"Simply put, work hard and get paid on time. If the economic policy can execute this, it is a great success. What ingenuity, what marvelous skills to strengthen the country—we don't need to consider such things. What needs to be considered now is who will do those arduous jobs and how to do them! Don't promise the people any bright future; the eyes of the people are sharp. Whether this life has become better, whether this future is bright, the people see more clearly than us. What we can promise is only bleeding, sweating, and shedding tears. And it is how to bleed, sweat, and shed tears more effectively. Even how to bleed, sweat, and shed tears willingly. Wanting the country to be strong, wanting to have a good life, wanting to have a bright future, wanting to obtain personal freedom. Apart from this path, there is no other way!"

There was silence in the conference room for a while. You Gou asked: "When will such days end?"

"For us People's Party members, this is probably fate. Having chosen this flag, we must experience these pains. As for whether it is happy, everyone's feeling is different. But whether life has become better, whether brightness appears in the future, I still say the same thing: the eyes of the people are sharp; they can see these clearly." Chen Ke's attitude towards this remained consistent.

The issue of higher-level psychological feelings did not last too long. Soon the topic returned to Kolchak. Regarding these people, especially the gold carried by these people, Chen Ke's attitude was very simple. Normal trade, no looting. Anyway, they need to eat and drink; normal trade is enough to strip them clean. If this group of people hopes to take a ship back to Europe, that's even better; this can earn more money.

"No matter how much the Russian Communist Party hates these people, these people are Russians after all. It will have a bad influence if we take action." Chen Ke concluded with these words.

The depressing days did not last too long; imperialism soon began to sell ropes. In September 1920, when the Chinese delegation participating in the Summer Olympics in Belgium returned, official delegations from countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, and Czechoslovakia also came along.

The Netherlands had vast colonies in Asia. Since the United States could sell coconuts, the Netherlands also sold them, and the British began to sell coconuts desperately even earlier. Not only coconuts but also rubber, spices, and tropical crops. The Dutch delegation hoped to expand comprehensive trade with China.

After calculation by both sides, the Netherlands had a slight surplus. The People's Party asked if the Netherlands was willing to accept British war bonds. The Dutch refused with difficulty. Although Britain won the war in Europe, there were no special gains after the war, so the price of British bonds was falling all the way.

The People's Party proposed to make up the difference with pharmaceutical trade. Now the Dutch side became very interested. Chinese medicine is now a very loud name in Europe. Especially drugs containing pearls, musk, rhinoceros horn, bezoar, etc., were crowned with the title of Chinese "Royal Secret Medicine." With the use of drugs including sulfonamides and Chuanbei Loquat Syrup in Europe by Chinese medical personnel, Europe and America were quite interested in expensive and mysterious Chinese drugs.

For the People's Party, anything that can be obtained through breeding, such as musk and pearls, is very easy to get. Especially in Chen Ke's junior high school textbooks, there were even expository texts about pearl cultivation. After obtaining Northern Vietnam, they even had excellent artificial pearl cultivation bases.

Using drugs to balance the trade volume with the Netherlands, at least in 1921, China's economic development had more guarantees. Along the way, the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the analytical technology department of traditional Chinese medicine also received certain funds.

After stabilizing their own situation, the Czechs urgently needed a market. Shang Yuan negotiated with them about technical cooperation issues. The Czechs were not as picky as the Dutch; they also accepted British bonds. A package agreement was reached including equipment sales and technology transfer. It was not that the Czechs didn't know that improving China's industrial capability might affect their future. However, the fact faced by the Czechs was that no matter how difficult tomorrow would be, tomorrow was a problem that only those who could survive today were qualified to consider.

The attitude of the Italian delegation playing dumb was quite cute. The Prime Minister seemed to have never written a letter to scold Shang Yuan loudly, and talked affectionately with Shang Yuan about the unfinished agreement last time. The price finally fell back to a normal level, and technical cooperation could continue on a beneficial and restrained commercial track.

However, after suffering from the Italians, the Chinese side was extremely worried about Italy's credit. So originally planned to build eight 10,000-ton ships, with the Italians building two in Italy first and then building the remaining six in China. Now the plan shrank by half, building a total of four ships. Now one ship is built by the Italians, and the rest are built in China. After completing all orders, the remaining half of the matter will be discussed.

Since China paid the money, the Italians had no way to refuse. Finally, the two sides signed an agreement in this regard. In the current depression and chaos in Europe, half a piece of fatty meat is much better than not eating meat.

China, this unified large market, became increasingly important in the Western Pacific.