How to view the slogan "Never abandon the principle of building a military through diligence and frugality"? "Diligence and frugality are our family heirlooms, and socialist construction cannot be separated. Whether it is an inch of steel or a grain of rice, we must use it wisely..." This is the song of a repair company in a coastal defense brigade of the Eastern Theater Command Army, which was awarded the honorary title of "Diligence and Frugality Entrepreneurship Repair Company" by the Ministry of National Defense. This company is also the only model unit in the entire army named after "Diligence and Frugality Entrepreneurship". In the 1960s, the officers and soldiers of the company relied on two old lathes and a few iron hammers, but did not make their own equipment, lacked materials, and learned from their weak skills. They created a repair legend of "major repairs cannot leave the island, medium repairs cannot go down the mountain", and nurtured the "three diligence" spirit of building the company with diligence and frugality, working hard, and innovating with ingenuity. For over 60 years, the company has always adhered to the tradition of diligence, thrift, and entrepreneurship, anchored its mission and tasks to build and revitalize the company, and achieved a comprehensive leap in combat effectiveness guarantee. In 2016, it was awarded the collective first-class merit by the National Defense Mobilization Department of the Central Military Commission. In the new era, the country's economic strength has become stronger and the military conditions have improved, but the good tradition of hard work and frugality in building the army still needs to be carried forward. Why should we persist in diligence and frugality in all endeavors? "Through the experience of the ancient sages and their families, success is achieved through diligence and frugality, and failure is achieved through extravagance." This is a famous line from the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin's "Ode to History", which means that after reviewing the experiences and lessons of the past sages in governing the country and their families, success is often achieved through diligence and frugality, while failure is caused by extravagance, pointing out the key to the success or failure of political power. In early 1851, the Taiping Army launched the Jintian Uprising and within just over two years, they crossed two lakes, three rivers, and south of the Yangtze River from a corner of Guangxi, and established their capital in Tianjing. But after entering the city, the leaders of the rebel army began to compare themselves to luxury and indulge in fantasies, and officials of all sizes were skilled in competing for luxury and extravagance. The golden crown used by the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan weighs eight pounds, and every meal is made of gold bowls and jade chopsticks. The doors and windows of the Heavenly King's Mansion are all covered with silk and satin, and the walls are painted with mud and gold. The loyal king Li Xiucheng stationed in Suzhou, and the luxury of his mansion was astonishing. Even before the city of Suzhou was destroyed, construction was still ongoing, and Li Hongzhang was amazed to see it as "like a fairy cave" and "a place he had never seen before in his life". A vigorous peasant movement ultimately resulted in 'Chu songs dominating the sky, blood stained Hu Tian's romantic red'. Taking history as a mirror can reveal the rise and fall. Frugality and frugality lead to the prosperity of the country, while extravagance and waste lead to the downfall of the nation. Frugality and simplicity, while avoiding extravagance, are the heirlooms of our party and army. Yan'an, originally a barren land, was revitalized by the arrival of the Red Army. What power is so miraculous? In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow went to the Shaanxi Gansu Ningxia Border Region with a mind full of questions for an interview. He saw that Comrade Mao Zedong lived in a simple cave, Comrade Zhou Enlai slept on a straw mat and an earthen kang like soldiers, Comrade Zhu De used a toothbrush made of horsetail, and Comrade Peng Dehuai wore a vest transformed from a parachute. He was deeply shocked by the spirit of hard work and thrift of the CPC. He asserted that this was a valuable "oriental magic" and the "light of rejuvenation" of the Chinese people. For over 90 years, under the strong leadership of the Party, the People's Army has always regarded diligence, thrift, and frugality as a principle requirement. During the revolutionary war era, 'saving every penny for the cause of war and revolution'; During the period of socialist revolution and construction, we adhered to the principle of 'making diligent and frugal military building a long-term and regular political task for our army'; In the new era of reform and opening up, we must obey the overall construction of the Party and the country, and establish the concept of "patience". In the new era, the entire army resolutely implements the spirit of the Central Eight point Regulation, the Military Commission's Ten point Regulation and its implementation rules, vigorously corrects the "Four Winds", insists on cultivating oneself with frugality and developing industry with frugality, insists on doing everything with diligence and thrift, and strictly implements frugality and opposes waste, which has become a value orientation and spiritual state of many officials and soldiers. Practice has shown that hard work, diligence, and frugality in building the military contain the secret to the development and growth of the people's army, as well as the ability to repeatedly defeat strong enemies, and are the red genes passed down from generation to generation by our officers and soldiers. Wholeheartedly serving the people is the fundamental purpose of our party and army. Taking the lead in living a tight life is aimed at providing a good life for the people. Now, our country's "money bag" has bulged, and the "total plate" of defense budget has also grown. But at the same time, it should be noted that our army is gathering strength to achieve the centenary goal of building the army. The task of preparing for military struggle is arduous, and the work of transforming and developing the troops is heavy, requiring a lot of money. We must carry forward the fine tradition of building the military through diligence and frugality, firmly establish the idea of "living a tight life", resolutely resist the erroneous ideas of viewing diligence and frugality as "shabby", hard work as "rustic", and extravagance and waste as "generous", and always maintain the political nature of our army's hard work and frugality in building the military. Frugality and frugality should be valued by everyone, every detail should be valued, and action should be emphasized. Every officer and soldier should be a diligent and frugal practitioner of physical strength, gathering small personal savings to form a great energy for the whole army. Pursuing a better life and advocating diligence, thrift, and frugality are not contradictory. For young officers and soldiers, talking about hard work and struggle is not about living a pure and ascetic life, but about opposing extravagance and waste, maintaining the style of hard work and frugality, advocating a simple and moderate lifestyle, having more inner perseverance, less pursuit of material desires, more consideration for excellence, and less horizontal comparison, so as to make one's spirit richer, moral character purer, and life more fulfilling, and to write a wonderful chapter in life in the practice of building a strong military. Why is it necessary to establish the concept of cost control and economic affordability for national defense and military construction, which requires a large amount of manpower, material resources, and financial investment. When there is investment, we should talk about efficiency. If a business does not prioritize efficiency and incurs high costs, it may go bankrupt. Defense investment, regardless of cost or even overdrawn national strength, not only causes huge waste of resources, but can also lead to economic recession and social crisis in severe cases. We must pay attention to implementing the concepts of cost control and economic affordability in all fields and throughout the entire process of military construction, and must not do anything that ignores costs and economic affordability. People often say that fighting is about making money. Recent global conflicts and war practices have proven that "low-cost, consumable" drones can put powerful opponents in a dilemma of "being able to defend themselves, with extremely high costs; not being able to defend themselves, with huge losses". The characteristics of strong confrontation and high consumption in modern warfare are more obvious. The competition between the warring parties in resource mobilization is unprecedentedly fierce, especially with the development of high-tech, which has led to a significant increase in the cost of weapons and equipment. Whoever can obtain the greatest effect from the consumption of their resources and is good at choosing the most economical weapons may take the initiative and be more resilient. In the face of the urgent requirement to improve our ability to prepare for war and the reality of relatively insufficient guarantee resources, we must firmly establish the concept of resource constraints and cost control, resolutely eliminate the misconceptions of military tendency towards "more is better", one-sided pursuit of high performance and high value in equipment, and "endless money and ammunition"; We must coordinate our combat capabilities and development needs, strengthen the coordination and docking between the two ends of combat and construction, as well as between supply and demand, effectively reduce non combat functions and non urgent projects, and concentrate resources to accomplish major and difficult tasks; We must take operational needs as the fundamental driving force, give full play to the leading role of planning in resource allocation, and make military spending more scientific in terms of investment volume. We must not let the money invested by the country go to waste. Why do we insist on accountability for efficiency and inefficiency when spending money? The annual National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference have always been highly concerned about the arrangement of defense spending. In March 2024, the second session of the 14th National People's Congress deliberated and approved the 2024 national general public budget, and allocated 1.69 trillion yuan of defense expenditure, an increase of 7.2% over the implementation of the previous year. In recent years, military spending has continued to increase, reflecting the high importance that the Party and the state attach to national defense and military construction, and reflecting the people's eager expectations for building a strong military. Every expenditure on national defense is tied together and has a specific purpose. It must be handled in accordance with regulations and spent according to rules, striving to make every penny productive and promoting the great development of military construction. Financial resources are the guarantee for the military to win battles. Strengthening accountability and effectiveness is necessary to ensure that good steel is used on the cutting edge and to transform financial resources into tangible combat effectiveness. Adhering to strict accountability means forcing the implementation and reform of standard systems, budget management, approval systems, and decision-making mechanisms to ensure that the 'money bag' better serves the 'gun barrel'. In January 2022, the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission and the Logistics Support Department of the Central Military Commission issued the "Notice on Commending exemplary organization and exemplary individual in Military Expenditure Management", which commended 29 exemplary organization and 50 exemplary individual in military expenditure management, demonstrating remarkable achievements in managing military expenditure, improving quality and efficiency, and standardizing financial order. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the entire army has improved and perfected the new era military expenditure management system and mechanism, vigorously strengthened management and supervision, and promoted the transformation of limited resources into a focus on preparing for war. But it should also be noted that there is still a certain gap in terms of spending money and spending money excessively during work operations, and problems such as extensive management and disregard for costs still exist to varying degrees. It is necessary to implement comprehensive policies and systematic governance, aiming at the overall direction of improving the quality and efficiency of military expenditure management, using the contribution rate to combat effectiveness as the standard. We should not only supervise who spends the money, how much it is spent, and whether it is spent according to rules, but also supervise whether the money is used to meet the urgent needs of war preparedness, construction, and promote the improvement of combat effectiveness. For those with high resource utilization and significant savings, rewards and commendations shall be implemented in accordance with regulations; Those who use resources inefficiently and inefficiently, causing losses and waste, shall be dealt with in accordance with regulations, laws and regulations. (New Society)