New Shun 1730

Looking at this matter from the perspective of class, it will be even clearer.

The participation of Dashun in the war severely hit the power of the British national bourgeoisie, causing their power to decline seriously.

And the serious decline of their power has relatively increased the power of the British feudal aristocracy.

In view of the strong aristocratic power in Britain, the bourgeoisie in coastal cities can only form an alliance with a part of the aristocracy to form a Whig oligarchic ruling group to ensure its "hereditary" power.

And every reform of these so-called Whig radicals was forced out by the bourgeoisie. However, once they reach their bottom line, they will stand up and stick to this "radical" bottom line.

Now, with the total collapse of Britain brought about by Dashun's participation in the war - not only economically, but also the total collapse of the balance of originally balanced political forces, the king will surely gain greater voice and more power.

At this moment, the war is not over.

However, the ruling class of Britain has reached a consensus on the Liverpool incident.

This consensus is that Liverpool today is the tomorrow of the rest of the cities.

This is closely related to the strategy of Dashun's participation in the war.

Capture London? What does it have to do with me?

Support Jacobite orthodoxy? What does it have to do with me?

Help France to dominate? What does it have to do with me?

What Dashun wants is trade.

Trade does not require everyone to sit down and sign a contract to get it.

Rather, Dashun has destroyed the East India Company and has controlled the northern route and the triangular trade route.

The war continues, and it can be fought as long as it wants. Dashun should do business.

To be more precise, does Dashun have a grudge against Britain?

For Liu Yu, there must be, and this grudge is not light. But for Dashun, there is no grudge.

Who does Dashun have a grudge against? In other words, who do the emerging classes that Dashun supports to start the war have a grudge against?

They have a grudge against the British East India Company, the British African Company, and the British Navigation Regulations and maritime anti-smuggling ships.

Cutting off someone's wealth is like killing their parents. The great grudge of killing their parents.

Now, are Dashun's enemies dead?

Obviously, they are dead.

So, even though the war has not ended, it is still being fought in theory, and has not yet sat down to sign a peace treaty.

However, for Dashun, the war has been won.

The many problems in Britain now are the problems that Britain will face after the war.

The chaos in Liverpool and Manchester is a preview of the chaos after the war.

For Dashun, placing the trading ports in Songsu directly led to the unemployment of 200,000 to 300,000 people on the Wuling Trade Road, which is not a big problem.

Just 200,000 to 300,000 people.

For Dashun, abandoning the canal and using sea transportation directly led to the big problem of millions of canal workers, which is not so big that it cannot be solved.

Just a few hundred thousand people.

Compared with the size of Dashun, it is still a little weak.

But for Britain... 200,000 to 300,000, a few hundred thousand people... these are very scary numbers.

Free trade, invisible hand, absolute advantage theory... right?

It can be said to be right.

However, it is still the same problem - the people's "consciousness" is too low, and they are unwilling to be the starving corpses of transformation and invisible hand adjustment cycle, so what should we do?

Moreover, with the entry of Dashun, a problem that Adam Smith's "absolute advantage theory" did not consider emerged: What if a country's labor force, production efficiency, and production costs make almost all commodities have advantages?

Here we do not mention that Dashun has already started the embryonic stage of the industrial revolution.

Rather, even if Dashun did not have an industrial revolution at all, because of a series of simple "exchange rate" issues such as American silver, price revolution, and silver purchasing power, Dashun's commodities have advantages that Europe cannot resist at all.

In history, when the British agricultural revolution had begun to use Chilean saltpeter and guano as fertilizers, the import limit stipulated by the Corn Law was still 2 pounds 12 pence per 450 catties of corn. That is, 8 taels of silver for 450 catties of corn.

Even if the production efficiency of both sides is the same, the cloth is rubbed at the same speed on both sides, and even the technical advantages of Dashun such as porcelain and silk disappeared overnight. Then how can this compete with Dashun, which has already begun to develop soybean fertilizer in the northeast and develop rice in Nanyang?

Not to mention that Dashun also had a very annoying internal copper-silver exchange rate problem: "Ordinary people use copper coins, big merchants use silver, but taxes must be paid in silver."

The British ruling class may not know these things, and of course they are unlikely to know them.

However, the price and quality of the high-quality goods shipped by Dashun are there.

The real ruling class probably knows in their hearts that once the war is defeated, all the goods that Dashun cargo ships or the East India Company have brought before will be destroyed by British industries.

And how many goods can Dashun not bring because of insufficient profits?

And how many non-agricultural population can it accommodate?

The Liverpool incident is just the beginning. Similar incidents will continue in the future.

The situation in Britain, in the words of later generations, is "latecomer advantage".

If we admit that Britain's agricultural revolution is the foundation of the industrial revolution.

Then, Britain's rise in this century is based on "latecomer advantage".

Because the level of farming was too poor before, it could not feed so many people.

Because China's farming technology was introduced to Britain, its latecomer advantage enabled its agricultural revolution and population problems to be solved in a very low-intensity struggle.

What is Britain's agricultural revolution?

Four major things:

Crop rotation.

Blast furnace iron.

Chinese plow.

Private ownership of land.

Private ownership of land, the British use a long-winded term, called "determining the exclusive ownership of land". Public land becomes privately owned. The enclosure movement is the process of determining private ownership of land in the UK, or in other words, the process of "opening up fields and breaking up well fields" in the UK, which makes the original public land belong to individuals. This is called exclusive ownership of land - this piece of land is mine, then it is not yours; unlike before, this piece of land is public, you can graze cattle, and I can graze cattle.

The Chinese plow brought by the Dutch... [The plow that the Dutch learned from the Chinese has a plow tip, a scraper, and a curved beam. Its advantage is that it can be pulled by one or two oxen, rather than the six or eight oxen required for the previous heavy wheeled Nordic plow. The Chinese plow was brought to Britain by Dutch contractors who were hired to drain the East Anglian and Somerset swamps. The plow was very successful on wet swamp soil, but it was soon used on ordinary land...]

In short, Britain's agricultural yield per mu, curved plow level, blast furnace iron, crop rotation, etc. finally reached the level of the Han and Tang dynasties.

The small population supported by the previous low-level agriculture gained the latecomer advantage through technological exchanges. There was more land per capita because it could not feed so many people before. After the technological explosion, a large amount of surplus agricultural products that could be marketed were produced, and at the same time, a low-intensity struggle for transformation was obtained. With the population of Dashun, why not try to enclose a piece of land?

What is the latecomer advantage afraid of?

The latecomer advantage is not afraid of blockade. Because latecomers mean that the exchange of civilization and technology has begun. If you make a steam engine, even if you hide it, we know that we can definitely make it. If we find the right direction, if we can't make it in five years, then we can make it in ten years. Even if you can make nuclear fusion first, other countries will know that it is not a dream, but can be realized. This is the most important thing, which means that it can be made.

This is the most important meaning of connecting the world at the beginning of the sailing age: you can not teach me, but I know that it can be done, so we are all human beings, and we will always do it, because I know that it can be done.

Even if aliens fly over, as long as they are not destroyed, it is exciting news: interstellar travel is possible, they are all intelligent creatures, and I can make it. What I am afraid of is that I can't touch it at all, that is the real despair.

At this time, the latecomer advantage is afraid of not blocking, but dumping.

Dashun's participation in the war is equivalent to interrupting Britain's latecomer advantage-indeed, Britain has advantages, completing the enclosure and a large number of potential wage workers separated from the means of production, but these potential advantages, not to mention in front of Dashun, are also meaningless under the hand-made cloth rubbing of more than 100 million people in India. This advantage can only be a potential advantage, but it cannot be transformed into a real advantage.

Is it possible for Britain to break this desperate situation?

No.

Because, in theory, there is a way, that is, to do everything, give up the overseas market, close the door, and forcibly support a few enterprises, rely on the domestic market to complete technology accumulation and narrow the gap.

But for Britain, this theoretical method is not applicable. The country is too small, even cotton cannot be self-sufficient, and the internal market is even pitifully small.

In addition to the problems that cannot be solved in theory, Britain also has a very difficult practical problem.

That is, many British people believe that it is the East India Company that hinders the development of Britain, and it is Britain's many mercantilist policies that hinder the development of Britain.

So much so that whether it is North America, Scotland, Ireland, or even England, they all believe that "smuggling is not a crime and tax evasion is reasonable."

A large number of businessmen believe that free trade is the best. If free trade is liberalized, the British economy will immediately flourish. Moreover, it will bring about a great growth in the British manufacturing industry, instead of the East India Company monopolizing trade with the East like now, which seriously hinders the development of Britain...

This was said in 1850, and it was absolutely correct.

But now, I can only say...

But in fact...

If the East India Company died earlier, if there was really free trade, if private merchants could trade east of the Cape of Good Hope at will.

Then, what the British saw would not be the booming development of Britain.

Instead, hundreds of ships would bring cotton cloth, lacquerware, furniture, porcelain, etc. from the East to Britain, directly destroying Britain's nascent manufacturing industry.

Ideally, it can be said that as long as laws are enacted, as long as tariffs are set, the country's manufacturing industry can be protected.

This is true.

What is wrong is that this sentence is pure nonsense at this time.

Because the current technical level and administrative capacity are simply impossible to control smuggling.

Because the current technical level is not up to that condition, it is not enough to arrest anyone who smuggles or does not pay tariffs.

Britain's administrative capacity is not enough to support it.

The British East India Company, at least at this time, is not restricting Britain's manufacturing industry, but protecting Britain's manufacturing industry.

After all, the British East India Company was under government supervision, and needed to report accounts, register merchant ships, check cargo, and transport cargo to the UK for tax payment and inspection.

Is it easier to manage a bunch of ants?

Or an elephant?

This is a practical problem.

It is not a matter of chanting sutras.

The reality is that if there is no supervision, the technology level is not enough to monitor all coastlines, and it is impossible to effectively prevent smuggling, then all merchants will see who is better at smuggling.

Any legal and tax-paying merchant will go bankrupt.

Merchants who are good at smuggling and have good relations with customs will make a fortune.

Britain's poor manufacturing industry did not even have a chance to start, and it would be killed by Indian goods in 1700.

The East India Company, as a corporate entity, is a behemoth. It can only reason in Parliament and spend money lobbying to try to prove that importing goods is right... Because such a behemoth, smuggling is too costly and difficult.

Britain is indeed not big.

The administrative efficiency is indeed higher than that of Dashun.

However, Britain is not Leviathan.

The reason why the "Cotton Prohibition Order of 1721" can be implemented is more because the East India Company monopolizes trade with the East. Administrative orders can be directly imposed on this behemoth, and this behemoth specializes in trade with the East.

If it were replaced by private merchants' free trade, if this decree could be implemented, it would be a disaster. Smuggling can't be caught at all, and the manufacturing industry won't even sprout, it will die directly.

And now the question is, how many people in Britain hate Dashun for starting the war?

And how many people think that Dashun destroyed the East India Company and opened up free trade, which is a good thing to make people happy?

And how many merchants, or slave traders in Liverpool, don't care whether the cotton cloth in the triangular trade is produced in Dashun or Manchester? As long as there is a truce, I can continue to buy cotton cloth and sell slaves. I don't care whose cotton cloth belongs to.

People's hearts... I'm afraid that many people in Britain want Britain to lose the war and open up trade. Not only are there interests involved, but there are really many people who believe that it is the East India Company that is hindering the development of British manufacturing. This statement was absolutely right in 1850, but it is absolutely wrong to say it now. I'm afraid that the East India Company also feels very wronged at this time-I am trying to sell domestic products abroad, but I really can't sell them in India and China. Why do you always think that I don't want to sell? Why do you always think that it is the tariffs from India and China that make it difficult to sell our British goods?