New Shun 1730

The spread of learning from the East to the West and the spread of Western learning to the East, like most cultural exchanges, must have a problem: there is an exchange of the best and the exchange of the dross, and sometimes the best and the dross are mixed together.

There is a saying that if you want so-and-so, you will get everything from so-and-so, which is generally the same.

Such was the discussion between Xu Gui and Jiang Youren about the special Catholicism in Dashun.

You can't say it's all bad. If the court doesn't care about some things, someone will take care of them. Reactionary is not necessarily all bad, it is just a neutral descriptor.

This is not the first time that slogans such as equalizing land and returning it to the public have been shouted. Even the Northern Confucianists have many people trying to restore the well-field system. The compromise is that the wells can be welled, but the wells cannot be equalized.

However, the court did not care and was unable to control it, which naturally left opportunities for some people to take advantage of.

It would be difficult for Catholicism to spread without going through the magical transformation with Chinese characteristics. After all, China is not the cultural desert of America and Black Africa. It has a very splendid and profound local culture. Compromise after fierce collision will of course lead to many strange things.

Going back is bound to fail.

But history cannot be assumed.

Every historical experience and lesson that can be summarized in a few words can be recorded as experience and lessons with a population as large as Dashun. If this approach is blocked, it is estimated that at least several million people will be affected, and dozens of people will die. Thousands of people.

An ordinary uprising involving tens of thousands of people in one state or one county is not even qualified to be included in the history books.

The problem lies here, and if the court wants to solve it, it is not impossible to solve it in theory.

But the reality is that there is neither money, ability, nor means to solve the problem.

Moreover, the Lingnan issue is not a simple, very traditional land issue. It is a unique problem that has arisen in the new era, which has almost never happened before.

A similar situation has happened once in China. The rise of maritime transportation led to the decline of the Western Regions. However, this was a long process, and it was not the core area of ​​previous rule. The final result was that the value of the Western Regions declined. The Ming Dynasty’s influence on the Western Regions My interest is not too great, it is already a standard money-losing product.

This time it happened in the core area of ​​the dynasty. Lingnan is of course the core area now. And it’s not just a problem for farmers, it also involves hundreds of thousands of non-agricultural people who have lost their jobs due to changes in trade routes.

Neither Jiang Youren nor Xu Gui knew about these issues. They did not have such a perspective, and they did not conduct a social survey.

Jiang Youren just tentatively expressed some of his ideas, and Xu Gui also supported this very much. He believed that it would be a good idea to use Macau as a base to train some Tang missionaries to go deep into the mainland.

The appearance of a Westerner will arouse vigilance, and the government will easily catch him. Not every place can develop like the Dominicans did in Fujian, where local people dug cellars and vowed to protect the missionaries to the death.

The premise of this idea is that Macau cannot be taken back by Dashun and continue to be a den, eroding the interior far and wide.

From Jiang Youren's perspective, the Macau issue is related to the future of Jesus Christ in Dashun.

Naturally, after being reprimanded by the Xiangshan County Magistrate, Jiang Youren was worried that Macau might not be safe.

Therefore, he felt that no matter what, the best possibility this time was to completely separate from the opium dealers and the human trade. As long as Macau could be preserved, these could, or should, be abandoned.

Preserving Macau is the highest priority.

On this point, he and the Macau Council, military leaders, churches, etc., have reached a consensus beyond reproach.

…………

It is different from these people who think that Macau should be preserved no matter what, either for trade, wealth, or missionary purposes.

The British East India Company did not care whether Macau was taken back or not.

What they care about is another life-and-death issue.

Half of the opium found this time was produced by the British in India.

Although a lot of formal things were done, the procedures seemed to have nothing to do with the British East India Company.

However.

Principle is closely related to national strength.

If Dashun's national strength was so weak that the British felt that they could defeat Dashun even with an expedition, they would have sent troops to investigate without any nonsense: Why did China seize our cargo ships and confiscate legal opium?

However, the current national strength is not to mention the expedition to Dashun. Even if it fights in India, Britain will not be able to take advantage. How can it dare to make such remarks at this time?

Although a lot of insurance was put into the procedure, the opium dealers were asked to write a statement that they would not sell to China, and they were quietly told that if anything happened to the opium dealers, it was your own business and not to expose the company.

But Fazaklai, the plenipotentiary representative of the British East India Company in China, a China expert, understood that these things were nonsense and meaningless in Dashun.

Does the theory have any use? Dashun is setting up a trading company with Europe with great fanfare. Obviously Dashun is taking the opportunity to cause trouble to restrict the British East India Company's trade.

How stupid is Dashun? How can we talk about procedural justice at this time and say that this matter really has nothing to do with the East India Company? And then happily let Britain continue to trade and steal the trade share of the Western Trading Company established by its own people?

Moreover, the person in charge of this matter, in Fazakeli's opinion, is the most cunning and insidious official in Dashun. Being stupid is too far away.

The British East India Company certainly didn't care about Macau, missionary work, or human trafficking. It could even abandon its army to protect its commanders and temporarily stop the opium trade.

However, trade with China must not be attacked.

After the George Anson incident, everyone knew that Liu Yu had an inexplicable dislike for Britain, and some British people even suspected that Liu Yu was a hidden Catholic, and was close to France from the perspective of the Old Church.

Fazakle was responsible for defrauding the East India Company of the Netherlands, France, Sweden and other countries in Guangzhou, and mastered many basic skills in Dashun activities. When envoys from various countries came to Beijing, he also insisted on giving more gifts, and spent more than 10,000 pounds of silver on public relations and gifts.

Fazakle thought that the idea that Liu Yu was a secret Catholic was pure nonsense, but he knew that Liu Yu's attitude towards Britain was indeed not very good, and he also knew that Liu Yu was very close to the French.

His worries soon became a reality.

With the opening of Songjiang Prefecture, in order to facilitate management, Dashun could not have the general agents of various countries' trading houses in Macau, Guangzhou, or Songjiang. In addition, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were conducive to trade, and the British trading house had already signed in Shanghai County of Songjiang Prefecture.

In theory, interrogation takes time.

But in fact, the Fujian Church Incident was an unexpected incident, but the opium problem had long been on Dashun's radar, in order to make the Sino-Dutch Joint Trade Company have a good start in European trade this year.

Therefore, just as Liu Yu was on his way to Macau, the troops mobilized by Dashun from the Songjiang Prefecture camp entered Shanghai and Songjiang Prefecture and sealed off the Songjiang Prefecture's trading house.

First, because the spies of the Children's Army in Macau had already caught the British.

Second, because the emperor felt that evidence was not a problem at all. Even if there was really no evidence, the Children's Army could also find evidence of the British's involvement in opium smuggling.

In Dashun, there was only whether the emperor wanted evidence, not whether he could find it. Even domestic affairs sometimes did not require evidence, and false evidence was just a face-saving measure.

First, the merchant ships of Songjiang Prefecture were seized and the trading house was sealed, and the evidence would be discussed later.

The British envoy in Tianjin also hurried to Songjiang Prefecture to try to deal with the matter.

When discussing with the minister how to solve this matter, to everyone's surprise, Fazaklay did not curse at Dashun, nor did he talk about the law of Dashun that did not care about evidence at all.

Instead, he started to speak foul language to some people in Britain, and the people he cursed were not politicians, but some "literati".

"Daniel Defoe is just a novelist. The only thing he can be praised for is that he wrote Robinson Crusoe."

"As a novelist, perhaps what he said makes sense in the novel world."

"But what does Defoe know about business and trade?"

"Defoe said that with the Oriental Cotton Prohibition Act of 1700, the unemployment of textile workers in London, Norwich and Canterbury disappeared, and the prosperity of the textile industry in the past was restored."

"However, he does not understand that the development of commerce and industry requires competition!"

"Those lazy textile workers, without the competition of Indian and Chinese cotton, will only become more lazy and have no motivation to continue to improve textile technology."

"If this continues, how can the British textile industry progress? In the long run, abandoning the cotton cloth ban and increasing the import of Oriental cotton cloth can promote the progress of our country's textile industry!"

"I can say responsibly that Defoe He took money from the textile workshop owners! As a writer, he used shameless writing to damage the interests of the company and the legitimate interests of the upright people engaged in business! "

"These novelists, using their popularity and voice in the public, took political donations and then spoke for their masters behind the scenes, seriously interfering with the formulation of national policies!"

"And Jonathan Swift, who wrote "Gulliver's Travels"! He is basically an Irish independence activist and a Tory who has been committed to weakening the British Kingdom!"

"What does he know about trade? What is a tariff? But he used his fame to oppose the reduction of tea tariffs. The company did not give him money, so he would not say a good word for the company!"

"He is obviously a French spy, advocating and believing in Colbert's domestic substitution plan."

These words were, of course, sprayed in front of the British ambassador to China.

These words are basically the unparalleled resentment of the East India Company over the years.

These two people have a lot of say in Britain because they are famous writers who have a large number of readers before the review bill. In this era of paper and pen, where information is not decentralized, these people who have the right to speak have great power among the people.

Although it is natural that the East India Company also spent money to hire people, such as hiring some people to write articles such as "On Trade", "On the Benefits of Abolishing Tariffs to National Economic Development", "The Similarities and Differences between Woolen Cloth and Cotton Cloth", etc.

However, these people hired were not famous enough and did not have a great influence at all.

Unlike the misunderstanding of some people in later generations, the East India Company was a standard comprador company at the beginning.

At least until now, the East India Company has refused to bring British textiles to China because it would cause the company a loss of at least 200,000 pounds every year. It would be better to buy them directly with silver - the outflow of silver is Britain's business, not the East India Company's business; being forced to ship woolen cloth to China is a loss to the interests of the East India Company.

If the company was not forced by the government to purchase some woolen cloth, it would rather come to China with an empty ship.

Four years ago, the MPs lobbied by the East India Company also tried to "cancel the cotton tariff and increase competition to promote the progress of the domestic textile industry. Otherwise, tariff protection can only support a group of textile owners and textile workers who are not enterprising."

Their reasons are exactly what Liu Yu advocated:

[Through the above evidence, we can clearly and intuitively see that because of the Oriental cotton trade, the price of our linen and woolen cloth has dropped by 12%, allowing people to obtain cheap cloth and improve the living standards of the British people].

[With the 1700 Oriental Cotton Trade Prohibition Act, we can see from the data that the price of woolen cloth and linen has increased significantly, greatly damaging the interests of the British people, and making people pay more shillings for their clothes. And it has contributed to the decadence of woolen textile owners in London, Canterbury and other places, and has supported too many lazy workers. ]

In fact, when Britain was qualified and had the industrial strength to trade freely and export industrial products abroad, it quickly disbanded the East India Company.

Just think about it, how can a company that relies on "monopolizing the franchise of oriental goods" be a boost to the development of its own industry? Even if you think with your butt, you can know that this is an obstacle - a company that is exclusively franchised to import cotton cloth will support the textile industry of its own country? Do you really think that shareholders are saints who are not seeking personal gain for the rise of the country?

Defoe and Swift, who were madly criticized by Fazakle, led the East India Company to lose more than 4 million pounds and 12 million taels of silver in trade every year.

At least.

This is just a simple minimum estimate by Fazakle.

He was not interested in the wine, but just wanted to use these two people - one was dead, the other was Irish and a Tory who supported Irish independence, and neither of them could stand up to refute - to express his dissatisfaction with British policies, and hoped that the ambassador to China could convey these words to the country.

Because, it is obvious that Dashun wanted to use the opium issue to suppress the East India Company when Dashun tried to start active European trade.

The reason why Dashun suppressed the East India Company instead of cooperating with it, in Fazaklay's opinion, was because there were too many "misleading" literati like Defoe and Swift who advocated the development of domestic industry and substitution of domestic industry in Britain.

These are two typical examples.

…………PS: Historically, the East India Company's struggle for cotton cloth trade was quite painful. The things they hired people to write were really a disaster, especially the "Trade Treatise" that advocated the benefits of cotton cloth imports. I feel that even junior high school students would find it difficult to convince. It is normal for comprador companies to spend money to buy gunmen and lobby. But the level is really a bit inferior.

Defoe has a novel about China called "Lunar Chronicles", which is really superb: the China in it is technologically powerful, morally noble, and far superior to Europe. But in fact, it is all because of the help of lunar civilization-irony, such a China has to go to the moon to find it, it does not exist in reality.

This is a very standard British satire, but the most fundamental purpose is to "use the past to satirize the present" to oppose the trend in Europe at that time that "the reason why China is so powerful is because of the absolute monarchy": the mentality of despising the poor and loving the rich, and then thinking that everything is caused by the system, has existed since ancient times.

The reason why he opposed China was precisely because he was angry about the comprador behavior of the East India Company, and felt that Britain should develop its own textile industry and its own porcelain industry. Moreover, Chinese goods represented high-end at that time... I think Defoe's mentality is very easy to understand, very common and simple. If you bring it in a little bit, foreign goods are rampant, domestic goods are regarded as low-end, and aesthetics tend to be another civilization, you can understand what it feels like. People born in the 1980s can easily empathize with it.

Of course, the East India Company hated him to the core. Historically, Defoe also relied on his influence to repeatedly try to promote the "complete ban on the import of cotton cloth" decree. The East India Company was about to cry at the time, how could it not hate it?

Of course, in history, this was not caused by the subjective development of trade by the Qing Dynasty, but the objective foundation laid by thousands of hardworking weavers, porcelain workers, tea pickers and other working people. People like Defoe who could collect money sitting at home were mentally broken.

Subjective and objective must be distinguished, and the credit of the working people and the credit of the corrupt rulers must be distinguished.

Just like the Dashun in the story, the rulers knew nothing about tariff regulation and protection of domestic industries? But the problem is that the foundation is there. Even if the customs has zero tariffs, Western woolen cloth cannot be sold. So can it be said that Dashun protected the development of its own textile handicraft industry with superb trade means?

This is like praising a person who inherited a billion-dollar fortune, praising him for his business acumen and sharp vision. But the problem is that even if he is an idiot, he can still have a billion-dollar fortune. China in the 18th century was like this. Even under the rule of Emperor Hui of Jin, it was definitely the first in export volume and unlimited trade surplus. If you really want to do it, you can do it, Sima Zhong can do it, sitting at home waiting for Europeans to send money, what ability do you need?