Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1193 The Emperor
Hearing such an answer, the emperor was still not completely relieved.

After Dashun's military reform, he was invincible in the surrounding areas.But the Netherlands is only a small country the size of a palm, and Nanyang took advantage of tricks, and the navy won a decisive victory. Dashun really had never fought against the elite European troops.

Although many people have been sent to Europe over the years, after returning, they all say that the European army is the same, and there seems to be nothing to learn.

The emperor has confidence.

But Niu Er, who saw the British colonial army and the Indian army fighting with his own eyes, said it out of his mouth, it was different.

The key is that the emperor has been persuaded by Liu Yu that the attack on India still needs to be delayed for a year or two, and when the time is right, Dashun will fully enter the arena.

According to Dashun's experience, the training speed is quite fast.

As long as the military salary is sufficient, the soldiers can eat enough, and the military salary can be paid on a monthly basis, with Dashun's sufficient officer corps, it really takes three to five months to train a bunch of line soldiers.

After hearing what Niu Er said about what happened in India, the emperor is the most sensitive group of people to political struggles, betrayal, and betrayal.

Thinking about it, you can know that the British must have gained a lot of benefits.I'm afraid that if the British are determined and aware of Dashun's thoughts, they will use all the benefits to train soldiers, which will inevitably cause some trouble.

After mentioning the matter of the Indian soldiers, he asked Liu Yu again: "Ai Qing thought that as long as the Indian soldiers had enough to eat and were paid, they could have the strength of a new army. Can the British expand their troops in India?"

Liu Yu hurriedly said that he can rest assured.

This is really a systemic problem.

At that time, the British East India Company was afraid of being controlled by the royal power, so it came up with the wonderful system of equality for everyone above 500 pounds.

Even if you hold 10 pounds of shares in your hand, you are the same as those who hold 500 pounds when you elect the board of directors.

Everyone bought shares for the sake of making a fortune. For the illusory thing like Dashun's invasion, everyone united as one, did not pay dividends, and used the money to expand the army?
If he really has such organizational ability and decision-making level, then he can't be regarded as a joint-stock company.

It's not that he is blinded by profit, but that under this kind of decision-making system, it is impossible to do the kind of thing that the emperor is worried about.

Furthermore, if the core conflict cannot be resolved, the British have no choice but to stop their military expansion, but will quickly resolve the French.Expansion of the army... Clever is a fart, dare to bypass the board of directors, and directly use the money that Bangladesh gave to the East India Company for the expansion of the army?
Besides, it is useless to expand the army less, the navy will not gain an advantage, and the big trees can still be defeated one by one like the Japanese felling back then.To expand the army to the point where it can compete with Dashun, the little money that Bengal pays is not enough at all.

Once again giving the emperor a reassurance, the emperor nodded, hummed, and carefully read Niu Er's report.

After reading it, I asked a strange question.

"When you returned to the capital, you expected to know about the Mentougou Railway. In your opinion, the imperial court should use Indian taxes to implement immigration policies. Then, what if I use this money to build the railway?"

"There's only so much money, and what you said makes sense. It shouldn't be squeezed too hard, and it should be a matter of increasing the price at all levels. It is expected that all of them will be taken from India, and the tax per mu will be similar to that of the current dynasty. Excluding the raising of soldiers and the like , at most there will be 2000 million taels left.”

"At that time, will it be the railway construction? Or immigration?"

"Xing Guogong's previous immigration strategies have a lot of mystery, and you must know the reason for it. In the Southern Ocean and North Fusang, businessmen are not profitable. If they want to emigrate, they have to be paid by the court. Before Xing Guogong The means, I am afraid they will not be used.”

"As for this railway... I have always believed in the practical methods of Duke Xingguo. This thing will definitely surpass the canal in the future, and it should be greatly developed. It is expected that it will not take a few years to mature day by day."

"How do you think this money should be chosen?"

This question is too weird.

Not only Niu Er was dumbfounded, Liu Yu was also stunned for a moment, never expecting the emperor to ask this question.

But Liu Yu's ignorance only lasted for a short while, and he immediately understood the emperor's subtext.

Obviously, the emperor didn't want Songsu's capital to get involved in the railway.Because now it is Songsu's capital group that can raise capital that is truly incomparably rich.

It is definitely impossible to build the railway there. If it is to be built, it will be built around the capital.The emperor didn't want these capitals to intervene in the "inner" area.

When the emperor visited the south a few years ago, he discovered some problems in great detail.

For example, the textile industry in Songsu expanded rapidly along the canal.

After the canal from Funing to Nantong was repaired, the capital followed the water of the canal and soon involved the villages, towns, and counties along the canal under control.

All places along the way were involved in the textile industry.A large number of ships flocked continuously, and the movement of spinning wheels to the countryside also spread at a speed of several miles per day.

Things can't be said to be bad things, at least when Dashun is expanding and selling goods everywhere, it must be a good thing.The common people are men farming and women weaving, and their lives are getting better and better.

But Songsu's indescribable ethos, or social atmosphere, which the emperor didn't like very much, was the same, and it spread rapidly along with that canal.

The railway is definitely a good thing.The emperor also believed that this thing was like a musket. In the beginning, muskets were far inferior to bows and arrows, but they had greater potential.

The point is, how is this good thing defined?Who is it good for?
What the emperor knows well is the method of checks and balances, so Songsu can be rich, but the Songsu model can only be controlled within a certain range.

The success of Dashun also came from the fact that it was right and right, and it did not make it uniform and check and balance each other. On the contrary, it made the imperial power more stable and solved many court problems that the previous dynasty could not solve.

Moreover, Dashun's land system is destined to be very easy to merge.

The imperial court recognized the title deed, and it was standard private ownership of land.So, how to prevent Songsu Capital from buying land?

If you intervene in the railway and expand along the railway, a large amount of silver will flow into the mainland like a tide. Dashun does not produce silver, and the money used by the grassroots is copper coins. Silver is more like a foreign currency decision. Once it is released, the only "produced" What kind of expansion can Songsu of Silver become?

Just ban land transactions?This is obviously nonsense, and it is of no use.

The prerequisite for prohibiting land transactions is to carry out a comprehensive land reform. Dashun does not have the ability to do so, and it cannot be done at all.

Moreover, Niu Er described to the emperor a "beautiful" future of occupying India.

If the railway belongs to the merchants, or if the merchants have a huge right to speak on the railway, then wouldn’t Songsu’s goods flow into the mainland like a flood?
At that time, the "beautiful" future of India described by Niu Er will first be staged in the mainland of Dashun.

To some extent, in fact, the emperor's worry can not be wrong.

In the current situation, if the railway is really built, Dashun can really experience in advance what is meant by the scene of "the gentry are generally bankrupt and gentrified".

In the history of imperialist aggression and dumping, even if there is no tariff, there is still a shipping fee from Europe to Asia, and even a ton or so of shipping costs four or five taels of silver.

It is more convenient to play in Songsu's starting area. At least, there is no need to consider the shipping costs from Europe to Asia.

Woven fabrics are produced in Europe, and with the support of railways and ships, the bankruptcy of small farmers caused by dumping can be spread all over the provinces.

Even in the end, the small and medium-sized landlords in the countryside were generally bankrupt, which eventually led to extreme poverty in the interior, and eventually evolved into a situation where a large number of gentry children actually became popular. This is what was done in the late Qing Dynasty. The reason, because at that time the inside was not squeezed thoroughly enough.

Some small and medium-sized landlords at the grassroots level in Dashun, in fact, besides owning land, also engaged in handicraft industry.

The inland is still in its infancy. The strong capital, massive silver, industrial revolution, and machinery production in Songsu and other pioneering regions can directly blow up the old economic system in the inland by relying on railways and ships.

In fact, it can be simply understood that after the industrial revolution, Europe moved to the Songsu area in parallel, exempting the freight from Europe to Asia.

This is different from the United States. The homestead law stipulates that every household can get 160 acres of land, which is equivalent to 960 acres of land.The people here in Dashun, no matter how hardworking and hardworking is in their genes, who has 960 mu of land and let their wives weave cloth by themselves?free?

Most of the hard work of the people in Dashun was forced out.Without land, I can only accept [-]% to [-]% of the rent. If I don’t do some handicrafts by myself, I really can’t live.

Moreover, the circulation and sales of the handicraft industry are all systematic.Just like Dashun just moved the trade center from Guangzhou to the mouth of the Yangtze River, it directly created the great unemployment in the Lingnan area.

The old system was destroyed, affecting tens of millions of people.

Kuang Yuzhen, if capital flowed from Songsu to the inland uncontrollably, it would be a serious problem for Dashun, which owns private land.

Even if the emperor couldn't think so comprehensively, he was worried about the consequences of Songsu Capital's internal expansion from all angles.

So, are railroads a good thing?

For the emperor, it is a good thing.

How to use this thing?
It should be used as a "Qin Zhidao" for mobilizing troops.

As a "Grand Canal" for famine relief and convenient transportation.

As a "frontier barracks" that can send troops quickly if something happens in the frontier area, it can solve the problem of being heavy on the inside and light on the outside, and light on the inside and heavy on the outside.

By stationing the army around the capital and relying on the railway, the inside is the outside, and the outside is the inside.

Or, in areas with serious conflicts between people and land, such as Henan, once a disaster occurs, Nanyang rice and sorghum from Liaodong can be mobilized immediately to provide relief quickly.

Is the future that is smoky must have shattered the old era?That's not necessarily true, at least the railway, maybe it can really stabilize the small peasant economy.

Annual maintenance, of course, costs money.Before that, a lot of money was spent on canals, water transportation, and water control.

Historically, serf owners in snow-capped mountains drove cars, used diesel engines to generate electricity, and listened to Mozart. Did this hinder the continuation of serfdom?
If you look at this matter from a purely national perspective, in fact, the emperor could be shot directly after asking this question.

Obviously, at this time, we should seize the land under the sun that has not yet been occupied by others by taking advantage of the last glimmer of the Age of Discovery, and move people of the same ethnicity there, according to the number of one million a year. If he hesitated on such a matter, he could directly declare that the emperor was unqualified.

From the perspective of productivity progress, the emperor's consideration on the issue of railways, let alone how to characterize it.

Even from the perspective of this era of industrial revolution, the direction to consider should be how to complete the transition.

Means can be used and reforms can be used. The purpose is to let the low-level people and small farmers resist the pain of transformation during the transition period, so that they will not be unable to survive; or, to be more cruel, consider how to suppress the severe pain of the transition period.

Completing the transformation is the goal, and everything else can be the means.

However, it is clear that the emperor's thoughts at this time have nothing to do with these three items.He didn't think that fully completing the transformation of the new era was the ultimate goal, nor did he think it was his responsibility.Even if he is not technically reactionary, he actually supports the development of railways.

(End of this chapter)