Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1357 The Total Collapse of Britain ([-])
Looking at this matter from the perspective of class, it will be clearer.

Dashun's participation in the war dealt a severe blow to the power of the British national bourgeoisie, causing their power to decline severely.

And the serious decline of their power made the power of British feudal aristocracy relatively increase.

In view of the strong aristocratic power in the UK, the bourgeoisie in coastal cities can only form an alliance with some nobles to form a Whig oligarchy to ensure their "hereditary" power.

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

Now, with the total collapse of Great Britain brought about by Dashun’s participation in the war—not just economically, but also the total collapse of the balance of political power that was originally balanced, the king will surely gain greater voice and power.

At this moment, the war is not over.

However, the British ruling class has reached a consensus in the Liverpool incident.

The consensus is that Liverpool's today is the future of other cities.

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

Capture London?It's none of my business?
Support Jacobite orthodoxy?It's none of my business?
Help France dominate?It's none of my business?
What Dashun wants is trade.

Trade does not require everyone to sit down and sign the contract in order to get it.

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

The war continues, as long as you want to fight, Dashun should do business and business.

To be more precise, does Dashun have any enmity with Britain?

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

Who does Dashun have grudge against?In other words, with whom did the emerging classes who supported the war in Dashun have any grudges against?

Enmity with the British East India Company, the British African Company, and the British Navigation Act maritime anti-smuggling ship.

Cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents.The great revenge of killing parents.

Now, is Dashun's enemy dead?
Apparently, dead.

Therefore, even if the war is not over, it is still fighting theoretically, and has not yet sat down to sign a peace treaty.

However, for Dashun, the war has been won.

Many of the internal problems in Britain now are the problems Britain will face after the war.

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

For Dashun, the placement of the treaty port in Songsu directly led to the unemployment of 30 million people on the Wuling Commercial Road, which is not a big problem.

Only 30 million people.

For Dashun, the abandoned canals were transported by sea instead of water, which directly caused a big problem for millions of water workers, and this problem is not too big to be solved.

Only 10 people.

Compared with Dashun's size, it is still a bit weak.

But for the UK... 30 million, 10 million... These are very scary numbers.

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

Arguably right.

However, there is still the same problem—the people's "awareness" is too low, and An An, who is unwilling to make transformation and adjust the cycle with invisible hands, is starving, so what should we do?

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

It is not mentioned here 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, the price revolution, and silver purchasing power, Dashun's products have an advantage that Europe cannot resist.

历史上英国的农业革命，已经开始用智利硝石和鸟粪石做化肥的时候，谷物法规定的进口限价还是2英镑12便士每450斤玉米。也即8两银子450斤苞米。

Even if the production efficiency on both sides is the same, and the rubbing speed on both sides is the same, even Dashun's technical advantages such as porcelain and silk will disappear overnight.Then how does this compete with Dashun, which has already begun to develop soybean fertilizer fields in the Northeast and rice in the South Seas.

Not to mention that Dashun still has a very painful internal copper-silver exchange rate issue of "little common people use copper coins, big businessmen use silver, but they have to pay taxes in silver".

Britain's ruling class may not know these things, and it's certainly unlikely that they will.

However, the price and quality of the top grade shipped by Dashun are there.

The real ruling class probably knew in their hearts that once the war was defeated, all the goods brought by the Dashun cargo ship or the East India Company before, the British industry would be wiped out.

And those goods that Dashun does not carry because of insufficient profits, how many can there be?
How much non-agricultural population can it accommodate?
What happened to Liverpool is just the beginning.Similar things will continue to happen in the future.

The situation in the UK, to use a term from later generations, is the "advantage of latecomer".

If, admitting that the agricultural revolution in England was the foundation of the industrial revolution.

Then, the rise of Britain in this century is based on the "advantage of latecomer".

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

Because China's farming technology was introduced to Britain, the advantage of its late development enabled him to solve the agricultural revolution and population problems in a very low-intensity struggle.

What was the British Agricultural Revolution?
Four samples:
crop rotation.

blast furnace iron.

Chinese plow.

Private ownership of land.

Private ownership of land, the British's long-winded term, is called "determined exclusive ownership of land".Commons become 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 fields and destroying well fields" in the UK, so that the original public land belongs to individuals. This is called exclusive ownership of land-this land is mine. , then it is not yours; unlike before, this land is public, you can graze cattle, and I can graze cattle.

The Chinese plow from the Dutch... [The plow that the Dutch learned from the Chinese has a plow point, a moldboard, and a curved shaft. Its advantage is that it can be pulled by one or two oxen instead of the previous heavy wheels six or eight oxen required for a Nordic plow.The Chinese plow was brought to England by Dutch contractors who were employed to drain the East Anglian and Somerset moors. The plow was very successful on wet boggy soils, but was soon used on common land. …]

To put it simply, Britain's agricultural yield per mu, the level of Quyuan plow, blast furnace iron, and crop rotation system have finally reached the level of the Han and Tang Dynasties.

The small population maintained by the previous low-level agriculture has gained a latecomer advantage through technological exchanges, and the per capita land is large, because it was not possible to feed so many people before, but after the technological explosion, a large amount of surplus has been produced, which can be marketed agricultural products, and at the same time won the low-intensity struggle for transformation——Dashun has a population, try to enclose it?

What is the latecomer advantage afraid of?

Late-mover advantage, not afraid of blockade.Because late development means that the exchange of civilization and technology has already begun.If you make a steam engine, even if you hide it, you know that you can make it, and if you find the right direction, if you can’t make it in five years, then you can definitely make it in ten years.Even if you make nuclear fusion first, other countries will know that it is not a dream, it is really achievable, and 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 don’t have to teach me, but I know it can be done, then everyone is human and will always do it, because I know it can be done do it.

Even if there are aliens flying in, as long as they don't die, that's enough exciting news: interstellar travel is achievable, and they are all intelligent creatures, and I can figure them out.The fear is that you won't be able to touch it at all. That is the real despair.

But at this time, the advantage of being a latecomer is not to be blocked, but to be dumped.

Dashun's participation in the war is tantamount to interrupting Britain's late-mover advantage—indeed, Britain has advantages, having completed the enclosure of land and a large number of potential wage laborers separated from the means of production, but these potential advantages, let alone in Dashun In front of them, even under the manual rubbing of more than 1 million people in India, this advantage is meaningless. It can only be a potential advantage, but it cannot be transformed into a real advantage.

Is it possible for the UK to crack this desperate situation?
No.

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

But for the UK, this theoretical approach doesn't work either.The country is too small to be self-sufficient in cotton, and the internal market is pitifully small.

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

That is, many British people believe that the East India Company hindered the development of the United Kingdom, and it was the many mercantilist policies of the United Kingdom that hindered the development of the United Kingdom.

As a result, whether it is North America, Scotland, Ireland, or even England, they all believe that "smuggling is innocent 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 prosper immediately.Moreover, it will bring about a great increase in British manufacturing, instead of the East India Company monopolizing trade with the East as it is now, seriously hindering the development of Britain...

This, said in 1850, is quite true.

But now, I can only say...

But in fact……

If the East India Company had died long ago, if it really engaged in free trade, if it really was private businessmen, they could go to the east of the Cape of Good Hope for trade.

Well, what the British see will not be the vigorous development of the UK.

Instead, hundreds of thousands of ships will transport oriental cotton cloth, lacquerware, furniture, porcelain, etc. into Britain, directly destroying the fledgling manufacturing industry in Britain.

Ideally, it can be said that as long as laws are introduced, the domestic manufacturing industry can be protected as long as tariffs are stipulated.

That's right.

What's wrong is that saying this sentence at this time is pure nonsense.

Because of the existing technical level and administrative ability, it is impossible to manage smuggling.

Because the current level of technology is not as good as that, and it is not enough to arrest anyone who smuggles or who does not go through tariffs.

The administrative capacity of the United Kingdom is not enough to support it.

The British East India Company, at least at this time, was not restricting British manufacturing, but protecting British manufacturing.

After all, the British East India Company is under the supervision of the government. It needs to report accounts, register merchant ships, verify the goods, and need to pull the goods to the British mainland to pay taxes and verify them.

A bunch of ants easy to manage?
Or is an elephant easy to manage?

This is a real problem.

It's not a prayer question.

The reality is that if there is no supervision, the technical level is not enough to monitor all coastlines, and efficient anti-smuggling cannot be achieved, then all businessmen will judge who can smuggle.

Any legal businessman who pays taxes according to the law will go bankrupt.

Merchants who can smuggle and have a good relationship with customs will make a fortune.

The poor British manufacturing industry, which had no chance to start, would have been washed away by Indian products in 1700.

And the East India Company, as a corporate entity, is a behemoth. It can only reason in the parliament and spend money lobbying to try to prove that the imported goods are right...Because this kind of behemoth is too expensive to smuggle, and it is also too difficult.

Britain is really not that big.

The administrative efficiency is indeed higher than that of Dashun.

Britain, however, is no Leviathan.

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

If it is replaced by private business free trade, if this decree can be implemented, it will be hell.Smuggling cannot be caught at all, and the manufacturing industry will not even sprout, it will die directly.

The question now is, how many people in the UK hate Dashun for going to war?
How many people think that Dashun destroyed the East India Company and opened up free trade, which is a good thing that pleases everyone?

How many merchants, or rather, slave traders in Liverpool, don't care whether the cotton cloth in the Triangle Trade is produced in Dashun or Manchester?Just a truce and let me go on buying cotton and selling slaves, and I don't care who owns the cotton.

What the people want...I'm afraid that in the UK, what many people want is precisely the defeat of the UK and the liberalization of trade.Not only are interests related, but many people really believe that the East India Company is now hindering the development of British manufacturing.This statement, said in 1850, is absolutely true, and it is absolutely wrong to say it now.At this time, the East India Company is afraid that I feel quite wronged - I am trying to sell domestic products, but I really can't sell them in India and China. Why do you always think I don't want to sell them?Why do you always think that it is the tariffs imposed by India and China that prevent our British products from being sold?
(End of this chapter)