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Chapter 2093 Economic Predation
  Advanced countries support backward countries, often because the backward countries are too poor. Even if you want to plunder, you still need something to plunder. When an industrial country faces a group of primitive people, the only thing it can plunder is its population. That is, like the triangular trade, people are captured and used as slaves.

But this actually comes at a cost. The only ones that can be targeted are those tribes whose civilization is low enough to a certain level and can be easily conquered by force, or even allowed to fight and capture their own people.

For cities like these that have occupied cities and can develop independently, it is very difficult to capture the population through force. What's more important is that slavery is impossible in the territory.

Because after truly mobilizing the subjective initiative of workers, we will discover the wealth created by slaves in the production process. There are simply too few.

Compared with the wealth created by ordinary people's independent productive labor under the urging of needs, the wealth created is really much less.

In terms of pure work efficiency, the efficiency of modern free people is actually much higher than that of ancient slaves, and these are not achieved with whips. Since there is the threat of force, better methods can be developed. The value of a person’s labor. Then there is no need to use force to coerce.

Chengying's external strategy is also a method of economic plunder, just like the initial export of things like iron pots and bicycles. Without these things at the earliest, residents in these cities could live normally. But when you get to know these commodities, you will find that your living standards will suddenly drop by a notch without these commodities.

Even if they had no need for these goods before, demand will be created after they gradually become accustomed to using these goods.

In fact, there are many models similar to this demand creation, such as soap and other things, in the wasteland territory where the chemical industry is complete. It is very easy to produce. And in order to promote these things, they have done a lot of work based on public opinion. These are completely beyond the cognitive scope of the territorial lords of this era.

The work done on public opinion is also very simple. It is nothing more than forcibly adding soft hair and smooth skin to human aesthetics. This itself is in line with human aesthetic tendencies, so it is easy to do, and in the wasteland territory, it can be printed in large quantities. , a large number of portraits were printed. After those exquisitely made and beautiful portraits that did not look like real people gradually spread in the surrounding cities, people's aesthetics gradually began to deviate.

Originally, the aesthetics of people in this era paid more attention to body shape. Sometimes, considering the convenience of childbearing, those who were slightly fatter and plump would be more popular.

But as these portraits spread, gradually the aesthetics of these people began to shift from the aspect of body to the aspect of appearance. Look at a person's face, see whether a person's hair is smooth, and whether his body is clean?

I began to pay attention to whether a person has a special smell, or the smell of perfume. In some novels or stories circulated in the market, it is described that real beauties have the fragrance of flowers.

So demand was created where there was no demand, that is, demand for toiletries and perfumes. These things need to be obtained through alcohol distillation or chemical methods. Garden City is equivalent to a strict technological monopoly.

There are no competitors at all to imitate, and these goods can be easily exchanged for a large amount of labor. Residents of these cities must engage in a large amount of originally heavy labor in order to be able to enjoy these newly created consumer demands.

Not just themselves. These created demands affected their lords and local nobles more.

The local nobles need these toiletries, perfumes, glass, mirrors, fine porcelain and silk, and cloth with beautiful patterns. However, they are not capable of producing these things themselves, and if they want to buy them, they are quite expensive. , so they can only exploit the people in their own territory.

So I had to accept some of Wasteland City's plans. Plan them to be part of the future industrial chain, and during the planning process, each industry will have at least two cities responsible for production. In other words, these two cities are competing with each other. During the acquisition, they have to bid against each other, and the one with the lowest price can get the acquisition right first. It can be said that the labor force in the surrounding cities was squeezed to the extreme.

There were even many people who couldn't stand the oppression of the lords and began to flee towards Wasteland City. And there is no way to stop this kind of thing. If the Wasteland City encounters people who are fleeing, they will directly become their own citizens. They won't be put back at all.

Even some people who can afford to leave the city quietly will choose to work in Wasteland City. These people will soon find that the income from working is much higher than the income from working in the territory.

Some people started thinking about it. Go out to work and earn money through working. to pay taxes, so that related work within the territory is no longer needed. The rest of the money was earned by myself. Lords who were accustomed to conducting transactions through currency. I am happy to accept this method. I only need to pay an extra part of the tax burden before I can go out to work.

And this not only obtains labor power, but it does not need to be plundered, but must be done through war. The work motivation of these labor forces is much higher. Why use violence in the first place?
  If there are some motivated nobles, they will definitely not agree to this method. The population of their own territory will go out to work. On the surface, it can bring you more money. But that's not the case at all. As for the population in the territory, as an ambitious lord, he would try his best to bind them to his own land.

Because these people meant more to the lord than just providing wealth. The more important meaning is that they have military obligations to the lord.

When the lord needs to fight a war, they will be recruited into the army. It's a bit similar to the reserve force, but the actual situation is actually different.

Nowadays, the combat effectiveness of these residents who need to fulfill their military obligations is increasingly unable to keep up with this era. In the future, professional soldiers are actually more suitable.

It's just that these lords simply can't afford to support professional soldiers, especially when they are so close to a behemoth and suffer economic plunder. If they want to support their own professional soldiers, the money they earn is simply not enough.

These territories themselves have not considered relying on military force to achieve independence. So I just let this kind of robbery go unchecked. At a certain level, the current situation is that these city-states are like those countries that were on the verge of becoming superpowers in a certain era. There is a saying that they are too far from heaven and too close to a certain country. Now their situation is similar. Chengying does not hope that A powerful political power emerged among these city-states, so while plundering them through economic means, they also worked hard to disintegrate their cohesion and absorb their population, making these cities weaker and weaker.

When railways are built to the doorsteps of these cities, their populations will basically be completely annexed. As for the ownership of their cities, they are still in their hands in name. But in fact there is no administrative capacity left.

Even if they still have certain military armaments. When administrative capabilities are completely controlled by opponents, what can be done is very limited.

As the economy gradually comes under complete control, the military may be cut off by the enemy's sending of troops and supplies.

This matter also starts from the previous economic plunder. Because various agricultural machinery are more developed. The mechanical planting over there in Wasteland City has higher yields. Food prices are also lower. As a result, surrounding farmers found that they no longer needed to farm. You can go out to work and then buy food in Wasteland City. Use the purchased grain to pay the tax. And the money I earn from working is much more than the money I earned from farming before.

As a result, a large amount of land in these surrounding cities has become barren.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Wasteland City took the initiative to take over, and instead sent people to these cities to cultivate these lands, and promised that after the cultivation, they would pay directly, and the money paid would be much more than normal.

In this way, the lords from all over the country also agreed. If they were given money, why should they refuse? But the problem is that the fields in your territory have been overtaken by others, and the food produced has been transported away by others. If you want to use the food, you have to spend money to buy it.

After this back and forth, these countries were able to be self-sufficient in food. But they had to buy food from abroad. And if they want to grow their own food, they will find that the cost of growing their own food is too high. The cost price has already exceeded the price of grain, and related industries are completely losing money.

The only option is to outsource these lands. And if the lifeblood of food is controlled, it will be true in the future, and the two sides will conflict. As long as the other side refuses to sell food, there is nothing they can do.

While Chengying is controlling food, he is also making further attempts to control water sources.

If there are railways that can facilitate transportation, they can occupy some plateaus where it is difficult to survive. This is the source of the river. Building dams here can, on the one hand, serve as important water conservancy facilities and improve the surrounding water temperature environment. The other side is when necessary. It can directly cut off the river water, causing drought and water shortage in the lower reaches of the river, and can directly release the flood when needed. Completely destroy the downstream areas.

Although most of the time there is no need to use this method. But with such means in hand, the major city-states in the downstream areas would not dare to make trouble. Everyone is counting on water sources for irrigation. Naturally, it is impossible to violate it easily when the lifeline is in the hands of others.

Chengying is very knowledgeable about the construction of these water conservancy facilities. It’s not just dams that can be built to regulate the hydrological environment downstream. Hydropower stations can also be built on dams. Although its territory has not yet fully entered the electric age, there are only a few factories, such as aluminum synthesis factories, that require a large amount of electricity.

But it is an inevitable trend to enter the electric age in the future. In fact, the technology required for generators is not particularly high. If a hydropower station can be built, there is even a large amount of surplus power generation in a short period of time. It is almost possible to achieve freedom of electricity near the power station. use.

Therefore, in addition to controlling the downstream, these hydropower stations are also surrounded by a large number of high-end laboratories and factories. They are the most advanced product production bases in the territory. Most factories use electricity as power and can produce a wider variety of products with higher technical content than those outside that still use steam engines.

On a certain level, the wasteland has become a city-state even though it does not physically occupy it. But it has essentially completed control of these city-states.

Even if you want to fight in the future, you can directly ask them to send troops. Even though everyone is equal in name, in fact it has become the uncrowned king of this area.

It's a pity that this area as a whole seems quite remote and deserted. Even if all the city-states surrounding the Wasteland Park chose to comply with the will of Wasteland City, they still did not have much influence on the mainland. Instead, the conflict between the Luo Lin faction and the Augustus family intensified.

The Wilder family's army that had been sent to attack the Luolin family's rear was inexplicably wiped out, causing the balance that had been tilted towards the Augustus family to swing back again. The annihilation of the 5-strong army had a huge impact. This directly changed the situation of the battle, and now Rowling's side has the advantage.

Several times, large armies pressed into the territory and almost captured one of the four cities owned by the Augustus family. Even if it was not completed yet, they had already completed the siege of one of the cities despite the pressure from the Augustus family. , cutting the original four cities into a 3+1 format.

Augustus wanted to lift the siege of his city. One way was to go all out in the three cities on the same side to attack the Luolin warriors who besieged his city. But this time the opponent was determined to attack the city. He took a bite of meat from his body, and it can be said that he went all out to attack with an army. The best result was just a crazy fight under the city wall. The besieged city has been blocked from both ends, and there are no resources inside. If the siege cannot be relieved in a few months and the food inside is exhausted, I am afraid that we will have no choice but to surrender. At that time, the army that besieged the city entered the city. After the siege was lifted, Rowling had two supporting points here. The advantages and disadvantages between the two sides immediately changed completely.

[To be continued]

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