New Shun 1730

After leaving Li Xi's palace, Liu Yu did not go home directly, but wandered around the capital.

It was not because he was nostalgic for anything, or because he felt that a foreign land was his hometown. He just wanted to see or guess what the future of Dashun would be like.

Now it seems that everything is normal, and the capital is still bustling with traffic.

But everything is normal now, compared with thirty or forty years ago, it is different after all.

The transformation of Dashun is spontaneous and slow, not that kind of drastic.

It is not that when you open your eyes, you find that there are incomprehensible steamboats with black smoke running on the river outside; iron birds are about to fly in the sky; the giant ships in the harbor can go against the wind...

No.

It is more like Dashun has eaten a "slow-release capsule" containing the future, which is slow-release and not so drastic.

Every young person has become accustomed to glass, steam, black smoke, wide cotton cloth, sugar from Nanyang, and rumbling coal trains in Xicheng.

If they are younger, they may feel that if they have been born like this, then the world should be like this.

Even if it is said that those who have been crushed by the wheels of the times in these years of change do not have much hatred now.

Or, they are dead.

And if they are not dead, since they can live to this day, they are obviously "transformed".

For example, the camel bells that shook from Xishan to the capital; for example, the seawood people who sell Nanyuan firewood in Nanyuan.

Or they died, or did something else, or "committed a crime" and were exiled to a distant frontier - the reason for the crime was that they wanted to live, and Liu Yu's reform eliminated the professions they depended on for survival, and did not compensate them, that's all.

In any case, the capital was a city dominated by consumption at this time, and it was also a city with the needs of bureaucrats, nobles, the army, the imperial guards, the royal family, the government, etc. as the main economic core.

This consumption-oriented city, for the time being, has experienced more benefits than disadvantages in this transformation.

Grain prices have stabilized.

Cotton cloth has dropped in price.

Coal has dropped in price.

Ironware has dropped in price.

White sugar has dropped in price.

Tea has dropped in price.

Every year, the taxes collected by the empire from all over the country flow into thousands of households as military pay, rewards, salaries, annual salaries of nobles, capital profits, etc.

Grain, cloth, sugar, spices, etc. shipped from Tianjin are exchanged for silver here. And these grains, cloth, etc. cannot fly to thousands of households by themselves, so many people are engaged in similar work.

In recent years, the reforms of Dashun should be viewed separately.

For the past, old production system and old transportation system, they are victims of reform.

And for those consumers, they are actually beneficiaries of reform.

It should be said that from this point of view, the capital city cannot be similar to Paris during the French Revolution.

Because the capital city is not the production core area of ​​Dashun.

But at the same time, this also means that if something really happens in the future, the capital city is likely to survive in a peaceful and bloodless way.

To a certain extent, because of the characteristics of the capital city as a "consumer city", Liu Yu's reforms in recent years have not encountered huge resistance.

The bureaucrats, nobles, royal families, and soldiers living in consumer cities look at problems from a consumer perspective.

Because coal is expensive, there is a railway in Xishan.

Because grain is expensive, there is an abandoned canal transport.

Because cloth is expensive, they support the innovation of new technologies.

Overseas silver has increased the salaries of officials and soldiers.

The change in the mode of production has reduced the basic price of life. At least for the "natives" of the capital city, there is no need to worry about the housing price caused by the changes in recent years.

Undoubtedly, this has reduced the resistance to Dashun's reforms in recent years.

Perhaps many civil servants were promoted from local areas and have local experience. But for the military aristocracy, another force of Dashun...

They are the ones that Malthusian economics wants to protect, that is, the "effective demanders" who "only consume, not produce".

Adam Smith said that Britain pursues the philosophy of production, not the philosophy of consumption. For consumers, there is no doubt that a more perfect domestic unified market, more perfect logistics, the abolition of tariffs and currency gates between regions, and the exchange of goods from various regions according to absolute and relative advantages are undoubtedly good things.

Dashun is too big.

So, in these years of changes, some people have suffered losses, some have benefited, some have revolted, and some have made a fortune.

Even if it is said that there are benefits and losses within the capital.

But as far as the capital is concerned, there are more benefits and fewer losses.

As for who is damaged.

Historically, the year when the Boxer Rebellion broke out, the old people in the northwest of Shandong later recalled that year like this:

Drought, soaring food prices.

After the Yellow River burst, the canal silted up, and food could not be transported in.

Sea transportation rose, and unemployment along the river.

Capital ran away, and all the capital in Shaanxi and Shanxi in the canal era withdrew.

Foreign cloth squeezed out, and those who made a living from local cloth in western Shandong could not survive.

The industry was depressed, the transportation industry was depressed, and a large number of people had no way to make a living. A skilled worker like a bricklayer could only earn 3 kilograms of sorghum rice a day - in the old society, a bricklayer was a standard skilled worker, not a laborer.

And this place is Linqing, which is known as the largest textile trading center, grain circulation center, and Yangzhou north of the Huai River in the entire north since the completion of the Grand Canal.

That is, the area where the Boxer Rebellion first broke out, and Linqing, which was still a national poverty-stricken county a hundred years later.

To a certain extent, Liu Yu brought this matter forward. And instead of continuing to accumulate contradictions, he chose to detonate contradictions and suppress them in batches, suppressing the resistance movement here in advance.

Even so, he still used compulsory administrative means, through external expansion, to divide a part of the share of Indian cotton cloth and forcibly distribute it here to ease the contradiction.

People in the capital, especially the "consumers" in the sense of Malthusian economics, including bureaucrats, nobles, and the army, really couldn't understand what the meaning of change was for the "destruction" of the old era.

The Enlightenment can solve the problem of "social consciousness" against feudalism.

So, can the Enlightenment solve the problem of the impact of industry on small peasant economy and traditional family handicrafts?

Can enlightenment make small farmers and handicraftsmen feel that they are "hindering the wheel of history" and then happily close their eyes and wait for death?

The world is material.

And the consciousness of private ownership has been formed on this land very early because of factors such as blast furnaces, iron ridges, wheel-making, and curved plows.

What Dashun needs now is a "substance-over-rhetoric" reform.

And this reform has not really appeared in Dashun so far.

Liu Yu is old, and he knows that he can no longer do anything.

The foundation has been laid, and the important thing is how to suppress the pain of real change and complete the transformation?

His ideas for the future are based on billions of acres of land overseas and in the border areas, hoping to use these lands to alleviate the pain of transformation.

And this requires very high skills.

Very high skills.

Very high wrists.

It is even more necessary to understand the pros and cons of things.

For example, steamships.

This is the key to Fusang immigration, land reclamation, and relief of pain.

Similarly, this is also the key to the disintegration of handicrafts along the Yangtze River, the collapse of the small peasant economy, and the uprising of traditional handicrafts.

Same.

Railway.

It is to solve the internal transportation costs and migration costs of Dashun, and make the frontier land have the conditions to integrate into the capitalist market.

But at the same time, this also means that capital and industrial products will flow into the interior from the developed areas at a speed of a hundred or a thousand times the original speed, destroying everything old.

This is not a simple "progress" issue.

This involves a problem that many economists have ignored-in fact, if people can't survive, they will resist.

Struggle, struggle, there are wins and losses, life and death. Small farmers and handicraftsmen would rather follow the emperor, or even follow foreign religious people like Hong Xiuquan, and would never follow the bourgeoisie.

Who will die and who will live is really hard to say.

In Dashun, if you don't understand what small farmers are and what developed handicrafts are, you don't have the ability to accomplish great things in this era.

Liu Yu bet his real future on the European revolution and the awakening of India, which led to the crisis of Dashun. If this crisis is to truly create opportunities for the future, the premise is that the economic activities of Dashun around world trade and capitalism have reached a level that will shake the entire empire once it is turbulent.

Now, it is far from enough.

Li Xi is not actually the best candidate recognized by Liu Yu. In fact, Liu Yu has people he truly recognizes in the practical school.

However, in the current situation, among the many princes, there is only one person who can grasp a little bit of capitalist thinking to solve the contradiction between people and land.

But he is still a little lacking in the knowledge of reverse training of old horses, still unable to understand the means of primitive accumulation, and still lacks the understanding of capital as a social relationship.

It should be said that this is the biggest problem of blood inheritance.

Among the people of the practical school, Li Xi is just an ordinary person, and his understanding of many things is quite different.

But among the few people who may engage in a coup or mutiny, this is the most capable one among those few.

In the past, Liu Yu could rely on the imperial power, under the guise of maintaining the imperial power, and in the feudal cloak of the interests of the nobility and the royal family, to carry out reforms.

But now, at this point, the bourgeoisie must step onto the political stage.

That is to say, in this future reform of migration and solving internal contradictions between people and land, the bourgeoisie will play the leading role.

Liu Yu determined that it would be impossible to succeed by relying on the spontaneous migration of small farmers, or the way of bankrupt farmers going to Guandong and Xikou.

Of course, Liu Yu also knew that at this point, if Li Li really succeeded. The binding and marriage of military nobles and the bourgeoisie was inevitable.

In fact, this is a very simple thought experiment.

Imperialism used strong ships and powerful guns to pry open the door of China, control tariffs, and cancel sub-port taxes. What was the purpose?

It was to open the market and dump goods.

So.

If the bourgeoisie in the developed regions, Dashun’s own industrial capital and financial capital, came to power. The law is the ruling class's tool of rule. If they become the ruling class, what will be their attitude towards the mainland market?

Can we think that they have saved a series of steps such as controlling customs, forcibly canceling sub-export duties, inland waterway rights, etc.?

Is it possible to think that the cotton cloth produced by Indian cotton yarn, Java indigo, landless cheap labor in Sulu, and large steam textile mills in Songsu are more likely to kill the small peasant economy than the cotton cloth produced in Manchester and shipped here in history?

Facing the huge domestic market, European imperialist capital can travel thousands of miles to come and switch on gunboats.

So, is Dashun’s local capital made of any special materials? Will they not covet this huge market of one-third of the world’s population at all?

It is one thing for national capital to be suppressed, suppressed and destroyed by imperialism.

It is another thing to see the collapse of the small-scale peasant economy and the total collapse of the old economic order, leading to the total collapse of the old superstructure.

The complete disintegration of the old superstructure does not mean that the sun and the moon will change immediately, but it is more likely to lead to comprehensive gentrification of the countryside and the complete collapse of the grassroots.

Historically, the Manchu Qing Dynasty carried out a vain preparatory constitution, but this vain thing immediately led to "an unprecedented expansion of gentry power"; "the so-called local autonomy is nothing but the rule of the gentry" ; "The power of the gentry is too heavy, and officials have been placed under the gentry for a long time"...

Many people think that "gentry power", "gentlemen", and "gentry power that suppresses officials" are outstanding local figures who stand up and lead everyone towards a better future.

In reality, it is often a group of Huang Laoye.

Fortunately, Dashun now does have vast land and billions of acres of arable wasteland in the frontier and overseas.

So, who can artificially promote migration, immigration, and reclamation during this impact?

How can we ensure that there will not be a strong sense of self-reliance before the "Earth-wide 'equalization of land' to relieve stress" is completed?

Such as Australia and North America. There are plenty of mines and land. If the local powerful people grow up, will the first and second generation immigrants think that such a good place should belong to them? Why should it be sold to later generations as state-owned land? of immigration?

And those minerals, if there are only 18 million people, sitting in such a large mine, wouldn't they be popular and drink spicy food? Why should the benefits of these minerals be distributed to more than one-third of the world's population, so that everyone can become rich together?

Therefore, we can't help but come to a strange conclusion:

If Dashun wants to continue to move forward, then the bourgeoisie will have to be allowed to step onto the stage of history, and they may need to play the leading role in the economic power of this great migration.

However, Dashun can never allow the bourgeoisie to truly take power, or in other words, truly become the purest and completely profit-seeking ruler, and a force is needed to suppress them. This principle is often called "emphasis on agriculture and suppression of commerce."

At the same time, a strong national machine is also needed to ensure the final completion of immigration, instead of causing stories of second-generation Spanish, second-generation British, and second-generation French immigrants in those immigration areas before it is completed.

The real core of this force is the fierce resistance during the disintegration of the small-scale peasant economy.

This fierce resistance forced the ruling class to choose a slightly more moderate approach.

Of course, it doesn’t necessarily have to be too fierce resistance to understand.

Because predecessors have already done it, and if you have a clear mind, you should know how to make restrictions. Just because Newton discovered gravity does not mean that everyone accepts it and needs to "discover" it again.

This is the advantage of having a long history. There are enough stories to "learn from history", as long as you don't seek to make mistakes.

The collapse of the small-scale peasant economy can basically be regarded as the collapse of the "men farm and women weave" model.

From now on, the focus of disintegration will be "women's weaving".

But it is not that the disintegration of "male farming" has never happened before. There is a word called merger.

Therefore, it can be regarded as that similar things have happened before. We can learn from history. If we really know how to learn from history instead of becoming a ruler who is desperate for a sword, we should understand that the key point is to control all these processes and make them basically controllable.

Therefore, it can be deduced that if Dashun continues to move forward, there will probably be an emperor under the guise of "the emperor of small farmers" who will propose some solutions to the plight of small farmers. But in fact, the real source of power and the basis of rule are the army and financial capital. , industrial capital people.

The main body here is Dashun.

If Dashun continues to move forward, it will be roughly the same.

Rather than China continuing to move forward, that's more or less the case.

The biggest prerequisite for Dashun to continue to move forward is that Dashun exists, otherwise it would be impossible for Dashun to move forward. Because Dashun is gone, how can Dashun move forward? As China moves forward, what will happen to the Dashun Dynasty?

And vice versa.

If this emperor does not rely on financial capital and industrial capital, then Dashun will not be able to move forward, at least on the issues of road construction and relocation.

If this emperor cannot use the guise of "the emperor of small farmers", propose some solutions to the plight of small farmers, and impose appropriate restrictions on capital. Then, there is basically no Dashun.

This is the situation.

Therefore, at this time, if you want to continue to practice backwards, then the three articles of reverse practice, the first two are "The Eighteenth Brumaire" and "The French Real Estate Mortgage Bank", and the other one should be "Revolution and Reaction in Germany" leather".

The first two articles, the reverse training is to learn to summon heroes, how to summon, the problem of small farmers, and the fact that farmers in small peasant countries would rather believe in the emperor than follow the bourgeoisie to carry out another legal revolution. And how to use the industrial thought of Saint-Simonism and the idea of ​​banks as batons to fix floating capital for industrial development and rapid industrial development.

And the next article.

Engels said:

[…study the reasons why this revolution is bound to break out and inevitably fail]

[These reasons should not be found in the accidental motives, advantages, disadvantages, mistakes or betrayals of a few leaders, but in the overall social conditions and living conditions of each country that has experienced the shock]

[…but when you ask about the reasons for the success of the counter-revolution, you hear a ready-made answer everywhere: because someone A or someone B "betrayed" the people]

[From the specific situation, this answer may be correct or wrong, but in any case, it cannot explain anything…] In short, this is a correct bullshit, a useless bullshit.

[It can't even explain how the "people" can let others betray themselves. 】

And Lao Ma said in another article:

[This bourgeoisie now openly shouts about the stupidity of the masses, saying these vile multitude (despicable rabble), as if these masses, rabble, stupid small farmers, sold it to the emperor]

[However, it is they themselves who have strengthened the peasant class's trust in the empire...]

In short, whether it is reverse practice or normal practice, when [discovering problems] and [analyzing problems], there is no difference.

Both should be based on the class perspective, the overall social conditions and living conditions of the country as Engels said, to discover and analyze problems.

The difference between normal practice and reverse practice lies in the final [solving the problem].

For example, boiling water.

After analyzing the problem, you come to a conclusion that if you want to boil the water, you have to add fire.

Therefore, the difference between normal practice and reverse practice in solving the problem lies in "do you want to boil the water" or "do you not want the water to boil"?

You don't want to boil the water, after analyzing the problem before, so you choose to remove the firewood.

You want to boil the water, and after analyzing the problem before, you choose to continue adding firewood.

Therefore, in Liu Yu's view, what Li Li really needs now is a small book "Analysis of the Social Classes of Dashun" based on the current reality, the current situation of Dashun, the background that Dashun has won the First World War, the first industrial revolution is about to explode, Dashun is a developed country and there is no imperialism to invade Dashun.

Who is "our" enemy and who is "our" friend, this is the primary question.

The key lies in who "we" are.

Written to Li Li, of course, it is reverse practice.

It is necessary to analyze the mentality of small farmers and the source of their plight.

It is necessary to analyze the demands of the bourgeoisie in the developed areas and their attitude towards private ownership and small land ownership.

It is necessary to analyze the mentality of the military nobles and their interests.

It is necessary to analyze the different mentalities of consumer cities like the capital, production and export trade cities like the developed areas, and old producer handicraft areas in the inland areas where the small peasant economy may be impacted in the face of technological progress, change, and development.

Therefore, according to different purposes, we can distinguish who is "our" enemy, who is "our" friend, who "we" must appease, who "we" must suppress...

Finally, from the perspective of your class, through reverse training, let Li Li do the task "arranged" for him by Liu Yu: dual mission.

Complete the rapid development of industry and alleviate the pain of transformation.

Break the people's superstition about all the old things in the past - there are of course two ways to break this superstition about all the old things in the past.

One is spontaneous, active, and guided, a break of old things.

The second is similar to Napoleon completely breaking the French peasants' fantasy of Napoleon; the Qing Dynasty's bullshit royal cabinet broke the last fantasy of imperial reform; the Japanese devils' burning, killing and looting broke the fantasy of the peasants in those closed villages that they would just change the rulers and pay taxes and grain.

Obviously, Li Li is the second one.

The premise of reverse training is to know the methodology, then find and analyze the problems, but Li Xi obviously does not have this ability.

Before leaving, Liu Yu also needs to send Li Xi a book "Analysis of the various classes at the current stage of this dynasty".

Of course, this booklet needs to be sent to Liu Yu after he leaves the Dashun court and "travels with Chisongzi", and after confirming that Li Xi has signed his name on some booklets that Liu Yu said he would send him "about the future and industry and commerce, as well as solving the problem of people and land, and the poverty of small farmers".

So, later, many incredible stories happened in Dashun.