Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1159 Many Diverging Roads, Today Is Here ([-])

So, before the industrial revolution broke out in Songsu, Dashun, what was the main problem in the world's cotton textile trade?

It is the working people of India and the working people of China who are slapping each other and comparing each other to see who has slapped whom.

Look at these two big countries with a population of over [-] million, whoever gets involved will control the world's cotton textile trade.

London, Paris, Manchester, Lancashire, etc., are also worthy of participating in this cotton roll at this time?

However, with the outbreak of the Dashun Industrial Revolution, the nature has changed. It is no longer a handicraft industry with similar efficiency. It is cheaper to see whose labor is cheaper.

Instead, it became a battle of efficiency.

They are all handicrafts, and everyone is similar.

In the sky, I rub one foot two, you rub one foot three, there is no difference in order of magnitude.

But things changed after the Industrial Revolution.

Even Dashun's weak iron wheel pedal loom, lacking steam and the beauty of a large factory, still increased the efficiency by four times.

This is really not something that can be won by working hard and lowering wages.

But the industrial revolution in Dashun just broke out.

Therefore, after Dashun sanctioned the Danish East India Company and engaged in the teaching case and the opium case, the shareholders of the British East India Company launched a class self-help movement and increased investment in India.

Because, in addition to tea, porcelain, rhubarb, high-end silk, brass and other competitive products, it seems that India can really replace some of Dashun's goods.

Of course, it seemed that Dashun traded a lot of handicrafts for a pile of waste silver that couldn't be eaten when hungry and couldn't be worn when it was cold.

But in fact, this is not the real main line of Dashun's trade and reform over the years.

The real main line is to accumulate a large amount of silver through the enrichment of commerce, and then use this enriched silver as investment, basically throwing it into the large-scale development of the Northeast, Nanyang, Subei, and Ezo.

It is still a variant of high accumulation and high investment under the control of the visible hand.

Otherwise, Dashun's problem of exchanging copper coins and silver, which caused Liu Yu a headache and couldn't figure it out, would have exploded long ago.

After all, the situation of Dashun at this time is a bit like that of the later generations in the 90s. How much green paper they earn and how much RMB is issued internally. Basically, the Songsu Trade Zone is the note-issuing bank of Dashun, which uses silver as currency.

Dashun is just that Liu Yu controls the "note-issuing bank" and throws the money to the immigration development of the Northeast and Southeast Asia, making the plate bigger and controlling inflation.

The effect is that Dashun is fine now, but a bigger crisis is behind it. Making a bigger plate makes the capital increase faster. The next time you can’t find an investment point, maybe Songsu Capital will really run to the land. I went to buy land.

Therefore, with the outbreak of the Dashun Industrial Revolution, the logic of the Indian issue is different from the previous Northeast Development and Nanyang Development.

Dashun needs India to be a source of raw materials and a market for industrial products.

But at this moment, this logic must not make sense, because it seems that the industrial product market cannot be done now.

Therefore, we can only use the business capital profit problem taught by the rebellious old horse to confuse the emperor to come to India to collect taxes and salt taxes.

Before that, Dashun faced the same trade dilemma as France.

But in fact, it is not the same as France.

The similarities between Dashun and France in India's trade issues determine that France will inevitably withdraw from India.

The difference between Dashun and France in terms of trade in India determined that Emperor Dashun was very interested in India.

Not just a pie.

After all, Duplex also paid the French king a pie for tax collection.

The difference is that, indeed, Dashun has many things that cannot be sold in India.For example, the textiles that overlap with France, cotton and woolen are all textiles.

But Dashun has a lot of things that can be sold in India, so that the emperor really sees the money, and France really doesn't have any.

Moreover, this has little to do with Dashun's industrial revolution.

Basically, the products of the industrial revolution that Dashun just started to develop cannot be sold in India.

However, Dashun's own handicraft industry expertise and Dashun's operation in Southeast Asia have allowed Dashun to tenaciously maintain a huge trade surplus with India.

mahogany.

sandalwood.

black pepper.

sulfur.

coffee.

Dried fruits such as dates.

tin.

teak.

Burmese ivory.

chili.

Candle.

whale oil.

Incense.

Masala powder made from Zhejiang turmeric and Nanyang spices.

Ceylon betel nuts, gemstones.

Palm oil from South Sea plantations.

And the characteristic products of Dashun handicraft industry: alum, porcelain, tea.

Glass.

The counterfeit clock on the Songsu side.

Weird drugs.

As well as Dashun’s special Indian offerings: gold powder—the gold powder of Dashun is not gold powder, but zinc alloy powder. The rich Indians like to sprinkle the gold powder that may be real gold, which drives Dashun’s Shellfish gold powder has become a very distinctive, irreplaceable commodity that quickly became famous.Maybe gold powder has some religious or cultural significance in India. In short, the gold powder rubbed out of zinc alloy by profiteers in Dashun is very easy to sell.

I looked at the fragments, but I couldn't hold back some of them were the emperor's exclusive money to enter the country, and some were fragmented but added up.

Dashun imports goods in India, just a few.

cotton.

saltpeter.

rice.

hemp rope.

Gone.

Cotton is mainly used for the padded jackets and trousers of immigrants from the Northeast, so that the long-staple cotton in Java in northern Jiangsu can be used to make cloth.

On the one hand, the demand for gunpowder surged after the Dashun military reform; on the other hand, northern Jiangsu used Indian saltpeter as fertilizer.

As for many stories, it seems that India produces the finest dye, indigo.

In fact, India does not produce indigo now.

Dashun and France monopolize the world's indigo dye at this time.

Historically, Haiti monopolized the world’s indigo production until the storm of 93, when revolutionary ideas spread all over the world, and the black leader Toussaint who accepted the enlightenment ideas of the Great Revolution revolted—so before the ginseng trade, no one would be willing to take For the whole of North America, change to Haiti, which produces 40% of European cane sugar, almost 100% of indigo monopoly, and eats mud cakes for later generations.

France is willing to use a fleet of battleships to defend Haiti, but it is impossible to be willing to send 1000 more troops to India.

And the reason why Dashun can monopolize the indigo dye together with France at this time, this is also a strange coincidence...

Because, Dashun prides himself on the virtue of water.

Then there is the famous satirical joke before the founding of Dashun: In the eyes of the mud-legged people in Dashun, the virtue of water is not black, but blue... "Thieves appreciate the virtue of water, and they appreciate blue."

Therefore, Dashun's military uniform is blue.

Therefore, the plantations in Southeast Asia, especially Java, became the origin of indigo along with Haiti.

However, coincidentally, before the advent of synthetic dyes, if the Industrial Revolution broke out, the most suitable universal dye would be indigo.

Cheap and energy-produced, it is most suitable for industrialization.

Otherwise, things like carmine are expensive and not suitable for use on mechanical cotton cloth; and dyes like betel nut, the color is not what Dashun likes.

Therefore, at this time, there is no indigo in Dashun’s trade imports in India at this time, because India’s indigo export will not start in India until the storm of 93 blows, the British are dumbfounded, and the industrial chain is broken. Engage indigo on a large scale.

On the contrary, the dye raw material from India is Ceylon betel nut provided by Dashun. They prefer this color.

The above are the differences between Dashun and France when facing the Indian issue.

Therefore, Liu Yu never used a bourgeois perspective and world view to tell the story of India to the emperor.

Because although there is a capitalist trade component, this component can only arouse the interest of the emperor, but it is not enough to make the emperor make up his mind to engage in India.

From the beginning to the end, Liu Yu was from the perspective of a standard, minister of the emperor, and feudal ruling class, trying to fool the emperor into India.

Three perspectives.

Lao Ma’s [commercial capital, in the dominant position, everywhere represents a system of plundering and plundering] is a reversal under the understanding of the feudal ruler’s characteristics, that is, tax collection.

This need not be mentioned.How Liu Yu introduced salt merchants before the salt reform, and how the Dutch suppressed sugar prices in Java before, is called the robbery system under the dominant position of commercial capital.

The other two are cotton and saltpeter.

Looking at cotton from the perspective of capitalism is different from looking at cotton from the perspective of the feudal rulers of Dashun.

Needless to say, the perspective of capitalism.

The emperor's point of view was that the emperor did not want cotton to be grown in North China and the Central Plains.

I hope they can grow more food. A little bit of cotton is fine, as long as they have enough for themselves. Don't use a lot of land to grow cotton.

My heart is not at ease.

Northern Jiangsu can grow cotton for profit, because the transportation in northern Jiangsu is convenient, but it is regarded as "outside" by the emperor instead of "inside", throwing out the small peasant economy, which is the basic imperial power.

Something really happened... see what happened.

In the event of an accident, there is the advantage of sea transportation, which is convenient for mobilizing food for disaster relief, so nothing major will happen.

If something goes wrong, food can be blocked to facilitate suppression, but nothing major will happen.

If the Central Plains area is infected by the Songsu area, if they don’t grow food, they will go to grow cotton. The invisible hand can adjust it, but the problem is that it takes time to adjust. The emperor is afraid that the adjustment will be finished, and the rebel army will first raise his ancestor’s grave.

No food is a big deal.

Especially the Grand Canal was pinched by Liu Yu, and the rice in the capital was stable, but if there was a famine in Henan and other places, the canals could not be counted on to transport rice, so it is better to honestly grow grain.

Of course, it is best to plant cotton in the non-core area to meet the cotton demand under the development of commodity economy.

In the past few years, along with activities such as reclamation in Mengmeng and entering the Guandong, some places in North China have also begun to grow cotton, and the price has risen in recent years.

The emperor hoped that Liu Yu would use low-priced foreign cotton to directly kill North China’s idea of ​​trying to grow cotton and not grow food well, just like Shenyang’s method of trying to grow cotton in Shenyang before—what kind of cash crops to grow? , Tobacco, cotton, all shoveled.

Because the emperor basically understood a truth: as long as there is food to eat, the common people will not rebel in general; the Central Plains and North China are the basic areas of Dashun's imperial power. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were too many deaths in wars, and there were few compromises in Dashun, so the small-scale peasant economy It is very stable, and the basic market in the sense of class cannot be messed up.

So, this brings up the issue of Bengal saltpetre.

At this time, there are saltpeter mines that are mined, transported, and practical all over the world, only Chile and Bangladesh.

There is no need to mention the military value.

The key was the Academy of Sciences. The first department of agriculture under the guidance of Liu Yu gave the emperor the hope of a stable rule.

Liu Yu's level is definitely not good enough to engage in breeding.

However, he understands that every flower in a crop depends on the fertilizer.

Saltpeter is used as nitrogen and potassium fertilizers, sprinkled with crackling, and the yield of 150 catties of wheat per mu can reach 600 catties.

The yield per mu of 600 jin is put into later generations, which is called "disaster", "food crisis" and "disaster year".

Put it now, that is, the emperor has seen a lot of strange things in the past few years, otherwise he could directly be "auspicious".

The emperor's evaluation of this is [If the fields in the world are like this, this dynasty can expect Ji Zhou's 800-year foundation].

This evaluation is already extremely high.

Because since the legend of "stop when things go well, 300 years of foundation" has been circulated early in the Ming Dynasty in the former dynasty-this saying was made before the uprising, not made up later-basically, the mouth is shouting for thousands of generations, and the heart is It’s like a bright mirror: 300 years of foundation is the limit, 400 years of Zifang Xinghan and 800 years of Taigong Wangzhou can only be in a dream.

The agricultural department of the Academy of Sciences has so far produced "Xiangrui", with wheat yielding 600 jin per mu; corn cobs as "huge" as a baby's arm; interplanting peas and wheat together yielding over [-] jin per mu...

Later generations can basically regard it as a "disaster year", and at this time, it is all jaw-dropping auspiciousness.

Liu Yu's dream is industrialization.

His dreams don't need imagination, because he just follows them.

In fact, these years, the emperor also had the dream of "industrialization with the characteristics of feudal imperial power" under Liu Yu's flickering.

Basically it's all about thinking:
A few Grand Canals with unnecessary water—that is, railways—have stationed the elite in the capital, and wherever there is something wrong, they will be quickly suppressed.

The combination of steam engines and Tianlong carts is popular in North China, and the government controls the pumping stations of steam engines and Tianlong carts, so there is no danger of floods or droughts.

Get a saltpeter mine with an output of 800 catties per mu. Don’t rebel. If you can achieve the miracle of Ji Zhou’s 600 years, or even 500 or [-] years, it is estimated that even if Dashun dies, maybe there will be a "golden sword" Prophecy" and stuff like that.

Man cannot imagine what he has not seen.

The industrial production of these things is definitely out of the question now, but the "models" of the Academy of Sciences are so smooth. The model of steam car, railway, Tianlong car and saltpeter fertilizer is still easy to rub out.

and so.

Where does the money come from?

Indian taxes.

Where does saltpeter come from?
Indian mining.

Where do miners come from?
Indian labor.

What do miners eat?

Basmati rice.

As for Liu Yu’s idea of ​​destroying India’s small-scale peasant economy, pulling into the capitalist system, etc., the emperor doesn’t care if he knows it or not. Also see no conflicts.

At least before occupying India, we were fellow travelers.

(End of this chapter)