Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1168 Preparation for War ([-])

From the long-term perspective of the nation of immigrants occupying land, Dashun actually needs to grasp two issues to get to this point.

The first one is to solve the problem that the rich are unwilling to go and the poor have no money to go.

The second is to ensure the return rate of overseas investment. Under the premise of forcing the use of Chinese and increasing labor costs, the profit rate is still higher than that of buying land and collecting rent.

Here we have to pay attention to the expansion of Dashun in the direction of Southeast Asia and India; it is fundamentally different from the reverse expansion of Dashun in the North Pacific, the west coast of North America, and Oceania.

Take North America as an example.

As for the population of Honolulu, Liu Yu can responsibly say that with the set of things Meng Songlu has done, once the sandalwood trade rises, the originally fragile agriculture will collapse, and the population will be reduced by half.

Dashun's capital wants to dig gold in North America, where does the nearest and richest labor force come from?
It can and can only be from Dashun's native land, and catch one's own people as a labor force.

Including Oceania, the logic is the same - if the west coast of North America is next to African slave production areas, if the capital of Dashun is willing to spend an extra money to move a commoner from Henan and Shandong to do labor, it will be hell.

This is a variant of He wants to be a comprador but can't. If he wants to use slaves but can't, he will have to cross the vast Pacific Ocean and recruit people from Shandong, Henan, and Hebei.

Therefore, there is no need to spend much thought on that side, and there is no problem if it is purely relying on the invisible hand.

As for the direction of Nanyang and India, if we rely purely on invisible hands, the future of the Netherlands will be the today of Dashun—working hard for whom, and finally making wedding clothes for others. , that is not enlarged at all.

Because the price of labor in India is not much different from the big surplus.

And from the perspective of distance, death rate, tropical climate adaptation, cultural traditions, and caste hard labor traditions, it is cheaper than immigrants from Dashun.

Therefore, Liu Yu has introduced a very strict labor ratio law. Some places, especially where high profits can be obtained, such as gemstone mines, require a sufficient number of Chinese ratios.

Money is earned, and it is definitely higher than buying land and collecting rent.

But money cannot be earned infinitely, and it is impossible for them to recruit a bunch of cheap Tamils ​​in order to save costs.

Some people may think that oppressing other nations and obtaining high profits for their own nation will give them a different sense of pride.

However, every time a Tamil is oppressed there, it means that Dashun will starve to death a fellow victim, and more people will die in the long-term conflict between people and land.

For many serfs, landless people, and disaster victims in Dashun, this is really an era when they want to be exploited.

Even, it is an era when you want to be a slave but can't.

Historically, during the slave era in North America, there was a famous fugitive slave, Jordan Anderson.

He wrote a famous reply letter to his former master who asked him to go back to work as a slave.

In addition to removing the spirit of resistance and pursuing the rewards that you deserve, there are some words that will make people in some parts of the world many years later, even after World War II, break their defenses.

After he fled, his monthly salary was $25; his son earned $2 a week and $8 a month.For two people combined, it was $33.

At that time, the U.S. dollar was benchmarked against gold. One U.S. dollar was 1.5 grams of gold, and Kuping was 37 grams. That is to say, the father and son escaped slaves and could earn one, two or six gold coins a month.

Even if inflation and decoupling of gold are not taken into account, and only paper dollars are counted, in 160, 2020 years after this letter, the international poverty line will be more than 30 dollars a month.

Heaven-sent land, massive arable land, and massive resources are really not talking about.

According to the soon-to-be-started North American War of Independence, if only white people are counted as people, at the moment of founding the country, the per capita income was based on inflation standards, and at the moment when the Lexington gun was shot, it had already reached the benchmark of high-income countries in later generations.And what did it have to do with the Industrial Revolution at that time?

Many people, including the Chinese workers on the Pacific Railway, said they were servile and didn't know how to resist.But their monthly standard salary is $36, which is nearly a catty of gold a year.But compared to the suffering they have endured, what is that?

You can dig anywhere in San Francisco, without weaving or spinning, and you can dig 1200 million taels of gold in a few years.

An old silver mountain can be dug casually, without planting or cutting, and three to five billion taels of silver can be dug in a few years.

Slaves can eat watermelon fried chicken until they vomit; but before the new year, a law was issued that slaves should not eat lobster more than twice a month; after the Industrial Revolution, the biggest dream of London workers is to save enough boat tickets to become farmers there...

The difference in personal living standards between 5 mu of land per capita with improved fertilizers and 100 mu of land without chemical fertilizers is almost equal.This is a monster that directly saves a 150-year gap in the fertilizer industry at the moment of its birth, and it is too difficult to chase.

Facing the helplessness of this reality, Liu Yu would rather let his compatriots replace black slaves, Javanese slave labor, and Tamil slave labor positions.

Factors such as geographical location and resource land can be smoothed out by developing productivity and technology.

But now, at this time.To smooth out the factors of geographical location and resources, there is at least one second industrial revolution, the popularized fertilizer industry.

At this time, Dashun ranks first in the world in terms of agricultural yield per mu, efficiency of cotton textile industry, quality of cotton cloth, and quality of luxury goods.This is not purely due to the large number of people. Now the best cotton weavers in Manchester can also be beaten by the weavers in Songjiang Prefecture, no matter in terms of quality or efficiency.

However, the reality is still difficult.

Except for the Liaohe agricultural area in the Northeast, and the home textile area along the canal in Songsu, the gap between Dashun and Europe is huge, and only these two places can see the living standards of Britain and France at this time.After all, there is a price revolution, and if the silver income reaches one-third there, it will be regarded as flat.

Since Liu Yu can't create a large chemical fertilizer industry in this era, he would rather choose an extremely cruel policy.

Forced millions of families to die, did not hesitate to destroy Yangzhou, a thousand-year-old city, and hundreds of thousands of porter families who relied on the Nanling trade route to survive, forcing them to go overseas to replace Tamil slaves, black slaves, and Javanese slaves position of the worker.

The future fate is in their own hands, but that is the future.

He doesn't believe in tenderness.

Therefore, after he introduced the treatment of workers in high-profit industries such as gemstone mines and gold mines, he stuffed some key elements of the riots in the Banga mining area into the mining area.

History has proved that the backbone of these riots is the most effective law.

Just like shortly after the completion of the Pacific Railway, those backbones withstood wave after wave of suppression by company gunmen and raised their average monthly salary from 36 to 50.And in that year, a Colt 1873 ivory grip of the same model as Barton later cost about 50 yuan.

The more money they earn, the more they can spend.

Only when they consume can the farming industry be profitable.

The planting industry is profitable, so that capital can spend money to immigrate to cultivate it.

In remote areas such as Mohe, Ceylon, Heihe, North America, and Oceania, only high-profit industries can make the planting industry profitable, and can reverse the distorted dilemma of "the rich are unwilling to go, and the poor cannot."

That is, gold, silver and precious stones.

At the same time, because of the abundant labor force around here, Dashun had to adopt the "low-efficiency" and "low-profit" means of government-supervised and commercial offices, forcing investors to choose to recruit people from Dashun.

Rope and whip the rising classes and, by the way, hang a carrot on a stick.

As for the carrot on the stick, it involves a "luxury aesthetic revolution" quietly taking place in Dashun at this time.

The cultural background of a gentleman like jade, and the charm foundation of Taoism following nature, make gems and other things not have a good market in Dashun.

Of course, it's not that they don't like gems here.

But the highest level of aesthetics is the unity of man and nature.

Therefore, for some gemstones, even the gemstones on the phoenix crown, we will try our best to keep the gemstones inlaid as they are, and the asymmetrical natural fit forms a high-end aesthetic that contains culture.

Liu Yu employed many gem craftsmen and gem cutters with high salaries through his relationship with Europe and France to increase the added value of Ceylon gems and increase profits.

For investors, this is naturally a delicious carrot, and it is also one of the reasons why they can accept and continue to invest when they are forced by Liu Yu and the backbone of the riot to offer a relatively good salary.

Liu Yu believes in the profit-seeking nature of capital. He just doesn't believe in the brains of the emerging class in Dashun, so he has to teach them to further process and add value, instead of selling the rough stones directly to Europe after digging them out.

Humans, like other animals, have a natural affinity for shiny things.The same is true for Dashun's local culture, otherwise there would be no saying that jade is immaculate and ineffective.

It is only the cultural tradition that shapes the aesthetics, and the beauty of this kind of gemstone with sparkles and multiple facets is a low-end aesthetic in Dashun.

Therefore, an aesthetic revolution led by the emerging class is quietly going on.

Because of the problem of etiquette, the emerging class is more likely to accept shiny gems, and it soon leads to a trend.

In order to obtain the royalties of gemstones, the emperor also contributed to the flames, and the luster of gemstones would quietly shine in the tea party ordered by concubines and nobles.

The coarse grinder driven by the steam engine also improved the efficiency of gem cutting; the demand for high-hardness frosting in the initial industrialization and the demand for glass knives under the development of the glass industry also increased the value of gems from an industrial perspective.

For exports to Europe, Dashun itself has the high-end advantage of "luxury".

Porcelain, silk, fans, and lacquerware, all of which have already sparked a Chinese craze in Europe.

One more gemstone in the luxury goods is not at all obtrusive, and with the coarse grinder driven by the steam engine, mass-produced low-end gemstones flock to Europe.

In Dashun, the cut gemstones are still similar to the nouveau riche’s aesthetic of “the house is new, the trees are short and the paintings are not ancient”, but they can still be sold, and the price is not low.

It can also be regarded as laying the foundation for Dashun to monopolize the world's gemstone market after capturing India in the future. A new handicraft group specialized in cutting gemstones has been established under the market demand.

At least before the discovery of diamond mines in South Africa, seizing India means gaining the monopoly of the world gem market, as well as the right to define industry standards and luxury aesthetics.

By the way, it has also laid a deep talent reserve for Dashun's optical polishing talents.

And in the Gem City of Ceylon, Quan Zheshen was amazed by the treatment of workers-every Chinese worker would actively crowd out cheap Tamils, and take the initiative to report, even under the leadership of the backbone of the Bangka riots, called Take breaks to contend and maintain the treatment they can accept in their psychological expectations.

Even, the hired workers here have the option not to eat rice if they don’t like it, but to eat flour instead.It is basically higher than at least 70% of the population of Dashun.

(End of this chapter)