Qianlong: Qing Dynasty?What about my Daqing?

Chapter 345 Capitalist Industry

Seven years of recovery.

The waves caused by the imperial examination are still shaking in the Ming Empire.

And the large-scale industrial production that spread from Guangdong to Liangjiang, the huge productivity burst out of the industrial revolution is like a monster, turning the southeastern border of the Ming Empire into the largest industrial production base in the world.

The Industrial Revolution struck at the crumbling old order.

A brand new era was quickly dragged out by the roar of steam engines.

Fire splashes.

This new era is like a newborn baby.

His general life will bring new hope and vitality to the Ming Empire and the entire human history.

but in the meanwhile.

The farewell to the old era is also accompanied by labor pains.

No change is possible without cost.

And those who bear the cost of this change are often the lowest and most vulnerable groups.

After the age of 30, the landlords could not take the imperial examination, but they could still be agricultural capitalists, and they could learn new things with their own knowledge. After all, they were still the group with a better life.

And in fact.

In this change.

most painful.

Is the bottom of the farmers.

While some gentry transformed into industrial capitalists.

This means that a large number of tenants began to lose their land.

Forced to join the ranks of immigrants from the Northeast, Southeast Asia, and the New World.

Of course, there are also some landless peasants who are unwilling to go far away, and the future waiting for them is to enter the city, become industrial workers, and become the gravediggers of the bourgeoisie of the Ming Empire—a member of the proletariat.

These landless farmers flocked to the cities.

gathered in the slums.

Become a cheap labor force and further promote the industrialization process of the southeastern border of Ming Dynasty.

under these circumstances.

The populations of Shanghai and Guangzhou began to gather continuously.

The rudiments of two super cities located at the mouth of the Yangtze River and the mouth of the Pearl River have begun to emerge.

Take Shanghai as an example.

Shanghai County of Songjiang Prefecture is being upgraded to become directly under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty, and its administrative status is comparable to that of a province directly under the Central Government of Shanghai.

From the third year of recovery, the county was abolished and the city was promoted.

The population has skyrocketed from a mere 8 to [-] people.

up to now.

There are more than [-] people.

The population is expanding at an astonishing rate.

Moreover, there are still a large number of new laborers pouring into Shanghai every day.

It can be predicted that in the next ten years, Shanghai, located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, will inevitably become an unprecedented super city with a population of several million, and become the most populous city in human history!

And now this city of Shanghai is not the same as other cities.

There are no walls.

The city sprawled along the banks of the Yangtze River.

The originally low-slung Shanghai county has completely disappeared.

Instead.

It is a large number of reinforced concrete buildings.

At the same time, this is also one of the cities with the most developed public transportation in the world. Perhaps the only thing that can be compared with the current Shanghai is Guangzhou, which developed earlier.

But obviously.

The development potential of Guangzhou is not as good as that of Shanghai.

There are contiguous industrial areas here, and a large number of factory owners originally based in Guangzhou have chosen to settle in Shanghai.

From the mouth of the Yangtze River to Chongqing.

A golden waterway runs through it.

The Wanshi ship can sail all the way from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the river port of Chongqing without changing ships.

On both sides of this waterway are the areas with the most dense population and the most concentrated wealth in the Ming Empire.

The advancement of technology, the concentration of population, and the three major agricultural provinces of Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan are the backing.

Shanghai, Zhongdu, Wuhan, Chongqing.

Several large cities are connected in series on this waterway.

Making this place a large contiguous market has also become one of the driving forces to promote industrialization.

But these days and the right place and people, everything is concentrated at the mouth of the Yangtze River, in Shanghai.

The whole of Shanghai is no longer a hundred-mile foreign market in history, and it is a pity that Shanghai-style culture and comprador culture have not been bred.

Because now those in Shanghai are no longer coming from afar, loaded with industrial products, entering the inland from the mouth of Shanghai, and dumping the merchant ships and warships of the great powers in China.

It's a row of towering chimneys belching black smoke.

The industrial products of the Ming Empire will start from here and be sold all over the world.

A large number of chimneys are emitting thick smoke, polluting the Huangpu River into a dark, stinking ditch.

It is also showing the magic of the industrial age.

The large-scale production of machines driven by steam engines has increased labor productivity to an unbelievable level.

As the Ming Empire ruled the world, especially the southern railway network began to be planned and constructed, the railways connecting several major cities have begun to operate, and at the same time, a large number of people have poured in and concentrated, and the vassal states of the Ming Empire are not important to the Ming Dynasty. What is the concept of tariff protection.

For example, the north and south of Japan, North Korea, and Annan are all countries with a population of more than [-] million.

There are also Myanmar, Siam and other countries.

and India.

The surrounding market alone has a population of at least [-] million.

Plus the [-] million population of the Ming Empire itself.

60.00% of the world's population is completely open to the industrial products of the Ming Empire.

There are no tariffs, and even the threat of pirates has been reduced to a negligible level under the continuous sweep of the Ming Empire Navy.

Driven by the two big markets at home and abroad, a large number of factories have sprung up at high altitudes, and at the same time, these businessmen and landlords who dare to invest funds in industrial production have quickly become rich.

A large number of beautiful villas have been built in the north of Shanghai.

They are all mansions of factory owners, traders, and senior managers.

Railway tracks were laid on the main roads of Shanghai, and horse-drawn trains pulled by horses shuttled through the city.

at the same time.

In the south of Shanghai.

The first generation of industrial workers of the Ming Empire.

But living in dire straits.

The closed and narrow slums are located in the south of the factory area. The local landlords have converted the farmland into buildings, and the buildings are divided into grid rooms. The rent is quite cheap, attracting workers from the factory area to live in.

At this time, to the north of the slums is the industrial area.

Jardine House came to Shanghai to invest and build a factory three years ago.

At this time, Wu Dunyuan, the owner of Jardine House, who was obviously more affluent, was wearing a very fashionable Daohua suit, and his hair was no longer on his head-in fact, all the workers in the factory were required not to wear their hair.

Because long hair is too dangerous in large-scale machine production.

The workers are not like those high-ranking officials. There are special people who come to serve and comb the hair, and randomly put the hair on the head. It will be terrible if it is twisted by the machine.

There have been many similar incidents in Guangzhou.

and so.

Now every factory has made it clear that any worker must shave their hair short before they can work in the factory—this has of course become a point of attack for Confucian scholars in newspapers like Gentleman Daily to attack the new learning.

People in the Qing Dynasty still kept braids.

It's good for you Ming Dynasty.

I don't even keep the braids, just shave my hair short, what does it look like.

However, the right to speak of these Confucian scholars is getting lower and lower.

Wu Dunyuan is very political, so he shaved his hair on his own initiative.

Still leaning on a tiger's head crutch, he took a distinguished Western guest to visit his factory.

"Mr. Kant." Wu Dunyuan pointed to the workers who were being searched at the gate of the factory, and said to the tanned Kant.

"These are workers from the morning shift, they've come off work."

Kant has been inspecting the Eastern countries for several years, going to Korea, Japan, Annan, Siam and other places.

Then to Guangzhou.

Then to Shanghai.

He has already planned to write a record of oriental knowledge called "Journey to the East".

It records in detail the process of the Ming Empire from its birth to its rise over the years.

The impact on the various parts of the Ming Empire and the countries in the East.

Yes.

Kant already planned to return to Europe.

Since he went to the East with Zhu Daohua in 1789, it is now 1797 AD.

For eight full years.

It can be said that it was an eye-opener in the East.

Now, after wandering around for a few years and returning to the south where the wealth of the Ming Empire gathered, Kant found that what he had learned in the past few years was about to be overturned again.

this country.

It's going too fast.

'Are they being searched? '

Kant frowned slightly.

Such a scene is really not elegant.

Those workers who worked a night shift were searched without dignity when they got off work.

This industrialized mass production has brought great wealth, however.. it may also bring great suffering to many people.

These workers are obviously oppressed.

"Yes, you can't do it without a body search. You don't know that the factory produces yarn. The cotton yarn is so expensive. It's inevitable that some workers with dirty hands and feet will steal the goods from the factory and sell them. You can't do it without a body search!"

The queue was lined up in two rows.

A line of male workers and a line of female workers.

For the working people of this era.

Being frisked by an employer is not a personal insult.

But if the male foreman is touching the body of the female worker.

Guaranteed to kill people.

The workers were dressed in ragged short-sleeved clothes, and most of them were barefoot.

His complexion is not good either.

Sallow and thin.

Evidently not eating well.

And among the male and female workers, there are child workers!
Same as England in history.

There is also child labor.

The Ming Empire under the rule of Emperor Zhu was not a lighthouse country with enviable social welfare.

It is a country full of exploitation and injustice, where the gap between the rich and the poor and the inequality of personality status can be seen everywhere.

Of course, there was no compulsory education in the Ming Dynasty.

Although the Royal Education Group of the Ming Dynasty and the Ministry of Education of the Ming Dynasty are both formulating plans to build colleges, middle schools and primary schools covering the whole country.

Prepare for the next five years.

Establish five university clusters in the five major cities of Guangzhou, Shanghai, Zhongdu, Beidu and Wuhan.

As the five major educational centers in east, west, north, south.

Imagine.

Students around these five cities and the provinces where they are shrunk will definitely be blessed in the future.

And to be sure.

Provinces with large populations such as Henan and Shandong have not benefited from any policies.

In the future, the university entrance examination will definitely be very difficult.

This damn historical inertia.
In addition, [-] primary schools and [-] secondary schools should be established throughout the country.

Although the plans are ambitious.

But obviously.

Compared with the "baby boom" caused by medical progress in the Ming Dynasty, there will be more than [-] million school-age children in the next ten years.

Three thousand primary schools and eight hundred middle schools.

It's just a drop in the bucket.

The quantity is simply too small.

Things are rare.

In addition, private schools for learning the Four Books and Five Classics are no longer popular.

The society has generally begun to accept new education.

More and more wealthy people choose to send their children to new-style schools.

Even the princes and princesses went to Zhongdu Royal Primary School, so of course the nobles in Zhongdu had to follow in the footsteps of Emperor Zhu and send their children to be classmates with the princes, princes, and princesses.

Now that the new type of education has become popular.

The era of free is over.

So now primary and secondary schools are charged.

Tuition is not expensive.

But it is not affordable for the children of the ordinary working class and ordinary farmers.

"Is the salary low?"

Kant frowned and asked those obviously malnourished workers.

He found the factories to be quite clean.

This was the only advantage he saw when he came to the factory area.

But what Kant didn't know was.

When Wu Dunyuan heard that the emperor's friend was coming to visit the factory, he had someone clean it inside and out to make it look clean.

"Low? How can it be low? Mr. Kant, the average male worker in my factory can get this amount for the most common monthly salary!"

Wu Dunyuan stretched out five fingers.

"five yuan?"

Kant froze for a moment.

"Yes! Five yuan can be exchanged for fifty cents, and five hundred cents can buy more than one hundred catties of rice! Those who work the night shift also get compensation for the night shift, and there are red envelopes during the holidays. How can it be so low!"

Wu Dunyuan shook his head and said, with a painful expression on his face.

Red envelope?

Kant squinted at Wu Dunyuan.

How much money can you Cantonese give in red envelopes?

This little money also counts.

What a vampire.

In the sixth year of the recovery, Wu Dunyuan, a big capitalist who had made a total of 100 million yuan in net profits through trade, shipping, and textile industries, felt heartbroken at the fact that he gave each worker a monthly salary of five yuan.

this capital.

Sure enough, she was pregnant from head to toe.

It's not an exaggeration to say he's a vampire.

An ordinary male worker earns five Ming Yuan a month.

Working 12 hours a day, the daily salary is about 0.16 yuan a day.

Converted to British pounds, it is about 0.5 pounds.

This wage level is actually higher than that of workers in London.

"What about child labor and female labor? How much do they make?"

"Women workers are paid two-thirds of the wages of male workers, and child workers are paid two-thirds of the wages of female workers. This is the same calculation in both Shanghai and Guangzhou."

Wu Dunyuan introduced happily.

He actually likes to use child labor and female labor.

In his own words: "Where child labor can be used, female labor will never be used, and where female labor can be used, male labor will never be used."

"Is it easy to recruit people? No one will go on strike?" Kant asked.

"Good move! It's so easy to recruit people now. Too many people have moved into the city this year. Go on strike? Let's go, at worst, recruit another batch."

Wu Dunyuan is not afraid of the strike at all.

As long as the skilled workers in the factory can be stabilized, workers on the assembly line can be recruited casually.

(End of this chapter)