Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 947 London and England ([-])

On November 1652, 12, Xiaoxue.

London is not the place to be in a cold, wet winter's day.After reaching some superficial agreements with the group of merchants a few days ago—the East Bank promised not to enter the Indian market in the short term, and the British promised to help increase the total trade volume of the East Bank in Persia—the other party seemed to be coordinating and sorting out their own Therefore, no gatherings or negotiations were arranged in the next few days.Mo San was naturally happy to be free, so he took advantage of the spare time, accompanied by Mr. Thompson's servant, to visit London and its suburbs, intending to learn more about this country.

London in the middle of the 17th century cannot be compared with London when later Mo San studied abroad, but this city with a population of 40 is still the leading big city in the UK and even the European continent at this time.The huge population living in London has naturally greatly promoted the local prosperity, not to mention the continuous influx of foreign population - including nobles and squires who come to have fun, nobles and nobles who come to big cities to seek a future, The non-eldest sons of the squires, and a larger number of poor people (the land is occupied and lost production and means of living).

The influx of foreign population has provided sufficient manpower for London's increasingly prosperous industry and commerce, and the offices of commercial companies, various professional markets and warehouses, hotels, exchanges, transportation, docks and other commercial institutions that require a large number of manpower have been fully satisfied. , which has promoted the development of the city from another aspect.

As a diplomat on the east coast of an industrial country, Mo San actually paid more attention to the industrial development status of the UK at this time than the commercial situation. Therefore, in the past few days, he focused on the handicraft manufacturing in London and its suburbs. center.For example, the parishes of St. Porterph, St. Giles, St. Thomas, St. Vedust, and St. Mary outside London. These parishes have extremely developed handicrafts, with hundreds of industries, and they are still increasing.For example, the famous St. Giles Archdiocese added more than 17 new industries in the late 260th century, which heralds the vitality of the London economy - because only when the economy is in a thriving environment, will there be strong demand from the people, and the There will be social and technological progress, and new industries will continue to emerge.

The current situation of the investigation made Mo San feel a little worried.The United Kingdom is a very special country. The War of the Roses caused the old-style land nobles to kill each other and greatly reduced their power. Several British kings blindly intervened in the European war and their land continued to decrease (the king sold his real estate to raise military expenses), plus geography The unique location (the island country facilitates the development of overseas trade), all these make the power of the British bourgeoisie very strong, and the power of the conservative aristocracy headed by the king is very weak. Wait for the neighbors to hinder you less.

However, apart from these commodities for consumption in London or overseas exports, woolen cloth, which is known as the British national industry, is rarely seen, or even if it is seen, it is printed and dyed at a later stage, and the scale is not large, which makes Mo Sanhao strange.

"Harrison, do all the woolens your men wear come from London?" Mo San looked at the dungarees worn by the guards behind him, and then asked their leader.

Harrison was wearing a mid-to-high-end silk-cotton blended garment, which was said to have been produced in Manchester—a town that flourished due to the textile industry, and most of its products were exported to overseas colonies. It was known as the largest "village" in England at this time—but His subordinates were dressed in coarse tweed clothes of a much lower grade, which looked cheap at first glance.

"No, they are produced in the West Riding area of ​​Yorkshire. There are some cloth bag buyers in the area. They buy the cloth from the farmers and then ship it to London for sale." Harrison replied succinctly.He thought this pagan envoy was very strange. While looking terribly cold, he was walking around the streets with great interest, asking around, looking around, and taking out a pen and paper from time to time. It was really strange. people.With this time, how comfortable it is to go to a tavern for a drink or two, why bother wandering outside?

Hearing the word "Siledin" coming out of Harrison's mouth, Mo San immediately understood what was going on, because he had heard of the rising rural handicraft industry in England at that time. have read such books.

To put it simply, in order to avoid the shackles of handicraft guilds (the guilds are extremely closed and exclusive, and require strict qualifications for opening a business, only the sons and son-in-laws of the guild members can actually join), a large number of woolen merchants transferred their production to In rural areas, to avoid the high taxes and wages of urban guilds.In this regard, the advantages of the countryside are simply too great. First, it is close to raw material production areas, and wool is extremely cheap; second, many places are rich in water resources, which means that hydraulic machinery can be used for rinsing, printing and dyeing, which greatly reduces labor costs; finally, Farmers generally regard the behavior of spinning and weaving during slack as a sideline to increase income, which creates conditions for woolen merchants to lower wages.

All in all, the production activities were transferred to rural areas with good water power and transportation conditions, which greatly reduced the production cost of woolen fabrics. Since then, British woolen fabrics have been very competitive in price, and gradually occupied many markets in Germany, Northern Europe and Central Europe. A large number of businessmen became rich as a result.

In contrast, cities that are firmly controlled by handicraft guilds, because they insist on producing high-standard and high-quality woolens (due to the high cost of urban labor, they can only produce high-quality goods with relatively high profits), their sales targets They can only be positioned as rich households in urban and rural areas, so the market is small, far inferior to the gradually rising rural handicraft industry, which has brought the development of many cities to a standstill.

The development of the city stagnated, but the countryside, which was positioned to produce a large amount of cheap and low-grade woolen fabrics, developed rapidly. In addition, the formation of the world economic system (only limited to Europe and overseas colonies of various countries) brought about by the prevalence of navigation was affected by thousands of years. The cheap cloth that millions of low-income working people like has a huge market, making the development of this industry almost reach its peak in stages at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. At that time, almost half of the British agricultural population In the rural handicraft industry, a considerable part of it is the woolen industry.

"Are there any woolen-producing villages near London? If it's convenient, I'd like to visit." Mo San suddenly had the idea of ​​going to these woolen-producing areas to take a look, because he was really worried, and his worries were hidden under the calm surface of Britain. Gradually brewing industry sprouts.Think about it, the things brought about by millions of extremely low-priced laborers (the British rural handicraft industry is full of men, women and children, generally working at home, known as the "farmhouse economy") are extremely terrible, so terrible that Mo San fears that they will destroy The textile industry that the East Coast Republic is proud of.

This worry is not superfluous.Farmhouse economy, which Marx called "primitive industrialization", if allowed to develop, will gradually destroy the agricultural economy, and then make farmers become full-time workers, and go to places designated by businessmen to engage in centralized production, which will greatly improve Increase production efficiency and reduce labor costs.This is already done in some places, there are many such woolen manufacturers in Berkshire, and a merchant in Malmesbury even rented a monastery, and then put in "every corner of the monastery". full of looms", employing large numbers of workers for concentrated production.

In the past, this centralized production model mostly existed in industries with large investment such as coal mining, iron smelting, and salt cooking. Others even included Birmingham's "Black Country Iron Industrial Zone" (manufacturing rifles, metal buttons, metal farm tools, knives, etc.) ) are all rural farmhouse economies, so the emergence of such large-scale concentrated factories in light industries such as woolen cloth fully shows that the rural farmhouse economy in the UK is rapidly advancing under the catalysis of the commodity market-they are now less than those on the east coast. It is probably a more reasonable enterprise management system and industrial technology. This is really a crisis.

"Sir, there is no woolen production place in the suburbs of London." Harrison's words quickly interrupted Mo San's thinking, and he only heard him say: "The woolen manufacturing industry is generally concentrated in Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Suffolk The merchants in London know the counties, Berkshires, etc. If you want to buy a suit of clothes, sir, I advise you not to go to the places I mentioned earlier, because they are all low-grade goods, which are not suitable for sir. You are a noble gentleman. You should go to Coventry or Manchester to have a look. There are some silk factories in these places, which produce all kinds of blended silk fabrics all the year round. In addition, the knitwear in Leicester City is also quite good. If you want to If you buy, you will be able to buy textiles that meet your status. You can send all kinds of high-end cloth you bought back to St. Giles Parish and Great St. Martin Parish. There are some tailors who specialize in serving decent people. Their craftsmanship It is superb and will surely please you."

"Very good, Harrison, I remember your words. In the next while, I think I will find time to visit these places, because I am very interested in them." Mo San turned to Harrison and said pleasantly .This young head of the guards looks very capable, and also has some understanding of business affairs. He really deserves to be mixed with someone like Morris Thompson. No one is simple.I just wonder if Thompson and his group of businessmen who have influenced the actual direction of Britain will allow themselves to go deep into the grassroots of British society to investigate?It shouldn't be difficult, because I can carry out this kind of disguised espionage in the name of business cooperation, and these businessmen won't be able to do anything to me at this time.

Thinking of this, Mo San's mood immediately improved, because he felt that he had something to do next.

(End of this chapter)