New Shun 1730

This lie that cannot be revealed is the contradiction between the imperial power and China.

Liu Yu is sure that the imperial power will not allow a Chinese version of the East India Company to have an army, taxation, and even the power to establish a government abroad.

The country is not an inseparable whole. There are different classes and different interests. It takes a large amount of investment to manage Nanyang. As for whether it is profitable, it depends on where you sit.

The emperor's pioneering spirit tempted by interests will one day reach an unacceptable threshold.

After this summons, Liu Yu walked around the capital alone for a few rounds, trying to feel a little different from a few years ago, but there was not much, and there was no immediate and visible change.

The biggest change is that Dashun began to officially ban religion and announced a break with the Roman Catholic Church.

If you continue to believe in orthodox Catholicism, missionaries will be sent to Macau and prohibited from preaching in the mainland; or, like Taoist priests and monks, they will be managed by the government, and believers can continue to believe in foreign religions, but customs such as worshiping ancestors, worshiping Confucius, and kneeling to the emperor will not listen to the so-called "holy edicts" of the Holy See.

The two Catholic churches around the once bustling Forbidden City are no longer as noisy as before. For most people who do not believe in religion at all, this change does not cause much discomfort.

Presumably, for a long time, religion will still spread in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other places.

Religion is the spiritual anesthesia of the poor, and it is also the last resort for some weak people to fight against the clan. In the future, it will surely spread to places with strong clan power such as Fujian and Guangxi.

Dashun has been slowly divided.

The small peasant society in the north; the Confucian scholars and landlords in the south; the clans and believers in the south; different economic foundations will also give birth to different ideological soils, just like the original dispute between southern and northern Confucianism, I am afraid that there will be more new interpretations in the future.

He stayed at the door of his Western learning teacher Dai Jinxian for a while, but finally did not step in. I wanted to talk to Dai Jinxian about the ban on religion in Dashun, but after thinking about it, this kind of thing is almost unsolvable.

Maybe Dashun will produce a few talents to change Catholicism into a religion like monks and Taoists, or maybe not, but this is not something he can control.

Walking around, Liu Yu suddenly found that he could not find a few friends of the same age in the capital, even if they were bad friends.

Either they followed the Duke of Qi to study abroad and had not returned yet, or they had already served in various departments or joined the army. Even Tian Ping, who was very familiar to him, was now sent to Songjiang to work in the customs.

Just like when he first came to this world many years ago, the whole capital was a little strange to him. He missed the rumbling of Weihai and the white sails of warships.

With the navy in his mind, he was eager to go home, but he couldn't leave for the time being.

He still had to wait for a group of people, that is, a large number of bastards who had learned arithmetic and geometry, but could not pass the Wude Palace, and could not inherit the status of a good family.

This was the preparatory teacher he had conceived to teach natural common sense by self-study and start a new business. With his fame and the precedent of presiding over the enrollment of the Jinghai Palace official school, Liu Yu still has appeal.

He waited until May, participated in several court debates, and finally waited for the silver allocated by the court and the recruited personnel.

It was time to leave the capital.

Tian Zhenyi did not sneak out to see him off. Liu Yu told her what happened in the palace. The two of them tacitly did not do anything out of the ordinary, such as meeting in private.

Fortunately, summer has arrived, and the Duke of Qi and his party should be back soon. The long wait is finally over, and the mood is still very good.

Arriving in Weihai all the way, the scene that is somewhat different from the capital once again appeared in front of him, and Liu Yu felt much more comfortable.

Just like Bianjing in the Song Dynasty, the wealth of the country was concentrated there, providing a different kind of prosperity.

Weihai is the same.

The court's annual military pay and investment; the massive capital injection that almost monopolized the trade with Japan; the military factories and various workshops built here all made this place look abnormally prosperous.

A city with a population of only tens of thousands, with hundreds of thousands of taels of fiscal revenue transferred here every year, plus the capital enrichment from the trade with Japan, it would be an understatement to say that it was abnormal.

Next to the dry dock, a Newcomen steam engine bought from Europe by the French at a high price was pumping water there with thick black smoke.

The earliest warship in service was moored there, and workers were cleaning barnacles and various shellfish from the bottom of the ship.

The asphalt bought from Nanyang was boiled in a large pot, giving off a pungent smell.

The heavy Newcomen steam engine laboriously drained the water from the dry dock, and the air mixed with smoke and the pungent smell of asphalt gave off a sweetness in Liu Yu's nose that others could hardly experience.

"Cigarettes! Matches!"

The sailors who came ashore to rest received their salaries. The children who carried boxes and sold cigarettes and matches produced in the workshop knew that these sailors were the most willing to spend money, so they surrounded the sailors and shouted loudly.

The unmarried sailors generously bought two packs of cigarettes, and several people bought a few matches together, and staggered into the city.

The dense brothels, restaurants, and grocery stores in the city all showed that there was a large group of people with money to spend.

On the way to the dock, newly made cannons were being loaded and transported southward.

The sea merchants of Dashun were allowed to carry some cannons to guard against pirates. The cannons here were of good quality and very popular among sea merchants in the south. In addition, the Chamber of Commerce for trade with Japan would definitely purchase them, so the business was booming.

Outside the military factory, a new batch of recruitment is underway. The overall situation of the Dashun military reform has been determined, and a large number of orders for flintlock rifles and bayonets can be expected to usher in a wave of great development in the next few years.

After the trial of the land tax and permanent tenancy system in Wendeng, the population flow was also promoted. Many local people in Wendeng went to Weihai to find a job working in a workshop, and not everyone could get a permanent tenancy.

Under the policy of forced permanent tenancy, more and more landlords also chose to move to the city, or invested in shares of military factories, or opened various shops.

Occasionally, there would be a few four-wheeled carriages carrying flat glass to the homes of some wealthy families, and some wealthy families had begun to try to replace the main hall with glass that was more transparent than window paper.

Liu Yu was sure that this deformed prosperity would continue for a while. As long as the court placed the fleet's home port in Weihai, it would be more prosperous than elsewhere.

The "trading" of population, which was even more deformed than this deformed prosperity, was also taking place in this deformed port. People who were bought or cheated from various places at low prices waited woodenly to board the ship to meet their unknown fate.

The distant Whale Sea legend is very cold and as far away as the horizon, but in the description of those human traffickers, it is clearly a paradise.

There are long-term workers bought by locals, and some are bought to reclaim wasteland. The grain does not need to be transported away, it can be traded in Vladivostok, and the bills can be directly exchanged for silver in Weihai.

In addition to the people transported outward, during the monsoon, the ships of the French East India Company also brought a group of various craftsmen hired by Liu Yu.

They were all lured here with high salaries and promises of being allowed to invest in shares, "wanting to make a fortune in the East", or they were craftsmen and technicians sent by the semi-official level of France.

The French captain who specializes in transporting people and machinery purchased by Liu Yu is already very familiar with Liu Yu. After a brief courtesy, he took out a piece of information about Europe that Liu Yu had previously reserved.

The collection of industrial and commercial intelligence by following the map, the direction to be collected is all written in advance by Liu Yu, and a sum of silver is paid.

None of them are secrets, it's just that no one has noticed this direction. He wrote down the direction, so it's easy to collect.

After flipping through the contents of the intelligence book, Liu Yu frowned slightly. There was a piece of news that made him feel a little uneasy.

Local British merchants related to the cotton textile industry are holding a massive petition campaign, hoping that the British government will relax restrictions on the cotton textile industry.

The beginning of the industrial revolution on the technical level has not yet arrived.

And the foundation at the policy level, I am afraid that Britain will have to lay a good foundation in the next few years.

The enclosure movement in Britain is to enclose land and raise sheep.

The foundation of Britain's textile industry is woolen cloth, not cotton. This is a bulk commodity exported by Britain and the pillar of Britain's handicraft industry.

However, with the expansion of the East India Company's trade, Chinese and Indian cotton cloth, with low prices, excellent quality, and good dyeing, has been madly impacting Britain's woolen textile industry.

Cotton cloth is good and cheap, and Britain's local handicraft industry has been greatly impacted by the foreign goods of the East India Company.

Thirty years ago, the wool textile industry, which was hit, began large-scale marches, rallies, and petitions. In the end, Britain issued a decree: textiles from China, India, and Persia were absolutely prohibited from entering Britain.

However, the East India Company had a very strong relationship.

Decrees were decrees, policies were policies, and there were countermeasures for the policies. The sales were not delayed at all, making the British wool textile industry difficult.

More than a decade ago, the South Sea bubble burst, and Britain's finances had big problems. Industry and commerce were affected by the bubble explosion and the gold standard reform of Lord Bull, and exports were even more difficult.

After the bubble burst, even more stringent policies were introduced. In order to protect local handicrafts, the import of cotton cloth was strictly prohibited to the maximum extent.

It was even strictly prohibited for British people to wear cotton cloth. Not only was import prohibited, but even wearing cotton cloth was not allowed.

In stark contrast to the free trade advocated by the Anglo-Saxons in later generations, Britain at this time was a "closed-door" country, similar to Dashun.

It was just that Dashun wanted free trade but had nothing to import, while Britain was subjective and proactive and only allowed exports and no imports.

However, the merchants of the East India Company had already discovered a problem: the decree said that cotton cloth was not allowed to be worn, so if cotton cloth was mixed with linen and wool, would it still be cotton cloth?

Alphabetical words all have proper nouns. If this piece of cloth is 90% cotton cloth and the remaining 10% is linen or wool, then this piece of cloth should be called cotton, linen and wool blended cloth, not cotton cloth, so this decree has loopholes.

With this loophole, Britain began to produce some blended cloth mixed with linen, cotton and wool to evade the decree.

Of course, the biggest beneficiary is still the East India Company.

By setting up some empty textile factories, cotton cloth from China and India was transported to Britain and then sold under the name of "blended cloth".

It's the same all over the world. As long as there is a small loophole in the decree, capital will poke this loophole into a huge hole. The same is true for Liu Yu's rice transport to Japan, which is allowed to be mixed with some goods.

As the impact of the South Sea Bubble gradually faded, and as large quantities of cotton cloth were smuggled and sold as blended cloth, some British cotton textile practitioners began to seek legitimacy from this loophole.

Businessmen in Manchester and Lancashire have been lobbying on a large scale since this year, hoping that the government will relax the cotton cloth policy and that Manchester's linen-cotton blended fabrics can obtain a legitimate qualification to be sold in the UK.

Judging from the reports collected by the French, this lobbying is basically going to succeed.

As long as this policy is relaxed, the policy foundation of the British cotton textile industry will be laid.

The British have invented the flying shuttle, but this thing has no impact on the textile industry in Jiangnan.

In the short term, the East India Company will still benefit. If this hole is opened, they can ship Indian spindles to the UK, and directly transporting banned cotton cloth will definitely be risky.

But since Manchester's mixed fabrics are allowed, spinning and weaving are spinning, and spinning and weaving are weaving. Indian spindles can meet the needs after the invention of the flying shuttle and the policy allows cotton textiles.

After seeing this news, Liu Yu was a little anxious. Since there is still hope of "seeking superiority", he must consider how to go in the future.

Following the British would not work.

The spinning jenny is a magical tool in Britain, but not in Dashun.

Because the yarn spun by this thing is not suitable for pure cotton cloth, but for mixed cloth of linen, cotton and wool. The yarn spun by this thing is easy to break, and it needs tougher linen and wool as warp and cotton as weft.

Moreover, Britain does not allow pure cotton products for the time being. Manchester and Lancashire still exploit the policy loopholes and believe that their textiles are not pure cotton cloth but mixed cloth. Pure cotton cloth is still banned in Britain at this time.

Dashun cotton cloth is cotton cloth and linen cloth is linen cloth. There are few such mixed cloths. The easily broken spinning jenny is equivalent to a waste in Dashun and is of no great use.

What is really useful is the spinning mule. The emergence of the spinning mule made the factory production of pure cotton products possible.

However, everyone knows that the spinning jenny is easy, but the spinning mule is difficult. At least Liu Yu does not know how to make this thing and does not understand the principle.

The spinning jenny is the beginning of the British Industrial Revolution, so it is widely circulated.

But in fact, if this thing is placed in Songjiang, it will be scolded to death by the weavers in Songjiang: The yarn spun by this thing is so thin and so easy to break, how can it be used to weave cloth?

However, the mule spinning machine, which is more low-key and more suitable for Dashun, has not been widely circulated, and there is no "golden idea" that can inspire people to know what this thing is about.

Moreover, when the mule spinning machine was invented, Napoleon had moved from Corsica to France, and it was impossible to copy this thing.

But there is one thing that Liu Yu can be sure of not copying the Jenny spinning machine, but always keeping an eye on the British patent.

See if there are any early water-powered spinning machines in the past few years, and then recruit people with a lot of money to continue to improve.

After thinking about it, Liu Yu felt that this road of "seeking excellence" cannot be taken according to the established method of plagiarism. Still have to consider a different way... For example, bypass the light industry first, wait for plagiarism, and put energy and large investments on the front technology of the steam engine "hydraulic boring machine".

This thing can both dig cylinders and drill gun barrels, taking a path that is completely opposite to the British approach of starting with light and then moving on to heavy, market-driven demand, and demand promoting progress: starting with heavy and then moving on to light, a path that violates the laws of market demand.