New Shun 1730

Now Liu Yu has raised the banner of free trade, and the premise for the popularity of free trade theory in the UK is that China's shipping trade has been suppressed by foreign control and tariffs under the background of "the ocean is a natural tariff."

Now the ship of the Dashun Western Trading Company has perfectly completed the first voyage of trade, which has brought an end to the ongoing debate in Britain at this time about "merchant or freedom."

The originally vocal free trade supporters were instantly labeled as “traitors”.

With the smuggling of Dashun cotton in the UK, it greatly harmed the interests of the British aristocracy - tea was okay and did not harm the interests of the aristocracy, but the cotton cloth would cause the land rent bound to woolen wool to drop, seriously damaging the interests of the aristocracy.

Britain is not yet an industrial country, and the aristocracy still has absolute dominance. It's just because their land rent and industry and commerce had a symbiotic relationship before. Once this symbiotic relationship breaks down, people will find that Britain is still a country dominated by aristocratic landowners.

Historically, the unveiling of this painting was the confirmation of the Corn Laws.

But now, this picture has been unveiled, and a large number of goods from Dashun's Western Trading Company have instantly filled the European market with post-war consumption frenzy.

Tooke, who had debated with Hume and firmly supported free trade, was ridiculed in public.

"Of course, you are a devout and kind-hearted expectant who has deep faith in God's love. Of course you will choose martyrdom because of your piety and the pursuit of eternal truth."

"But are you qualified to let the cotton workers of Manchester, the woolen workers of London, and the agricultural laborers on the farms be martyred for the eternal truth that you pursue and believe in?"

"Anyone with a brain knows that free trade will destroy everything in England. And the Chinese are even godless and openly anti-Christian. As a pious priest, you choose to support these pagans to destroy England. theory?"

Tuke was forced to completely withdraw from the political commentary circle and live in seclusion.

And the debate over free trade or mercantilism that broke out in the UK ended in a very ridiculous way.

Supporters of mercantilism have no choice but to engage in rational debate with the support of free trade.

On the contrary, they endorse and even publicly support the theory of free trade, believing that "rationally and logically, it is correct and unquestionably correct."

"But realistically it would destroy everything in England. There would be a depression, from industry to the countryside."

The mercantilists did not choose to debate scriptures, but raised the banner of reality.

Want eternal truth?

Or England?

Almost from this moment on, in the UK.

"I support mercantilism" has become a statement with the same weight as "I don't eat fish on Fridays."

...Eating fish but not eating fish, in the Elizabethan era, is analogous to the founding era of Dashun, its weight is basically equivalent to shaving one's head but not shaving one's hair.

Not just the British, but most coastal Europeans will never forget the year when the cargo ship of the Dashun Western Trading Company first appeared on the European sea, and the shock it caused to the European economy.

That was a year and a half ago.

That year, the War of Austrian Succession had come to an end, and peace talks in Aachen had begun.

That year, the British East India Company and the Portuguese caravan were temporarily closed down by Dashun due to the "opium case".

That year was the last year that the war between China and the Netherlands resulted in the supply of Southeast Asian spices in Europe falling short of demand, prices skyrocketing, and hoarding of goods.

Although this is not the first time that Chinese merchant ships have appeared in Europe, Chinese merchant ships have already been to Sweden after Dashun conquered Junggar. With the "humanitarian principles of Confucian benevolence and righteousness", Chinese merchant ships were sent to Sweden after being captured in the Great Northern War. Swedish prisoners of war in Dzungar return home.

But this was the first time that a fleet composed of purely Chinese trading companies went to Europe for trade. Although the negotiations with the Netherlands were successful at that time, the Dutch equity funds had not yet been injected, and the cargo ships of the former Dutch East India Company had not joined. formation.

More importantly, Dashun completely defeated the Netherlands in Southeast Asia, participated in two consecutive palace coups in Europe, and appeared on a large scale in Europe for the first time since the backdrop became a real living thing.

At that time, an Englishman named Adams in the Netherlands recalled this:

"After the huge fleet fired the salute, they discovered an embarrassing reality, that is, the two largest merchant ships in the Chinese fleet cannot berth in Amsterdam."

"The Dutch have not built a new battleship for fifty years, and their ports have not docked cargo ships with such a heavy load for a long time. The ports have been silted up to this extent."

"Although China's diplomatic princes have previously announced that their new company will fund the construction of Dutch ports, cleaning up requires a process, and obviously it will take some time to complete at this time."

"Chinese merchant ships abide by the law very much. They wait quietly for the customs officials to calculate and pay the customs duties with Spanish silver coins or Dutch florins, which are very easy to calculate."

"In fact, we know that the Chinese do not have silver coins. Their official unit is a unit of pure silver, which they call 'liang', which is about one-third of a pound's worth of silver. But it is obvious that they do not lack any European silver coins of any kind, whether of British, Dutch, Spanish or any country.”

"The bankers in Amsterdam had hoped that they would make a fortune from the exchange business - as everyone involved in the Indian trade knew, the Mughal governors in India gave us Europeans trading powers. One of the conditions is that the various silver coins we bring need to be re-melted by their mint before they can be used, and the Prince's Mint in Alchotte often charges a seigniorage tax of about 7% of the total value - Amsterdam's The bankers thought it might be possible to earn from the Chinese as much profit from the coinage as from the Indians."

"They were disappointed, however. The Chinese came not with their official pure silver ingots in units. Instead they came with any coinage imaginable - and we have no shortage of your silver coins, in fact in our In Guangzhou, Songjiang and other places, Spanish silver coins are also a currency in circulation. When doing large-scale trade, we will weigh them according to the silver content instead of counting the number. That would waste too much time. A Chinese person in charge of the transaction said this. "Obviously, they were well aware of the habit of European merchants rubbing off the edges of silver coins."

"After paying tariffs and calculating the value of the goods, the Chinese moved their goods to VOC's warehouse. In fact, there is no longer a company called VOC. The Chinese erased the engravings of VOC's original warehouse. It is time to use Their name to prove it’s their asset.”

"Based on the previous negotiations - of course, what I know are all public content. As for the content of the secret negotiations, I have no way of knowing - this batch of Chinese goods will be divided into two parts."

"Part of it is to take care of the interests of the seven provinces in the Netherlands. According to some old rules before the VOC, let the seven provinces share a part at a fixed price according to their respective shares."

"The other part will adopt an auction system, but instead of holding auctions in seven provinces, the auction will only be held in Amsterdam."

"Rather than saying that this is the result of negotiations between China and the Netherlands, it is better to say that this is a result that is acceptable to both the federal provincial councils."

"Because everyone knows that if the auction system is adopted, the Dutch province will gain the greatest benefits. The remaining six provinces do not believe that only the Dutch province can benefit from cooperation with China. If China, or in other words, the Dutch province If the Chinese side does not accept the seven-province quota system under the old rules, then they will firmly oppose cooperation with Chinese trading companies.”

"China has adopted a compromise approach and promised to provide 25% of the goods as a share. The remaining 75% will be auctioned."

"At the beginning of the signing of the agreement, the provinces were not very satisfied with this figure. But when the Chinese cargo ships actually appeared in Amsterdam, the other provinces were horrified to find that they had underestimated the total trade volume and the Chinese trade volume."

"They have not prepared sufficient funds for the 25 percent of the total cargo volume promised by the Chinese."

"But everyone knows that this time the trade will be hugely profitable. Because the Chinese rudely seized British and Portuguese cargo ships and sealed commercial buildings on the grounds of opposing opium."

"A ridiculous scene happened in the Netherlands."

"A few years ago, the Chinese declared war on the Netherlands and seized Southeast Asia, which led to the bankruptcy of VOC, the inability to pay bonds, and the financial market in Amsterdam fell into a cold winter. It was called the second disaster year of the Netherlands."

"A few years later, Chinese cargo ships arrived in Amsterdam, which directly resurrected the financial market in Amsterdam and prospered, and even increased the interest rates on loans in an extreme period of time."

“The chambers of commerce in each province were looking for bankers to borrow enough capital to be prepared to eat up their provincial share, because everyone knew how much profit there would be from the opium cases and the spice that would pile up again in a few years.”

"The Chinese only accept silver, gold, and copper as compensation. They believe that the Netherlands does not have goods worth sending back."

"So the winter for Amsterdam's financial markets is over."

"Amsterdam bankers affectionately called the Dashun Western Trading Company's flag 'the side marigold in the cold winter.'"

"Because on their company's flag, in addition to the Chinese characters we don't recognize, there are also two letters we recognize - A·H."

"Bankers in Amsterdam are more willing to believe that A is the abbreviation of Adonis, the god of spring, and marigold; and H is the abbreviation of hiems, the eternal winter."

"Some people even suspect that A.H. is the high pride of the Chinese people. They think that they are the favorite of Aphrodite, the Adonis who will still resurrect in the spring and be immortal even if he has experienced death and degradation. . Just like their dynasty, it was destroyed in the cold winter and reborn again in the spring sun.

"But afterwards I asked them what A·H meant. The Chinese told us that it was a phonetic system they borrowed from Latin in their new learning. It was not a marigold in the cold winter; nor did it mean China. When people come, spring comes in Amsterdam; or is it because they believe that their civilization will always survive the cold winter and come back to life in the spring? Besides, who knows who this Adonis is?"

"Actually, it's a very simple two-character Latin phonetic abbreviation - Aihua."

"I tried to pronounce 'Hua'. At least, there is one thing to be happy about. They probably don't like French too much."