The world trend is moving forward, and they will not pity the lamentation of any conservative!
The so-called contradiction between industry and agriculture in the early stages of industrialization has a special term in economics called the scissors gap! Industrial and agricultural scissors are different. When you hear the name, you will feel like cutting leeks.
Industry is not a small-scale peasant economy. What is important is large scale and high efficiency, so the initial investment will be much higher!
You can only get higher returns in the later stage by making massive investments. So the question is, where do you get the money for this massive early investment?
In fact, there are just two paths, one is external robbery, and the other is internal exploitation!
It is easy to understand external robbery. The entire Age of Discovery was a history of expansion. North and South America and Africa were wiped out by Europeans, and all the gold, silver and precious metals accumulated over thousands of years were looted.
All the remaining resources have become the fuel for European industrialization!
But robbery like this is actually not enough. There is also a very serious gap between workers and peasants in Europe. Once the industrial chariot is started, agriculture will be waiting to suffer!
The most famous one is the sheep-cannibalism movement in the UK. The land enclosure movement lasted for more than three hundred years and finally stopped when there was no more land left in the UK.
In the later period, Prussia, Germany and Central Europe had a large-scale campaign to promote potato cultivation, and this promotion was even led by the king himself.
Why is this happening? It is also because industry is extracting people and resources from agriculture, forcing the country to rely on cash crops such as potatoes, which are high-yielding, low-input, and low-labor, to maintain the lives of the people.
Do you think Europeans have always had the habit of eating potatoes? In fact, when potatoes were first introduced to Europe, they even called them the devil's eggs because no one would eat them.
Industrialization is a point of no return. In the early days of the first industrial revolution, the scale of industrialization was still very small, with only dozens or hundreds of people in factories and workshops.
The large industrial area in London, UK, has only a few hundred thousand industrial workers!
But this is the end of the nineteenth century! Science and technology have entered the second industrial revolution. Steel manufacturing, chemical industry, internal combustion engine and other industries... which one is not an industry that is extremely in need of manpower?
Today, the London Industrial Area in the UK and the Ruhr Industrial Area in Germany have already exceeded one million people!
You can imagine that two to three million people are crowded together in an industrial area. Everyone lives on factory wages. These people used to be farmers!
The working class was born bit by bit in this era! Europe is about to launch a large-scale proletarian movement!
Against this historical background, the Qing Dynasty was still discussing the old topic of instability without farmers, as if the country would be at peace if the farmers returned to their pastoral pastoral to starve!
Er Mao was really different. As a supervisor, he had a very special status in the Forbidden City. He had a half-friend, half-master-slave relationship with the emperor. Emperor Tongzhi gave him a lot of freedom.
Er Mao can live outside the palace for a long time. There are not too many errands for him in the Forbidden City. He doesn't even have to ask for leave from the emperor!
Many strict rules in the Forbidden City have no control over Ermao. Who doesn't know that he is actually a diplomatic coordinator placed in the Forbidden City by the head of state!
His job is actually to communicate the feelings between the two parties. When Weng Tonghe comes to slander the Chinese people like this, he has to stand up and coordinate and explain.
Ermao's job is very easy, so easy that he can read a lot and study a lot, especially Western learning!
Perhaps traditional Chinese literati think that Er Mao is half a bottle of jealousy. He cannot recite poetry, paint, write beautiful calligraphy, or write eight-part essays!
But Er Mao's level of Western learning is one of the best in the court! Today's talk about the scissor difference between industry and agriculture and the popularization of knowledge about the history of European industrial development was so eloquent that I couldn't help but nod my head.
As for Da Sixi and other eunuchs, they couldn't understand it anymore in the end. People like Yunshan Wuluo knew that Er Mao was very powerful!
"Your Majesty is not wrong at all. Even if the meat rots in the pot, it is also our own pot... It is better than letting the foreign devils take it away!"
"Stopping or suspending industrialization will only make the already huge gap between us and the West even wider!"
"The stronger the industrial strength of the West, their military strength will also increase... Based on their national roots, wouldn't an unprepared agricultural Qing country be the best fat to kill?"
"A child holding red gold and walking in the busy city! Isn't this asking for death?"
"At that time, the pastoral pastoral economy that Mr. Weng and his colleagues dream of, the little wealth they have created, the little wealth they have managed to accumulate, will eventually be taken away by foreigners!"
"There is no way! This is the trend of the times. The general direction of the future era is to eliminate the small farmer economy. To put it bluntly, we want to kill the pastoral family agriculture!"
"This is a trend all over the world, and it's not just the Qing Dynasty! No one can go against the trend..."
"It's hard for the people to prosper, and it's hard for the people to die! Alas..." Emperor Tongzhi couldn't help but sigh.
Er Mao shook his head and said firmly: "The so-called suffering is just because most people are on the opposite side of the trend. How can it not be bitter?"
"The world is changing, but you refuse to change... Industry has begun to crush the small-scale peasant economy, but you refuse to leave your country and change your way of life!"
"Then there will naturally be a tragic situation in which the people will suffer in both prosperity and death!"
"Your Majesty, you are often able to leave the palace. You have heard a lot of stories from the markets outside... How did Liu Henzhen become so rich? How did Bai Hua, the owner of the BaBayang car dealer in the south of the city, become so rich?"
"Master Weng always talks about the suffering of the people, so why don't you mention the examples of people successfully adapting to the changes of the times?"
"In the final analysis... Confucian scholars just don't want change, they just want to cling to the ranking of scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, and they just don't want the merchant class to rise!"
"You talk so much about being public-spirited, but you can't actually cover up your selfishness! Haha... Only the small-scale peasant economy of pastoral pastoral style is in the best interest of the scholars!"
Having said this, Er Mao took a few deep breaths and smiled lightly, "My subordinates talked a lot today. Please don't blame me! But the food issue that Mr. Weng mentioned really needs the attention of the court!"
"The snow is really heavy this year, so we still need to prepare food for disaster relief!"
At this point in the chat, Emperor Tongzhi had to admit, "Er Mao, you are so impressed after not seeing me for three days! Did you get the master's guidance again behind my back? Does the master have a manuscript of the letter to explain?"
Er Mao shook his head, "The head of state has so many things to do every day, how can he have time to give me a small class... It's just that I have read a few more books recently, and I accidentally felt something in my heart!"
"Long live Lord's government is too busy. It's not like I'm just an idle person, just reading some books and thinking!"
Er Mao successfully resolved a crisis of trust between Emperor Tongzhi and the head of state. If he hadn't happened to meet him today, the old man's poison might have sprouted in Zai Chun's heart!
It was snowing heavily in the Forbidden City. Emperor Tongzhi and Ermao were walking side by side in the snow, talking and laughing!
