Xianmen Pass, the residence of the Ming Dynasty Mission.
Lin Zexu, Grand Master Lin, who had just watched the swearing-in ceremony of the Golden Heavenly Soldiers, was sitting in his study room, flipping through a stack of telegraph newspapers. These telegrams were all transferred from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, and their contents were related to the "One Thousand Ships Plan."
After the news of the "Thousand Ships Plan" spread to Europe, it really caused an uproar. Especially after the Ming Dynasty really started to formulate a large-scale shipyard subsidy plan, the British Empire was really anxious - this was about to take action! Although the British Empire's shipbuilding capabilities are not weak, the British government's financial resources and heavy industrial production capacity are much worse than those of the Ming Dynasty. If you really want to compete with the Ming Dynasty in shipbuilding, sooner or later you will have to spend every last penny in your pocket.
However, the British Empire has also been an empire on which the sun never sets for more than a hundred years. After defeating Napoleon, its national power has reached its peak, and the British also have a trump card in their hands, and that is India!
The population and financial resources of the British mainland are no better than those of the Ming Dynasty...the population on both sides is more than ten times different! But after adding more than 200 million Indians, Daying's backbone is too hard. Although India is still mainly an agricultural country at the moment, India has a large population and a large area of arable land. Indian Asan is hardworking and hardworking, and the various masters who oppress the Asan untouchables are particularly good at exploiting and enslaving them. Therefore, as long as the British Empire If you are more ruthless, you can always squeeze out a lot of wealth from India to build ships with the Ming Dynasty.
In order to maximize India's financial, material and human resources, the British Prime Minister, the Earl of Liverpool, recently announced that he would establish the Hindustan Shipbuilding Company and is preparing to invite the princes of India to invest in opening a shipbuilding company in India that is comparable to the Ming Dynasty Jiangnan Heavy Industry Shipbuilding Company (Jiangnan Heavy Industry). subsidiary) of a large shipbuilding company. India's cheap labor force coupled with the British Empire's shipbuilding technology... worried Lin Zexu very much!
When Lin Zexu was worried, he heard someone knocking on the study door.
"Lin Zhongtang, the lower official Zhuge Weidao and Zheng Shenshan are asking for an audience." Zhuge Weidao's voice came in.
"Come in!" Lin Zexu put down the telegraph newspaper in his hand and greeted.
The study door was pushed open with a creaking sound, and then Zhuge Weidao and Zheng Guoxian were seen coming in one after another. Zhuge Weidao also held a folder and placed it on Lin Zexu's desk after he came in.
Lin Zexu glanced at the folder, then motioned for Zhuge Weidao and Zheng Guoxian to sit down, and then smiled and handed a telegraph newspaper in his hand to Zhuge Weidao, "Daozi, look at this... The British claim to compete with us in shipbuilding and are planning to set up the Hindustan Shipbuilding Company in India!"
"Really?" Zhuge Weidao took the telegram and read it carefully with the light of a dim kerosene lamp on the desk, and then said with a smile, "Lin Zhongtang, it seems that the British have started Followed up... This is a good thing!"
Lin Zexu glanced at Zhuge Weidao and said, "Taozi, do you know how much Indian workers in Calcutta and Bombay earn per month? How much do our workers in Ming Dynasty earn per month?"
"I know," Zhuge Weidao said with a smile, "The labor prices in India are a bit cheaper...but our shipyards have good equipment, high efficiency, and new technologies, and they are supporting steel plants, turbine plants, and arsenals. .So the cost of shipbuilding is definitely lower for us!”
Of course the wages of workers in Ming Dynasty are high!
In a country with leading industry, how can wages not be high?
Moreover, the Ming Dynasty also controlled the supply of cheap labor through land equalization and land restriction - ordinary farmers in the Ming Dynasty had dozens or hundreds of acres of land, and the average annual income of a strong rural laborer who owned land was upwards of sixty or seventy silver dollars. (Referring to cash income only).
Since farmers' daily expenses are relatively low and their lives are relatively comfortable, the rural population will not transform into workers without triple their income. Historically, the U.S. imperialists almost always gave them less money, so those European immigrants should go farm. Anyway, with the Homestead Act, it would not be difficult to get some land.
Therefore, workers in the Ming Dynasty have a stable average of 200 silver yuan per year. Shipyard workers have almost 300 silver yuan per year due to high labor intensity and high efficiency of the shipyard.
At present, the average wage of British workers is about thirty pounds a year, which is one hundred and twenty silver dollars, only about 60% of that in the Ming Dynasty.
As for the average annual income of Indian workers, it is probably only a fraction of that of British workers, which is only twenty silver dollars... The wages in Ming Dynasty are equivalent to ten times theirs!
However, under the multiple oppression of the British Empire and various reactionary forces in India, India's labor force is low-cost and low-quality, and almost all workers are illiterate. The drawings that ordinary shipbuilders in the Ming Dynasty can understand, but when they arrive in India, they may have to ask an engineer from the Kshatriya or Brahmin caste who has also received British higher education to look at them in person. The salary of this engineer is probably 10,000 to 8,000 yuan a year...and it's hard to say how much money these old engineers have.
Therefore, in Zhuge Weidao's view, the Hindustan Shipyard must be a British propaganda war and cannot be true at all.
If you want to be real...then there will be a lot of interesting things in the future!
If the British really want to fight for low-cost shipbuilding, it would be more practical to open a shipyard in Prussia - Prussia's compulsory education is very good, almost as good as that of the Ming Dynasty, so their workers are of high quality and their engineers are also good, but the wages Only half of the Ming Dynasty. Still very competitive!
However, if Britain invests heavily in Prussia and makes Prussia stronger, it will become the German Empire...
Thinking of this, Zhuge Weidao smiled and said: "The British Hindustan Shipyard is just bragging for propaganda, but this also shows that they have been fooled!"
Lin Zexu nodded and said: "Your group of military advisers and the officials of the Zheng family also see it this way... They plan to ask Nicholas I to come forward to set the rules for this shipbuilding competition at the appropriate time. , so I have to go back to Beijing to discuss this matter with the courtiers."
As he spoke, Lin Zexu looked at Zhuge Weidao seriously: "Daozi, your military adviser and the officials of the Zheng family may not care about the Hindustan Shipyard, but they will definitely stare to see how Daoguang touches the British. Tiger’s butt!”
Those old people are still a little timid - they are all old men, they have been doing well for so many years, and they are used to being stable.
If Daoguang Printing was destroyed, they would not dare to offend the British Empire. But if the British Empire turns out to be a paper tiger, then they can no longer be afraid.
After all, the current military technology and Ming Dynasty's industrial strength have developed to the point where they can support a global war.
Moreover, the domestic industrial capital of Ming Dynasty is now increasingly feeling that the market is insufficient - the domestic demand of Ming Dynasty is certainly not comparable to that of Britain! But now, overproduction is inevitable.
The best way to solve this surplus is to export infrastructure - the Ming Dynasty has now passed the time when it can develop by exporting a large amount of textiles.
To export infrastructure, we need to establish some vassal states that can undertake infrastructure construction and have enough resources to pay for it... This requires Westerners to hand over some good colonies!
Zhuge Weidao smiled and pointed at the folder on the table, "Zhongtang, this is the preparation plan for the Dajin Navy's heavenly troops formulated by Xianguan and Zheng Shenshan... As long as Daoguang is willing to follow this plan to form the Dajin Navy Heavenly soldier, he can touch that British tiger’s butt however he wants!”
"Naval soldiers? Use airships to drop bombs on the ground?" Lin Zexu asked while opening the folder.
"Not only dropping bombs," Zheng Guoxian took the question and said with a smile, "but also made the soldiers of the Golden Eight Banners jump from the airship in the sky!"
"Jump from the sky?" Lin Zexu was stunned for a moment, "How high should you jump? It won't hurt if you fall, right?"
"A few hundred meters to a thousand meters," Zheng Guoxian said with a smile. "It won't hurt if you fall. I'm carrying a parachute. The parachute opened smoothly, so I landed smoothly without any pain. If it didn't open... I don’t know the pain anymore.”
It turns out that Zhuge Weidao's naval heavenly soldiers are naval airborne troops. These are the heavenly soldiers specially prepared for Daoguang printing!
They could directly take an airship and fly behind the British and Indian troops to parachute. Although the only ten airships could not carry many naval airborne troops at one time, fortunately, they were able to catch the British and Indian troops by surprise. Especially there are many mountain passes at the junction of Afghanistan and India. As long as the British troops can be introduced into Afghanistan and then airborne to seize a pass, it will be great fun.
So after confirming that the quality of the Dajin Eight Banners soldiers was good, Zhuge Weidao immediately approached Zheng Guoxian, and then the two of them took the lead in coming up with the "Navy Sky Soldier Plan" - this airborne force can be used by both sea and land! Zheng Guoxian had the experience of founding the airborne force. When he returned to China, he could find a senior position in the army's airship airborne force.
