New Shun 1730

William Pitt was not a prophet, so he could not have known things like the Industrial Revolution, nor did he know the fundamental force that led to Britain's explosive growth around 1790 and widened the gap between countries in the world.

But he was a man with strategic vision after all, with a keen strategic sense of smell, and believed that Britain's future was in business and trade, and he understood the logic of colonial economy very well.

Although he actually made a wrong bet, or was forced by reality and traditional cognition to bet the future on sugar, tobacco, and Newfoundland cod - learning from history to the extent of carving a boat to find a sword, he naturally knew that cod, sugar, and tobacco were the engines of Europe's economic trade in the past hundred years.

The purpose of learning from history is to know the rise and fall, and to understand the prosperity and decline.

Pitt is different from the Whigs and the Tories. Britain is a country that attaches great importance to tradition, but tradition itself can be forged by itself and claimed to be traditional.

The Whigs and Tories are busy arguing about the definition of "tradition" and whether tradition is monarchy or parliamentary system.

This forms a vicious circle:

Because of our traditions, we are strong now. If we want to remain strong, we must continue to consolidate traditions.

In the end, this issue can only evolve into a dispute over what "tradition" is.

Because of this vicious circle, whoever is the winner can define tradition, rather than whoever really follows tradition.

The Tories say that tradition is monarchy, and give examples of A, B, C, and D; the Whigs say that tradition is cabinet and freedom, and give examples of Zi, Wu, Mao, and You.

Pitt did not respect this self-defined tradition. If he respected tradition, he would not have been able to gain prestige by engaging in opposition under the banner of "great commoners".

From history, Pitt saw clearly the real reason why Britain has developed in recent years, and broke the general anxiety of Britain at this time about why it has developed without knowing why.

It's just that because he is not a prophet, he cannot predict the Industrial Revolution, but relying on his understanding and summary of history books, he proposed a global colonial strategy with a keen talent, which provided the basis for the outbreak of the British textile industry revolution in the future.

What does the development of the British textile industry rely on?

Is it tradition?

Is it nationality?

Is it free trade?

These things that were the loudest in London at this time were just one answer to explain the current situation.

In fact, the context is very clear.

In 1647, the Eighty Years' War ended and Spain lifted its trade embargo on the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is located at the mouth of the Rhine River, connected to the Baltic Sea in the north, France in the south, and along the Rhine River inward is the canal waterway of the Rhine River Basin.

What geographical location can compete with such a geographical advantage as the mouth of a large river?

In 1651, Cromwell, the dictator, found that Britain could not bear this kind of free trade, so he introduced the "Navigation Act".

In 1654, the Protector of the Kingdom, who was crazy about building ships, beat the Netherlands. If he could not compete with free trade, he would use force to solve it, and the Netherlands was defeated.

In 1666, the "Burial Act" was introduced. After death, it must be wrapped in woolen cloth and buried. Anyone who does not wrap in woolen cloth will be fined 15 taels of silver, and this woolen cloth must be produced in the country. This law lasted until 1814, and became an important part of studying British families and genealogies from 1666 to 1814, because everyone had to register with the sheriff after death. Later generations forged family trees and took a look at the original registration book. They couldn't even afford a woolen "shroud" and were registered as "NAKED", which was obviously not a gentleman.

To be honest, the feudal dynasties before Dashun were indeed not a good thing, but it was not so outrageous that after death, the coffin board had to be bought from a certain place.

Except for the idealized "Guan Zi" with such thinking and clear methods, the rest are rare, and indeed rarely practiced.

In 1699, the "Irish Wool Law" was promulgated, prohibiting Ireland from exporting woolen cloth, and all woolen products were provided by England, which led to the Irish-style "non-violent non-cooperation" movement. The Irish refused to wear woolen cloth and chose to wear linen.

In 1701, Oriental cotton cloth was dumped into Britain by the East India Company. Textile manufacturers, wool merchants, and enclosure nobles who raised sheep in enclosures were very dissatisfied. Resistance movements and the burning of Oriental cotton cloth broke out, and the first cotton cloth ban was issued.

In 1721, the second ban was issued.

In 1725, the cotton textile industry in Lancashire began to develop, but due to insufficient technology, the spun cotton yarn could only be used as warp, not weft.

This was the beginning of the cotton textile industry in Western Europe. Why did it appear in Lancashire? Because... Lancashire's climate is relatively humid, making the spun cotton yarn not easy to break. France, which wants to learn this, can't do it because the climate in France is more arid than Lancashire.

In 1733, the cotton textile industry in Lancashire and other places had developed to a certain extent, but it still couldn't compete with Oriental cotton cloth. So, the Manchester Act was issued: the particularity of English vocabulary, pure cotton cloth is calicoes, which is non-traditional; Manchester and Lancashire cloth is fustian, which is traditional. This is also the reason why Liu Yu could engage in smuggling of low-end blended fabrics specifically for export. The regular Songjiang cloth is calicoes, and the export cloth he made by mixing wool, linen, etc. is fustian.

So far, it is through the Navigation Act, the Cotton Ban, the Shroud Act, and so on, a whole set of laws from birth to death, that the country's textile industry has been developed.

And relying on colonies, mainly North America, North America is also a sail that cannot go to sea, and cannot buy cloth from the Netherlands and France, but can only buy low-quality cloth produced in Britain, thus ensuring the development of the British textile industry.

Here we must explain again: the Jenny machine cannot be used in Dashun. This thing can only be used for warp, and the cloth made of yarn spun by this thing cannot be sold in Dashun. Even if Songjiang cloth is not used, the farm cloth from Caozhou, Qufu and other places can beat this thing to shit, no matter in price or quality.

In 1773, after the Boston Tea Party, North America also started with the "non-violent non-cooperation" movement, refusing to wear cloth shipped from Britain, and encouraging women to spin and weave with spinning wheels themselves.

In 1779, the spinning frame, also known as the mule machine, appeared. For the first time, British cloth was equal to India in "quality", but not as good as China.

In terms of production efficiency, it is higher than that of China and India. However, due to the price problem, it is still uncompetitive in terms of price.

Later, Britain and the United States went to war, and Britain could not obtain cotton and indigo from America, so it invested heavily in India to grow cotton and indigo. At the same time, it used the army and tariffs to control and destroy India's handicraft industry.

By 1826, some British people had already understood what a colonial market was.

[If there had not been the military rule of the East India Company, the Manchester factory would have stopped at the beginning, and it would not have been possible to start it again, even with the power of steam. ]

[All this was created by the sacrifice of India's manufacturing industry. If India had been independent, she could have retaliated and imposed high tariffs on British goods, thereby protecting her own production industry from destruction. ]

[However, in reality, this kind of self-defense behavior is not allowed. ]

Therefore, at this time, the internal Dashun, such as Liu Yu and others, did not have a very high evaluation of William Pitt.

Because William Pitt's policies, judging from the results of later generations, did create Britain's prosperity. But this is an accidental act. Pitt himself did not attach importance to India, but still bet his future on the "cod, sugar, and tobacco" of past experience.

His accidental act enabled Britain to have a vast India controlled by the East India Company for "land tax" when the textile industry was developing rapidly; it also enabled Britain to obtain raw materials from India during the Anglo-American War.

William Pitt himself still believed that the Caribbean was the pearl and North America was the pearl.

In fact, the real opportunity was in India.

In other words, the real reason for Britain's rise was the Industrial Revolution.

But William Pitt had no knowledge of the trend of the Industrial Revolution. But some of his strategic ideas objectively provided a good condition for the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution, which he himself did not realize.

In addition, there is still one reason why Liu Yu did not think highly of William Pitt, but the other one is not so pleasant to hear.

Another reason is that Liu Yu believes that William Pitt is not much different from the Showa staff officers of later generations, or in other words, he is just a Showa staff officer who temporarily won the tactical bet.

There is no real strategic pattern in his mind, and he is not aware of the fundamental fact that "war is actually an economic issue". It is a bit like the kind of people who draw on the world map, but do not consider how much money it costs to draw these lines, where the money comes from, who to ask to collect taxes, etc.

Moreover, when thinking about problems, they are too wishful, and their way of thinking always thinks that the other party should be like this, but they do not consider what will happen if the other party does not accept or does not do so.

If Pitt is not a Showa staff officer at a strategic level, it may be that he started as an opposition, so that he habitually opposes for the sake of opposition.

Even in Liu Yu's view, if it were not for the unintentional India, Pitt would really be a Showa staff officer who won a temporary tactical victory and eventually led to the collapse of the empire. It's just that the unintentional India and the subsequent British Industrial Revolution gave him too many points.

It is similar to the crazy group of staff who went on their own after July 7 and continued to expand their aggression. As a result, they found the black technology that transcended the times in the green tent in the rural areas of North China, which directly widened the generation gap with the rest of the world. How to evaluate it afterwards? Are those brainless lone-walkers strategic masters?

Therefore, in Liu Yu's opinion, Pitt's level is really average.

However, it is precisely because Pitt understands colonization and aggression, and through the history of Britain in the past hundred years, he understands where Britain's wealth lies.

He broke the anxiety of "getting rich without knowing why".

He also broke the sacred superstition of tradition and the trust in those nonsense rhetoric.

So he formulated a "global strategy" to use the fleet to destroy the trade between France and Spain, so that Britain could only earn trade and second-hand profits by expanding the scope of the "Navigation Act".

Because he vaguely knew the essential reason for Britain's development, he was terrified about what Dashun wanted to do by joining the war this time.

If Dashun really wanted trade.

Then, Britain's textile industry would be finished; Britain's financial industry would also be finished. Britain's geographical location is not as good as the Netherlands, which is located at the mouth of the Rhine River...

In other words, the two magic weapons of primitive accumulation, trade protectionism and colonialism, which he knew well and had found their essence, and which Britain relied on for more than a hundred years of development, were gone. And these two magic weapons were the source of Britain's strength that he recognized after he got rid of those anxieties.