New Shun 1730

If we say that the Java and Nanyang regions can be regarded as having some ideas of industrial capital. At least the goal is to develop productivity and expand production.

Then, in the north of Dashun, the Mongolian region, it can be said to be the ultimate expression of commercial capitalism. The robbery system under the dominance of commercial capital is really performed to the fullest.

And the end point of this robbery system is the end point of Liu Yu's coffin taking the sea route this time, Tianjin.

Since Dashun abolished the canal and changed to sea, Tianjin's status has been determined. But when it comes to the development of Tianjin in recent years, we have to say that after Li Li came to power, he sold everything he had and relied on the cheap sale of state-owned land to vigorously build infrastructure and build railways, which allowed Tianjin to get rid of its subordinate status of Songsu and truly become a port city in the north of Dashun.

With the implementation of Li Xi's frontier railway plan, the railway extending from the capital to Zhangjiakou and even Hetao has finally made the port of Tianjin able to radiate a small part of the frontier - the other half is the Song and Liao River plains, which have little to do with Tianjin.

If you want to be rich, build roads first. This is a slogan that sounds ordinary.

But if you look at some changes in Dashun in recent years, you can find that this sentence itself is not ordinary at all.

For example, leather, fur, and rhubarb are definitely commodities that can be regarded as bulk materials.

A few decades ago, it was a difficult journey for rhubarb, fine camel hair, sheepskin, etc. from Gansu and Qinghai to be transported to Tianjin, which was no less difficult than Cossa's crossing Siberia to get fur.

You have to use a raft to follow the Yellow River, especially the dangerous Ningxia section, and rush for more than 2,000 miles to reach Hetao first.

After arriving at Hetao, camel teams and horse teams are used to transport it to Tongzhou. This stuff has to be divided into dry season and rainy season. Horses are used in the rainy season and camels are used in the dry season.

When arriving in Tongzhou, these goods will be transported to the North Canal. If it is the dry season or the low water season, then the North Canal cannot actually be used.

Therefore, it is not that there are no good things in the northwest border.

Rhubarb, camel hair, fine wool, ermine skin, etc., these are all good things.

But the previous problem is that it cannot be transported out. This does not mean that you can produce it locally. Even if you produce it locally, don’t you still have to transport the things you produce?

The emergence of railways changed all this.

The transportation cost has been reduced, and the raw materials in the Mongolian region can be transported conveniently.

With wool and camel hair in the Mongolian region as raw materials, the textile industry such as woolen cloth, blankets, and felt has also developed rapidly.

On the one hand, it relies on overseas markets.

On the other hand, it relies on government orders, especially military uniforms, blankets, tents, etc.

In addition, the capital of the court is in Beijing, so many heavy industries are also encouraged to develop around Tianjin. Coal, iron, shipbuilding, arms, etc. are also booming.

These good aspects are naturally a demonstration of the power of capitalism.

But this is nothing.

The real demonstration of its power lies in the bad aspects.

After the railway was built, the commercial capital of Dashun took 20 years to create a miracle with the robbery system. The interest of usury has put the Mongolian region into a state of exhausting fish to repay debts. A large number of sheep have to repay debts before they have grown up and have not yet given birth. It has also directly forced some Mongolians to rebel, burning shops, killing merchants, and creating a large-scale rebellion of the Khalkha tribe.

The Mongolian region is no different from other places.

For example, France, animal husbandry is not bad and is also very developed.

For example, the Pampas grassland, animal husbandry is indeed developed.

The problem is that the land used as pasture in France, the land of the Pampas with an annual rainfall of 900 mm, has long been used as arable land in Dashun.

The Mongolian region was simply squeezed to the north of the 400 mm precipitation line by farming. In fact, due to the warming climate in recent years and the planting of some drought-resistant crops, the farming area has been moving northward.

This also makes the economic structure of the Mongolian region extremely simple and extremely fragile.

The economic structure is simple and fragile, so it is still early for social division of labor, and the development of handicrafts is just a thought at most.

There is a shortage of everything.

Cloth, iron pots, silk, tea, sugar... Even now, even the mass-produced bronze Buddha statues are selling quite well here.

However, the Mongols have no money.

The era of robbing... The era of flintlock guns is over.

Then we can only exchange.

The merchants are not in a hurry for cash.

When you come in spring, we will decide how many sheep you will use to pay back the things you have on credit; when you go back in autumn, we will drive away the sheep, cattle and horses that you owe to pay off your debts.

The problem can be clearly seen here.

Are the sheep in spring and the sheep in autumn the same sheep?

In other words, is a calf the same as a grown-up cow?

From a biological perspective, yes.

From a business perspective, obviously, no.

This is one aspect.

On the other hand, the economic structure of the Mongolian region is simple and fragile, so the social operation is completely different from that of Dashun, which is theoretically a small peasant country.

The leaders of each tribe are similar to the feudal lords in Europe.

The herdsmen below are more like serfs or herdsmen.

These feudal lords, big and small, pledged allegiance to the Emperor of Dashun and divided their own territories and pastures according to the feudal system.

Similarly, these feudal lords, big and small, had to fulfill their feudal obligations to the supreme lord.

In the interior of Dashun, there is a county system and per mu tax.

In the Mongolian region, it is basically a feudal obligation system.

The feudal obligations were well-organized by the shogunate next door. It was similar in Dashun: the leaders of each tribe had to come to Beijing to pay tribute from time to time and live in Beijing for a period of time.

It was not easy to come to Beijing... to live in the capital. You came to Beijing, so you had to show off and spend money?

If you don't have money, then you have to borrow money?

To borrow, you naturally borrowed from the largest chamber of commerce in Mongolia.

The interest rate must be in accordance with the "Dashun Law", which is absolutely legal: 36%, up to three years, including principal and interest, and then doubled. If it is doubled and still not repaid, the principal and interest will be combined as new principal, and then repaid at an annual interest rate of 36%.

In addition, each tribe had to perform labor service, corvee, and labor service.

For example, post stations, border defense, patrols, and border defense, these obligations cost money.

To spend money, if you don't have money, you have to borrow.

If you borrow, you can only borrow at the highest legal interest rate, and you can't borrow at a lower rate.

If you borrow money, you don't have a mountain of gold and silver, so what can you use to pay it back? Then we can only pay back with cattle, horses, sheep, etc., right?

The Chamber of Commerce actually made three profits here.

The borrowed money must be spent on buying things, so it’s better to buy my things. This is one profit.

The borrowed money must be calculated according to the maximum interest rate of the Dashun Law, which doubles in three years. This is one profit.

When moving livestock, the number of livestock is determined in the spring, and then they are moved away in the autumn. The fattening during this grazing period is another profit.

Generally speaking, this kind of thing is normal in the Middle Ages.

Just like the European lords and Jews, if you don’t want to pay back the borrowed money, then kill the Jews and expel them.

However, the problem is that the people doing business here are not Jews who are powerless to resist.

The capital behind them is all the nobles, military nobles, royal merchants, royal families, etc. in the capital.

There is no way: want to owe debts and not pay them back? Sure, break into the Forbidden City to imprison the creditors.

The problem is that they can’t beat them.

Especially after the railway was built to Zhangjiakou and continued to the north, when the last rebellion and burning of shops occurred, the railway here directly transported soldiers there and quickly calmed the incident.

To a certain extent, the Chamber of Commerce in the Mongolian region is the East India Company of Dashun, and it is obviously the original East India Company before the transformation, which is aimed at commercial capitalist plunder.

This is completely different from the means used by Dashun in Southeast Asia and other places.

One is unconscious industrial capitalist thinking; the other is unconscious commercial capitalist thinking.

Of course, the main problem is that Dashun always knows that it can try its familiar method, the per mu tax system, when facing the land of Java and the land of India.

But facing the Mongolian nomadic area, Dashun can only do this, and it can't solve the problem from the root.

Because, if this is to solve the problem from the root, there are too many things to do.

Changing the land system, dividing pastures, abolishing blood inheritance, reorganizing the relationship with Mongolian nobles, etc., a pile of things, far from being solved by a simple reform.

Of course, the court is also happy to do so. No matter how you look at it, the various Mongolian tribes were actually controlled by the commercial capital of Dashun under the rule of "it is natural for private ownership to repay debts".

As long as Dashun had the ability and military strength to ensure the rule of "it is natural for debts to be repaid" - when Li Zicheng started the uprising, he was obviously against this rule, but it was obviously a different time - then in fact, Dashun firmly controlled the Mongolian region.

Of course, this kind of thing is also very normal and easy to understand.

Many people think that the sprouts of capitalism have sprouted and developed, so the Mongolian region raised sheep and sheared wool, sold wool to the sprouting areas to develop the textile industry, and then used the wool money to exchange for the daily necessities they needed.

So, under the great sprouts of capitalism, everything flourished. Industry developed, the market expanded, and productivity increased...

However, the actual sprouts of capitalism are: rampant usury, robbery, commercial plunder, price suppression, low buying and high selling, robbery, and military suppression.

After exhausting all the fish in the pond, some tribes in the Mongolian region may not be able to repay the debts they owed even if they sold all the sheep of the tribe. In many places, the sheep had to be used to pay off the debts before they even gave birth.

This is actually a very normal thing.

This is the commercial capitalism of the Netherlands, both in their own country and in Southeast Asia. You can't say that the Netherlands is not called capitalism, right?

The Dashun's set of practices in the Mongolian region made many people fat and also promoted the development of cotton textile, leather, blanket and wool textile industries in some places in North China.

The capital in the capital region, which got the first pot of gold through this primitive accumulation, invested it in cotton textile industries such as the package purchase system, and used cotton yarn from Java, India to develop the family-distributed weaving industry in North China, relying on the northern market.

The pattern of the two financial centers of Dashun in the north and south has gradually taken shape.

But it also means that the old world cannot be peacefully and bloodlessly transitioned to the new world.

The problem of small peasant landlords within the core of Dashun has not been touched yet. Even if we only look at the outside, conflicts have arisen everywhere, from Europe to India, from Southeast Asia to Mongolia. Moreover, these are new conflicts and new problems that have never appeared before, which make this group of people feel at a loss and not very good at learning from history.