New Shun 1730

It is very difficult for Chinese people to understand this nightmare of Britain.

Even though they lost to the little Japan in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which they never thought they would lose to, the mentality of the domestic elite class was not this nightmare, but turned to "change to get through".

Basically, it is difficult for people on the Dashun side to have such a crazy "devout belief", so they can't understand it at all.

Even if the traditional set of things doesn't work, at most it will turn from the extreme self-confidence in the past to a complete negation.

If you are not a believer, it is really difficult to understand this "devout belief".

It is even more difficult to understand the logic of these devout believers when their devout beliefs conflict with the cruel reality.

To figure this out, we must first understand one thing. That is, under the Protestant "righteousness and profit view", trade is a kind of belief.

That is, [trade is the foundation of what we call law, freedom and property, and is the real cornerstone of the world].

The trade here is not trade in a broad sense, but in a narrow sense of "trade that makes money can be called trade".

If you can't understand this, you will have many doubts and feel that what they say seems to make sense, and trade can indeed bring benefits.

The reason why I think some of their words make sense is that the "trade" in their context is not the same as the "trade" understood by later generations of Chinese people.

Just like the tenants of Dashun and the agricultural workers of Britain, or the "poor peasants" with one mu of land per capita in Dashun and the "poor peasants" with 48 mu of land in Russia; or the Cossack peasants who only pay blood tax and are autonomous and the peasants of village serfs... The names are the same, but they are not the same thing at all. If you use what you understand or are familiar with, you will come up with many weird imaginations.

On the British side, this conflict between belief and reality has produced a kind of "illogical" clumsiness.

Adam Smith's clumsy logic of "British capital controls Chinese shipping, and Britain is the intermediary in Sino-Western trade", and "free trade can still solve Sino-British trade problems" when Chinese goods are sold to Europe and Britain doesn't want them is like this.

Defoe even earlier clamored that "if Russia had not been busy fighting the Great Northern War, it could have conquered China with 10,000 soldiers; 30,000 British or Austrian soldiers, or 10,000 French soldiers, would have been enough to conquer China."

Why conquer China? Because "the closure of China's trade violates God's arrangement and violates the sanctity of trade."

If you keep thinking this way, it's okay.

As long as it makes sense, there is a clear logic and a universally consistent theory. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, it is at least a concept.

And it won't lead to the situation of "speaking at cross purposes" that the Duke of Qi lamented.

But the reality is that Defoe just finished clamoring about "the closure of China's trade" and published an editorial that year, demanding a complete ban on Chinese cotton cloth, a complete ban on Chinese porcelain, and curbing the influence of strange Chinese-style gardens on British traditions.

And his influence indirectly promoted the second enhanced version of the "Oriental Cotton Cloth Prohibition Order" in 21 years. The direct reason is that Chinese goods caused British workers to lose their jobs, leading to starvation in woolen mills in London and other places...

His suggestion was correct from the British perspective.

But just after shouting about free trade, he came up with this set of ideas, and it was justified and justified, which made it difficult for people from Dashun to understand.

In Songjiang Prefecture, Liu Yu and Duke Qi discussed this problem of "talking at cross purposes". That is to say, the Chinese brain cannot understand the thinking of Protestant countries, and it is difficult to understand their logic. In particular, it is impossible to understand the "justified" "justified".

The root of this comes from the "sacredness" of their religious tradition.

Because sacredness must be universally applicable, and it cannot be useful here and useless there. It cannot be said that God is in charge of the West, and when it comes to the East, it must be handed over to the Jade Emperor, Bodhisattva, river gods, mountain gods, etc.

This "sacredness" gives them the "justice" of slaughter and aggression.

For the situation faced by Defoe, is there a single logic that can make sense?

Of course, abandon sacredness and abandon universal applicability.

Using pragmatism that is completely contrary to their religion.

Just put it clearly: mercantilism when poor, free trade when rich, I am just thinking about the interests of my country, and the interests of my country are supreme.

In this way, whether it is Defoe or Adam Smith's clumsy explanation of Sino-British trade, it can be explained.

However, this abandons sacredness, abandons universal applicability, and also abandons "natural justice".

So should France attack Britain in order to protect its own industry? Is it right? Obviously, the interests of the country are the most important.

Is it right for the Indians to kill the North American colonists and scalp the colonists? Obviously, the interests of their own people are the most important.

Is it right for Japan to ban Christianity, expel Christians, and massacre Shimahara believers? Obviously, the interests of their own country are the most important.

Is it right for the Netherlands to carry out a massacre on Ambon Island and kill all the people in the British trading house? Obviously, the interests of their own country are the most important.

Abandoning sanctity and universal applicability means abandoning "natural justice", and abandoning natural justice means going to hell, so it is impossible to abandon sanctity.

This is the reason why high-ranking officials from the Dashun side felt that they could not understand the truth when they came to Protestant countries.

This is why there are cases where people are shouting for free trade here, while people are demanding a ban on cotton cloth there; people are shouting for free trade here, while the methods given there seem to be pure nonsense... Such logic is simply incomprehensible to normal Chinese people.

China cannot find a similar word to describe this logic.

It seems that the closest word is "both right and right".

In fact, it is a world of difference.

The premise of both right and right is that you know in your heart that "right" is wrong, otherwise what is the right to right?

What if you think in your heart that "right" is right, and you sincerely believe that you are qualified to "right"?

Defoe thought until his death that wool, woolen cloth, and the pottery jars he was obsessed with could not be sold in China because China "violated God's arrangement and had no free trade".

But the problem is that whether it is the Ming Dynasty or the Shun Dynasty, even the Qing Dynasty in history... To put it nicely, they were laissez-faire in terms of trade goods and their own economy. To put it bluntly, they did not feel the importance of tariffs at all. To put it even more bluntly, they were not worthy of being called a centralized government and could not manage it at all.

The rulers simply cannot understand what "mercantilism" and "tariff protection" mean - ah, do you need customs policy to cooperate in accumulating precious metals?

That's not right, it's obviously not necessary, as long as you do business, the other side will automatically send precious metals to you? Even if they are not allowed to trade, they still give me gifts and bribes and insist on sending me silver. Isn't the purpose of customs to collect taxes and put them into the treasury? Tariffs actually have other meanings? It's really a tale of the ages, unheard of.

Manchester cotton cloth, not counting the freight, opens a wormhole portal, the cheapest is 14 pence, 168 coins per foot.

The higher quality earth-dyed blue cloth in southwestern Shandong is 17 coins per foot and 51 coins per foot.

According to the Chinese way of thinking, if free trade is really sacred, doesn't it just mean that British textiles can't be sold in China, reflecting the sacredness of free trade?

Cotton cloth, woolen cloth, etc., can still be understood, after all, they sell well in Europe, and blind self-confidence can also be understood.

But what is the pottery jar that he is obsessed with? How did they get the confidence that pottery jars thousands of miles across the ocean could be dumped in China, the country of porcelain?

Now the ship of Dashun Western Trade Company has arrived in Amsterdam. News of the cargo auction dominated the newspapers all day long.

The cruel reality brought nightmares to their heads. The contrast between faith and reality made them schizophrenic.

Dashun is no longer just a background board in oriental stories.

It is no longer just an oriental garden with asymmetrical aesthetic style of "sharawadgi" built by noble lords.

It is no longer just black tea from Wuyi Mountain that you drink in the afternoon sun.

It is no longer just expensive and gorgeous crystal porcelain.

It is a real country that has stepped out of the background board, participated in the Russian coup, instigated the Dutch coup, and drove the cargo ship to Amsterdam, condensing from a virtual shadow into a real entity.

And this country is exactly "Satan's perfect masterpiece" in their eyes.

According to the definition of British Protestantism at that time, China is a country that [had been conquered by the devil before Jesus arrived in the East. And the biggest manifestation of this fact is their idolatry].

[The Jesuits were also a group of idolatrous heretics. They molded Jesus Christ into a worshiped idol and merged it with Confucius. This enabled the idolatry of China and Rome to go hand in hand and eventually become good friends]

[At this point, the "wisdom" of the Jesuits made the Chinese devil pale in comparison. The masterpiece they worked together even stunned Satan himself]

[The Jesuits and the Chinese devils formed a religious hodgepodge, making this fusion worse than the previous pure devil. They tied the faith of Jesus Christ to the moral philosophy of the pagan Confucius and gave a serious explanation of the doctrine - this way of preaching itself is the devil's behavior. Only in this kind of nation that has long been conquered by Satan will it be spread in this way]

Many people in later generations heard the word "Protestantism" and thought it must be more tolerant and progressive. But in fact, as Liu Yu said, or as it has been staged countless times in ancient China, the first step of any religious reform must be retro.

The new is the oldest.

Protestantism is the most fundamentalist.

They believe that they are the orthodox and closest to the original intention - so Catholicism can produce strange heresies such as liberation theology, but Protestantism cannot.

It is precisely because before the Dashun banned religion, the Jesuits monopolized foreign exchanges, which made it quite unfavorable for these Protestant countries.

This realistic factor has created this kind of British saying - China had been conquered by Satan before Jesus spread there; the Jesuits, a group of heretics, mixed with Chinese moral philosophy, created a masterpiece that shocked Satan himself.

It is very different from the way of belief in the East. After being beaten by others, East Asia will definitely think that the other party must be so strong, and we must learn from them well, otherwise why are they so strong?

But the special "justification by faith" in the Protestant doctrine - if you do good things without believing in Jesus, you will definitely go to hell, because this is preaching for the devil - is exactly the opposite of the logic here in China.

So it has created a very special situation:

Yes, Dashun is very strong, and their goods are very good.

But precisely, this proves that our faith is correct. We must fight against the devil, defeat the devil, and not be tempted by the devil. If this person does not believe in religion but does many good deeds, then it is the devil who is possessed and tempting you.

The same is true for countries. If this country does not believe in religion but is strong, then it must be the devil who is tempting us to leave the right faith. At this juncture, we must be firm and be more convinced that everything we are pious about is correct.

This is not only something that is difficult for Dashun to understand, but also exacerbates the nightmare of those who have long opposed China, such as Defoe.

The more you believe that you are fine, the more you believe that the other side is tempted by the devil, which leads to the nightmare of the conflict between faith and reality.

The advantage is that you can naturally add a layer of "sense of justice" to yourself - everything we do, killing and arson, massacres in concentration camps, and genocide, are all against the devil, and we are naturally just.

Because we are naturally just.

So if you can't do well, it's because you are different from us, you deserve it, and this is the root cause of your backwardness.

If you do well, it means that you have been conquered by Satan, and he is tempting us to go to hell. This Satan can be gradually replaced with something else that "scares them deeply" as the times progress.

Satan is just an idol used to scare people. When this devil idol is no longer so scary as the times progress, you can replace it with something else, but the core remains unchanged.