The Crescent of the Sultan

In the early days of the first industrial revolution, there was an unbreakable truth—profit was everything.

For the sake of profit, the British can be said to do anything they can.

But in a link that only involves production and sales, how should we pursue high profits?

If he couldn't even answer this question, Selim could only say that a capitalist is no longer a capitalist.

As for Daiying's answer to this question, not only was it perfectly correct, it could even be said that he even answered the hidden additional question.

Who would have thought that there are three- and four-year-old children working in capitalist factories?

Not one or two people, but hundreds or thousands of people showed up.

The life span of these child laborers usually does not exceed twenty years.

Entering a dark factory prematurely will cause their bodies to suffer severe damage.

Selim remembers reading a short story called "The Rebel" by Jack London.

Jack London, known as the red writer, described a child named Johnny in a poignant tone.

From the age of seven, he was forced to do child labor in factories, enduring the exploitation of capitalists and the whipping of supervisors.

By the age of twelve or thirteen, he had worked in a linen spinning factory, a glass factory, and a weaving factory.

Every day before dawn, his mother would drag him out of bed. ׺°”˜˜`”°º×Due to too little sleep, he was like an extremely tired little animal, completely losing confidence in life, and finally collapsed.

Selim can’t remember the specific plot of the novel clearly.

He only remembered that this child named Jonny once had deep expectations for the "Floating Island" cake, but when he finally ate it, he could no longer taste it. The life of a "working animal" had made him numb.

The author Jack London lived the life of a "working animal" in his childhood.

Jack London wrote a funny limerick at the beginning of this novel:

I cheered up and went to work today,

Lord, protect me from being a sluggard;

If I'm dead before dark,

God bless my job.

Amen.

The era of Jack London has already reached the end of the nineteenth century, but what about the eighteenth century?

As the first place of the Industrial Revolution, the British Isles had a small population and a limited labor force. In order to reduce costs, British capitalists turned their attention to women, children and homeless people on the streets.

The salary of an adult male worker can hire 2 female workers and 3 to 7 child workers. The younger the age, the lower the wage expenditure.

Compared with adults, child labor is obviously easier to manage, and it is easier to suppress strikes. There are a large number of child laborers in factories where labor intensity is not too high.

The sources of these child laborers are also diverse. Some of them are people at the bottom who are forced to make a living and send their children to factories; others are bought from the trading market.

Yes, child labor was also a commodity at this time. Orphanages, church almshouses, and human traffickers were the biggest sellers, and a very small number were sold by their parents.

If child laborers are still paid, then vagrants are grouped in groups every three years. Those who are alive don’t have to think about leaving, and those who are dead don’t have to leave either.

The factory will serve you for the rest of your life. When you are alive, you eat some black bread mixed with sand and some thick soup made of unknown ingredients every day. When you die, throw it away outside the city and return to nature. The main thing is caring.

It can be said that the bloody factory is the most realistic social portrayal of this era.

On the one hand, Daiying made huge profits by exploiting child labor crazily, and on the other hand, he portrayed himself as a gentleman to the outside world, donating money to the church, investing in education, and euphemistically claiming to support poor students.

I have to say that I, Dai Ying, is simply a model in the archway industry, and can be called the world’s most enlightened person.

Teacher Ma has a saying that is quite wonderful.

"Capital comes into this world, from head to toe, with blood and filth dripping from every pore."

This is also the reason why Emperor Sai the Great established compulsory education. The accumulation of original capital is indeed quite bloody. This kind of labor is not suitable for Muslims, so the only thing left to the Orthodox people is to suffer.

Selim remembered that people used to say that the Ottoman Empire's assimilation ability was rubbish. When he came to this world, he found that the Ottoman Empire's assimilation ability could not be said to be worth mentioning, but it could also be said to be tragic.

But in fact, if we delve into the reasons, the poor assimilation effect is not because the Ottoman Empire is incapable. It is purely because later researchers or folk history enthusiasts did not understand the Ottoman Sultan's positioning for himself and the Ottoman people.

For the Sultan, the so-called Ottoman subjects were not actually Muslims as folk history buffs thought, but elites who could bring benefits to the empire.

To be honest, in the eyes of the Sultan, the Fanar people are much nobler than ordinary Muslims.

As a subject of the Ottoman Empire, you are naturally full of pride in the empire, because you are a subject, not a cow or sheep.

The ruled class were called reaya by the Ottoman Empire. They were not even human beings, and the Ottomans made no secret of it. They literally meant cattle and sheep.

You are not a lowly Turkic principality and nomad in Asia Minor. You were almost oppressed by the Ottoman Empire and had no way out, so much so that you were stabbed in the back and revolted almost every year.

Of course, the empire did not hesitate to launch massacres and forced relocations of these lowly Turks. Aydin, Gormyan, Karaman, and even the remnants of the Seljuk dynasty in Dobroga could not escape the slaughter of the Ottomans.

You are not the Karaman Turks who were beaten to almost no chance of survival by the Ottoman Empire. You will not be massacred by the Ottoman Empire, nor will you be exiled by the "conquerors" or forced to immigrate to the Balkans to fill the newly conquered territories of the empire.

You are not an unlucky Balkan mountaineer who does not have to hand over your children to the Sudan and pay the blood tax, nor will you "voluntarily" pick up the weapons given by the empire to fight against the Turks who were forced to immigrate to defend the Sudan's trade routes.

It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s who you are that matters.

Your ancestors may have followed the Holy Prophet through the border, you may have your ancestors to have jumped through Persian faces with the "Cold Ones", or your ancestors may have been the mentors of the Muslim Brotherhood.

You are a noble citizen of the empire, not a cow or a sheep.

Why did the Ottoman Empire, despite its six hundred years of rule, fail to convert the Orthodox Christians within its territory? Because the bottom class of believers in Islam and Christianity were cattle and sheep, and they were equally oppressed and had almost no chance to leave their villages.

Compared with daily life, the painful oppression of tyranny, the plunder of manpower by military conquest, and religious discrimination did not become the main contradiction until the late empire, when productivity and transportation improved, and the large-scale mixing of lower-class Christians and Muslims became the main contradiction.

This is also the reason why Selim set up these policies. Without comparison, why should others convert.

Could it be that if I changed my faith, I wouldn’t have to work as a cow and horse for the Sultan?

This is the fundamental problem. In Selim’s view, so-called faith is not worth mentioning in the face of survival.

As long as good treatment is provided, what tax exemptions and tax reductions are there, and Orthodox Christians will not convert?

Stop pretending to be a saint. Without the Sultan's permission, even if you go on a hunger strike, starve to death, struggle and convert, the Patriarch will still not make you a saint.

If you really don't want to convert, you will have to suffer the hardships of the Orthodox people. After all, the factories are still short of people.

The Sultan sitting on the carriage laughed. Survival or faith, this is actually a question.