Ding Guofeng doesn't like the British at all. In terms of dislike, he is second only to the Japanese.
Just like the "Co-Prosperity Sphere" in another time and space, the British scholar Edmund Burke at the end of the eighteenth century took the lead in constructing an academic trap based on Christian universalism and proposed the so-called "civilization mission theory."
According to this argument, the British colonial rule promoted the historical progress of Asia and Africa, brought Asia and Africa out of the barbaric era, and brought peace, humanity and a lifestyle consistent with civilized standards to Asia and Africa. The Chinese were labeled as dirty
Dirty, lazy, dishonest, lacking in originality, a nation that has not invented any civilization, lacks the label of cultural achievement or grand religion.
To put it simply, there are eight words: seclusion, backwardness and beatings. This statement is still talked about by many Chinese people. I really don’t know what it means!
A country that relied on piracy and plunder, relying on the achievements of the Great Navigation and the First Industrial Revolution, sold opium to China with one hand, launched two Opium Wars, and robbed huge amounts of silver; and cultivated black tea in Ceylon with the other hand.
Reduce dependence on Chinese tea, thereby turning China, a trade surplus country for more than two thousand years, into a deficit country.
It is not just robbery, but they also shamelessly use the achievements of religion and the industrial revolution to beautify themselves, create a world for themselves according to their own appearance, and call it "democratic and advanced"; they use political power and scholars to justify their aggression.
Behavioral endorsement, and the systematic creation of the theory "you deserve to be beaten", so that even the invaded party believed it a hundred years later.
If the country was really closed to the outside world, how could massive amounts of silver continue to flow into China? How did the trade volume between Kyakhta and Guangzhou increase year by year? Why did the Portuguese, Dutch, and British insist on trafficking opium to Guangzhou?
As the understanding of this time and space continues to deepen, the 29-member committee of Beihai Town has now reached a consensus that Zhao Xin will leave the Manchus alone and not fight against Zhao Xin. They will first deal with Tsarist Russia and then the Netherlands, then deal with the British East India Company, and even forcibly take advantage of the Spanish.
The strategy of seizing food is unanimously agreed upon.
The wolf cub must be eliminated when it is underage, and it must be destroyed even if it cannot be killed. We cannot wait until the other party becomes stronger and come out to cause harm to people. In the larger world, this is a war between civilizations, so the British must not be allowed to unify India.
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Ding Guofeng didn't want to talk nonsense with Dundas anymore. What he couldn't get on the battlefield couldn't be obtained at the negotiation table. What's more, he wasn't good at talking, otherwise Zhao Xin wouldn't have let him come.
Thinking of this, the corners of his mouth turned up, he snorted slightly, and then said: "If you don't agree, then we will mobilize another five thousand troops, and next time we will go directly to the Governor's Palace in Madras to talk."
When Dundas heard such naked words, his face instantly turned ugly. He was extremely confused by Ding Guofeng's unabashed hostility. You must know that neither the Guangzhou office nor the company had ever interacted with this group of self-proclaimed "Serris people"
There had been conflicts with the guys. If anything, the company had sold several sail warships to the Qing Empire and sent an officer corps to provide training.
But that’s business! Isn’t it possible to make money without making money?
Neither of the two Dundas proposed by Ding Guofeng can be accepted. If Mysore is not killed, the company's plan to annex the entire South Asian continent will not be realized, and thus it will not be able to plunder more wealth through taxes and industrial products.
Tell the company not to sell opium to the Chinese in Guangzhou and Southeast Asia? God testifies, the company has always been just a middleman that collects taxes. Where to sell it and to whom it is sold is the business of those businessmen, and the company has no control over it.
As for banning the cultivation of opium, it is even more impossible. The company's income from the opium trade last year was as high as 1.9 million rupees. This cannot be easily given up. Once the cultivation of opium is banned, not only will thousands of people lose their jobs, even if the government provides
Subsidies could not fully compensate for the losses of the landowners and tenant farmers who grew opium, and more importantly, there was no other way to profit from the Guangzhou trade.
To explain this problem, we must start from twenty years ago. From this we can see clearly how the British East India Company established a large and sophisticated opium trading system in Bangladesh.
In 1772, Hastings took over as the Governor of Bengal. At that time, the financial situation of the East India Company seriously deteriorated. At home, the company could only rely on debt to survive. In order to save the company, the British government chartered the company to ship the inventory of Chinese tea to North America for dumping.
Everyone on earth knows what happened next. The New Englanders who were used to drinking smuggled tea quit, and the tea from the East India Company was more than twice as expensive. So they shouted the nonsense slogan "No taxation without representation" and put the tea away
Fell into the sea.
The tea could not be sold, causing the East India Company's debt to triple in just a few years. In addition, as famine, plague, and poverty plagued Bengal, employees were all busy filling their pockets, and the three major district governments had
On the verge of bankruptcy.
When Hastings took office, he was required to maintain peace in India and ensure company taxation and property security. In order to survive the financial crisis, the implementation of the opium monopoly system became inevitable.
In 1772, when the company purchased a batch of opium from employees in Patna, the employees believed that the company's bid was too low and the purchase quantity was too large, and they had a conflict with the company. This incident eventually became the trigger for changing the opium system.
In Hastings' view, ordinary commercial activities may achieve maximum prosperity without government intervention, but free trade is not suitable for non-necessities such as opium. The opium market at that time was extremely small, so it was necessary to obtain
To achieve huge profits, its output must be limited; and if you want to limit output, the most effective means is monopoly.
So at the end of 1773, the Bengal Senate agreed to his plan and decided to let middlemen take over the purchase of opium through a series of contract systems. This would standardize the industrial order and increase the company's taxes.
To put it simply, this method relies on designated indigenous merchants as contractors to purchase the opium from farmers, then transport the opium to Calcutta, and then sell it to bidders according to the pre-allocated quota. In this process, every Mond
(Unit of weight in India, 1 mond is equivalent to 37.32 kilograms) Opium is subject to an export tax of 30 rupees; and for opium shipped to Calcutta by non-designated recipients, in addition to the export tax of 30 rupees, each box (60 kilograms) also has to pay an export tax of 30 rupees.
You have to pay another 80 rupees.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click the next page to continue reading the exciting content! The above is the beginning and end of the opium system reform carried out by the British East India Company in 1773. In another time and space, many people mistakenly believed that after the British occupied Bangladesh in 1757,
He tried his best to develop the opium trade with China, and in 1773 established a policy of planting large quantities of opium and importing large quantities of opium into China, and gave the East India Company manufacturing and monopoly privileges.
In fact, the East India Company's increase in production and monopoly of the Chinese opium market was a later event and had nothing to do with the restructuring in 1773.
By the way, the company asked the British government for help in 1773 when its financial situation was deteriorating. The help was received, but it also created a dual management system in British India. The British government became one of the shareholders, and Hastings also became one of the shareholders.
The first Governor-General of British India.
In 1775, the East India Company acquired another famous opium-producing area, Benares, from the Oud state in northwest Bengal, thus completing its overall control over the opium-producing areas of Bengal. The opium produced here was later sold in China
Known as "La Ban Tu", it was very popular in the Chinese market after the 1830s.
In 1785, the Canton Select Committee was unable to invest in Chinese goods due to lack of funds, so the East India Company began to make a fuss in the opium trade. The Council decided to continue to implement the contract system, but it must be carried out through tendering. The purchased opium was
Public auction in Calcutta, and payment in cash to the company manager in Guangzhou before the specified date for cash settlement when purchasing goods.
After Cornwallis took over, he continued to implement the contract system, refined many terms, and increased the protection of the company's interests. In particular, he lowered the purchase price of opium, thereby obtaining more profits from the opium auction. Historically
By 1800, the East India Company's revenue from opium was as high as 2.73 million rupees.
In this way, the British finally established a monopoly system on the opium trade in Bangladesh. Since the Mawa opium production area was in the Sindh region of northwest India, the company was temporarily unable to reach it, so they adopted a simple blockade policy on the export of Mawa opium.
, to limit supply in the external market.
The British's monopoly on Bangladeshi opium prepared the conditions for large-scale production. In addition, the opium market in Southeast Asia has now matured, and the increase in demand in the Chinese market due to changes in smoking methods ten years ago eventually led to the grand triangle trade of opium.
Initial formation.
In today's Guangzhou market, the wholesale price of a pound of opium is 4 taels of silver, while the retail price is as high as 7 taels of silver or more. What was the retail price of Liu Zheng in the year he went to Guangzhou? 1.9 taels of silver.
"General Ding, I want to take the conditions proposed by you back to discuss with the Governor. As you know, the Lord does not have the right to make decisions on many matters. It must be approved by our government and the Bangladesh Senate."
Now that the stick has been given, the carrot must also be taken out. Yu Guofeng stood up, shook hands with Dundas, smiled and said: "Grow cotton."
"What?"
"I mean you shoveled up the poppies and planted cotton. We need a lot of cotton."
In fact, Beihai Town's demand for cotton is not just for clothing and quilts. Making nitrocellulose is also one of its main uses. In addition to fighting, there are so many roads to be built all over the world, and to dig mountains and blast rocks, the amount of cotton required is simply overwhelming!
Although Ding Guofeng had previously placed an order from Thanjavur to purchase 200,000 pounds of long-staple cotton per year, it was still far from enough.
Dundas said nonchalantly: "How much do you plan to buy?"
"How much did you export to Guangzhou last year?"
Dundas turned around and glanced at his assistant. The other person hurriedly opened the notebook he carried with him, shuffled it for a long time, and then whispered a few words. Then Dundas said without blushing in the blink of an eye: "Two hundred thousand pieces."
You are really telling lies with your eyes open!
According to data collected by the intelligence station stationed in Guangzhou in Beihai Town, the East India Company exported 30,780 bales of cotton to Guangzhou in 1793, while the export volume of British overseas port ships was almost 150,000 bales.
, the total of the two is only 180,000 packages.
Ding Guofeng smiled slightly, did not refute, and nodded: "If you agree to our two conditions, then we will sign a ten-year supply contract based on 300,000 packages per year, with an annual increase of 15%.
.You bring the goods to Bacheng, and we will give you cash. But the price can no longer be 15 taels per pack, Bacheng is much closer than Guangzhou."
Dundas suddenly felt dizzy and couldn't help but reach out and grab his assistant's arm to avoid making a fool of himself. This can no longer be said to be pie in the sky, it is simply like smashing a big meat bun! This is too big, he has to
Hurry back to Calcutta to meet the Governor.
It is said that from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, except for a few countries such as Britain, the United States and Russia, most of the Western countries that originally traded with China have faded out of the Guangzhou market. One of the main problems is the Sino-Western trade.
It is a one-way flow, and China has a trade surplus with all Western countries.
Westerners were in urgent need of Chinese tea but could not provide corresponding exchange items, while the Chinese wanted nothing but silver. For example, between 1721 and 1740, 94.9% of the British used to pay for Guangzhou's trade volume were gold and silver coins.
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Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the largest source of silver flowing into China has been the Americas. The problem is that silver production in the Americas began to decline at the end of the 18th century. In addition, due to Spain's participation in the American War of Independence after 1779, the European silver dollar market was closed; so from 1779 to
In the six years from 1785 to 1785, not a single silver dollar was shipped from the British mainland to China. Due to several attacks, the gap in European silver became wider and wider.
You have to pay money to buy tea.
Well, if you don’t have money, why don’t you use things to change your career? Leather goods, spices, and cotton are all good things.
Oops! This satin is not bad either.
Give money, the goods are genuine, and the children and old men are not deceived.
Uh...I'll go! This business can't be run anymore.
The reason why the French Revolution broke out was not because Louis XVI had no money. Why did Louis XVI have no money? In addition to aiding the great cause of the New England Revolution, there was also the fact that he could not make money from China trade.
Throughout the late eighteenth century, except for the United Kingdom, Spain and the United States, everyone was short of cash, and every household had tea, cotton, spices and so on. To put it bluntly, as long as it is a country that does business normally, it will not be easy to encounter such exchanges as China.
Everyone has to go crazy.
The exception to Tsarist Russia was that they relied on furs, so they desperately expanded eastward, all the way to Alaska. The same goes for the United States. In addition to trading in furs, American ginseng, and a small amount of opium, they also had the convenience of having access to Spanish American colonies.
Get the silver and send it to China.
Britain, on the other hand, first tried to rely on Indian cotton in exchange for tea, and then relied on large-scale opium exports to rebuild its trade structure with China, which not only kept its trade with China intact, but also turned it into a surplus in one fell swoop.
The reason why Dundas was confused by Ding Guofeng's statement that the company exported opium to China was because the main commodity exported by the East India Company to China was actually cotton.
In the history of another time and space, the status switch between opium and cotton began in 1820. The total value of opium exported to China that year soared to 6.486 million silver dollars, while the value of cotton dropped to 3.24 million silver dollars.
On the surface, this is because the British have a complete monopoly on opium in India and have increased production and input. At the same time, the British demand for cotton has also increased significantly. However, the actual situation is that the cotton fabrics produced by the British themselves are of inferior quality and high prices.
It can't be sold in Guangzhou; and the cotton imported by the Chinese is not just for their own clothing - the poor cannot afford it anyway, and most of it will be woven into cloth and then exported.
After that, others will talk about the Manchu issue.
First of all, cotton production is insufficient. Although the planting scale has increased a lot compared with the Ming Dynasty, the shortage is still common, so cotton is imported.
However, a common problem in farming societies is that, except for the urban population, rural areas adopt a barter trade method for agricultural and sideline products and are self-sufficient. Even though the Manchu and Qing courts opened their doors to imported cotton, rural people still could not afford it.
A pound of cotton costs seven cents of silver, a suit of cotton clothes costs two pounds of cotton, and three pounds can weave a foot of cloth. So even if you have money, you will buy cotton to weave cloth, and then sell it to support your family.
Furthermore, all goods imported from Guangzhou must be handled by thirteen merchants. It is said that there are thirteen merchants, but in fact there are only seven or eight merchants in total. It is tantamount to fantasy to rely on these merchants to consume a large amount of cotton.
.Looking at the quantity of cotton imported at Guangzhou Port from 1785 to 1833, it never exceeded 500,000 bales. And due to transportation costs, very few cotton arriving in Guangzhou could cross the Yangtze River and enter the northern provinces.
Five days later, Dundas arrived in Calcutta. Cornwallis listened to his report. His face was livid with anger at first, but then he couldn't help but be stunned, thinking that this matter might actually be done. The East India Company has been trying to do it all these years.
Developed trade with Beihai Town, but Beihai Town ignored them. After the "Battle of West Java", the Dutch were driven out of Southeast Asia, and the British were just preparing to contact Beihai Town again, when a battle for local governance broke out.
The current war with the French is unwinnable, and it is difficult to take advantage of the war with Mysore. It is better to stop the losses as soon as possible. If we can really vigorously develop the cotton trade and reach an agreement with the Saris people, it will be regarded as our own benefit.
Leaving office brings an almost perfect ending.
Originally, Cornwallis's achievements during his tenure as Governor-General of India were highly recognized by the British government and the public, so his experience of the defeat at Yorktown was gradually forgotten by public opinion. Unexpectedly, a North Sea town appeared out of nowhere and put him in danger at the end of his life;
The local government's siege was so frustrating that even Tipu Sultan, the defeated general, had his tail pouted - he was so energetic.
In fact, had it not been for the intervention of Beihai Town, Cornwallis would have resigned and returned home after completing local governance. The position of Director of the Royal Ordnance Service was beckoning to him.
Only two days later, Cornwallis eagerly submitted the "Cotton Plan" to the Bangladesh Senate, intending to end this frustrating war in a "dignified" way.