Some soft articles have been written for a long time, some of which were written by Hurd himself, while others were invited to criticize the opium trade and the slave trade from a foreigner’s perspective. Forget it, Britain has a strong anti-opium trade voice. Opium trade has long been despised by the elite, but in Hurd’s pen, he directly compared the slave trade with the slave trade, recognizing that the two kinds of trade are the same in nature, and Britain is the biggest force to promote the abolition of the slave trade in the world. As soon as Lincoln announced in the United States during the war, he was immediately supported by the British public opinion and made the British government support the southern attitude, and he immediately dared not
When the special team quietly landed in London three months later, Britain was already quite nervous, and the British government had received the report from the Governor and Minister of Hong Kong and learned about the big situation. They judged that the situation was very tense, and the cabinet had called several meetings to formally discuss the possibility of war.
However, the situation in Hong Kong continues to be tense. The British fleet has confronted each other several times and almost missed the fire. Finally, the great navy exercised restraint and did not forcibly search the British naval escort merchant ships. However, tracking these merchant ships forced the British fleet to escort all the way to Singapore, which greatly increased the financial expenditure of the British fleet in Hong Kong and made the financial difficulties of the Hong Kong government even more difficult. You know, during this period, there were not only big bonds, but also bonds issued by the Hong Kong government kept falling, which seriously affected the financing ability of the Hong Kong government.
This situation has become increasingly unprofitable for the British government to run Hong Kong.
At this time, some British newspapers reported the news of coolie trade and opium trade in secret. They reported according to Hurd’s tone, and many British journalists also made their own processing and described it vividly. As if they had seen it with their own eyes, they described the suffering of China coolies in transit and the treatment they suffered in colonial mines and manors. The conclusion was that the coolies in China were treated more inhumanely than the black slaves in the past. This is not something that people in the literary world should do.
The most deadly thing about these reports is that although some reports are exaggerated, their reports are based on facts and can withstand investigation, which soon caused a wave of public opinion. With the tension in the East, the government war discussion continued to heat up in Britain and soon caused a big discussion.
It is very effective for the big government to send special teams, because most of them are businessmen, and there are a large number of western consultants to follow them, so that they have the means and experience to manipulate public opinion. Even though the British government knows that China people are behind the scenes, they can still prevent them from attacking newspapers because they are a country with free speech. The first opposition is either others or the newspaper association. They have fought a tit-for-tat public opinion war, but the news reported by pro-government newspapers was quickly drowned out in critical public opinion. After all, the British all know that what those businessmen do in China is not a good thing, and those people are not very famous in Britain.
Most of the elites of the British Empire are still posing as gentlemen, and some celebrities soon came out to warn the government that if British businessmen are always protected from honor trade in the East, the reputation of the country will be affected. Bahrain Bank also engaged in opium trade in the early days, but soon they retired from the background because they were worried that opium trade would affect the reputation of the Bahrain family.
Therefore, most gentlemen are still in their general mentality of upholding justice, and the government is increasingly unable to suppress unfavorable public opinion and has to express the attitude that the British Empire resolutely protects legitimate trade. However, for the time being, they will not consider resorting to war, and they will adopt friendly consultations with the big government to seek a peaceful solution to inhuman phenomena in the trade of coolies on the basis of protecting British businessmen.
On the issue of opium trade, the British government did not respond, because once the foreign exchange trade in which Britain earned tens of millions of taels of silver every year was banned, Britain’s trade deficit with China would be balanced by law, and they had to return to the point where they used to transport silver in ships in exchange for tea in China. This is their way of accepting opium, which is not just a business for them, but a necessity for trade balance.
This is why the British fought opium against the Manchu dynasty, but they never admitted that they were opium. They insisted that they were trade, and at that time their trade was based on free opium.
Because the opium trade is not pleasant to hear, it is of strategic significance to Britain. It is precisely because the opium trade balances the trade balance that the British have to monopolize the eastern trade step by step. The Dutch, rising stars Sweden and Denmark have finally crushed the French who are not angry with Britain.
It is also the root cause why it is difficult for the British to give up the opium trade now.
But now Zhu Jinglun has moved this lamella.
Section three hundred and ninety-seven OTC lobbying 1
This is a risky move, and Zhu Jinglun himself knows very well that the British don’t want to fight, especially against the British. But opium trade is the core interest of the British law. Once the opium trade is lost, Britain will inevitably have a huge deficit in Sino-British trade again. In this golden age, it means that the British have to ship gold and silver to China, which will not only cause great trouble to the British international trade, but also reduce the pound’s credit with the loss of gold and silver, which will threaten the international monetary status of the pound.
A total of 40 to 50 million two-year trade volume is no longer just a simple one, it has already taken on political significance, even if it is poisonous, Britain must persist in maintaining it.
But it is precisely because the opium trade was abandoned by the British law that Zhu Jinglun wants to move this interest, and they will compromise if it hurts the British. It is only then that they can give up the price of coolie trade and keep the opium trade, so as to achieve Zhu Jinglun’s goal of completely ending the miserable coolie trade.
Of course, this is humiliating, especially Zhu Jinglun, an official trained in the new China period. It is even more difficult for him to accept that a country is armed with drug trafficking to his own country and selling its own nationals to go abroad as slaves. But a ruler must be responsible for the whole country. He can choose to crack down on one of the two things, and he can choose to give priority to the latter.
Who makes the opium trade weak now? This is the darkest and bloodiest era on the eve of a great power dividing up the world. It is hard to talk about dignity that the weak can be born in this era!
But even so humiliating, it is possible to play with it. A steel wire is always stretched and may break at any time.
Because Britain has become rich with the completion of industrialization, the so-called wealth and rising conscience have indeed appeared a large number of gentlemen who show their conscience, but these voices can influence the British government for a while and cannot influence British policy for a long time
Just like the American Civil War, after Lincoln announced the abolition of slavery, British nationals enthusiastically supported the North, so that the British government, although eager to support the South, continued to regard the South of the United States as a source of raw materials and a market for production, but temporarily intervened in the law.
At present, British public opinion has held the British government hostage for a while, but it is impossible to make the British government helpless forever. Even in the best case, under the pressure of public opinion, Britain acquiesced to crack down on opium trade, but the long-term trade deficit will soon cause problems in the British economy. This is an era of liberalism, and once the British economic crisis erupts again, they can easily blame it on themselves and tell them that it is because of the great restrictions on trade that the British people have caused the British economic crisis and manipulated public opinion to frame China.
At that time, the British people who were struggling in the economic crisis would not have so much spare conscience. At that time, they didn’t care if the big restriction was opium trade. At that time, they would turn to pressure the government to take tough measures to force the market to be liberalized.
Therefore, once the opium ban is strongly promoted, Zhu Jinglun knows that the war is not far away.
From the first moment, Zhu Jinglun prepared the army to prepare for the first world war against Britain, the world’s largest power. Once the war broke out, the best result was that the navy just formed was destroyed, but it was able to resist the British army in six places, and then it was forced to sign a treaty with Britain after a long blockade.
The worse result was that Hai 6 was defeated on both sides. At that time, I’m afraid I couldn’t even keep my face. The worst thing was that the British didn’t come alone, and she pulled the French or some other allies. At that time, it was not the issue of unequal treaties that needed to be worried, but the question of whether the new country could continue. The British and French Coalition forces defeated Da. How would they choose whether to hand over the big country to the obedient Qing court or divide it up by themselves, or they allowed Da to continue, but they could be their puppet government from now on?
General Zhu Jinglun knows very well that it is very dangerous to provoke the British Empire at this time, and he mobilized the army to prepare for the worst result. At the same time, he also had many other successful men
Those special missions that have gone to Britain are mostly made up of businessmen’s brothers and businessmen who have been trading with foreigners for a long time. They know foreigners’ minds.
They don’t just buy a few newspapers. Their more important mission is to lobby real interest groups by means of their own means, instead of making public opinion in newspapers.
The Manchester Chamber of Commerce is their key lobbying target. They do it in a private capacity, which is relatively secret and may not be hidden from the British government, but it is not easy for people to catch evidence.
In the past, Lu Xuechang, a descendant of Lushi, one of the four major Hong Kong merchants, was the important person in charge of princess talks with Manchester Chamber of Commerce. Of course, he came to Britain as a businessman and visited Manchester Chamber of Commerce as a businessman, and was also honored by Manchester Chamber of Commerce as a businessman.
In the past, the Lu family was once a big businessman alongside the Pan family and the Wu family, but it rose faster than the Wu family.
Lu Guanheng, the head of the first generation of Lu family, came to Guangzhou for a living because of his livelihood. At that time, the Wu family was already a dieter in Wu Guoying’s business. Wu Bingjian was already a rich second generation at that time, but Lu Guanheng was able to work as a handyman in shops until he was over 40 years old, and he could not even marry a wife.
It was a coincidence that he accidentally became a middleman in a foreigner’s trade, and then he entered the foreign trade business. In ten years, he became rich and set up Guanglihang, and he became a thirteen-line general merchant on an equal footing with Wu Bingjian.
It can be said that the rapid rise of the family often has a fatal problem, that is, the foundation is not enough, that is, when Lu Guanheng died, Lu Wenjin, the second-generation head of the Lujia family, was still a 20-year-old child. This is the same as the decline of the Wu family. Besides the great situation of the times, Lu Wenjin was also caused by successors. Without his father’s courage, he just maintained the family business in his time. The Lujia family could not be on an equal footing with Pan Guhe Wujia and became an ordinary business.
Lu Wenjin didn’t have the courage, but he wasn’t a prodigal family. He turned his father’s accumulated huge wealth into rural land, which laid the foundation for the Lujia family. Later, after the Opium War, the Lujia family closed down and the Guangli clan returned home to be landlords safely.
However, in the past, the Lujia family used to be brilliantly connected with foreigners. Zhu Jinglun hoped to benefit the merchants in these businesses. Later, he supported the Lujia family to start a wide-ranging business again, and the reconstruction of the wide-ranging business was Lu Xuechang, the nephew of Lu Guanheng, the third generation head of the Lujia family.
Lu Xuechang is not Lu Wenjin’s son, but Lu Wenjin’s eldest brother Lu Wenju’s son. He is also the only brother who stayed in Guangzhou to continue his business after the Lu family quit the business. However, he stopped trading and switched to buying and selling herbal tea and started a modest tea shop. Later, his herbal tea was well known in the market and was merged by Wang Laoji before liberation.
Because Lu Xuechang is a businessman, when Zhu Jinglun encouraged the Lujia through the Wu family, the Lujia introduced this brother to take charge of the Lujia business again.
There is also a reason why Lu Wenjin came to Manchester this time. Manchester is a famous industrial city in Britain, and the most important industry in Britain is the textile industry. In the past, Lu Jia monopolized the textile business with the East India Company, and they did not sell but reimbursed the Indian cotton of the East India Company. Therefore, after Lu Jia accumulated experience in this business, Lu Xuechang continued to start the textile trade.
The biggest force in the Manchester Chamber of Commerce is the textile merchants. They are not only a commercial force, but also a political force that does not ignore in Britain, an increasingly capitalist country.
Behind the Opium War in Britain was the encouragement of these commercial forces. Although the main protection of the war was the interests of opium merchants, at that time, the Indian Chamber of Commerce, India and China Association, India Association and other groups formed an alliance with the British Textile Chamber of Commerce. At that time, the Opium Chamber of Commerce fooled these textile industry capitalist groups and told them that no one in China bought a shirt, which was enough for them to produce for 100 years.
Therefore, at that time, these associations also joined the ranks of putting pressure on the government to wage war. Together with the opium chambers of commerce, they presented their demands to the foreign minister in a short time and put strong pressure on the government.
At that time, the core group of these groups advocating war was the China Association of India, which was headquartered in London, and the two textile cities, Manchester and Glasgow, were the most vociferous.
This time, Zhu Jinglun moved the opium interest group cake again. It is very necessary to minimize the danger of Britain using force and disintegrate the alliance between industrial interest groups and opium interest groups.
Therefore, this is Lu Xuechang’s greatest mission, and his opponent is Tenell, the president of Manchester hardline radical.
Section three hundred and ninety Off-site lobbying 2
It was this man who spared no effort to lobby and encourage the government when the British and French allied forces launched the second Opium War a few years ago, and when the news that the British and French allied forces occupied Guangzhou returned to Britain, it was this man who was excited to give a eulogy speech?
The revolutionary tone is like "Tenel British troops cheering for the massacre of Guangzhou residents", which is a typical industrial capitalist who committed crimes in the period of industrial revolution.
Of course, this kind of people also have an advantage, that is, they can also sell everything, including their souls to join them. But Lu Xuechang doesn’t need Tenel’s soul. He just needs Tenel not to be with the opium group, and he brings Tenel a gift so that he can’t refuse. The most direct thing is to order enough wool to make 100 thousand suits.
Because of this great gift, Tenell received Lu Xuechang with great courtesy, and called him an angel from China. He also dug up the account records of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce doing business with the Lu family decades ago to prove that they are long-term old friends and trustworthy business partners, and tried to win this business department.
After the welcoming ceremony, Tenel warmly invited Lu Xuechang to visit Manchester textile industry, not only cotton textile industry but also wool textile industry, and told Tenel that purchasing textiles from Manchester was the most correct choice.
Lu Xuechang was very satisfied with handing over the order department to the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and did not regret saying that he did not know when a business could be done.
Tenell very much hopes that this kind of business can be done for a long time, because until now, the British are still beating the textile market in China.
Therefore, he was very worried about what prevented Lu Xuechang from continuing to do business with them. Lu Xuechang expressed concern about the current tension between Daiwa and Britain. He told Tenel that once the war broke out between the two countries, he would definitely continue to purchase British textiles, and he vowed to tell Tenel that ordinary people liked British businessmen very much and were willing to buy British industries.
Tenell expressed doubts about this, because although the import of British textiles is increasing every year, it is still far from the level that most people like British textiles. After the Opium War, the British made a detailed investigation. They wondered why China people had not imported British textiles in large quantities like other countries, so they organized a delegation to conduct an investigation shortly after the Opium War. The results of the investigation were sent by the British Foreign Office to the Manchester and Glasgow Business Associations respectively.
At that time, the survey found that the biggest reason that prevented China people from importing British textiles in large quantities was that the vast rural people in China all spun their own homespuns.
Lu Xuechang didn’t agree with Tenel’s point of view. He shook himself in a British cotton robe and told Tenel that the people of China spun their own textiles not because they didn’t like light British textiles, but because they had no money.
Tenell nodded, which is in line with his point of view and is the reason why they have always been a British textile merchant. They proudly believe that British textiles are loved and not sold by people all over the world. Either their evil government won’t let other people buy them or they can’t afford them.