The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 101 Capitalism Can't Save America

Zhu Jianxuan promised the American founding fathers to become nobles, but also gave them the task of clearing out the opposition.

Then he asked Li Anbang to arrange guards to take them to the surrounding guest room area to rest, and then come to the main hall in the afternoon to hold a Ming-style banquet.

However, Zhu Jianxuan kept the representatives from New York and New Jersey and asked them to sit closest to his desk.

Several people, led by New York Chief Executive George Clinton, are now both confused and surprised.

It seems that the king regards the representatives of the dominions as his own people.

The Free States might have been likened to foreign landed nobility, similar to the earls and barons of old.

The heads of New York and New Jersey would become nobles of the kingdom and court, just as the marquises and viscounts had been before.

Then Zhu Jianxuan asked a question that surprised and confused them:
"Do you know how to be a noble?"

Several people had stern faces, and they wanted to speak out some ideas, but they didn't know if it was appropriate.

However, they soon realized that His Majesty wanted to teach them how to be nobles.

All you need is someone to answer the call, and it doesn't matter whether the answer is correct or not.

Several people hesitated for a moment, then looked at Clinton, the most prestigious Mayor of New York.

George Clinton was the first governor of New York in history. He served as governor for a total of 20 years and served as Vice President of the United States for two terms. He eventually died in office.

During the war, he was promoted to brigadier general in the New York militia and then to brigadier general in the Continental Army.

In the original history, he was elected as a representative of the Continental Congress from New York State, but missed the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Independence because of the war.

They belong to the real ruling class in New York and have a certain reputation throughout the thirteen states.

George Clinton responded uncertainly:
"Your Majesty, as a noble, one should be given fiefdoms and serfs, and then run one's own estate?"

Zhu Jianxuan asked back with some disappointment:

"Land is easy to talk about. North America has a lot of land, but you still want serfs? Where can you get serfs?"

Clinton was indeed confused about this question:

“At present, we can only use temporary indentured servants, but immigrants in North America are essentially adventurers and merchants.

“At the same time, there is just too much land in North America, and although the wild environment is more dangerous, there is a lot of food available.

"Their original lords are not in the New World, and no other lords in the New World have the authority to arrest them."

Then, Clinton became inexplicably excited:
“After your majesty conferred the title, we will become the lords of the New World. Can’t we legally obtain serfs?

"Also, the peasants from Ming Dynasty? Will some of them be given to other lords?"

Zhu Jianxuan looked at Clinton as if he were a fool, and finally saw what true conservative thinking was.

I also suddenly realized one thing: there may be a more important practical reason why Americans in history were unable to establish a feudal monarchy.

The feudal lord system that was prevalent and existed for a long time in Europe corresponded to the serfdom system with strong personal dependence, similar to the farmers in the aristocratic manors of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Instead of the self-cultivating farmers and tenants after the Song and Ming dynasties, the self-cultivating farmers and tenants had complete personal freedom, while the serfs did not.

When European nobles obtained fiefs, they also obtained serfs that came with them.

But the European immigrants in North America were not serfs, but were very close to "adventurers" in the original sense of the word in Europe.

In feudal Europe, lords were local emperors who controlled all the violence machines and wealth in a place.

If the peasants were not dependent on the lord and lived independently outside the lord's manor, it would be very dangerous and they might be attacked by bandits, pirates or even other lords at any time.

In this case, leaving the lord's castle to live independently is called "adventuring", and people who do this are adventurers.

The main theme of adventurous life is not treasure hunting in various secret places, but survival in the wild without the protection of a castle and avoiding attacks and capture by bandits and other lords.

As for those European immigrants in North America, since they have risked their lives to come to North America, how could they possibly become serfs for their lords?

Although the natives of North America are barbaric, their fighting ability is not as good as the bandits of the Old World.

The key is that land resources are extremely abundant, and one can even trade with indigenous people to obtain land ownership, making it easy to take risks and achieve great success.

So the most they could do was to become indentured servants for a period of time in exchange for travel expenses.

Moreover, this was already the late eighteenth century, and the commercial atmosphere in Europe was becoming increasingly strong. The serfdom system in Western Europe had long since collapsed.

If you still want to have serfdom at this time, you have to go to Central and Eastern Europe.

Moreover, these guys are now actually supporting the immigration from the Ming Dynasty. No wonder they are so enthusiastic about my arrival.

Zhu Jianxuan is now speechless:

"European feudalism cannot save America.

"You actually thought that I would distribute the Ming peasants I brought with me to you as serfs—

"They were all free men in the Ming Dynasty. I had to give them land directly and for free before they were willing to follow me to America.

"By medieval standards, their natural goal was to become the smallest lord.

"They are all members of my guard corps, similar to the knights of medieval lords. They can all build their own manors and capture wild people to serve as serfs for them."

A group of people led by George Clinton were stunned:
"They are all your knights...you want to form an army of 10,000 knights?"

Zhu Jianxuan was even more speechless:

"According to this standard, I still have at least 50,000 knights in Australia, and there may be 100,000 in North America in the future.

“But that’s not the case. They are just traditional self-employed farmers in the Ming Empire who exchanged their military service for land. They can’t be compared with feudal lords.

“Your traditional feudal aristocracy system in Europe is totally unsuitable for the situation in North America.

“What you should learn is the aristocratic system of the Shenzhou Empire of the Ming Dynasty.

"All the nobles united around the monarch, serving as officials and military commanders of the kingdom, and jointly ruling over all the nominally free peasants.

“According to European standards, the Shenzhou Empire only had court nobles eight hundred years ago, and no feudal nobles like Europe.

"In fact, isn't it the same situation now between your former suzerain Britain and your enemy France?"

Clinton is also quite helpless now:

“Your Majesty, we were actually imitating the British nobility in the past, and we all acquired land ownership near the city.

“We are planning to build a factory or rent it out to businessmen. The northern region is not suitable for growing cotton and can only be used for raising sheep.

“But North America has too much land and too few people, so naturally factories cannot be built and cannot compete with local...British products.

"We have now basically determined that the British system is useless to the United States.

“So the conservatives want to try the traditional monarchy system, and the radicals want to build a country according to the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau.”

With the historical political experience of the 21st century, Zhu Jianxuan finds it a bit laughable to see what the new American elite represented by Clinton are doing.

Are people like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, and Clinton stupid?
The key to America’s superpower status in later generations was its cultural hegemony, which endowed these pioneers with the aura of saints.

They are certainly not real saints, but as representatives of the de facto ruling class in the United States at this time, none of them are real fools.

For the real ruling class, all laws and systems, including beliefs, are tools that can be used as long as they can safeguard their interests.

However, these American founding fathers experienced unprecedented confusion when they founded the country. They could not find a reference point to learn directly from. It is natural that they could not say no to learning from their native country, Britain.

It's just that the effect will be very slow.

At this time, Britain was engaged in a land enclosure movement where sheep ate people, and the population of London had accumulated to nearly one million.

Britain's traditional aristocracy was being transformed into landed aristocrats and was obtaining excess industrial and commercial income through the rents provided by merchants and factories.

But at that time, there were less than 30,000 people in New York.

These American dignitaries are still thinking of following the example of Britain and hoarding land around cities?

This was very easy because there was no one competing with them. Early land hoarders in the United States did make money, but the waiting period was quite long.

The key is that it will seriously slow down the growth of US power.

They also symbolically distributed the wild forests in the suburbs, and more importantly the Great Plains border areas, to civilians who had served in the military.

Instead of attracting people to the city, they are driven into the wild, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Factories were unable to recruit workers and could only rely on new immigrants to work as indentured servants, so much so that more than 60% of new immigrants came as indentured servants.

But it was really outrageous that the American soldiers intended to support Washington as king and implement the traditional European feudal system.

That is a complete reversal of the social system.

In addition, without the support of the orthodox royal family, there are many problems that cannot be solved in the monarchy.

The Enlightenment thought at least looked bright and beautiful, so the founding fathers of the United States ultimately chose the radicals.

In accordance with the Enlightenment thought, with reference to Montesquieu's separation of powers and Rousseau's social contract theory, the world's first purely civilian republic was constructed.

Zhu Jianxuan looked at George Clinton and others and said:

“Those who want to learn from Montesquieu and Rousseau, do you realize that they are all French?
“It was the 600,000 free citizens of Paris, France, who gave rise to articles and ideas that were in line with their interests and demands.

“Therefore, the social concepts of Montesquieu and Rousseau were also used to serve and mobilize the 600,000 urban freemen in Paris.

"The power of a country built on this system is based on the urban industrial and commercial population.

"Paris, France, has a population of 600,000. After establishing a system, they can directly recruit tens of thousands of citizens in the capital to form a highly cohesive civilian army.

"How many people live in New York City? How many large cities are there in North America? How many industrial and commercial populations are there?"

George Clinton seemed to suddenly realize it, and then replied rather awkwardly:

"On Manhattan Island, in New York City, apart from the Ming expeditionary force, Ming immigrants, and British captives, there are currently only more than 29,000 residents."

Zhu Jianxuan said sarcastically:

“The actual situation is so different, and you still want to use the system designed by the French?
“If you build your country like this, it will be more fragile than any other country in Europe.

"Any normal country can defeat you on the battlefield..."

Clinton did not doubt Zhu Jianxuan's words. They did not fully believe in the Enlightenment thought. After all, there was no successful example before:

"Your Majesty is right. The French system is indeed not suitable for the United States..."

The actual situation is indeed as Zhu Jianxuan said.

At this time, the proportion of urban population in the United States was less than 10%, making it a comparable opponent to the Qing Dynasty of the same period.

In addition to the huge population gap, the Qing Dynasty at that time had many cities with a population of hundreds of thousands, but the United States at that time really had nothing.

Such an America directly established a capitalist system, mobilizing only the power of urban industrial and commercial groups.

This directly led to the post-independence United States becoming a little piece of shit.

Obviously, the area is huge and the population is not very small, but the number of countries established is more than that of the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The rate of immigration growth was also very rapid. By 1800, the population exceeded that of Prussia, and by 1810, the population reached more than 700 million.

But at this time, their performance in the war was nothing but poor.

While Napoleon was waging war in Europe, the United States was preparing to side with France and take the opportunity to annex British Canada, beginning to coalesce its Manifest Destiny to rule America.

As a result, the British colonial troops led the Canadian militia to counterattack, occupied the US capital and burned down the presidential palace.

Afterwards, the United States could only paint the walls white to cover up the burn marks of the war, which led to the creation of the White House, nicknamed the White House.

They were also forced to give up some lands in the northwest that they nominally owned, which was a form of cession of territory.

Their merchant ships were hijacked by Barbary pirates, and they spent ten years trying to build their navy, but in the end they managed a miserable victory.

Even by 1846, the United States had been independent for sixty or seventy years and had a population of nearly 2000 million.

When fighting a chaotic Mexico, the casualty ratio was 13000 to 16000.

If the war for land grabbing had not been able to mobilize the enthusiasm of the farmers, Mexico at that time would have been even weaker, otherwise the outcome would have been unpredictable.

But does this mean that Enlightenment thought is not effective?
The French Republic was established with the same idea, but its combat effectiveness soared to an all-time high.

With the power of one country, it beat Europe violently for more than ten years, making the whole of Europe tremble with fear and completely destroying the loose Holy Roman Empire.

Because the Enlightenment thought truly matured in France.

The social system that extended from the Enlightenment was specifically aimed at liberating the power of the French people.

It is the superstructure that is compatible with France's economic base and is the result of mutual promotion between France's social existence and the social consciousness of the time.

If the French system was directly applied to the United States, it would not conform to the actual situation in the United States at that time, and it would not be able to bring out the power of the self-employed farmers who made up the largest proportion of the U.S. population.

At that time, the federal government could not recruit soldiers because the federal government and the states had never seriously fulfilled their promise to distribute land to soldiers, and every time land was distributed, land speculators were the ultimate beneficiaries.

Moreover, even such a powerful country as France ultimately failed, and feudalism was eventually restored.

If Canada was not a colony but an independent country, the United States might have collapsed and disintegrated, or at least had to cede territory and pay compensation to Canada.

Then they had to start seriously distributing land to soldiers and seriously find ways to mobilize the power of the peasants, which meant switching to a more conservative system.

If there was a feudal country with strong militarist ideas on the North American continent, the United States could be defeated at any time.

Historically, the United States was able to survive until the urban population grew and the Industrial Revolution began because it had no strong enemies.

But the United States in this world has potential enemies. On the other side, there is the Jianzhou Zuowei of the Qing Dynasty expanding.

The Native Americans were about to become a military aristocracy - the Eight Banners.

So the United States is really in danger at this time, and the Enlightenment and capitalism cannot save the United States.

It’s not because the Enlightenment and capitalism are not good, but because it’s too late and the American bourgeoisie has no chance to accumulate slowly.

If the United States at this time re-established the same system as in history, it might be gradually annexed by the Qing Dynasty.

Then the Anglo-Saxon immigrants in North America would also have to wear braids, and might be reorganized into the new Eight Banners by Qianlong, and really create the Eight Banners Anglo-Saxon.

It really feels like a magical scene, but it is actually possible.

Fortunately, Daming has also arrived now.

(End of this chapter)