The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 3 "It's Time for the Boston Tea Party"

On the morning of June 5th, the 28th year of Xianning, after the morning court session, Emperor Zhu Zhonglin of the Ming Dynasty habitually came to the Kunning Palace where the Queen lived.

He greeted the Queen first, and then the couple went to see Zhu Jianxuan together as usual.

Although Zhu Jianxuan is a "peerless genius", his current physical age is only four and a half years old after all, and he can only live with his mother.

However, Zhu Jianxuan already has his own room, a study room specifically used for reading and writing.

Zhu Jianxuan was reading the latest collection of imperial reports at this time.

In the eyes of Zhu Zhonglin and his wife, the child, who was less than five years old, was sitting in front of a specially made small table and reading a book.

The chubby little hands held a disproportionately large book, and the red little face had an extremely serious expression as it flipped through the boring official newspaper in all seriousness.

Although the couple has seen this scene many times, they can't help but smile every time they see it.

Zhu Jianxuan noticed his parents entering his room, so he immediately stood up and greeted them earnestly:
"Father, Queen Mother..."

Zhu Zhonglin nodded with a smile and walked over, handing over the new documents he had brought:

"These are major events that happened around the world last year. The West Factory just compiled them these past few days, and I asked them to make an extra copy."

According to Zhu Jianxuan's understanding, the Chongzhen Emperor of this world rebuilt the East and West Factories and transformed them into a more modern intelligence agency.

The East Factory was responsible for the Ming mainland, Qing Dynasty, and Shun Kingdom, while the West Factory was responsible for all other areas.

The functions and status are somewhat similar to the FBI and CIA in Zhu Jianxuan's previous life in the United States.

So this document is equivalent to the CIA's year-end summary.

However, there were no telegraphs or telephones at that time, and cross-regional information transmission could only rely on sailing ships.

The information collected by the Western Factory in Europe and America was usually delayed by more than half a year before being transmitted to the Ming mainland and summarized.

Most of the above information is public events, rather than any inside information obtained through special investigations.

Zhu Jianxuan took the document with some trepidation and immediately opened it to read it on the spot.

Zhu Jianxuan was nervous, not only because the intelligence documents themselves were sensitive, but also because last year was already 1773 according to the Western calendar.

If the history of Europe and America had not changed much, the Boston Tea Party would have taken place at the end of last year.

This marked a further intensification of the conflict between the American colonies and mainland Britain.

By next year, the "gunshots of Lexington" would be heard, and the American War of Independence would officially break out.

The content of the West Factory report was not much, and there was a very clear and specific table of contents. Zhu Jianxuan quickly found what he was concerned about.

The Boston Tea Party really happened.

The main leader was still Samuel Adams, the cousin of John Adams, the second president of the United States in his previous life.

It happened more than a month earlier than in his previous life, and the amount of tea leaves dumped into the sea was more than twice as much as in the original history.

The report also includes the cause and effect of this incident.

A massive famine that lasted for three years had just broken out in the Bengal region ruled by the British East India Company.

The total number of people who starved to death in the area may have exceeded 10 million, accounting for about one-third of the local population.

After the British East India Company took over the region five years ago, it raised the tax rate on agricultural products from 10 percent to 50 percent.

After the famine broke out, the East India Company only took out 9,000 pounds for disaster relief, and at the same time prepared to increase the tax rate by another 60 percent from the current level.

The East India Company believed that the total tax-paying population had decreased and that in order to obtain the same amount of tax revenue, tax rates must continue to increase.

That is to say, those who are still alive should pay as much tax as possible to make up for the taxes paid by those who starved to death.

All I can say is that the British Empire is worthy of being called the Great Empire, and it has always been outstanding in terms of being an inhumane person.

However, at this time, the northwest of the East India Company's territory in Bengal had already become the territory of Shun State established by Li Zicheng and his nephew Li Guo.

After Shun State figured out the situation in the Indian region, it made the unification of the entire India its top goal.

The Bengal famine gave the Shun Kingdom, which had been well prepared, an opportunity. They once again raised the slogan of equal distribution of land and exemption of grain, and launched a full-scale attack on the Bengal region.

Both the local institutions of the East India Company and the original local nobles were wiped out by the Dashun Army.

Shun State finally unified the entire northern India.

The British East India Company suffered heavy losses and was forced to shrink its sphere of influence to the south.

The company sent people to lobby the British Parliament and obtained the monopoly on tea in America. The key was to prohibit American merchants from selling private tea.

The East India Company prepared to dump its excess inventory of low-quality tea into America in an effort to recover its losses in India.

This behavior, of course, directly harms the interests of American businessmen and residents.

After the Seven Years' War, the British had already imposed taxes on America once, and this time they came to reap the rewards again.

The enraged locals broke into Boston's tea port and dumped all the tea on the East India Company's tea ships into the sea.

Tea is one of the most important products in the Ming Dynasty's export trade.

All information about tea from Europe and the United States is important information and will be specially compiled and sent to the emperor.

Of course, the tea that Bostonians poured into the sea was all purchased from the Ming Dynasty.

The various regions of this world have not yet been completely connected, but they have begun to connect.

The foreign trade of the Ming Dynasty in this world was more extensive than that of the Qing Dynasty in the same period in history, and more tea was exported to Europe every year.

As a result, more tea was destroyed during the Boston Tea Party than ever before in history.

The British East India Company suffered even greater losses...

After getting a general understanding of the information, Zhu Jianxuan's originally serious expression gradually turned into a sad face.

Zhu Zhonglin and his wife were watching Zhu Jianxuan's expression change and were very surprised and curious.

Zhu Jianxuan, a little boy less than five years old, started to worry when he saw the news from far away. This scene is hard not to care about.

Zhu Zhonglin asked directly:
"Xuan'er, are you worried about Shunguo? After they acquired the Bengal region, they bordered us in Myanmar.

"After giving up their homeland, Shun State and Qing State have become closer and closer, and there is a trend of uniting to fight against our Ming Dynasty."

Zhu Jianxuan looked up at his father, carefully choosing his words to express his thoughts, and tried to test his father's attitude towards the United States:

“I’m not too worried about the Shun Kingdom and the Qing Kingdom.

“Shun Kingdom will not take the initiative to fight against Ming before it completely conquers all of India.

"The Qing Dynasty should now pay more attention to America, either crossing the Rocky Mountains and entering the Great Plains of North America, or continuing south to Mexico to rob silver mines.

“I am concerned about the conflict between the British East India Company and the inhabitants of the British American colonies.

“The East India Company lost Bengal, which it had just acquired, and lost a large amount of tea in America. It will definitely continue to try to recover its losses.

"Their only natural thought is to continue to reap profits from America.

"They may lobby the British court again to introduce more radical punitive policies against the American region.

“This will continue to further intensify the conflict between the American and British courts.

"Britain has an open clique system, with the parliament and the court composed of cliques representing the interests of various parts of the UK.

“The key point is that there are no American representatives in this parliament and court, so they don’t consider America’s interests when they make rules.

“So the conflict between the two sides will inevitably continue to intensify.

“I personally think that the patience of the American people has reached its critical point. If Britain continues to oppress them, it may lead to a civil uprising in America.

“The war will affect Europeans’ consumption of luxury goods, which will in turn affect our exports of tea, silk, porcelain and spices.”

(End of this chapter)