The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 276 This is Blood and Tears and the Road to Capitalism (Request for subscription and votes)
"Lord Luo, do you mean that the Qing Dynasty can export hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers to our country?"

American Minister to China, Marshall, immediately showed interest in Luo Xueyan's suggestion to export Chinese workers.

The current population of the United States is only over 31 million, and its land area is only smaller than that of the world empire in later generations, with Alaska and Hawaii less. Such a large land is truly sparsely populated.

Originally, they could import some black slaves from Africa, but in recent years, the European powers have tended to be "white leftists" and began to pretend to be saints and oppose the slave trade. It is impossible to import black slaves. Even some people in the United States are clamoring to abolish slavery and release all black slaves in the United States and send them back to their homeland in Africa.
That's 4 million black slaves! If they were all sent back to Africa, how much labor would the United States lose? Even if they weren't sent back, these black slaves would just work on plantations in the South, and they wouldn't be very useful in building the United States.

Therefore, the United States during this period was relatively welcoming to immigrants. During the Irish Famine, the United States introduced more than one million Irish people, which greatly alleviated the domestic labor shortage.

But more than a million Irish people were not enough for such a large country as the United States, and they were absorbed by several northeastern states and disappeared. The agriculture in the South was still there, and the wilderness of the Great West was still sparsely populated.

If the United States really wants to abolish slavery in the future, the jobs vacated by the four million black slaves returning to Africa cannot be filled by the Irish. How many Irish people were there? Many of them starved to death between 1845 and 1850!
In addition, the population of Latin American countries is very small now. Mexico has only 10 million people, Brazil has only 8 million people, and the population of other Latin American countries is even smaller. It is almost impossible to fill the huge labor gap in the United States by relying on Latin American people. Latin American countries themselves are short of population!

In today's world, it seems that the only countries that can provide the United States with a large number of cheap labor are the Qing Dynasty and India.

India was a colony of the British Empire, and it was difficult for the United States to poach talent.

And the Qing Dynasty had a population of 400 million!

"Mr. Minister," Luo Xueyan had been waiting for the American Minister to say this, and nodded immediately, "The Qing Dynasty is now exporting laborers to your country every year, but the export channels are not formal. Many laborers died on the way to the United States because of the harsh conditions. And after they make money in the United States, it is difficult for them to return to their motherland with their savings. In addition, if they do not become American citizens, they are still citizens of our Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty has no embassy in the United States, so it cannot assist your country in managing them.

All these inconveniences have prevented the Qing Dynasty from expanding its business of exporting laborers to your country! Mr. Minister, think about it, if there were millions of Qing laborers in the United States, developing the West for the United States, growing cotton for farmers in the South, building railways and mining for the United States, wouldn't the US economy take off? And wouldn't the domestic controversy over abolition of slavery in the United States completely disappear?"

After he finished speaking, he did not wait for Marsali's reply, but turned to Bonham and said, "Mr. Bonham, the reason why you British have not been able to expand the Chinese market in the past ten years is not because of the Qing Dynasty, but because you are trying to achieve an impossible goal!
I understand what you want me to do. It is nothing more than handing over the customs to you, allowing your opium to be sold in every land that the Qing Dynasty can control, and allowing you to enclose land and build concessions on Qing territory. In the final analysis, it is to export as many goods as possible to China in order to obtain Chinese silver.

But the problem is that the UK is no longer on a gold-silver composite standard. You are on a gold standard! When silver flows out of China, it needs to be exchanged for "gold pounds" in the London exchange! Who in the world needs silver? That is China, Japan, North Korea, and Vietnam. Among them, China, which uses silver as its currency, has the greatest demand.

If China changes from an importer of silver to an exporter, the price of silver will plummet due to supply and demand! By then, even if China exports all the 30 or 40 billion ounces of silver in circulation, it will probably be worthless. What you are doing will not only fail to expand the Chinese market, but will cause the collapse of the purchasing power of the Chinese market!"

How come this argument is so similar to that of the "Angel Luo" in Nanjing? And the two of them look quite similar.
Wen Xian couldn't help but frown.

"The solution to this problem is to allow silver to continue to flow into China while expanding China's imports. Only in this way can the value of silver be maintained and China's purchasing power will not disappear!" Luo Xueyan paused and added, "And the inflow of silver must be sustainable and not in the form of debt. Otherwise, the Qing Dynasty will only fall into a debt crisis and will go bankrupt sooner or later!"

In fact, in history, the Qing Dynasty was always in debt during its last years. When the Qing Dynasty fell, the debt owed to various countries, including principal and interest, was no less than 2 billion taels. Considering the circulation of silver in the Qing Dynasty at that time, this debt was impossible to repay. No matter how many billions of taels of tax revenue the Qing Dynasty had in the year before it was ended, once the debt was paid off, the liquidity in the Qing Dynasty would immediately dry up.

Moreover, all these debts are mortgaged. Tariffs, salt taxes, railways, mines, and almost all projects that can generate sustained and stable cash flow are mortgaged.

In addition, the customs of the Qing Dynasty had long been under the control of foreigners, and the financial sovereignty of the Qing Dynasty was also controlled by foreigners. HSBC was actually playing the role of the central bank of the Qing Dynasty!
All foreign banks have the right to issue banknotes in the Qing Dynasty! In fact, the banknotes issued by these foreign banks have better credit than those issued by banks in the Qing Dynasty.

In fact, the demise of the Qing Dynasty and the subsequent chaos was a catastrophic national bankruptcy and liquidation.

At the end of the liquidation, the wealth accumulated from hundreds of years of trade surpluses was almost wiped out, the currency issued by the state became waste paper, and industry and commerce without effective currency could not create wealth at all. The state also had huge debts that could not be repaid, and the only valuable assets in the country were farmland.
"Lord Luo, I understand what you mean now," Wen Xian touched his chin and frowned, "Do you want your compatriots to go across the ocean to work as laborers in exchange for remittances to maintain the inflow of silver?"

Luo Xueyan spread his hands and said, "Mr. Minister, is there any other way? This country has many people but little money. If you want to expand the Chinese market, you must provide a way for China's surplus population to work and make money. It just so happens that Southeast Asia and America need labor, so why not let the Qing Dynasty export a large number of Chinese workers? As long as Chinese workers can work in America and Southeast Asia for a few years and return home with silver, the cycle of silver inflow and outflow will be formed, and the value of silver will be maintained. Only then can we buy a large number of British goods!
Mr. Marsali, Mr. Bourboulon, tell me, isn't this the truth?"

What Luo Xueyan wants to take now is actually a capitalist road full of blood and tears!
Capitalism needs capital! Without capital, there is no idea at all!

To have capital, the price of silver must be maintained. Because China still has billions of taels of silver in stock, which is worth hundreds of millions of pounds. This is the "gold pound" of the 1850s, which is very valuable!
Enough for China to have an industrial revolution!

If the silver-gold exchange rate collapses, then these hundreds of millions of pounds of capital may become tens of millions of pounds, and there will be no capitalism.
If China wanted to import large quantities of Western machines and technologies to carry out industrialization, and at the same time import large quantities of weapons and equipment to build a new army to defend industrialization, it would be necessary to maintain the circulation of silver. It would be best to maintain a net inflow of silver, or at least maintain a small net outflow.

The American Minister, Marsalis, was the first to agree with Luo Xueyan's proposal: "I think Mr. Luo's proposal is feasible! If there are one million Chinese workers doing manual labor in various American countries, and each person remits 20 taels of silver per year, that would be 20 million taels! And the average value created by each of them for their country is at least 100 taels. This is a sustainable method that will benefit everyone. The United States supports it in principle!"

French Minister Bourboulon shrugged: "France has always been a friend of the Qing Dynasty. Although we do not need foreign laborers, we have no reason to prevent the hungry Chinese poor from going abroad to work as laborers! If that were the case, it would be too inhumane! Salio, what do you think?"

Wen Xian nodded gently, but his brows were still furrowed: "Mr. Luo, in the long run, your approach is feasible. We can also discuss relevant treaties to regulate labor export, return, remittances and many other aspects. But at present, the British Empire still needs you to take practical and effective measures to open up the market and fulfill the obligations of the Treaty of Nanjing!

Considering the current situation, you'd better make concessions as soon as possible! Otherwise, I don't rule out the possibility that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom will get more weapons and equipment from the West! "

Ugh!
Luo Xueyan sighed: It seems that a demon of mass destruction is really useful!

(End of this chapter)