The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 607 Moore: Discovering a demon who wants to rule the world! (Please subscribe and vote)
The vibration of the steam engine wheel was transmitted along the teak floor, and in Luo Yaoguo's cabin, the three people fell into silence for a moment.

After a long while, Moore took off his glasses, took out a handkerchief and wiped them while asking: "So you think that the workers' state will be born in the defeated country in the future war between the great powers?"

"Of course, the victors are always immune from punishment." Luo Yaoguo turned his gaze to the world map hanging on the wall. "When countries use extreme nationalism to incite tens of millions of workers and peasants, equip them with guns produced by large-scale industry, and send them to the battlefield, defeat will become an unbearable burden, and ceasefire negotiations will become extremely difficult. The emperor and the prime minister will find that the war demon they released can no longer be put back into the bottle. By the time they are unable to sustain the war, they have almost exhausted the power to maintain their rule in their own country."

Luo Yaoguo stood up and picked up the coffee pot on the cast iron stove. "According to my prediction," he poured the dark brown liquid into the bone china cup made in Jingdezhen, "due to the breakthrough in steelmaking technology, the total steel production in the world will likely exceed 6000 million tons in years, which is times more than now! And the great development of railways, machinery, shipbuilding, energy and other industries brought about by the breakthrough in basic raw materials such as steel will create a terrible production capacity in the next years."

"And workers' wages cannot consume so many products, even if wages triple in the next 30 years."

Friedrich's pen paused on the notebook, and the handwriting stopped after the German word "overproduction".

Moore took off his tortoise-shell glasses and stared at the rolling waves outside the porthole with his gray-blue eyes. "Your Highness, King Wu, do you think that when industrial production capacity exceeds the critical point, war will erupt like molten steel in a converter?"

"That's obvious!" Luo Yaoguo took a sip of coffee. "War is the last means of realizing the value of industrial investment. When industrial investment cannot recover costs through product sales, launching a war to destroy the enemy's production capacity becomes the ultimate means of competition. Therefore, the end point of industrial capitalism must be war!"

The cabin fell silent again, with only the panting of the steam piston echoing.

Friedrich suddenly stood up and opened the porthole, and the salty sea breeze rushed in with the rumbling sound of the paddle wheel. Moore suddenly asked: "So, where do you think the workers will win their own country first?"

"I think it's Russia!" Luo Yaoguo said slowly.

"Russia," Moore's face gradually darkened, "Oh, yes, the loser in an industrialized war must be the side with weak industrial strength!"

Friedrich suddenly turned and asked: "If a workers' state is born on the ruins of defeated Russia, what can it use to resist the strangulation of the entire capitalist world?"

"So it needs allies from the East!" Luo Yaoguo said slowly, "I am now willing to be a friend of my European working brothers." He smiled and said, "You have also seen how friendly I am to Chinese workers. I have built schools and hospitals for them, and also built high-quality and low-cost housing for them. The wages they get in the factories and mines invested and opened by the Holy Treasury of the Heavenly Kingdom are ten times more than when they were farming in the countryside! If Europe wants to establish an international workers' organization in the future, I am willing to provide sponsorship, and I also welcome European workers' leaders to come to China to visit the Holy Treasury factories and mines. There are no capitalists in those factories and mines. They belong to all the people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!"

"He is an ambitious imperialist!" Moore gently closed the oak hatch and said to Friedrich, "He is preparing for a world war that will inevitably break out in thirty years!"

The kerosene lamp cast the shadows of the two people on the bulkhead, distorting with the ups and downs of the waves.
Friedrich lit his cigar with a match and opened his notebook amid the smoke: "Look at this data"

The kerosene lamp shone on the scribbled formula: one Beisemai converter = 50,000 tons of annual steel production, one hundred Beisemai converters = 5 million tons, and if the converter were four times larger, that would be 20 million tons.

Friedrich tapped his notebook with his fingers. "With China's nearly unlimited manpower and the coal and iron resources buried in its extremely vast territory, it will not be difficult to produce 30 million tons in 2000 years. If he gets a little crazier, he can even produce 5000 million tons!"

This is not the most terrifying thing. Moore opened his notebook, which contained another calculation: 700 to 800 million people, 6% mobilization rate = 42 to 48 million troops!
Assuming that casualties account for 3% of the total population = defeat, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could withstand 21 million to 24 million casualties.

And Britain, France, Prussia and Austria suffered the same number of casualties = extinction!

Russia suffered 23 million casualties = extinction of young and middle-aged men!
Friedrich took a long drag on his cigar. "So... this madman wants to rule the world!"

Moore shook his head: "No, he is not crazy. The simplest mathematical calculations can prove that his idea is completely feasible. 5000 million tons of steel is feasible, and 2400 million casualties are completely tolerable." "Will he win?" Friedrich's face was gloomy, "Will he rule the world?"

Moore thought for a moment: "He has a good chance of winning. As for dominating the world, it's hard to say. After all, China is too far away from the Atlantic Ocean. In the future, it will at most become the absolute ruler of the Pacific Ocean. But one thing is certain, Luo Yaoguo does not want to establish a workers' state, he wants to be an emperor! And Russia will not become a successful workers' state. Russia's industry started late, and its productivity is not as good as that of Britain, France, Prussia, the United States, and Austria. Such a workers' state will definitely be very fragile. Unless..."

Friedrich said: “Unless a second or third workers’ state emerges in Western and Central Europe!”

"Oh my God!" Wen Xian's silver cane almost fell into the river. On the west bank of the Huangpu River, thirty brick chimneys spewed black smoke, constantly polluting the air of Shanghai. All kinds of ships filled this "water road". In the newly built dock of the Jiangnan Shipyard on the Yangshupu River, 10 1000-ton iron-ribbed wooden hulled ships were being built at the same time! Some of them vaguely resembled the "Guanggan" class cruisers.

Bai Siwen straightened his silk hat and said with a sinister smile: "If the British Empire had not insisted on using its powerful ships and cannons to break open the door of our Qing Dynasty, how could we have the situation today? By the way, today is just the beginning. Thirty years later..."

"Shut up, Mr. Bai!" Wen Xian pulled open the collar of his shirt, "Think about how long your Qing Dynasty can survive? Two months ago, King Luo Wu's army conquered Sichuan! Now the only provinces controlled by the Qing Dynasty are Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu, Yunnan, and Guizhou. None of them are rich!"

Bai Siwen snorted, "Do you miss Da Qing now?" He took a puff of his cigar, "If you want to, go back to Xi'an and see Da Qing for the last time!"

Wen Xian snorted, "I was going to go anyway." He looked at Moore and Friedrich, "Are you going?"

Moore leaned against the iron railing, his notebook rustling in the breeze. On the Bund, the newly built Western-style Customs Building had granite columns erected, and a plaque with the words "Wan Guo Xianning" could be vaguely seen between the scaffolding. The streets of the Bund were bustling with people, not only Chinese, but also many foreigners in Western dresses, and some in Chinese robes.

Hearing Wen Xian's question, Moore smiled faintly: "Go, of course I will go. I want to see what China would be like if the Taiping Rebellion had not happened."

Bai Siwen said: "That must be the more terrible Yellow Peril - in the mouths of those masters in London, in the Times!"

"That's right. Soon no one will dare to call the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom the Yellow Peril!" Friedrich suddenly pointed to a newly built dock in Pudong. "Look at that steamboat. It should be from Southeast Asia. It is unloading rice, sugar and timber. When 500 million people need these."

Bonham's coat trembled in the wind: "The British Empire would never allow this"

"You're already giving permission!" Bai Siwen suddenly screamed, "The iron-ribbed wooden-hulled warships of the Jiangnan Arsenal use British-made steam engines, and they even have a joint-venture steam engine factory!"

Moore nodded: "This is the taste of capitalism. When the noose of the market and profits tightens, gentlemen will stick their necks in - whether the noose is in India or Australia." He looked back at Wen Xian: "Don't believe it? You must have done a lot of tricks in the joint venture steam engine factory, but I promise it's useless. Because Luo Yaoguo can offer benefits that no capitalist can refuse. Sir Wen, how did you find the tin mine in Malaya?"

Wen Xian gritted his teeth, his face full of resentment, and thought to himself: "He should tell me where the gold is? Gold is more valuable than tin!"

Suddenly, lights came on on the river, and the gas lamps on the special dock of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau illuminated the cargo stacks. The dock workers happily carried the steel ingots printed with the words "Xuzhou Iron and Steel General Administration" - they were now also earning wages that they could never have imagined in the past, and on the east bank of the Huangpu River, rows of newly built "tube buildings" had formed a new "workers' village". With only 180 Taiping silver dollars, they could buy a small "two-bedroom apartment", and they could also pay in installments, only paying 20 yuan a year.
"There will be a world war in forty years at most!" Friedrich patted the side of the ship gently. "The world market cannot afford a second industrial Britain, let alone a Taiping Heavenly Kingdom the size of twenty Britains."

A cargo ship flying the Union Jack slowly passed by, and Wen Xian vaguely saw a large converter that was twice as large as the Beisemeier converter he had seen at the Xuzhou Iron and Steel Plant, placed on the deck of the cargo ship.

(End of this chapter)