The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 621 Zeng Guofan: Moore, we must close our country to the outside world! (Please vote and subscribe)

A four-horse carriage rolled over the icy cobblestone road in Xi'an. Li Hongzhang lifted the curtain and said with a smile: "Everyone, please look at the weather of my Great Zhou."

Moore looked out the window - rows of pickled meat were hung in front of the street butcher shop, several women in patched Manchu dresses were making lanterns with red paper, the stone lions in front of the Confucius Temple were wrapped in yellow silk, a group of Confucian scholars with yellow scarves on their heads were pointing and talking at the newly posted imperial examination notice, and from time to time there were bursts of joyful laughter.

"It's hard to believe," Bonham said, taking off his hat. "This place was hell three days ago."

"Why are those people gathered in front of the Confucius Temple laughing?" Moore asked somewhat puzzled.

Li Hongzhang said proudly: "They are all Juren, and they can participate in the imperial examination after the spring. Those who pass the examination will become the first Jinshi of our Great Zhou!"

"Exams?" Moore laughed. "You Chinese really like exams! The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has the college entrance examination, and you have the imperial examination. What are the exams for?"

Li Hongzhang said: "Study the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics and write eight-part essays."

Wen Xian was stunned: "We still have to take these tests? The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's college entrance examination requires mathematics, spiritual power, and the study of things. These are very useful for the development of industry!"

Li Hongzhang shook his head and said, "We don't need to develop industry on a large scale. What's the point of taking those exams? Besides, I have done the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's college entrance examination papers. Those things I learned are not very useful for developing industry. I still have to go to university to continue studying for a few years before I can become a pillar of industry. And we can't run a university like the Taiping University."

There was a moment of silence in the carriage. Taiping University is the world's top university of science and technology! To run such a university is very expensive. Secondly, you have to find a way to lure world-class science and technology experts to teach and guide students in research.

How could the Great Zhou have such conditions? Even if they could barely open a university, it would only focus on liberal arts.
The carriage suddenly braked. A dozen prisoners in shackles rushed out from the street corner, followed by the "Yellow Turban Army" holding whips. A shackled boy fell in front of the carriage, revealing the word "Zhou" branded on his back.

"This is." Friedrich held up the notebook.

"He was captured three days ago." Li Hongzhang said lightly, "He will be taken to the Yili River Valley in the Western Regions to be exiled for atonement!"

"Take him to the Ili River Valley?" Wen Xian immediately understood what was going on. "That is your fiefdom, Lord Li, right?"

Li Hongzhang said with a smile: "Not just me! All the meritorious officials in the court will be granted fiefdoms in the west, and all the criminals caught during the suppression of the rebellion in Shaanxi and Gansu will be exiled there! Of course, ordinary people can go there too, we will give them land and fields!"

Mathilde smiled and said, "This policy has been implemented for more than a year! More than 100,000 people have been relocated there one after another. They have already opened up 100,000 mu of wheat fields in the Ili River Valley, irrigated with snowmelt from the Tianshan Mountains, and can harvest 200,000 to 300,000 dan of wheat a year! When all the criminals captured in the founding war of the Great Zhou are exiled there, there will be a million mu of wheat fields in the Ili River Valley in the future, producing millions of dan of wheat every year!"

Both Moore and Friedrich could see the hopeful expressions for the future on Mathilde and Li Hongzhang's faces.
As the carriage passed the drum tower, a noisy sound came over us. Many Zhou army soldiers with yellow scarves on their heads were buying New Year goods with their families, many of whom were women wearing Manchu costumes.

The shop owners were a little terrified of these killers, but the market was in good order. The soldiers who had killed, burned and looted three days ago now seemed like a different person.

Both Moore and Friedrich noticed that there were several "armed Confucian scholars" walking back and forth on the street, wearing yellow turbans, Confucian robes, and swords at their waists. The "Yellow Turban Army" soldiers obviously respected them very much and would salute them with their fists when passing by them.

As the carriage continued to move forward, Moore sketched in his notebook: "January 1858, 1, on the streets of Xi'an. The new regime has successfully established order, and their means of establishing order are not entirely violence, but also the education of the Confucian scholars of the "Yellow Turban Army" soldiers. It seems that this Confucian regime is still somewhat progressive compared to the Qing Dynasty that they crushed."

Imperial City, Mingde Hall.

Nine kerosene lamps illuminated the hall. Zeng Guofan had a yellow scarf wrapped around his head, and half of his grey cotton trousers were visible under his dragon robe.

The banquet was not a sumptuous one, with just wine and meat, and no singing or dancing to liven up the atmosphere. Zeng Guofan, the famous Pope, looked much simpler than the "gods" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

"Your Majesty, please give me some wine!" the eunuch said in a shrill voice. Li Hongzhang took a crude ceramic wine pot and poured wine for the foreigner himself: "This is brewed with snow water from Mount Zhongnan."

"Your Majesty," Bonham raised his glass, "the British Empire looks forward to working with you."

"I don't want to be an emperor." Zeng Guofan suddenly interrupted, "I don't expect anything to happen with the British Empire. I just want to go back to the days of isolation. At that time, scholars could study quietly and farmers could grow crops peacefully. But you, the British Empire, are here!"

His triangular eyes glared at Wen Xian fiercely: "Do you regret it? It doesn't matter, you have plenty of time to regret it, and you will regret it more and more!"

The hall was dead silent.

Mathilde played with her wine glass and said in English, "Your Majesty means that once the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom gains control of the industrial power, the British Empire will become the biggest victim! You should restrict the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's industry!" Moore suddenly interrupted, "Your Highness, how much iron can be produced per day by the blast furnace you asked people to build in Weinan?"

"Each furnace can produce two to three tons," Li Hongzhang said with a rolling throat, "and five blast furnaces can produce more than ten tons of iron a day."

"How many tons of steel does the reverberatory furnace in Weinan produce per day?" Moore asked again.

"One ton per blast furnace." Li Hongzhang said, "Two blast furnaces can produce two tons per day!"

"The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Xuzhou Iron and Steel Plant produces 200 tons of steel per day, and that's just one." Friedrich wrote down the number in his notebook, "The gap is a hundred times!"

Moore picked up the celadon bowl and said, "Princess, your great uncle once said that three parts of spirit equal one part of material. Industrialization can allow the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to have a hundred or a thousand times more material! If the Great Zhou cannot develop industry, then..."

Li Hongzhang said: "If the Great Zhou wants to industrialize, it must solve the transportation problem. The freight for shipping a steam engine from Shanghai to Xi'an is three times the cost of the machine itself."

"So we only make guns!" Mathilde interrupted, "It only takes 5 kilograms of steel to produce a Minié rifle. 2000 kilograms of steel can make 400 Minié rifles, and we can produce 14 rifles a year."

"And then?" Friedrich asked, "Can the Minié rifle defeat the Taiping Army, which is armed with breech-loading rifles and breech-loading cannons and uses railways to transport logistical supplies?"

Mathilde smiled sweetly and did not answer Friedrich's question, but instead gave Li Hongzhang a look.

Li Hongzhang smiled and said, "Everyone! Mr. Moore, Mr. Friedrich, do you know how much one ton of steel costs at Xuzhou Steel Plant?"

Moore opened his notebook and said, "About 15 pounds, or more than 50 ounces of silver. If the equipment is depreciated over 5 years, the construction costs of the factory, mines, and railways will be amortized over 15 years."

"What about Weinan?" Li Hongzhang asked himself and answered, "At least 300 taels! This is assuming that coal and ore can be supplied in time."

Mathilde took over the conversation: "Mr. Moore, Mr. Friedrich, what does this mean?"

"It explains"

"This shows that industrialization is not suitable for Gansu and Shaanxi at all, at least not for a long time in the future!" Mathilde stood up excitedly. "So the success of Xuzhou Iron and Steel Plant will inevitably lead to the failure of Weinan Iron and Steel Plant."

Zeng Guofan suddenly said, "Just like British factory cloth destroyed Indian hand-woven cloth. Mr. Moore, the industrialization you mentioned can only succeed in a few areas. Other places" he pointed outside the hall, "can only be like us, closed to the outside world!"

Moore frowned: "But the wave of industrialization will submerge all medieval castles"

Zeng Guofan said leisurely, "The key is to take Chinese learning as the body and Western learning as the application. Sir Bonham, Mr. Moore, Mr. Friedrich, go tell Luo Yaoguo that when he builds the railway to Luoyang, my Great Zhou will retreat to the northwest again! If he doesn't have that ability, haha, my Great Zhou doesn't have much Western learning, but it can also produce hundreds of Minié rifles every day, and I still have tens of thousands of cavalry in the northwest, which is enough to resist his Taiping Army! If he is willing to use Wuguan and Tongguan as the boundary, the two sides can live in peace. He can do his industrialization, and I will recite my Mingjiao Sutra!"

It was almost midnight when the banquet ended. Li Hongzhang and Mathilde did not return to the Duke of Tang's Mansion with Moore and others - there seemed to be some trouble in Weibei, so they hurried to the Huai Army camp outside the city after the banquet.

Moore flipped through Engels' notes on the return carriage: Two tons of steel a day is already the limit of Weinan Iron Works, and the supply of coal and ore in Weinan is very problematic. There are still many technical difficulties to overcome in imitating the Minié rifle, and a large number of craftsmen need to be trained. According to optimistic estimates, it will take at least three years for the Great Zhou to establish the most basic national defense industry. Therefore, the daily production of 3 Minié rifles is completely a bluff.

Wen Xian drunkenly pointed at a field of red lanterns outside the window and said, "Look how beautiful those lanterns are!"

Under the illumination of blood-red lanterns, Chang'an's night market is bustling with people. The people who survived the disaster are devoting themselves to a new life with the greatest enthusiasm, but their lives are destined to be destroyed by the storm of industrialization again.

"Luo Yaoguo will not give them three years." Friedrich said coldly, "In addition to the Xuzhou Iron Works, he also has picric acid shells."

Moore closed his notebook: "A new war will begin soon. I think I have seen some problems in Chang'an that I never thought of when I was in Europe before!"

Friedrich also nodded: "Yes, it's time for us to leave!" He looked at Bonham, "Sir, are you leaving?"

Wen Xian lit up his cigar and took a puff: "I will go with you. My departure may be the greatest help to Da Zhou, a country that just wants to close the door and chant sutras in peace!"

(End of this chapter)