The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 781 China's History is a Mirror of Europe (asking for monthly tickets)
Rovner Square, South Kensington, London, UK.

When the oak door of Bai Siwen's mansion was pushed open, the former Qing envoy, who was wearing a sophisticated black tuxedo and a gold pocket watch given by Prince Albert on his chest, and now an adviser to the British royal family and the British Magic Committee, looked at the room full of Europeans smoking cheap cigars with a smile.

George Odger of the British Trade Union Union was poking a very chewy crystal shrimp dumpling with a fork, Henri Tollon, a French worker representative, was frowning at a sesame sugar cake, and the Russian Bakunin was pouring Longjing tea into a vodka bottle and talking about making "the Eastern revolution more violent"!
"Gentlemen, please allow me to introduce a copy of the Korean Heavenly Kingdom's "Equal Land Order". This is an original copy that I brought to the UK from the Korean Heavenly Kingdom. It is now collected in the British Museum." Bai Siwen unfolded a yellowed silk scroll and ran his fingers over the Korean annotations interspersed between the Chinese characters. "According to this "Equal Land Order", seven years ago, around Pyongyang, the western capital of Korea, more than 100,000 tenant farmers were allocated land from two groups of landlords. Each household was divided equally according to the population. After the equal distribution of land, about a quarter of the harvest was turned over to the Heavenly Kingdom's Holy Treasury." He pointed to the red seal on the silk, "This is the royal seal of the Korean Heavenly Kingdom, Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King."

Friedrich stood up from the sofa, his eyes shining, and looked at Bakunin and said, "Mikhail, the East King of the Kingdom of Korea is much more advanced than the 'revolutionary tsar' of your Russia! He liberated the serfs and divided the land equally. What's more important is that he completely eliminated the two classes of nobles in Korea, eliminating the possibility of the restoration of feudalism!"

He turned to Moore and said, "Moore, remember the steam silk reeling factory we saw in Shanghai? Those machines were purchased with funds from the Holy Treasury, and a considerable part of the funds of the Holy Treasury came from the confiscation of rural gentry and landlords!"

Moore nodded. "That's right. Using the funds from the Holy Treasury confiscated from the gentry and landlords to build factories and build a large number of factories without capitalist investment is a very worthwhile experience. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Kingdom of Korea did this! In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there are still a large number of private factories, and the capitalist group still exists. But in the Kingdom of Korea, except for the 'Free City of Busan', there is almost no private investment in other places. All industrial construction, including railways, mines, and large factories, are built with funds from the Holy Treasury!"

"Didn't the funds in the Holy Treasury come from robbery?" Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini suddenly slammed the table and said, "The Chinese are just moving the gentry's coffers into the government offices. What's the difference between this and the Bourbon dynasty's taxation? The practices of the Kingdom of Korea are even more hateful! If I'm not mistaken, it's a colonial country! Moreover, the wages of workers in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Kingdom of Korea are very low, only about one-third to one-fifth of those in the UK!"

Bai Siwen poured a cup of Pu'er tea slowly and said, "Mr. Mazzini, the daily wage of female workers in the Changzhou Silk Reeling Factory is one-third of that of female workers in Lancashire, England." He paused and added, "But the price of goods in China is only about one-tenth of that in England."

Frenchman Toren frowned: "Low wages, low prices... Isn't this exploitation in disguise?"

"That's right!" Bakunin stood up suddenly. "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Korean Heavenly Kingdom used low prices to maintain the lives of workers. In fact, they transferred the wealth of the countryside to the city and made the farmers bear the cost of industrialization!" He took out a stack of leaflets and threw them on the coffee table. "Look! This is the accusation of the poor farmers in the Korean Heavenly Kingdom-it is said that the land is distributed equally, but all kinds of exorbitant taxes add up to 40% of the harvest! The so-called one-quarter of the harvest is taxed. It is simply impossible. I guess the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not much stronger, right?"

The fire in the fireplace suddenly dimmed.

Moore stood up and walked over to Bakunin, took the leaflet from his hand and looked at it. On the leaflet was a Japanese poem accusing the "True Promise Shintoism" of exploiting and enslaving Japanese peasants: "Comrade Bakunin, this is a leaflet of the Japanese revolutionaries. The things they accuse of happened in Japan, not Korea and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom."

"But the economic model of the Kingdom of Korea is simply not self-sustaining!" Odger suddenly interrupted, flipping through a copy of Red Star Over China - a work by Moore and Friedrich themselves. "Yang Xiuqing's Kingdom of Korea was completely dependent on colonial exploitation of Japan! They plundered food and minerals from Japan, and even participated in the evil business of trafficking Japanese women to the New World, in order to maintain the operation of the Shengku Industry!"

Friedrich nodded. "Indeed, the industrialization of the Kingdom of Korea was based on external plunder. A similar situation also occurred in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Their industrialization also relied on external resources and markets."

Bai Siwen smiled softly: "East Asia's population accounts for 40% of the world's population, but how much of the world's land resources do they occupy? If they don't migrate abroad to develop, and just keep their small piece of land, how long will it take for them to develop?"

"Immigration and development? Isn't that colonization?" Torun sneered. "The Korean Heavenly Kingdom colonized Japan, while the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom expanded everywhere in Southeast Asia and the west coast of America. How is this different from Britain, France, Spain, and Russia?"

Moore's German compatriot Wilhelm Liebknecht nodded in agreement: "I also think that the Chinese revolutionary experience is of little value. I have read Chinese history. The Chinese have been trapped in a cycle of order and chaos for the past two thousand years. Their society is stagnant, and the future is clear: it will be a cycle of order and chaos."

Moore smiled and said, "William, my friend, you should study China more carefully, and you will definitely be surprised! Although China's history does have cycles of order and chaos, is there a possibility that when the feudal system in Europe collapses, our future will also fall into a similar cycle?"

"No, that's impossible!" Liebknecht shook his head. "European history is a process of continuous progress!"

As the argument was heated, the Indian servant Amir ran in in a panic: "Master, an official from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has arrived."

When Ma Baocai entered the room, he brought with him a sense of neatness unique to the rising period of the "cycle of order and chaos". The coarse cotton robe he wore looked like a tweed military uniform.

"Mr. Liebknecht"

Ten minutes later, Ma Baocai joined the discussion and took up the question raised by Liebknecht, "You said that China's history is a cycle of stagnation, but did you know that as early as two thousand years ago, China had completed the transition from feudalism to centralization?" Liebknecht frowned: "What do you mean?"

"The Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period." Ma Baocai took out a replica of the bamboo slips he brought from China and gently spread it out on the coffee table. "This is an excerpt from The Book of Lord Shang - Shang Yang carried out reforms, abolished hereditary nobles and granted titles based on military merit, and transformed the Qin State from a backward feudal country into a centralized and efficient war machine."

Bakunin sneered: "So what? This only proves that you Orientals learned despotism earlier!"

"No," Ma Baocai shook his head, "This proves that China entered the era of 'nation-states' two thousand years earlier than Europe. The mobilization capabilities, bureaucratic systems, and legal unification of the seven major powers in the Warring States period are essentially no different from those of today's Prussia and France." He paused, "And the victory of the Qin State just proves the efficiency of a centralized state - just like Napoleon's France swept across Europe."

Torun thought thoughtfully: "You mean, the Qin State is the Napoleon Empire of the East?"

"That's right." Ma Baocai nodded, "But the problem is that the victory of this centralized country will eventually give birth to its own gravediggers."

"Gravedigger?" Ozer asked in confusion.

"Chen Sheng and Wu Guang." Ma Baocai's eyes were sharp. "After the Qin unified the country, it incorporated the old nobles of the six kingdoms and the new military class into the ruling system. But the war was over, the upward channel was closed, and the labor of building the Great Wall and the highway became heavier. In the end, a group of workers who built the Great Wall rose up in rebellion, and the old nobles of the six kingdoms took the opportunity to respond. In just three years, the powerful Qin was destroyed."

Moore suddenly interjected: "Just like Europe after the Napoleonic Wars - the old aristocracy in various countries was restored, but the proletariat created by the Industrial Revolution could never return to the shackles of the past."

"Not only that." Ma Baocai turned to Liebknecht, "You said that European history is 'progressive', but please tell me - if Napoleon really unified Europe, could his empire avoid the fate of the Qin Dynasty?"

There was silence in the room for a moment.

Friedrich slowly exhaled a puff of smoke. "No. The victory of a centralized state will eliminate feudal separatism, but it will also create new contradictions - the deprived old nobles, the common people who have lost their upward channels, and the over-mobilized finances. In the end, the revolution will break out from the weakest link."

"And this is China's 'cycle'." Ma Baocai looked around at everyone, "Every time a unified dynasty collapsed, it was essentially a 'worker-peasant revolution' - the garrison soldiers at the end of the Qin Dynasty were laborers, the Yellow Turban Army at the end of the Han Dynasty were peasants, Huang Chao at the end of the Tang Dynasty was a salt dealer, and Li Zicheng at the end of the Ming Dynasty was a postman. China's working people have used two thousand years to overthrow the centralized empire that oppressed them over and over again, and after each revolution, the new rulers had to make concessions - the Han Dynasty reduced labor service, the Tang Dynasty promoted equal distribution of land, and the Ming Dynasty implemented the Single Whip Law."

Bakunin suddenly slammed the table: "But what's the point? It's just a change from one tyrant to another!"

"The significance is," Ma Baocai said in a louder voice, "China's 'cycle' proves one thing: any centralized system, no matter how powerful, will eventually be overthrown by the awakened masses. And today's nation-states in Europe are nothing more than a replica of the Seven Kingdoms of the Warring States Period. If you really achieve 'European unification', then what awaits you is a Qin Dynasty-style workers' and peasants' uprising! If unification cannot be achieved, perhaps there will be other models of workers' and peasants' uprisings!"

Moore stood up suddenly, his eyes sparkling with excitement: "Bao Cai is right! China's history is not stagnation, but an epic of struggle that has been concealed! The significance of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not only that it overthrew the Qing Dynasty, but also that it proved that Eastern workers can also establish a new order in the era of industrialization!"

Liebknecht was silent for a long time, and finally nodded slowly: "Perhaps, we have indeed underestimated the experience of the East."

Outside the window, the fog in London gradually dissipated, and a ray of sunlight shone through the glass onto the scroll of Shangjunshu. Ma Baocai gently stroked the words on the bamboo slips and whispered:

"My fellow European workers, China is not 'stagnant' - China is a mirror of the future. Looking at this mirror, you should know what will happen next."

(End of this chapter)