Mo San has been thinking about it these days, which of the two countries, Britain and the Netherlands, is more threatening to the east coast?

To be honest, before coming to England, although he knew from the memories of later generations about the domineering situation of Britain, after visiting the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and other provinces, he once doubted his judgment - would the Netherlands, a country with such a developed financial industry, industry and commerce, and an extremely large fleet, really be brought down by England, whose population was only three times that of the Netherlands? It sounds incredible.

However, after coming to London for ten days, he finally believed in the correctness of what was said in the history books of later generations, and in fact the defeat of the Netherlands in the long-term competition with Britain was inevitable, even if there was no French invasion of the Netherlands from the ground in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, in the cruel long-term tug-of-war, the Netherlands must have fallen first, not England, which had a vast hinterland and was very developed in industry and agriculture.

The Dutch, who were mainly engaged in entrepot trade, did not follow the historical trend to vigorously develop industry, which was the root cause of their failure! What's more, the labor cost of the Netherlands is too high, and even if it develops industry, once it loses its monopoly in commercial hegemony -- such as the Nordic market, which also opened its doors to Britain after the First Anglo-Dutch War -- it will be completely unable to compete with the British, and the market originally occupied by it will definitely be slowly eroded by the British, which is in line with the law of market economy.

Look at the bustling London market, where agricultural products, industrial goods, and luxury goods are gathered, and most of these goods, with the exception of some luxury goods imported from India, are produced in Britain. For example, the grain supplied to London comes from Kent (75% of the more than 20,000 quart wheat needed in London each year comes from here); Milk, butter, meat, poultry eggs come from other counties in the East Anglia region; Fish come from the sea; Woolen wool comes from the west; Coal, metals, minerals come from the Southwest.

In contrast, almost all of the Dutch's qiē comes from abroad. The meat comes from Jutland, the grain comes from the Baltic Sea, the salt comes from Portugal and France, the fish comes from other people's offshore waters, and even Leiden's well-developed woolen industry comes from Spain and the Ottoman Empire. The country doesn't look like it produces anything. But they interfered in all the commerce of the North Sea, the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea, and even most of the industries were monopolized by them, which naturally caused public outrage. Don't look at the fact that only Britain jumped out to challenge them at this moment, but other countries are actually secretly applauding, and it is foreseeable that once the Netherlands loses in this war, its far-reaching impact will be enough to shake the foundation of the Netherlands.

Of course, it is a slow process to shake and dismantle the foundations of the Netherlands. Even after the war, the Dutch economy continued to grow and was not yet at its peak. But there is no doubt that the growth rate of commerce, economy, and industry in the Netherlands did decline after the war, because many countries that had monopolized commerce by the Netherlands also opened their doors to Britain. For example, Sweden, this country was almost a poor Dutch economic colony before the Anglo-Dutch War, but after the war, the country, which had long been very dissatisfied with the Dutch merchants, immediately got in touch with the British, and then took advantage of the opportunity of the British power to squeeze some Dutch merchants out of the country, as for the vacant market, it was naturally filled by British merchants.

The British produce their own goods. And then sell it to others, naturally, it is more profitable than the Dutch to buy goods from others and resell them. Since the profits from this process also remained in Britain, it is not surprising that Britain's economy flourished after the war. The combination of industrial capitalists and commercial capitalists is naturally more powerful than that of mere commercial capitalists.

"Hehe, according to the normal state of development, the decline of the Netherlands is only a matter of time, and no one can change this. All we can do is to delay this process and allow Dutch capital to resist for a while longer in the various markets, lest they quickly fall under the relative cheapness of British goods. Mo San let out a long breath, but he didn't feel the slightest ease after sorting out this thought.

Millions of cheap British workers hung over the heads of the people of the East Coast like a sword of Damocles, not knowing when it would fall. Now that the technology of the steam engine has leaked to Lisbon, it is only a matter of time before it spreads from here to the Netherlands and England, and the days when people on the East Coast can enjoy themselves are numbered.

What the? Do you think the British are not ready to enter the industrial world? Perhaps, because the original theory of the steam engine17 has been proposed at the end of the practice, but the real practical application will not be until nearly a hundred years later, although the people of the East Coast have made this technology several decades earlier, it may be said that within 17 the actual Europeans will still not be able to use steam power for industrial production on a large scale.

This theory may sound plausible, but the question is, you people on the East Coast have been putting the steam engine into practical use on a large scale for so many years, do you think the Europeans will be indifferent? No, they will adapt and take advantage of this epoch-making new thing faster than they have historically been, rather than being insensitively and inconsiderately as they have historically.

Moreover, judging from Mo San's visits to the countryside around London in the past few days, the British have been consciously or unconsciously preparing for other elements of industrial society for many years. For example, cheap and abundant labor resources, from what we have seen and heard these days and the limited information we know about history, it seems that the enclosure movement, which was vital to British industry, has in fact begun for many years - the suburbs of London are probably the first to start, according to Mo San's observation, the villages in the surrounding areas have been wiped out in large numbers, and a large number of peasants have lost their means of production and subsistence, and then they have continued to migrate and wander, some have become agricultural workers, and have begun intensive agricultural production, and many more have poured into the industrial field. Serve as cheap labor in rural manufacturing or urban services.

In fact, according to historical records, as early as the 20s of the 15th century, the annual migration of people from rural areas in Britain accounted for 15% of the total agricultural population (most of them moved from one village to another, and a small number moved from the countryside to the city); By the 17th century, the proportion had slowly risen to 30 percent, and in some villages within 10 years. The rate of change in its population has reached 50 per cent. It's staggering. The reason for this. Probably because of the innate scarcity of the English landed aristocracy and the great reduction of the power of the acquired fighting and the peasants not being sufficiently bound to the land, this is the most important factor in the growing prosperity of capitalist handicrafts in the English countryside - England is really special.

The enclosure movement began in the 15th century, but was initially the practice of a few. From 1455 to 1607, only 500,000 acres of agricultural land were occupied, accounting for only 3% of the total agricultural land area of England at that time; But between 1600 and 1699, the English bourgeois merchants and the enlightened aristocracy together occupied 24% of the total agricultural land area (about 30 million acres) in England at that time. It can be seen that the enclosure movement accelerated in England in the 17th century, thanks to the rapid development of the commodity economy and capitalist factories in Britain.

The enclosure movement created a large number of destitute strata, because the land that had been incorporated and occupied needed only about one-fifth of the manpower of the former to grow grain and graze sheep (mostly for sheep), and the peasants who had been driven out of their land wandered around and finally fell into the hands of the factory owners, who began to produce all kinds of goods for them day and night.

The textile and coal mining industries in Lancashire, the Black Country Iron Industrial Region in Birmingham, the lead and tin mining in Wales, etc., were greatly developed because of the influx of these people, and the industrial level of Britain also rose to a new level at this time. Furthermore. Many of the landless peasants who flocked to the cities entered the industries of leather processing, construction, glass, papermaking, shipbuilding, tobacco, seafood processing, sugar extraction, and metal processing, providing sufficient manpower for these industries. And leather, construction, papermaking, shipbuilding, metalworking and wool textiles are among them. Known as the six pillar industries of the United Kingdom at this time, these industries are now developing rapidly under the dual nourishment of commercial capital and industrial capital.

"It's really no accident that the Industrial Revolution first happened in the UK." Thinking of this, Mo San sighed and thought to himself: "I used to just read what was written in the books, and I was not very moved, and I was even a little unimpressed. But this time I went to the UK to watch such an experience, but I found that it was really time to wait! If Britain continues to develop like this, when capital, technology and institutions are all in place, the industrial revolution will inevitably occur, not as some people in later generations think that the industrial revolution happened in Britain by chance. If the Industrial Revolution in England had been accidental, wouldn't it be less likely that the feudal states where the labor force was massively bound to the land? What's more, now that our country is doing this, under the butterfly effect, the British bourgeoisie will only be ready to enter the industrial society earlier than in history, which is really a headache. ”

"Something must be done to contain the British, preferably the British, without them knowing it?" Mo San began to ponder.

Containment from the market side? What about specific measures? Secretly transfuse the Dutch blood, so that they can have more capital to compete with the British for the market and reduce the profits obtained by the British industrial capitalists? But the question is, when the size is at the level of the Netherlands, how can the small East Coast afford blood transfusions, and will the Dutch appreciate it?

So curb it from the institutional aspect? I am afraid that this will require England to return to the time of Charles I, but now that there are a lot of bourgeois elements in Parliament, and the conservative aristocracy has almost been swept away, this is probably more difficult than giving a blood transfusion to the Netherlands!

Thinking about it, Mo San never understood the essentials, because he sadly found that with the existing strength on the east coast, it was really powerless to curb the development of British capitalism, which made his heart full of frustration, and he understood what was the general trend of history and what was the exhaustion of manpower.

"No matter what, no matter how hard it is, you have to do it." Mo San secretly made up his mind, and planned to write a secret letter to the Executive Committee when he returned, asking the mainland to formulate a complete set of plans to contain Britain in advance. Something has to be done about this country, because they are clearly on the right path, the closest to the East Coast, and they must be suppressed.

And just when Mo San made this decision, a large number of ships entered the port on the Thames wharf not far away, some of which were obviously captured Dutch transport ships full of goods, their draft was very deep, and they slowly docked at the pier pier under the escort of British naval ships, which caused the people around the dock to cheer loudly. Although the Dutch transports, including their goods, would eventually be auctioned off at auction by the decent merchants for an astonishing low price (the proceeds were used to pay for the navy), which had little to do with them, it did not prevent them from bursting with pride at the moment, and the British were very proud.

Mo San only sighed when he saw this, and then wrapped his coat tightly and went back to the hotel he rented. (To be continued......)