December 10, 1652, light snow.

London is not the place to be on a cold, damp winter. After some superficial agreements had been reached with the merchants a few days earlier—the East Coast had promised not to enter the Indian market for the short term, and the British had promised to help increase the total volume of East Coast's trade with Persia—the other side seemed to be coordinating and putting together their own ideas, so that no further meetings or negotiations were scheduled for the next few days. Mo San was naturally happy to be idle, so he took advantage of these leisure time, accompanied by Mr. Thompson's servants, to visit London and its suburbs, intending to get to know the country on the spot.

London in the mid-17th century could not be compared to the London of later generations, but the city of 400,000 people was still the largest city in Britain and continental Europe at that time. The huge number of people living in London naturally contributed greatly to the prosperity of the local area, not to mention the steady influx of foreigners - including aristocrats and gentry who came for fun, aristocrats who came to the big cities for a future, squires who were not the firstborn, and a much larger number of poor people (land was seized and the means of production and subsistence were lost).

The influx of immigrants provided sufficient manpower for London's thriving industry and commerce, and the offices of commercial companies, various professional markets and commercial establishments such as warehouses, inns, exchanges, transport, docks, etc., which required a large number of manpower, were fully satisfied, which contributed to the development of the city in another way.

As a diplomat on the east coast of an industrial country, Mo San actually paid more attention to the industrial development of Britain at this time than the business situation, so in these few days. He focused on the handicraft manufacturing centres of London and its suburbs. For example, the parishes of St. Potelph, St Giles, St. Thomas, St. Viddaste, St. Mary, etc., outside London. These parishes are extremely well developed in handicrafts. There are hundreds of industries and counting. For example, the famous Archdiocese of St. Giles, for example, added more than 260 new industries in the late 17th century, which heralded the vitality of London's economy - because only when the economy is in a thriving environment will there be strong demand from the people, social and technological progress, and the emergence of new industries.

The current situation of the investigation made Mo San feel a little worried. Britain is a special country, the Rose Wars have caused the old-style landed aristocracy to kill each other and greatly reduce their power. The blind intervention of several British kings in the war on the European continent led to the continuous reduction of their own land (the king sold his real estate to raise military expenses), coupled with the unique geographical location (the island country was convenient for the development of overseas trade), all of which made the British bourgeoisie very strong, and the power of the conservative aristocracy led by the king was very weak, which laid the foundation for the development of industrial and commercial capitalism in England - inherently less hindered than its neighbors such as France.

However, in addition to these goods for consumption in London or exported overseas, the woolen woollen known as the British national industry is rarely seen, or even if it is seen, it is printed and dyed in the later period, and the scale is not large, which makes Mo Sanhao strange.

"Harrison, are all the wool you wear from London?" Mo San looked at the tweed clothes worn by the several guards who followed him. Then ask their leader.

Harrison wore a mid-to-high-end silk and cotton blend, said to have been made in Manchester, a village that had sprung up as a result of the textile industry. Most of the products were exported to overseas colonies, and he was known as the largest "village" in England at this time - but his men wore much inferior tweed clothes, which at first glance looked cheap.

"No, they come from West Ledding, Yorkshire, and there are some local woollen bag buyers who buy the woolen cloth from the farmers and ship it to London for sale." Harrison replied succinctly. He thought the pagan envoy was very strange, and he seemed to be cold enough, but at the same time he was walking around the streets with great interest, and he also asked questions and looked around, and from time to time took out a pen and paper to take notes, what a strange man. With this time, how comfortable it is to go to the tavern for a drink or two, so why hang out outside?

After hearing the word "Siledin" coming out of Harrison's mouth, Mo San immediately understood what was going on, because he had heard of the rural handicraft industry in England at this time, and he happened to read such books when he studied in England in his later life.

To put it simply, in order to circumvent the shackles of artisanal guilds (which were extremely closed and xenophobic, stipulating harsh qualifications for opening a business, and in fact only the sons and sons-in-law of the guild members could join), a large number of woolen merchants moved their production to the countryside in order to avoid the high taxes and wages of the urban guilds. In this respect, the advantages of the countryside are simply too great, first of all, it is close to the raw material production area, and the wool is extremely cheap; Secondly, many places are rich in hydraulic resources, which means that hydraulic machinery can be used for rinsing, printing and dyeing, which greatly reduces labor costs; Finally, the peasants generally regarded spinning and weaving cloth during their leisure time as a side hustle to increase their income, which created conditions for the woolen merchants to keep their wages down.

All in all, the transfer of production activities to the countryside with good water power and transportation conditions greatly reduced the production cost of woollen wool, which made British woolen very competitive in price, and gradually occupied many markets in Germany, Northern Europe and Central Europe, and a large number of merchants became rich.

On the other hand, the cities firmly controlled by the artisanal guilds, because they insisted on producing high-standard, high-quality woolen woolen wool (because of the high price of urban labor, they could only produce more profitable high-quality goods), and their sales objects could only be positioned as urban and rural wealthy households, so the market was small, far inferior to the gradually emerging rural handicraft industry, which made the development of many cities stagnate.

The development of the city came to a standstill, but the rapid development of the countryside, which was positioned to produce large quantities of cheap and low-grade woollen wool, coupled with the formation of the world economic system (which was then limited to Europe and the overseas colonies of various countries) brought about by the prevalence of seafaring, gave rise to a huge market for cheap woolen cloth, which was preferred by millions of low-income toiling people, so that the development of this industry almost reached its peak in the late 16th and early 17th centuries - at that time, almost half of the agricultural population of England was engaged in rural handicrafts. A considerable part of it is in the woolen industry.

"Are there any woollen villages in the suburbs of London? I'd like to check it out if it's convenient. Mo San suddenly had the idea of visiting these woolen producing areas, for he was genuinely worried, worried about the industrial sprouts that were brewing beneath the calm surface of England. Consider the millions of inexpensive laborers (the handicraft industry in the English countryside is a mix of men and women, young and old, usually working from home, known as the "farmhouse economy") that is terrifying, so terrible that they fear that they will destroy the textile industry that the East Coast Republic is so proud of.

Such worries are not unwarranted. If the farmhouse economy, which Marx called "primitive industrialization," is allowed to develop, it will gradually destroy the agrarian economy, and then make the peasants become full-time workers and engage in centralized production in the places designated by the merchants, which will greatly improve production efficiency and reduce labor costs. This is already the case in some places, and there are many such woollen producers in Berkshire, and a merchant in Malmersbury even rented a monastery and then hired a large number of workers to concentrate production on "every corner of the monastery".

In the past, most of this mode of centralized production existed in coal mining, iron smelting, salt boiling and other industrial sectors with large investments, and the others even included Birmingham's "Black Country Iron Industrial Zone" (which made rifles, metal buttons, metal farm tools, knives, etc.) and was a rural farmhouse economy, so the emergence of such large-scale centralized factories in the light industry such as woolen fully illustrates that the British rural cottage economy is rapidly advancing under the catalysis of the commodity market - they are now lacking more than the East Coast. It is probably a more reasonable enterprise management system and industrial technology, which is really critical.

"Sir, there is no place to produce wool in the suburbs of London." Harrison's words quickly interrupted Mo San's thoughts, and he only heard him say: "The woolen manufacturing industry is generally concentrated in Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Berkshire and other places, and the merchants of London know it. Sir, if you want to buy a set of clothes, I suggest that you do not go to the places I mentioned earlier, because they are all low-class goods, and do not correspond to your status as a noble gentleman, sir. You might as well visit Coventry or Manchester, where there are silk weaving workshops that produce all kinds of blended fabrics all year round, and Leicester City has a good range of knitwear, so if you want to buy textiles, you're sure to be able to buy textiles that match your identity. You can bring all the fine fabrics you buy to the parish of St. Giles as well as to the parish of Great St. Martin, where there are tailors who specialize in the service of decent people and whose craftsmanship is so skilled that you will surely be satisfied. ”

"Very well, Harrison, I remember your words. In the next few moments, I think I'll take the time to check out these places, because I'm very interested in them. Mo San turned to Harrison and said with a pleasant face. The young head of the guard looked very capable and knew a thing or two about business. Thompson is a bastard, and no one is simple. I just wonder if Thompson, a group of businessmen who influenced the actual direction of Britain, would allow themselves to go deep into the grassroots of British society to investigate? I shouldn't be in trouble, because I can carry out this kind of disguised espionage in the name of business cooperation, and these businessmen will not do anything to me at this time.

Thinking of this, Mo San's mood suddenly improved, because he felt that he had something to do next. (To be continued......)