The crown prince did not agree to any of his daughter-in-law's requests.

Either Russia will open its domestic market on a reciprocal basis or close the Chinese market to Russia, and this is a question of choosing one or the other, and there is no room for negotiation.

It's not that the crown prince doesn't want to win over Russia by throwing money, it's that he is also under great pressure.

Unlike his father, who felt that urbanization was stagnant, the crown prince was more worried that one-third of the population lived in the cities, and the relationship with the countryside was getting more and more distant.

The homeless, in the eyes of the rulers, is always a factor of instability. Now there are 200 million people in this kind of unrest, which makes the crown prince how can he live a steady life.

The reason for the stagnation of urbanization is, considerably, the beginning of a surplus of productive forces, China's industrial production, which has already met China's needs, and if it cannot provide a livelihood for the vast number of workers, the pressure of 200 million people to survive can tear apart any empire.

In recent years, law and order in the city has continued to deteriorate, gangs have joined forces, workers have taken over factories, and so on. Unlike in the West, although the law also has content to protect private property, in the face of such large-scale mass incidents, there are still cases where the law does not hold the public accountable.

Especially after the crown prince took power, he was not as bold as his father in these mass incidents. The main thing is that he lacks prestige, in the face of the same thing, Zhou Lang can be tough, he doesn't dare. Because if he does it, something will happen, just like the same ruling system, the era of Qin Shi Huang was an iron bucket, and in the hands of Qin II, the world will be in chaos.

Therefore, in the face of the occupation of factories by workers, the government often did not rise to the level of rebellion and did not dare to exile the leader, as was the case before, but the magistrates came forward and adopted a peaceful attitude, making the capitalists make losses, forcing the merchants to make concessions, raising wages, reducing working hours, improving the working conditions, and so on. However, this has alleviated the conflict between labor and capital, but it has not been able to solve the fundamental problem.

On the contrary, a large number of capitalists were in trouble, especially in low-end industries such as cotton textile industry, leather industry, and transportation industry. Some capitalists invest their capital in other fields, such as real estate, finance, etc. Some capitalists exported capital, and they invested in regions where labor was cheaper, and labor-intensive industries such as spinning mills moved in large numbers into India under corporate rule, and even into Japan.

Japanese merchant ships began to appear more and more actively in Chinese ports, not only for Sino-Japanese trade, but also for China's domestic trade, and they did entrepot in China, using cheaper Japanese workers, making it difficult for China's shipping industry to operate. Japanese and Indian cotton yarn has left a large number of female spinning workers unemployed. Women don't rebel, but the operation of a large number of Japanese shipping companies has left Chinese dock workers unemployed, and sailors unemployed, who have little professional skills, are poorly educated, and can only make a living by selling the cheapest labor.

They had a hard time living in the cities, and if the owners lowered their wages, they would have a hard time making a living, so under the leadership of the gangs and trade unions, they began to fight against the capitalists, but if they did not lower their wages, the capitalists could not continue to operate, and had to close down factories and warehouses. As a result, workers lost their jobs massively.

If explained according to economics, this is a new stage of industrial development, which begins to require climbing to a higher level, and then high-tech industries replace backward industries, and backward industries move outward. But it has brought huge social problems, and even developed countries such as Europe and the United States will suffer under the impact of China in later generations, not to mention China now.

The trade unions and gangs soon discovered that it was useless for them to persecute the capitalists, and that the government could only support them under pressure, and that the capitalists had become a vulnerable group, often weeping bitterly in the incense halls opened by the gangs, and the owners of small factories who were forced to jump into the river frequently appeared. The government realized that the problem of persecution of businessmen was not enough, as it had been in the past. Big commercial companies were not so easy to oppress, and they began to hire literati to help them wave their flags and shout, and put pressure on the government through public opinion. It is believed that the excessively generous tariff policy has caused China's industry and commerce to wither, and finally made it difficult for the poor to make ends meet.

Moreover, the industrial and commercial groups have finally begun to call for the establishment of parliaments and other Western systems, of course, through a group of royal literati waving their flags, these literati are not necessarily taking money to do things, many of them really hold this kind of thinking, thinking that the Western system is fairer, but they can make their voices published in newspapers, which is controlled by the power of capital. As long as their ideas meet the needs of capital, capital-controlled newspapers will report on them and even buy pages for them.

The commercial forces began to demand power from the government, and the people at the bottom began to ask the government for their livelihood, which forced the crown prince to make changes, and the industrial and commercial advisers around him also told him that unless some Western countries were willing to open their markets, it would be difficult for Chinese goods to expand their exports, and the country was already saturated, unable to feed more people, and there would inevitably be turmoil in the long run.

As a result, the crown prince began to take strong measures, changing the previous policy of focusing on the domestic market and began to vigorously tap the potential of the international market.

In terms of external propaganda, the voice is also unified, that is, to find a livelihood for the small people, so as to calm the increasingly serious problem of labor and management antagonism, and because of these problems, the public resentment has begun to transfer to the government.

Although no one dares to guarantee how much China will be improved by forcing foreign countries to open up their markets, they can at least draw a big pie and tell everyone that as long as foreign countries open up their markets, China's market will improve, and everyone will have work to do and food to eat, so that the poor people will have hope. It also allows the people to see that the government is doing things, so that their resentment against the government will be calmed.

So even Russia, which is governed by its own daughter-in-law, is no exception.

The Tsaress, feeling the seriousness of the situation, had already had a discussion in Parliament before she came, and the bourgeois-dominated National Assembly and the aristocratic Parliament were extremely unanimous this time, insisting that the tariffs could not be lowered according to the demands of the Chinese. Industrially, the aristocracy finally completed the process of transformation into industry and commerce, and they became the new aristocracy that profited from industry and commerce like the British. The members of the National Assembly were bourgeoisie and kulaks. The impact of the open market on the Russian bourgeoisie was enormous, and they united against it.

If the female tsar fails in diplomacy in China, then after returning to China, she will lose the support of the two political forces of nobility and commoners, and she will fall into a disadvantage in the game with Konstantin and other royal families.

The cost of confrontation may be greater, but it will not lose points, and it will be able to get the support of nationalists to turn the contradiction into hatred of China. In any case, the Russian people have always been full of hatred for the Orientals, and regard the current China as the successor of the Oriental Tatars. After returning home, the blame for the failure of the negotiations can be placed entirely on the arrogance of the Chinese, showing the uncompromising toughness of the Russian female tsar. Then came the trade war, in which Russia lost markets for exports to China for primary industrial goods such as wool textiles and pig iron, and then these industries began to struggle. But to win the support of the majority of nationalists, the more bitter everyone lives, the more they will hate the Chinese government, not the female tsar.

Russia chose this way, and Prussia would not risk offending the Junkers, Bismarck himself was from the Junkers, and he had a bad relationship with the king and the army, but he could remain in power for a long time in Prussia, a country with heavy monarchy and military power, without the support of the Junkers, which was inconceivable. As for the interests of heavy industrial groups such as Krupp, they can only be put aside for the time being, and these heavy industrial groups are more dependent on orders from their own governments and armies, and Bismarck's promise to give them more national purchases is enough to appease the resentment of these forces.

With Russia and Prussia in front, other European countries chose confrontation, Austria refused to lower tariffs, France refused to lower tariffs, and only some small countries chose to compromise, the Netherlands and Sweden in northern Europe, and the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Balkan Empire in southern Europe. The Netherlands occupied a large number of colonies in the South Seas, which depended on exports to China for maintenance, and there were no advantageous industries in the country, so they did not need protection; Sweden is too dependent on the export of high-quality iron ore, China is one of the largest importers, and Swedish iron ore is used in large quantities by China in weapons production, smelting Swedish iron ore into steel, and then making weapons that are more sophisticated than using Australian iron ore.

The Kingdom of Sardinia had established the Kingdom of Italy, and their main interest was not in commerce, but in the unity of the state. But their diplomatic energy was basically exhausted, and they had taken advantage of the Austro-Prussian War to join the war in the hope of unifying Italy, and Cavour succeeded in gaining Napoleon's support, but Napoleon reversed himself, and when he finally mediated, he only agreed to Italy to obtain Lombardy, but did not agree to their annexation of Venice. Militarily, the king's personal expedition was also defeated, and he accepted it when he saw it, which caused Cavour's dissatisfaction. He resigned as prime minister, and through his political activities with the Italian Association for Independent Unification led by Mazzini, he succeeded in getting Tuscany, Parma, Romagna and Moderna to join Italy through referendums, and to complete the unification of northern Italy except Venice.

However, because Cavour ceded Savoy and Nice to France, Garibaldi in the Unification Association was dissatisfied, and Garibaldi was a native of Nice, so he led his Red Shirts and began an expedition to the south, hoping to unify the entire Italian peninsula. Cavour resolutely refused to give Garibaldi assistance, and lied to the king that Garibaldi intended to carry out a revolution, but the king replaced Garibaldi.

Italy was also worried that the foreign powers would interfere with their reunification, and they had a strong desire for reunification, and the upper echelons of their own country were fighting among themselves, and they were absolutely unwilling to provoke a powerful country like China at this time.

The Balkan Empire, consisting of Greece, Bulgaria and Wallachia, which basically relied on Black Sea trade, did not dare to offend China. Coupled with the geographical relationship, the Balkan Empire was not too worried about the impact of Chinese textiles, they themselves had a relatively developed textile industry, and in the field of heavy industries such as steel and coal, they relied on imports and did not compete with Chinese goods, so they agreed to the request for lower tariffs.

Basically, a situation of confrontation between big countries and compromise between small countries has been formed.

The British are still jumping up and down this time, and the political confrontation has made the crown prince take sanctions, announcing high tariffs on British goods, Britain began to retaliate, and the two major economic powers are also involved in a trade war.

As a result, in an era when industry began to surplify in various countries, a cold snap of economic crisis swept the whole world!