Sweden and Denmark were successful in their negotiations with Wu Chongyao, and at a time when Britain had begun to promote the theory of free trade with great fanfare. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Although not all countries accept it, the economic idea of importing products that they are absolutely inferior to and producing products that they have absolute advantages in their own countries has taken root in the hearts of the people, and has been used as a basis for formulating policies by various countries.

Sweden and Denmark, on the other hand, have fully embraced the British theory of free trade, unlike Germany, their markets are small and they simply do not have the ability to produce everything, so trade is a necessity for them, and they have reached a variety of free trade agreements with the United Kingdom, sharing the prosperous market of the United Kingdom.

Now they are more eager to open up the Chinese market, so when Wu Chongyao proposed to give them tax exemption for some industries in exchange for their tax exemption for Chinese tea and silk fabrics, they had no reason to refuse, because these two industries, they could not develop anyway, and they were products with absolute cost disadvantages.

In the end, the agreement was reached that Guangdong would grant exemption to Sweden's iron ore and iron products, and timber and wood products, Sweden's two largest industries, and Sweden would grant exemption to Guangdong's tea and silk fabrics. Guangdong grants tax exemption to Danish agriculture and animal husbandry, and Denmark grants tax exemption to tea and silk fabrics in Guangdong.

This kind of trade treaty is a great success for the two countries, and it is tantamount to opening up the market of more than 20 million people in Guangdong, and it is necessary to hold a ball to celebrate, and of course, Zhu Jinglun and other local officials in Guangdong should be invited to participate.

Sweden and Denmark, two small countries, located in Northern Europe, are quite open countries, the atmosphere of national openness, especially the British, compared to Germany, these two countries are the descendants of pure Viking, the royal families of the two countries can really be traced back to the pirate chieftains.

The openness in British culture actually stems from the colonization of pirates, from Anglo-Saxon culture, but from the Celtic culture of Britain itself. For example, in the English common law system, the jury verdict is basically the same as the public trial of the pirate tribe back then.

Comparing different cultural sources, it can be found that in fact, the more backward the culture, the more equal it is, the Ma sect master's writings say that it is the emergence of surplus products, which brings about class differentiation, which is not unreasonable, the primitive society is the most fair, with surplus materials, there is a difference between the rich and the poor.

The reason for this, the first is the material base, the leader with more wealth, more able to turn the wealth in his hand into power, such as the Vikings, although the individuals are relatively equal, but when they go to sea to plunder, the warships and materials are prepared by the leader, and in the final harvest of the raid, the leader should also share the largest share, and when they end the plunder culture and begin to settle, the leader with material accumulation will evolve into a lord, and the warrior will either become a knight attached to the lord, or a serf; The second reason is that in this backward plundering society, the power gap between individuals is small, everyone is armed with a knife, who dares to oppress and who can't get it is a duel, which is the same in agricultural civilization, the orthodox dynastic society is divided into imperial power, bureaucrats and scholars, but the heroes of Liangshan are all brothers, although there is a difference in seats, but after all, they are much more equal.

The Mongols had the Kuritai Assembly, the Westerners evolved the parliament, and the Eastern kings became the court, before the Western parliamentary system equalized, the parliament was only a place for the nobles to deliberate, compared to the Oriental court, it was equivalent to adding an emperor's decision-making power to the common deliberations, avoiding the delay caused by unnecessary quarrels.

In the early days of the parliamentary system, Westerners themselves could not see the benefits of this system, the reason why there was this system, because the royal power was really unable to suppress the power of the aristocracy, forced to let the nobles discuss together, after the establishment of the Dutch Republic, their parliament quarreled constantly, and could not decide on a bill for many years, and finally decided to ask a king to come back and adjudicate, that is, Elizabeth of England, but Elizabeth collected too much protection money, which caused the Dutch to bear it, and finally invited her away, so the Dutch established the East India Company, It also gave the East India Company the equivalent of the state, allowing them to mint coins, raise armies, and declare war on foreign countries, in fact, in order to circumvent the inefficiency of the parliamentary system.

But fortunately, starting from the United Kingdom, the parliamentary system has walked out of the quagmire of continuous quarrels in the early days, constantly institutionalized, and constantly optimized, and has moved towards the road of modern representative system, but China's court has been operating for thousands of years and has not broken through the ceiling of modern civilization.

Some experts believe that this situation is inevitable, some people think it is accidental, and Zhu Jinglun also thinks that it is inevitable; China is a country of great unification, and Chinese has long enjoyed the stability brought about by great unification, but also has to bear the inefficiency brought about by great unification; after all, a group without competitors has very little motivation for change.

It is as if state-owned enterprises are very inefficient when competing with private enterprises, but they are relatively stable, and private enterprises often close down in a few years, while state-owned enterprises are willing to invest in long-term industries, of course, this does not include those corrupt state-owned enterprises, in terms of Western state-owned enterprises, one is inefficient but stable, and the other is efficient but turbulent.

Not only enterprises, the country is also like this, the competition between Western countries is extremely fierce, Germany once had more than 400 large and small states, Britain is also divided into large and small aristocratic territories, the competition of small countries under this division is very fierce, not change often means death, so when a country has a new technology or new management method, it will be introduced by other countries immediately.

During the Enlightenment, even in Russia, a closed country in the easternmost part of Europe, Catherine II was able to constantly correspond with Voltaire and promote the most popular ideology, culture and system in Europe. Mercantilism emerged in Italy less than a decade ago, and countries such as Britain and France began to follow suit, and then spread throughout Europe.

The British Industrial Revolution began to become stronger, France and Prussia continued to steal British technology, and at its peak, there were tens of thousands of British technicians working in France, and Prussia continued to exclude commercial spies to peep into the British factory system and production technology.

This kind of fierce competition in peacetime has prompted the rapid development of Western countries, just like the Warring States Period in China, in the face of fierce competition for life and death, countries have continuously changed the law, introduced various schools of thought to try to make the country strong, and hundreds of schools of thought have emerged one after another.

It is their misfortune that there are many European countries, and it is also their luck that they have never formed a unified nation and culture, and the competition between different nations and countries has prompted them to constantly change and progress, and finally far surpass the stable and comfortable Oriental world.

In later generations, there was a question in both Chinese and Western cultural circles, why there was no shortage of technology, no lack of market, and no shortage of capital in ancient China, but why the industrial revolution did not happen in China is only one reason, that is, competition, China is a country with a serious lack of competition.

In the West, there were not only the struggle for hegemony between nation-states such as Britain, France, and Spain, but also the conflicts between states such as Prussia, Hesse, and Austria, as well as the competition between free cities such as Hamburg and Lübeck.

In fact, China is not without opportunities, if the surrounding countries can bring pressure to China, China also has the motivation for progress, but North Korea, Japan and Vietnam and other countries, not as good as China, they have always been in China to absorb nutrients, and did not give birth to their own culture and system, especially Japan is the most pity, obviously a maritime country, stunned by learning China's mainland culture, their own worldview into agricultural culture.

If Japan had been able to assimilate Chinese culture early on, give birth to its own culture, and then begin to attack the mainland, I am afraid that China would have changed long ago, just as the cultural shock of Britain to the European continent eventually caused the transformation of the European continent.

However, Japan did not succeed, China has always played the role of the center of East Asian civilization for thousands of years, and only China exports to them, without their share of reverse impact, and if China does not progress, East Asia will not progress.

It is no longer possible to expect East Asian neighbors to put pressure on China, so Zhu Jinglun now has to draw existential pressure from the outside to increase the competition in Chinese society.

However, the rash introduction of giants like Britain and France is not to introduce pressure, but to bring tsunami, Denmark and Sweden are very good, the introduction of their competition, it is impossible to bring China's survival impact, but it can moderately bring some stimulation to this too stable society, forcing them to start competing.

This is a cultural consideration, and a diplomatic consideration is to use them to set a benchmark for European countries, and the British and French can do the same when they come.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun is very willing to give these two small countries extremely generous treatment, but when it comes to additional conditions other than interests, Zhu Jinglun feels that it is very necessary.

So at the reception, he proposed to the Swede Wallenberg: "I think in addition to economic exchanges, we can also have some cultural exchanges." To be precise, I hope that the two sides should strengthen ties in the exchange of talents. ”

Wallenberg had already made great gains, and he was already thinking about the benefits that his family industry, shipbuilding, would achieve.

He felt the need to respond positively to Zhu Jinglun's proposal: "How do you think we can strengthen our ties? ”

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "My cooperation agreement with your country's technical consultants is about to expire, but I am very satisfied with the services they have provided in recent years, and I hope they can continue to stay in Guangdong, I don't know if our agreement can be extended." ”

In 1859, the first batch of Swedish advisers came to Guangdong, including military advisers and technical advisers, and now in the military Zhu Jinglun's troops are not bad in technology, but they are not perfect enough, military is a university question, but not just a knife to kill people, he also includes a complete set of military management system, which is not perfect enough.

Technically, the arsenal has been under construction in recent years, and the last batch of projects was completed last month, and a large factory covering an area of more than 200 acres has appeared on the Nanshan of the Chiwan Peninsula, and local technicians have also trained 1,000 people, but it is not ideal enough, Zhu Jinglun also plans to expand, his purpose is to make this arsenal able to supply at least 50,000 people, but now it can only supply a maximum of 10,000 people of weapons and equipment.

But the contract was about to expire, and they came one after another after February 1859, and now it was February 1862, and there were already people whose contracts had expired, and most of these people had learned Cantonese, which was the knowledge they had learned in three years, and letting them go at this time was not only a loss for Zhu Jinglun, but also a great waste of their talents.

Wallenberg, however, shook his head apologetically: "We hired these consultants in our private capacity, and we can't force them to stay in Guangdong if they don't want to stay in Guangdong, and I hope you can forgive them." However, if you need military and technical consultants, we will be more than happy to continue to help you hire some people. ”

Zhu Jinglun sighed: "Okay. We solve their affairs ourselves. But I hope to have their help in education. I hope that your country will help us to recruit some highly qualified teachers in the natural sciences, in the number of 1,000 people. ”

Although Sweden is a small country, but in terms of education, Sweden is the first country in Europe, and even the world to eliminate illiteracy, as early as 1842, they legislated through education regulations, requiring every Christian district to retain a permanent school, to provide free education for every school-age child, and Sweden is a country with more than 95% Christian faith, so it is equivalent to successfully completing the compulsory education legislation for 95% of the population in 1842, through more than ten years of efforts, The Swedes have already completed compulsory education, which is earlier than in the UK.

The rapid industrialization of Sweden in the 50s was not unrelated to the spread of education in the 40s, which prepared them intellectually for industrial development.

Later, in 1917, Sweden and Russia were governed by workers' parties almost simultaneously, but later embarked on two very different paths: the workers' parties in Sweden insisted on reforming on the basis of constitutionalism, while Russia's became a government that wreaked havoc on the rule of law, which was not unrelated to the level of education of the rulers in both countries.

But a thousand teachers is still a lot of pressure for a small country like Sweden.

Wallenberg felt that he could still do it with his efforts, but he also wanted to make an additional request: "A thousand people are hard, but if you are willing to provide our country with shipping—"

Zhu Jinglun interrupted him very rudely: "Business belongs to business, I think your country has obtained far more benefits than your country has paid through business negotiations, and the two of us together are a market of 30 million people, but among these 30 million people, we in Guangdong account for more than 25 million people, while your country only has more than 4 million people." Education is a cultural cooperation, and I do not want to have any economic purposes involved, and I am more than happy to send a certain number of scholars to your country if it is needed. In fact, we have made the same proposal to other countries, such as the United States, and they are more than happy to cooperate. ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "It's just that I personally am more sure of the education level in Sweden. I hope that if our officials and managers can get intellectual help from your country, it will be of great help to the future cooperation between the two countries. ”

Wallenberg knew very well that Chinese officials could be influenced through education, and when he heard that Zhu Jinglun had made the same request to other countries, he suddenly felt a sense of crisis.

I didn't ask for any additional requirements, and said a little awkwardly: "You're right, I'm personally very happy to serve!" ”

Commercial negotiations between large and small countries generally require additional political requirements, and small countries do not have this power.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun could ask Wallenberg for educational help, but Wallenberg could not ask Zhu Jinglun for economic help.

Zhu Jinglun raised his glass with satisfaction: "Then I wish us a happy cooperation!" ”

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This chapter has written a lot of discussion, so I wrote a little more in the rest of the content, which can be regarded as making up for it. (To be continued.) )