The construction of the Panama Canal began at the end of the 40s, and the construction period was originally expected to be 10 years, but who would have thought that it would take ten years, or even slightly more than three months, to be completed in the spring of 1851.

The construction standard of the project is very high, because at the time of construction, the British have begun to build a 10,000-ton giant ship, and the construction requirements ensure that the 10,000-ton giant ship can pass, so the sluice is enough to accommodate the ocean-going merchant ships with a main tonnage of about 5,000 tons, and it is also enough to accommodate the passage of China's largest 8,000-ton ironclad ship.

The passage of warships is extremely sensitive, and once the Chinese navy can enter the Gulf of Mexico through the canal, it means that it will gain sea supremacy in the backyard of the Americans, which makes the United States very worried. But no one could stop the construction of the canal, and under the strong impetus of China, all acts of sabotage failed, and the canal was successfully completed.

Britain and the United States are getting closer and closer to the United States on the issue of obstructing the China Canal, and Britain, which has just been deflated on the issue of the Black Sea Strait, saw the opening of the Panama Canal and reached an agreement with the United States.

The Anglo-American joint note to China called for the establishment of a Panamanian management committee, which will be managed by Panamanian stakeholders, and the interests of the canal will still belong to all investors, but administratively, it must be managed by the committee.

"Alas, the British Empire!"

Seeing the diplomatic offensive of the British, Zhou Lang couldn't help but sigh, he was really exhausted.

Because in order to force China to make concessions on the Panama issue, the British really worked hard, and they also co-opted East Asian countries, and their diplomatic activities were carried out to Japan.

The situation in East Asia is very special, China is under the strong intervention of Zhou Lang, the introduction of the power of the industrial revolution, and then slowly created a commercial society and commercial culture, but at present it is still a country with agricultural culture as the main body, the ideas of the social elite still have strong characteristics of heavy agriculture, based on these ideas The populistic culture is still the mainstream of the ruling culture, different from the populism of the vast majority of dynasties in history, just shouting slogans, the Great Zhou can really benefit the people, Because the national strength and management ability are far superior to those of previous dynasties.

As at any time in history, since China is the center of regional civilization, once any affairs established in China can easily spread and promote in neighboring countries, and the commercial culture introduced from the West, digested and absorbed by China, and then spread to the outside world, already has a strong Chinese flavor.

For example, in the West, the same big industrialism was to increase the national finances, strengthen the national power, and so on, but in China, it became the development of industry because industry is the source of people's livelihood, and the Chinese scholars who absorbed Malthusian population theory put forward a new theory, and did not regard the establishment of industry as a means for businessmen to make a fortune, but rose to the national level. According to Malthusian theory, population grows geometrically, while food growth due to technological development and land development grows at an arithmetic level, and if there is no limit, population grows at an exponential rate (i.e., 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc.), while food supply grows at a linear rate (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.).

The Malthusian theory was accepted by the French as the theoretical basis for the French to reduce the fertility rate, and as a result, the French population began to stagnate for a long time after the Napoleonic Wars, and was eventually surpassed by Austria, Germany and Britain to become a second-class European power. The Malthusian theory may just be a coincidence, some countries and nations will have this long-term state of population decline after the major loss of national blood, the French lost too much in the Napoleonic Wars, and perhaps there was the worry that the ancient Chinese women had to marry the neighbors and have boys, and the same example is the Soviet Union after World War II, a large amount of fresh blood was lost, so that the Soviet Union's fertility rate fell instantly, and never recovered.

The Chinese reacted to Malthusian theory by expanding and developing industry, which was supported by some emerging academic powers, who believed that industry also grew geometrically, so that only industry could accommodate population growth. However, the traditional ideology of heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce has not completely receded, and the scholarly class is more receptive to the same productive industry, while continuing to despise the copper-smelling business. Just as in history, the status of the industry and commerce was the last industry, and the status of the workers was higher than that of the merchants, and now it is still the first-class talents who are officials, and the second-class talents who are farmers and workers, and the status of the workers is advocated to be more agricultural and equal, and commerce is still the last industry.

These ideas are at least progressive and embrace industrialization, so they can be seen as a Chinese-style industrial culture.

The ideas put forward by the Chinese quickly spread to North Korea and Vietnam, and under the impact of Chinese goods, the two countries also began to embark on the road of large industry, North Korea formed paper industry, wood processing industry and other advantageous industries, Vietnam formed rice milling, sugar industry and other advantageous industries, occupying a link in China's economic system.

However, Japan lagged behind, although Japan also attached great importance to absorbing Chinese ideas, and the purchase of books from China was a long-term official act, and the Japanese upper class began to slowly accept industrial ideas. But it is relatively conservative, mainly because Japan has not been hit as strongly by the economic shock of North Korea and Vietnam.

Japan's handicraft industry has also been hit by Chinese commodities on the verge of collapse, but Japan has always had some leading industries, such as precious metals have always been the largest producer in East Asia, Japan's silver in the Ming Dynasty supported China's currency silver, in fact, their copper ore is also the main raw material for East Asian countries to mint money.

Later, with the depletion of gold and silver mines and the exhaustion of copper resources, Japan began to restrict the export of silver and copper, and in this case, China developed the Yunnan copper mine on a large scale during the Qianlong period, while Vietnam lacked alternative resources and even began to import white lead (zinc) from China to mint white money.

The influx of Chinese goods is unstoppable, and Japan has been closed off from the rest of the country, mainly concerned by the religious and cultural infiltration of white people. The White Tiger was a secondary purpose, but not for the development of domestic industry and commerce, but only for the fear of the outflow of precious metals and leaving Japan with no money to spare. This backward economic thinking has caused Japan to have frequent trade frictions with China. And each time it was Japan that conceded because it could not and did not dare to enter into a conflict with China.

As a result, the merchants, stimulated by profits, continued to smuggle and trade privately with local daimyos. As a result, a large number of metals such as silver and copper have flowed out of Japan, and they have fallen into a state of long-term deflation. It is manifested in the continuous decline in prices and the shrinking of government finances. In fact, it is an economic phenomenon that the amount of money in circulation decreases, but the corresponding commodities increase. Under the balancing effect of the economy, gradually Chinese commodity exports will find unprofitable, because Japanese prices have become so low that Chinese industrial products cannot do their handicraft products. It's as if industrialized Britain found it impossible to export textiles to India and China.

However, it is not certain whether Japan will be able to survive until this time, because deflation is accompanied by social crises such as unemployment and financial crisis, and the common people will rebel if they have no money to buy food.

In this way, under the impact of China's industrial revolution, Japan has come to the end of what traditional society can tolerate, either change or collapse society.

As a result, Japan also began to introduce Chinese technology, and a slow industrialization began. At first, the focus was on the gold, silver and copper mining industry, because those mineral deposits were exhausted for Japan, but in fact the mineral deposits were still rich, but the technical conditions were not available, and the introduction of new technologies revitalized the mines that could not be mined. Century-old families such as Sumitomo continue to be brilliant, and world-class mineral deposits such as Iwami Silver Mine and Besko Copper Mine continue to exert their residual heat, and production surges.

But by this time, the purchasing power of silver had fallen a lot in China, especially after the gold standard, the price of silver plummeted, and Japan continued to export silver but could not reverse the trade imbalance, and then under the penetration of Chinese commercial power, another promising industry developed in Japan, that is, logging.

Japan has a large mountainous land and is covered with large areas of virgin forests, and there is no shortage of the most important labor force for the development of the logging industry.

A large amount of Japanese timber was exported to China, and it did balance Japan's trade at a time when the shipbuilding industry was in its infancy. But it only lasted for ten years, and with the development of steel shipbuilding, timber, especially high-quality wood, was no longer a necessity, and large merchant ships were no longer subject to the hard-to-find keel timber, as a result of which the price of timber plummeted. Japan's economy is once again in trouble.

Historically, before and after the Opium War, Japan's social contradictions had also accumulated to a certain extent, stimulated by the invasion of China by foreigners, and later under the impact of Japan's founding and Western thought and culture, a strong anti-shogunate movement broke out in Japan.

In this history, although Japan also suffered from China's strong commercial impact, but the cultural shock was not strong, but the shogunate movement still began to appear, mainly because the countries became more and more dissatisfied with the shogunate's policy of restricting trade, and for these powerful feudal clans in the southwest, although under the impact of Chinese goods, their industries were also very withered, Japan was only a small country, but it was divided into more than 200 separate princes, and the shogunate suppressed these princes with power, but did not directly manage the princes' territories. This is similar to the Japanese feudalism in Europe.

Under this system, it is difficult for a national market to emerge, and it is impossible to give birth to large companies and industries in Japan. As a result, the powerful feudal clans in the southwest were unable to resist the invasion of Chinese goods, and the handicraft industry went bankrupt in large numbers. But they can re-export, not only to make up for the loss, but also to make a big profit. The Japanese shogunate was unable to put an end to the smuggling of Chinese merchants, so it suppressed the re-export of these powerful feudal clans, so the contradictions became more and more serious.

The powerful feudal clans on the southwest coast, which had amassed wealth in trade, armed their samurai with advanced weapons to fight against the shogunate. Smuggling continues, and the contradictions between the two sides have accumulated to the brink of war. The shogunate threatened the southwestern daimyo many times, and the southwestern daimyo also surrounded the four powerful feudal domains of Choshu, Satsuma, Hizen, and Tosa, forming a faction that overthrew the shogunate. War can happen at any time.

At the moment of emergency, Zhou Lang quickly mediated this.

Inviting the Japanese mission to visit China, asking the mission to include representatives of the shogunate and the daimyo of the shogunate, the Japanese learned from Korea and Vietnam where the Chinese emperor was lustful, and the mission also specially prepared a group of Japanese beauties to pay tribute, so that Zhou Lang couldn't help but laugh.