Charles I offended not only the ruling classes in the countryside and cities, but also the lower classes of society. His tax hikes on consumer goods and exports have not only boosted the city's household spending, but also made it difficult for those urban workers to get enough work to support their families.

But compared to the farmer families in the countryside, the working families in these cities are already good. Because of the rise of the enclosure movement, large amounts of public land were seized by the aristocracy for private property, and the peasants who lost their land were driven out of their homes, either wandering around and eventually arrested by the sheriff, or they had to enter the cities and become candidates for the workers needed in the manufacturing industry, so that the factory owners could obtain cheap labor.

Of course, there were also a large number of people who left Britain in search of a better life, and most of them went to the American continent on the other side of the Atlantic to establish colonies for Britain on the North American continent. How many of the lower classes of society, in such a miserable life, would care about the struggle between the king and the parliament? It is estimated that the psychology of expecting both sides to die together may be more among the lower classes.

So who is around Charles I? It was the old aristocracy, the old squires who tried to preserve the traditions of the village, the privileged merchants and the bonded merchants. Although in traditional British politics, the aristocracy is the dominant force in the country.

But with the rise of the nouveau riche and the entry of intellectuals into the propertied class, the authority of the aristocracy was declining in society.

In medieval England, the division of social classes took into account only the status of men, that is, the division of three classes, those who prayed for God, those who fought for the king, and those who did hard labor. Although people are aware of the inequality in society, they still believe that some people are born rulers and some people are born to be ruled by men.

So the nobles and the king are the rulers of the country, and no one thinks that there is anything special and unjust about this, and it is believed that this is God's arrangement.

And what is aristocracy is to live on the estate, and do not accept employment from anyone except in the service of the king. They are located between the king and the squire, and basically all have the title of title. An unknown English poet wrote: "They thought in their hearts: Their houses shall endure forever, and their houses shall remain for all generations; They have their own land under their own name.

There are only about 120 aristocratic families in the whole of Britain, but they own 20% of the land in the UK, with an average annual income of more than £6,000. In addition to hunting, they entertain guests on weekdays. And every English aristocrat boasted of being benevolent, generous, and just.

When he first arrived in England, he had heard from friends at court who told him about the spirit of nobility. For example, the first characteristic of the aristocratic spirit is chivalry, and bravery and martial arts are the primary content of chivalry. The second characteristic is a strong sense of ownership and social responsibility. The aristocracy was naturally the master of the state, they participated in and interfered in the affairs of the state, upheld the ordinary affairs of society and the people, and spoke to the king for the people's suffering.

After hearing this, Kuhl immediately looked down on the British aristocracy, believing that even outside of China, there was a noble human culture. It's just that when he got to know more about these British aristocrats, he no longer had any admiration.

In an aristocratic autobiography that Chuhl had read, Lord Herbert of Sherbury recorded that when he was shipwrecked at Dover in 1609, he immediately jumped into the only lifeboat on board and turned his sword at everyone except Thomas. Except for Sir Rousey, no one else is allowed to re-enter the boat. When Sir was on board, they abandoned the wreck and the crew, and reached the shore safely, and the Lord boasted of his bravery, but said nothing about how many of the ship's men had survived.

The chivalry boasted by the British aristocracy and the contempt for the lives of the lower classes of society made Kuhl frightened and frightened, and he did not know whether to shoot the case or not.

And when he looked through the court trial records in England to refer to the difference between English law and Ming law, he saw two more staggering cases.

In one case, in 1637, two wagon-grooms ran into the carriage of the Earl of Exeter, and the jury acquitted them. However, when the Privy Council heard about it, they immediately used their privilege to whip the two scoundrels in public, and then threw them into prison for forced hard labor.

And in another case of the same year, the squire Thomas. Bennett was fined £2,000 by the Star Chamber for telling the Earl of Marlborough that he was a gentleman of good character like his lord, and that the Bennett family was of good moral character as well as the Leigh family.

Well, the benevolence, justice, and chivalry of the nobility, Kurtan finally knows what kind of it is. It was the usual misdeeds and bullying of the weak by these nobles that caused the authority of the nobility to decline sharply over the decades, and it was challenged by the nouveau riche and the emerging squire class.

As the great link between the crown and the populace, the aristocracy had lost this appeal. Even in the two houses, the submissive attitude of the nobles of the upper house to the king also made the members of the lower house look down on them, and the lower house began to become the king's direct opponent, which also made the lower house gain the support of the people and became the dominant force of the two houses.

And what is the difference between the upstarts of the lower house and the old nobles of the upper house? The old nobles lived on ancestral lands and the king's bounty, while the new nobles gained a lot of wealth in commercial trade, then bought a lot of land and bought titles and titles from the king to become the new landed nobles.

The old landed aristocracy rejected these nouveau riche, believing that these nouveau riche were just lucky enough to share the power to rule the kingdom with their own long-established families. The nouveau riche, on the other hand, believed that since they owned land and titles, they should gain the same social status and political power as the old aristocracy.

In the UK, land ownership is a prerequisite for obtaining a seat in the House of Commons and a seat in local government, as well as acting as a magistrate, magistrate, deputy magistrate, etc. After all, politics is the preserve of gentlemen. Now that the nouveau riche had the conditions to participate in the administration of the country, they naturally did not approve of the old nobles continuing to control the upper house.

The power of the old aristocracy came from the king, while the power of the new nouveau riche came from themselves. No matter how Kurtan weighed it, he did not think that a king, lacking the wealth, popular support, and military support, had any chance of winning the battle with the parliament.

Of course, for a bystander like Daming, he should have been cautious to keep an outsider neutral position. After all, the cultural differences between the Ming and the British are too large, and no matter which side the Ming leans towards, it will arouse the vigilance of people of insight in the United Kingdom, thus destroying the current harmonious relationship between the two countries.

In addition, war is a thing that is uncertain, and even if the parliament has a great advantage, it cannot be said to be a sure victory. After all, before the battle of Salhu, no one would think that Daming would lose.

It's just that Charles I's tax hike on imported goods and daily consumer goods also harmed the interests of the Ming Dynasty. Since the opening of trade routes between Europe and Asia in the Ming Dynasty, the trade originally based on raw silk and silk is expanding to the trade of various commodities such as tea, porcelain, cotton cloth, and canned fruits.

Among them, the fastest-growing bulk cargo is tea. The orphan girl in the Ambon tragedy was helped by the Chinese and eventually went to her home country as a representative of China, which once set off a Chinese fever in Britain. The tea and porcelain brought by the Chinese mission soon became popular in the British court and high society.

Unlike European businessmen who always wanted to monopolize business and raise prices to make high profits, Chongzhen asked Ming merchants to expand the sales of tea in Europe as much as possible, so as to cultivate the habit of Europeans drinking tea. Therefore, the amount of tea shipped to Europe is increasing year by year.

As the volume of tea shipped to Europe continued to grow, tea went from a luxury item used by the aristocracy and the upper class to show off their tastes to a list of everyday consumer goods for middle-class families. And as the British tea merchants called tea a panacea for all diseases, it also made this drink popular for a while.

In fact, the slogan was originally used for coffee marketed by the Dutch, but the tea merchants borrowed it to make the tea appear commoner. In addition, many doctors have found that cholera cases in families that drink tea are much lower than those found in other families that do not drink tea.

Of course, these doctors don't know that drinking boiled water must reduce some gastrointestinal infections. However, their findings have boosted tea sales in the UK. By 1641, the Ming Dynasty was selling about one-third of the tea sold in England to Europe, excluding Russia, of course.

As a result, the initial export of 400 quintals of tea to Europe has grown to 60,000 quintals of tea of different quality in the United Kingdom alone. But what has followed is a year-on-year increase in tea taxes, from the original 5% tariff to the latest 106% tariff.

That is, originally in China 33. A good tea of 6 pence per pound sells for $138 in the UK. 4p per pound. Even if it's 8. 1 penny per pound of bad tea would cost 33 in England. 4p. At this time, the salary of an adult male worker in Britain was only 12-18 pence.

Obviously, the high surcharge added by the British king to tea has greatly affected the expansion of the tea market in the UK, and this has also affected the interests of Daming tea merchants. After all, as a result of the year-on-year increase in tea sales in Britain and European countries, the merchants of the Ming Dynasty have regarded tea as the main export goods after raw silk and silk, not to mention that with the popularity of tea, the sales of porcelain tea sets have been expanded.

Therefore, the representative of the Sihai Trading Company in the UK, which is responsible for Sino-British trade, has repeatedly asked Kurtao to negotiate with the British king in order to safeguard the commercial interests of the Ming Dynasty. Charles I, however, refused to meet with him on several occasions, and it had only recently been reported that Charles I had left London a few days earlier to inspect the central and northern counties.

Faced with this situation, Kurtan had no choice but to give up contact with Charles I, and instead acquiesced to the representatives of the Four Seas Trading Company to contact the representatives of the Parliament.

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