This is a risky move, Zhu Jinglun himself is also very clear, he knows that the British do not want to fight, Zhu Jinglun himself does not want to fight, especially with the British, but the opium trade is the core interests of the British can not be separated, once the opium trade is lost, Britain is bound to start a huge deficit in Sino-British trade again, in this era of the gold standard, it means that the British have to ship a shipload of gold and silver to China, which will not only cause huge trouble to Britain's international trade, but also with the loss of gold and silver, The credibility of the pound will also be reduced, which can even threaten the question of the international currency status of the pound. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

In short, a commodity with a trade volume of 40 or 50 million for two years is no longer just a consumer product, it has taken on political significance, even if it is a drug, Britain must insist on maintaining it.

But it is precisely because the opium trade is something that the British cannot give up, so Zhu Jinglun wants to move this interest, and only when he pokes the sore spot of the British will they compromise. Only then could they keep the opium trade at the cost of giving up the coolie trade, so as to achieve Zhu Jinglun's goal of completely ending the miserable coolie trade.

Of course, this is very humiliating, especially Zhu Jinglun, an official trained during the New China period, it is even more difficult for him to accept the two things of a country's armed drug trafficking to its own country and trafficking its own citizens abroad as slaves, but as a ruler, he must be responsible for the entire country, and if he can only choose to crack down on one of the two things of being trafficked in drugs and being trafficked into slavery by people, he can only choose to give priority to attacking the latter.

As for the opium trade, who makes the current strength weak, this is the eve of the great powers to divide the world, the darkest and bloodiest era, it is not easy for the weak to survive in this era, how can we talk about dignity!

But even if it is so humiliating, it is possible to play badly, and there is a tightrope stretched at all times, and it may break at any time.

Because with the completion of industrialization in Britain, the people have become rich, and the so-called rich conscience has indeed appeared a large number of gentlemen who have no worries about food and clothing, showing their conscience, but the voices of these people can influence the British government for a while, and it is impossible to influence British policy for a long time.

It's like the American Civil War, because after Lincoln announced the abolition of slavery, the British people enthusiastically supported the North, so that the British government, although it wanted to support the South, and thus continued to use the American South as a source of raw materials and a market for products, could not intervene for a while.

At present, public opinion in Britain has held the British government hostage for a while, but it is impossible to leave the British government helpless forever. Even in the best case, Britain was forced by the pressure of public opinion, and acquiesced to the Ming Dynasty's crackdown on the opium trade, but the long-term trade deficit will soon make the British economy have problems, this is an era of liberal capitalism, an economic crisis will break out every seven or eight years, once the British economic crisis breaks out again, they can easily put the blame on the Ming Dynasty, telling their people that it is because of the Ming Dynasty's trade restrictions that it led to the British economic crisis, manipulating public opinion and blaming China, Zhu Jinglun of later generations has seen a lot.

At that time, the British people who were struggling under the economic crisis did not have so much surplus conscience, and they did not care that the Ming Dynasty only restricted the opium trade, and at that time they would turn to pressure the government to take strong measures to force the Ming Dynasty to open the market.

Therefore, once the ban on opium is strongly promoted, Zhu Jinglun knows that war is not far away.

So from the very beginning, Zhu Jinglun let the army start to prepare, so that they are ready to fight with the world's first power, Britain, once the war breaks out, the best result is that the navy just formed by the Ming Dynasty is completely annihilated, but it can resist the British army on land, and then under the long-term blockade, forced to sign a treaty with Britain to save face but lose the lining.

The worse result is that both land and sea will be defeated, and I am afraid that I will not even be able to save face at that time. The worst thing is that the British did not come alone, and she brought in the French, or some other ally, and what needs to be worried at that time is not the question of unequal treaties, but the question of whether this new country can survive. When the Anglo-French alliance defeated the Ming Dynasty, what would they choose, whether to hand over the Ming territory to the obedient Qing court, or to divide it themselves, or whether they would allow the Ming to continue to exist, which could only be their puppet regime from now on.

In short, Zhu Jinglun knew very well in his heart that it was very dangerous to provoke the British Empire at this time, so while mobilizing the army to prepare for the worst outcome, he had many other followers.

Most of the special missions that have come to Britain are composed of the children of merchants, and they are businessmen who have been trading with foreigners for a long time, and they understand the minds of foreigners.

They are not just buying a few newspapers, their more important mission is to use their means to lobby real interest groups, rather than creating public opinion in the newspapers.

The Manchester Chamber of Commerce is the target of their key lobbying, they come in a private capacity, and they do it more secretively, and they may not be able to hide it from the British government, but it is not easy for people to seize evidence.

Lu Xuechang, a descendant of the Lu family of Guangli Bank, one of the four major merchants in the past, was the main person responsible for public relations with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, of course, he came to the British in the name of a businessman, and he also visited the Manchester Chamber of Commerce as a businessman, and was also treated as a guest by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce as a businessman.

The Lu family was also a big merchant alongside the Pan family and the Wu family in the past, but the speed of their rise was even faster than that of the Wu family.

Lu Guanheng, the first generation head of the Lu family, came to Guangzhou to make a living during the Qianlong period because of his lack of livelihood, and the Wu family at that time was already a food family under the management of Wu Guoying, Wu Bingjian was already a rich second generation at that time, and Lu Guanheng could only make a living by doing chores in the shop, until he was in his 40s, and he couldn't even marry a daughter-in-law.

By chance, he happened to be a middleman in a foreigner's trade, and since then he has entered the trade business with foreigners, and within ten years he made a fortune, established Guangli Bank, and became one of the thirteen general merchants on an equal footing with Wu Bingjian.

It can be said that its rise is also vigorous, and its death is also sudden, and this kind of family that rises too quickly often has a fatal problem, that is, the foundation is not enough, to put it bluntly, it is an upstart. When Lu Guanheng died, Lu Wenjin, the second-generation head of the Lu family, was still a twenty-year-old child, which was the same as the decline of the Wu family, in addition to the general situation of the times, it was also caused by the lack of successors. Lu Wenjin did not have his father's courage, he only maintained the family business, and in his time, the Lu family could no longer sit on an equal footing with the Pan family and the Wu family, and was reduced to an ordinary trading house.

Lu Wenjin has no courage, but he is not a loser, he will his father's huge wealth, continue to turn into rural land, but laid the foundation for the Lu family, and later after the end of the Opium War, the Lu family closed Guangli Xing, and the whole family returned to their hometown to be a landlord in peace.

But the Lu family had been brilliant in the past, and there were inextricable links with foreigners, Zhu Jinglun hoped to use the connections of these merchants, so later he supported the Lu family to open Guangli Bank again, and the one who rebuilt Guangli Bank was the third generation head of the Lu family, Lu Guanheng's grandson, and Lu Wenjin's nephew Lu Xuechang.

Lu Xuechang is not the son of Lu Wenjin, but the son of Lu Wenjin's eldest brother Lu Wenju, and the only child of the Lu family who stayed in Guangzhou to continue to do business after the Lu family withdrew from the business world, but he no longer did trade, but changed careers to start herbal tea trading, opened a small tea shop, and later his family's herbal tea was still quite marketable, knowing that before the liberation, it was annexed by Wang Laoji.

Because Lu Xuechang was originally a businessman, when Zhu Jinglun encouraged the Lu family through the Wu family, the Lu family launched this son and re-took charge of the Lu family's business.

And this time let Lu Wenjin come to Manchester is also a reason, Manchester is a famous industrial city in the United Kingdom, and the most important industry in Britain is the textile industry, one of the means of the Lu family to make a fortune in the past is to basically monopolize the textile business with the East India Company, and they are not selling, but reimbursing the East India Company's Indian cotton, so in this industry, the Lu family has accumulated experience, and Lu Xuechang also continued to do textile trade after reopening Guangli Bank.

The most powerful of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce is the textile merchants, who are not only a commercial force, but also a political force to be reckoned with in the increasingly capitalized country of the United Kingdom.

The reason why Britain launched the Opium War was related to the instigation of these commercial forces. Although the war mainly protected the interests of the opium merchants, the Indian Chamber of Commerce, the Indian and China Association, and the Indian Association, which were composed of opium merchants who sold opium for a living, actually formed an alliance with the British textile industry chamber of commerce. At that time, the opium chamber of commerce fooled these textile capitalist groups, telling them that no one in the Chinese would buy a shirt, which would be enough for them to start production for a hundred years.

So these associations also joined the ranks of the war to put pressure on the government, and together with the opium chambers, they exerted strong pressure on the government in a short period of time by intensively submitting memoranda to the prime minister and foreign secretary to put forward their demands.

At that time, the core group of these pro-war groups was the London-based "India China Association", and the most vocal of them were the chambers of commerce in Manchester and Glasgow, two cities with developed textile industries.

In order to minimize the danger of Britain using force, it is very necessary to break up the alliance between the industrial capital interest group and the opium interest group.

So this is Lu Xuechang's greatest mission, and his opponent is Manchester hard-line radical president Turnier. (To be continued.) )