As soon as Turnier got the assurance he wanted, he jumped into action. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

He once again united with the chambers of commerce in industrial cities such as Glasgow, Halifax and even Liverpool, and did not even need to lobby too actively, because when Lu Xuechang lobbied him, some Chinese businessmen had already contacted these chambers of commerce separately and left behind many different orders, so Turner's contact was echoed.

They used the method of uniting opium interest groups to lobby the government to start a war against China, and once again they kept submitting memoranda to the foreign secretary and prime minister to express their demands, but this time they stood on the opposite side of the opium interest group, they hoped that the government would not interfere with the Ming Dynasty's ban on opium, they believed that not only was it not worth using force against the Chinese again for opium, but once the war started again, it would inevitably damage the reputation of the British Empire and the Queen, and would damage the trade of other British goods except opium.

Outside the stadium they set off a huge public opinion, and at the same time they strongly called for peace, believing that war would harm the interests of millions of textile workers. In the American Civil War, which ended last year, they showed their might, and in order to support the abolitionist movement in the northern United States, they set off a large number of demonstrations, this time involving their own interests, and they were even more duty-bound.

Coincidentally, an unexpected economic crisis gave impetus to the anti-opium movement.

In 1866, the war in the United States ended, and to everyone's surprise, the abolitionist movement in the United States did not make American cotton production slump as everyone imagined.

Although these American cotton can not reach the pre-war production at all, but the Civil War for more than four years, has allowed other cotton producing areas in the world, replaced the United States, as a result, this batch of American cotton suddenly entered the market, so that the world cotton market is greatly surplus, the good thing is that the world's cotton merchants are keen on the speculation during the Civil War, they fried the cotton into a sky-high price, as a result, the entry of American cotton, directly let the world market collapse, starting from London, a large number of merchants involved in the cotton trade, banks bankrupt, London financial crisis, Even affecting China, banks in Shanghai have gone bankrupt in large numbers.

For the British textile industry, the sudden collapse of cotton prices, although their raw material costs have been greatly reduced, but the problem is that the previous bull market, so that a large number of textile factories did not produce with peace of mind, just like every economic crisis in later generations, before the economic crisis, the capital of the real economy is a large number of crazy influx into the virtual market speculation, this time these high-priced cotton hoarding textile factories a large number of insolvent bankruptcy, the result has caused a large number of textile workers to unwork.

The large number of unemployed workers took to the streets, so that the British government did not dare to mention the use of force for a while, but it was also a difficult problem for the British government.

As the British government, as long as they can expand trade, they don't mind whether to sell opium or textiles, but the problem is that the opium interest group is actually more united than the textile group, because they are smaller, and there are a large number of giants in the opium interest group that are difficult to mess with.

The East India Company closed its doors, but the giants who stood behind the East India Company did not collapse, these people were the big nobles with high status in Britain, the big banking families, the big insurance companies, the shipping giants, these people not only had a strong influence in Parliament, but also many people had a close relationship with the royal family, these people's cakes were so active?

Therefore, even if the Chinese promised to replace the textile trade with the reduced opium trade, the government would not dare to use this condition to negotiate with the Daming government, because once the government so blatantly attacked the interests of the opium interest groups, then they would not be far from falling.

This unique balance of interest groups in Western egalitarian politics was already evident in the era of the British Industrial Revolution.

But the joint protests of dozens of chambers of commerce in major cities, and the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers who took to the streets, could not be uneasy.

Therefore, they can only express their position immediately, and they will immediately exclude negotiators and go to friendly and peaceful consultations with the Ming government.

When the British diplomatic mission arrived in Guangzhou, Zhu Jinglun was actually in a good mood.

Recently, he has gained a lot, the cotton crisis in Shanghai, which caused 5 of the 11 foreign banks to collapse directly, and the other banks have been hit hard, but the local Chinese businessmen have not suffered much loss, especially the booming money bank, because it is not closely connected with foreign banks, so it is not very connected with the world market, and they have not been greatly affected.

And the losses of local merchants are far less than those of foreign merchants. Before the collapse of the cotton market, the price of cotton in Shanghai had risen from 10 taels to 25 taels per quintal. At such a price, the cotton from Shanghai can get to London, and the profit margin is only 15% without capsizing, which is far lower than the profit of other maritime trades.

Due to the two-to-three-month cycle of shipping, most of the Chinese businessmen took action before the collapse, and foreigners became the biggest pick-up man. That's not all, the skyrocketing price of cotton has made many unscrupulous traders cheat, they mix water in cotton, and as a result, the cotton bought by many foreigners is still moldy at sea, and the result is even more bloodless.

Shanghai Ocean business power suffered a blow, is Zhu Jinglun's harvest, he did not take the opportunity to speculate, for him, this is not a too large-scale economic crisis, so his main operation is not speculation, but low-price acquisition, 5 bankrupt foreign banks he is in the pocket, only spent 200,000 taels of silver, for these acquired bankrupt banks, Zhu Jinglun is not completely acquired, he left about 30% of the shares to the management, continue to let them operate, he also needs these people to help him develop, Without these people, he would not have found so many qualified bankers.

Among the other six banks that survived the economic crisis, except for HSBC, which has long been controlled, the other five banks have also accepted the participation of Zhu Jinglun's Guangfu Bank, and all of them have reached a 51% holding ratio. At that time, the economic crisis was raging, and none of these banks dared to guarantee that they would be able to avoid the catastrophe, and after the Guangfu Bank proposed to participate in the shares, none of them refused, but only made a slight struggle in the proportion of shares, and accepted the other party's request for a controlling stake.

After this economic crisis, it can be said that Zhu Jinglun is tantamount to controlling the foreigner banking industry in Shanghai, and he knows too well the scale of the expansion of these banks in the next few decades, and it can be said that the interests of any one of them are dozens of times more than the amount of money he is throwing out now.

Another harvest that Zhu Jinglun got from this cotton crisis is that in the United States, the source of the cotton crisis, the reason why the Americans were able to resume cotton production so quickly was that they adopted a new mode of production in history, the slave owners in the south were emancipated their slaves, but the slaves themselves were still there, as free people still lived in the south, in history they changed the previous plantation production methods, a large number of plantation owners leased their land to slaves, charging high rents, and as a result, the slaves who planted cotton were still growing cotton. After the change from plantation to tenancy, cotton production in the United States soon recovered, resulting in a large surplus of cotton on the world market.

Last year, he asked Wu Chongyao to set up a labor export company in the United States, which received the first batch of orders in the south, and there were dozens of large plantation owners, who still decided to adopt the plantation system out of hatred for black slaves or nostalgia for the old system, and in the absence of blacks, they hired tens of thousands of Chinese laborers.

Of course, these Chinese laborers are not like the slaves of the past who work under the whip, in fact, their labor is not urged, they are organized by labor companies, in a Chinese-style short-term labor situation in the United States plantations, their wages are mainly linked to the fruits of their labor, according to the weight of the cotton picked, this subcontracting system has existed in rural China for many years, for example, when rural short-term workers harvest crops, they are calculated according to the acre, harvesting an acre of land, or ploughing an acre of land is how much is it, There's no need to rush at all.

The Americans succeeded in resuming cotton production using the tenancy system, and the planters who relied on Chinese labor to continue large-scale cultivation were also successful, so many more planters adopted this method, and this year their contracts with labor companies immediately increased tenfold, and they signed agreements to hire 100,000 people.

At the same time, labor companies have also made great progress in expanding in the western United States, they have acquired nearly a million acres of unclaimed wasteland in the California delta, and have hired tens of thousands of people to reclaim it.

These good news made Zhu Jinglun happy for a few days, and the arrival of the British negotiation mission made him feel big.

Because of the return of these missions, there were also Lu Xuechang and other businessmen, especially Lu Xuechang, who reported his achievements to Zhu Jinglun with a mentality of showing merit, which immediately made Zhu Jinglun feel depressed.

Zhu Jinglun did not criticize Lu Xuechang, mainly because of his responsibility, he did not consider that even these businessmen with the most broad horizons actually do not have the worldview of modern people, in China they are regarded as valuing profit over righteousness, but their degree of profit is not on the same level as that of Westerners, even if the West is a conservative aristocracy, it is stronger than their sense of rights.

But it is mainly their vision, they never thought that this kind of forced promotion of the import of British textile industry would make China's traditional textile industry bankrupt at the same time, and also make it impossible for the modern textile industry to develop in China for a long time. (To be continued.) )