Shanghai, one of the cradles of the Chinese proletariat, is finally beginning to emit the same pungent smell of progress and civilization as London and Paris of this era.

The city is now inundated with industrial exhaust and garbage, and the air smells of soot, feces, sewage, tuberculosis, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid and all sorts of other deadly bacteria. Such a terrible scene in the middle of the 19th century absolutely meant that the country was strong, the nation was rising, the military was mighty, and the industrialization that countless poor and weak countries dreamed of!

"It stinks, it's almost time for Paris!"

Maria. Clementina frowned, covered her mouth and nose with a silk handkerchief, and sighed sincerely: "In a few more years, this place will be like stinky London." ”

Stinky London? Zhu Jishi looked at the beauties beside him, and his thoughts suddenly returned to the moment when he entered London in the same carriage with the Countess de Neve. It's been almost 10 years in the blink of an eye, and these 10 years have been a dream for him, from a traveler to the Ming Emperor! It was a sea change for China, where the Manchu dynasty no longer existed, and China went from a closed and backward agricultural country to a fully open and industrialized country. For Shanghai, a city where Emperor Zhu has special feelings (if he hadn't crossed over, Zhu Jishi would have very likely married a Shanghai girl from a wealthy family), it had already been stinked by Zhu Jishi's industrialization.

"It will be better when the sewer project in Shanghai is completed, but the sewers are also being built in London and Paris, so they will probably still stink by then, right?" Zhu Jishi said half-jokingly.

"It's likely to stink even more. Both sides of the Wusong River are full of factories under construction. I think the river will soon be dyed black. It's like the River Thames. "Maria. Clementina said to Zhu Jishi with great certainty.

"The city will soon need a new water supply system, and it may need to draw water from the Huangpu River, or even from the mouth of the Yangtze River. Jason, are you listening? Why do I think you don't care much about the health of your subjects? ”

"The health of the subjects? Uh, of course I care, very much. Emperor Zhu immediately put on a solemn expression. Didn't I come to Shanghai to learn about the situation? The situation is indeed worrying, very worrying, but what can I, the emperor, do? The slums in London and Paris are just as bad as those in Shanghai......"

He came to Shanghai to inspect the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. With the gathering of population and the aggravation of environmental pollution. Last summer, there were simultaneous small-scale outbreaks in Shanghai and Guangzhou, plague in Shanghai and cholera in Guangzhou. In the aftermath of the epidemic, the governments and bureaus of Shanghai and Guangzhou accepted the advice of His Majesty the Emperor, who was a miracle doctor, and allocated funds for the construction of drainage systems, as well as the establishment of the Epidemic Prevention and Control Institute and the Environmental Sanitation Department, which was responsible for collecting municipal waste.

Moreover, Zhu Jishi's visit to Shanghai this time was also an unannounced visit. The Shanghai county government was not notified. He did not carry a large number of guards, only dozens of plainclothes guards and the imperial concubine Maria. Before I knew it, I came to Shanghai. Today, he and Maria. Together, Clementina quietly walked around the industrial zone on both sides of the Wusong River, the dirtiest area in downtown Shanghai. It can be regarded as fully appreciating the thriving industrial civilization and the dire situation of the working class.

And what he saw in Shanghai, how to say, Sheng Kang and the Shanghai county government are indeed very hard at epidemic prevention and environmental sanitation - they will also be infected with the epidemic as officials. However, Shanghai's Shengda Zhixian only cares about the health and epidemic prevention of the wealthy districts, financial districts and business districts, and there are scavengers cleaning the roads and sprinkling rodent poison. However, the streets of the industrial and slum areas are as filthy as ever, especially the slums, which are made up of low-rise shantytowns, which are almost as dirty as garbage heaps. The stench was everywhere, the narrow streets were full of beggars, and you could even see corpses that had frozen to death or starved to death. Children in tattered clothes chasing and playing in this environment, and certainly not having the opportunity to receive an education, wonder if they will become the exploitative objects of the bourgeoisie or gravediggers in the future?

……

Hong Kong, Professor's Dormitory of Jesa University.

The two great men of GCISM met again in the mansion that had once been the residence of Zhu Jishi, and before a warm hug and greeting, Marx asked about Engels' work in China.

"I guess I'm helping China develop capitalism, right?" Engels took a sip of a cup of Lanfang coffee and said with a smile, "China is now running into capitalism under the leadership of Emperor Zhu Jishi, of course, the process is very dirty and cruel. ”

"For this he unleashed wars against Manchuria and Vietnam?"

"Yes, that's for the land...... Capitalist agriculture is also an important part of capitalism. ”

Engels said: "At present, China's urbanization rate is only 5 to 10 percent, and it takes almost a dozen agricultural people to support one urban population. Therefore, the capitalization of agriculture will be a prerequisite for the all-round development of capitalism in China, and the acquisition of larger and more land is a prerequisite for the capitalization of China's agriculture. ”

In fact, Zhu Jishi's current expansion policy is not aimed at increasing agricultural productivity, but to seize more living space for future generations, so that the dynasty he created can be inherited for a longer time. But the two policies of seizing and reclaiming fertile land, and striking at and curbing the bureaucratic landlord class, did lead to the emergence of a more efficient capitalist agriculture – of course, in terms of labour productivity and economic efficiency, rather than simply an increase in the output per unit of food. Because intensive cultivation can increase food yields without resorting to manual labor, such inputs and outputs are not proportional, and a large amount of labor needs to be tied to the land, thus hindering the process of urbanization. A lower rate of urbanization usually means a higher birth rate, so the food produced by intensive land cultivation is quickly consumed by the new population, and then the entire country is left in a state of semi-starvation......

Therefore, there seems to be only one way out for Zhu Jishi, the reactionary emperor: external expansion, acquisition of land, increase agricultural productivity, increase urbanization rate, increase the productivity of the whole society, and reduce the birth rate, so that the living standards of the people can be greatly improved.

"But this process will also greatly increase the number of the Chinese proletariat." Engels gently put down the coffee cup in his hand and said with a smile, "I think there is no way for a backward feudal agricultural country and a population superpower to leap into socialism in one step." Therefore, capitalism is the stage of social development that China must go through, and the Chinese proletariat must also bear the suffering brought to them by capitalism before reaping the fruits. ”

"Well, I went around Canton and found that the Chinese proletariat was very satisfied with their present life, because their life in the countryside was more miserable."

Marx shook his head slightly: "The poverty in the Chinese countryside is really unimaginable, although the Chinese peasants are legally free people, but their lives are certainly more miserable than the serfs in Russia and the black slaves in the United States, let alone the peasants in Germany, this is certain." ”

Engels said: "Yes, but what can the Chinese peasants do?" Friedrich, have you read my book "Observations and Experiences of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom"? They did have some genius leaders who came up with some very progressive systems. However, it is impossible to implement it at all, and neither their leaders nor the people under their leadership have the consciousness to implement the "Heavenly Dynasty Tianmu System". The defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom only proved that the path chosen by Zhu Jishi was the only correct one and was in line with China's national conditions. If a big country like China wants to enter socialism, it must first develop the social productive forces to a fairly high height, and it also needs to raise the people's consciousness to an unprecedented height. Only when these two conditions are met will the Chinese revolution be possible, and the Chinese proletariat will become the gravedigger of our emperor's friend, otherwise it will be a counter-revolution under the banner of revolution. (To be continued......)