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With a snap, Zhu Jishi gently placed the manuscript of Marx's "History of the Opium Trade" on the desk, and his face was slightly pale. He did not go to work at the headquarters of the World Bank on Rue Vincent today, but only read Comrade Marx's masterpiece in his study at Villa Maria.

For the harm of drugs, Zhu Jishi, a doctor who traveled through later generations, is of course very clear, and his knowledge in this area can be written into a large book, explaining the harm of drugs from both physical and mental aspects. Still, Marx's History of the Opium Trade still caught his eye, because the book's starting point was economics and society – and it was the Chinese economy and society that opium was poisoned by the drug, not by the opium-addicted people.

To put it mildly, if all of China's 4 million to 10 million opium addicts are killed by smoking opium, how much damage can be done to China, a country with a population of 40,000?

Therefore, at present, the harm of opium to China is not in the health of the people, but in the economy and society. After more than a decade of millions of taels of silver, the outflow of millions of taels of silver has begun to manifest itself, and the outflow of large quantities of silver has caused severe deflation in China. The Chinese peasants' land taxes and rents had already been monetized, and the consequence of deflation was that their burdens continued to increase, making it difficult for them to continue, thus triggering large-scale peasant uprisings!

In addition, since the cost of long-term opium smoking is not affordable for ordinary Chinese, opium smokers must be middle-class members of Chinese society, whom Marx blamed on the complete decay of the Chinese elite. Opium is openly sold in European countries, and there are some opium addicts, but few social elites are addicted to opium. However, information from the East shows that opium seems to have become a favorite of the nobility and civil servants in China, which is a bit bizarre. Marx believed that because opium accelerated the decadence and degeneration of the Chinese elite, it would greatly increase the possibility of civil strife in China, and at the same time facilitate further imperialist aggression against China, and that without a strong elite leadership, it would be equally difficult for China's reforms to achieve good results.

But this prospect is not the most terrifying, and what worries Zhu Jishi the most is that China may succumb to British pressure in the future and agree to the legalization of the opium trade!

In his essay "History of the Opium Trade", Marx wrote: "...... When opium smoking became a custom among the upper classes of China, the custom spread to the middle and lower classes, but the high price of opium caused by the Chinese government's anti-smoking policy actually protected the vast majority of the Chinese people from tobacco poisoning. If one day the Chinese government is pressured to ban opium, it will not only flow unimpeded from the sea, but will also grow from Chinese soil. This is very in line with the principle of economics, since the income from growing opium is much higher than the income from growing food, so why can't Chinese farmers grow opium in large quantities? There will be two consequences of this: first, the East India Company's lucrative opium business has become a memorial to the United States, because the opium shipped from India for thousands of miles will certainly not be able to compete with the opium in China; Second, there will be an explosive increase in the number of opium addicts in China, and the number of opium addicts will no longer be 10 million but 100 million! At that time, opium will seriously undermine China's productive forces, cause a depression and decline in industry, commerce and even agriculture, and further weaken China's ability to resist foreign aggression. ”

Of course, the Chinese government could also ban opium cultivation at home while running the British to dump opium with impunity. This in turn will accelerate the outflow of silver, which will further burden Chinese farmers. In addition, the large outflow of silver from China is also harmful, which will cause the price of silver in the international market to fall. This is tantamount to the depreciation of China's social wealth, greatly weakening China's financial strength, and seriously hindering China's modernization process.

Marx wrote: "Since China has been a trade surplus for the past few hundred years, it has accumulated a huge amount of silver, and most of the silver obtained by Europeans from South America has flowed into China, and the total amount is estimated to be as high as 2 billion to 3 billion ounces or more, which is converted into 7 to 1 billion pounds, which is undoubtedly a great wealth." If, one day in the future, China is ready to carry out reforms and implement the industrial revolution, they can use some of this silver to buy machinery and industrial raw materials from Western countries, and they can also hire Western engineers. Compared to the impoverished Ottoman Empire and Egypt, this was an advantageous condition for China's reforms.

The Chinese are not short of money! At least for now, it seems that they can buy a modernization in a very short time, although the real essence cannot be bought, but it is enough for them to have the liliang to resist the invasion of the West. But what happens if there is a big drop in this silver, say by two-thirds? Their savings of hundreds of years will be converted into pounds, and there will be no more than 200 million to 300 million left. And in silver, the cost of Chinese introduction of science and industry from the West will also triple, which will be a severe test of their financial strength......"

If Zhu Jishi had been a master's degree in history, his face would have been even more ugly now, because Marx's predictions in "The History of the Opium Trade" came true in the following decades! And the reality is worse than prophesied! Because the Manchu Dynasty was repeatedly defeated in the following decades, it owed huge indemnities and foreign debts, and most of these indemnities and foreign debts were linked to gold! The continuous depreciation of silver means that the external debt is constantly increasing. By 1928, when the Kuomintang reactionaries took over power, the customs revenues used as collateral for foreign loans and indemnities were no longer even enough to pay the annual reparations and repayments! As a result, China's international credit went bankrupt, and it became extremely difficult for the Kuomintang to borrow more foreign debt. Unable to borrow foreign debts, and the tariffs, which are the most important source of revenue for the central government, had to be used to repay the debts, the financial resources of the Kuomintang reactionaries naturally dried up.

……

At this moment, in Buckingham Palace, the same is true of William, who has lived in Guangzhou for twenty years. Jardine said with a smile.

“…… The opium trade was not an ordinary trade, nor was it a smuggling act that damaged the honor of the British Empire, but an economic war! A war that nipped a potential rival of the British Empire in the bud! China is a country of 40,000,000 people, with incredible wealth and an authoritarian central government. With a little rectification, it will become the greatest threat to the interests of the British Empire in the East! And opium is the best tool to eliminate this threat. The empire should make the legalization of the opium trade the next stage of national policy, and force the Chinese government to accept it by all means! ”

"I didn't expect the opium trade to have such an effect." Prince Albert suddenly realized, but in the blink of an eye, he became calm again, "But what can we do to force China to accept the legalization of the opium trade?" According to your analysis, once the opium trade is legalized, the ruling foundation of the Qing Dynasty in China will accelerate its collapse, and I think the Chinese will definitely do everything possible to resist it, right? Are we going to go to war again? ”

He set his sights on Robert. Peel and the Duke of Wellington.

Robert. Peel shook his head and said: "Your Royal Highness, the current situation in Europe is unstable, there are signs of revolution in France and Germany, Russia is seeking to expand into the Balkans, even the situation in the mainland is unstable, we cannot fight a larger and longer war with China at this time." ”

The Duke of Wellington nodded and said, "The Emperor of the Sikh Empire, Ranjid. After Singh's death, the domestic political situation was turbulent, and now was the perfect time to use troops against the Sikh Empire and conquer India once and for all. ”

"No, there is no need to fight." William. There was a slight look of disappointment on Jardine's face, but he quickly regained his composure. "We can nurture anti-Qing liliang within China, plunge China into infighting, and then use the anti-Qing liliang we support as a threat to force the Qing to make crucial concessions on the issue of legalizing opium."