452nd Nobility of the Estate and the Aristocrats of Land

The republican system naturally attracted the unanimous hostility of all monarchical vassal states, but behind the Luyu Republic stood Mao Jiuzhong. At the time of the signing of the Jinan Treaty, Mao Jiuzhong carefully declared the Luyu Republic a protectorate of the Wei vassal state and the Shengmeng vassal state in order to weaken the influence of the Wei clan, and any invasion of the Luyu Republic itself would be regarded as a violation of the Jinan Treaty. The vassal states of the Central Plains were afraid that the invincible Mao Jiuzhong would return to Kyushu, and they could only sit back and watch the birth of the Luyu Republic with hatred.

However, the impact of the Luyu Republic is limited.

The republican system of the Republic of Luyu is not a republic in the universal sense of the real world in 2016, it is more like an aristocratic republic or a family republic. Except that there was no king in charge, there was no essential difference between the Luyu Republic and other vassal states, and the cabinet was still full of a group of nobles and families. Moreover, after the declaration of the republic, Van Beek has been trying to reconcile with the Lu royal family, as long as the Lu royal family is willing to give up the autocratic privileges and accept the supervision of the cabinet from now on, the cabinet led by Van Bik will gladly agree to the return of the Lu royal family. Realizing that the Luyu Republic was just a compromise move by Fan Bike who did not dare to usurp the throne, the vassal states of the Central Plains slowly relaxed their vigilance and allowed the Luyu Republic to continue to exist.

The camera returns to Wei Dongsheng.

Mao Jiuzhong has been prancing on the horse for more than 20 years, what has Wei Dongsheng been doing?

The answer is to run a school.

Wei Dongsheng gradually realized the difficulty of Qin Shi Huang's great cause, and turned to start from little things, and did his best to improve the level of basic education in Zhuxia. The inferior Tomorrow Ring forbade Wei Dongsheng to disseminate natural and social sciences, but allowed Wei Dongsheng to gather scholars and craftsmen with power or capital, indirectly and slightly accelerating the improvement of the science and technology tree.

One of the important reasons why Mao Jiuzhong was able to run rampant all over the world was that the military technology of the Central Plains vassal states was far ahead of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire.

In the real world, 1611 is the forty-seventh year of Wanli of the Zhu Ming Dynasty, and it is only eight years before the unveiling ceremony of the Ming curse, the Battle of Sarhu. Involving the historical crossing of the chaotic times at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the protagonist of the traverser often takes the trouble to introduce the Spanish Grand Phalanx, hoping to use the advanced tactics of the Spanish Grand Phalanx to hang the Manchu Eight Banners. Horizontally comparing the history of the evolution of military science and technology in the Wei Xia Empire in this time and space, the Spanish Grand Phalanx is only equivalent to the Yue Wu Pawn Phalanx that has been eliminated for many years, the Wu Wu Pawn Phalanx improved by Qi Jiguang and the Wei Wu Pawn Phalanx further improved by Mao Jiuzhong, etc., are far ahead of the Spanish Grand Phalanx in terms of combat effectiveness.

That is to say, even if Wei Dongsheng did not take the initiative to spread the natural and social sciences, the technology tree of the Wei Xia Empire climbed slightly faster than in the real world.

This is also the advantage of the Weixia Empire.

Wei Dongsheng hoped to further indirectly strengthen the advantages of the Wei Xia Empire through investment in education.

All the profits earned by Wei and the Chamber of Commerce were used by Wei Dongsheng to invest in running a school. Because the foundation of contemporary education is very weak, Wei Dongsheng must start a business from scratch and personally spend countless energy to improve the shortcomings in all aspects, not only to build a school for the invigilation examination, but also to improve the more basic primary school education nature of Mongolian school. Even considering the high difficulty of the invigilation examination and the large number of people who fail to make the list every year, Wei Dongsheng spun off a vocational college for repeat students for more than two years from the school system to export professional talents in a targeted manner.

Of course, the difficulty of the educational career is quite high.

In the final analysis, Wei Dongsheng's sixth identity background is only a commoner, and the development of business hits the ceiling to a certain extent. It's not that you can't continue to be a Great Wei and Chamber of Commerce, but if you want to continue to be a Great Wei and a Chamber of Commerce, you must find an aristocratic family umbrella, but the noble family umbrella obviously doesn't want to see Wei Dongsheng's stupid behavior of investing all his profits in basic education. Falling into an aristocratic family, Wei Dongsheng didn't want to develop basic education to his heart's content; And keeping a certain distance from the aristocratic family, Wei Dongsheng doesn't want to be a big Wei and Chamber of Commerce as he wants.

The aristocratic feudal order in which the blood is everything, and the civilian background frequently drags down Wei Dongsheng's development plan.

The more times he encountered bloodline restrictions, the more Wei Dongsheng was able to understand the difficulties of the common people, and then sincerely supported the people to overthrow the backward feudal order.

The civil war in Lu induced by Mao Jiuzhong immediately became a rare opportunity for Wei Dongsheng to smash the class barrier.

A careful study of the civil war in Lu shows that whether it is a royalty society loyal to the royal family or a cabinet society that restricts royal power, the leaders are all nobles or families. In terms of superficial attributes, the Lu Civil War seems to be no different from the Yan Civil War and the Zhao Civil War, both of which are dog-eat-dog struggles between the aristocratic groups for power. However, Wei Dongsheng was keenly aware of the significance of the civil war in Shandong with reference to real-world history, because the leaders of the cabinet were all industrial aristocrats or industrial families.

The meaning of the industrial aristocracy is that these nobles have become rich by industry, or control the maritime trade chambers, or control dozens of workshops, or operate thousands of acres of plantations overseas, and so on. To put them more figuratively, they can be called aristocratic capital, that is, strong capital that greedily grabs commercial profits by virtue of aristocratic privileges.

The leaders of the Baowang Society, on the other hand, were a group of landed aristocrats or landed families, who mainly made profits through land rent and rent, and could be regarded as the general impression of large landowners.

Completely different from the chaotic Zhao Civil War and the Yan Civil War, the hierarchical attributes of the Cabinet Society and the Baowang Society are extremely clear. This civil war in Lu was by no means just a struggle between the aristocracy and the royal family whether to centralize power, but a struggle between the land aristocracy and the industrial aristocracy.

In the real world, someone once said that bureaucratic capitalism is the worst form of capitalism. Wei Dongsheng felt that this sentence was somewhat wrong, because aristocratic capitalism is obviously worse than bureaucratic capital, and aristocratic capitalism has more limitations than bureaucratic capitalism. But in 1608, aristocratic capitalism was clearly superior to aristocratic feudalism, and the least industrial aristocracy was more likely to accept the plebeian class than the landed aristocracy. The value of the landed aristocracy lies in the appreciation of the land, the land is there, the wealth is there, you work for the landed aristocracy, no matter how smart you are, you can only mix with the level of housekeeper, master, and guest. And to serve the industrial aristocracy, the industrial aristocracy often tends to promote those talents with real materials because of the fierce market competition, whether he is a commoner or a dilapidated aristocracy.

If you are unfortunate enough to be born into the commoner class, you will obviously have a better future in the aristocracy of the industry.

Wei Dongsheng believed that aristocratic capitalism was more advanced than aristocratic feudalism, and actively supporting the cabinet headed by the industrial aristocracy would definitely be more able to promote the historical process of the Wei Xia Empire. Therefore, after the outbreak of the civil war in Shandong, Wei Dongsheng decisively sided with the Cabinet Society, not only urging the Weihe Chamber of Commerce to send military supplies to the Cabinet Society, but also donating the limited profits of the Weihe Chamber of Commerce to the leaders of the Cabinet Society in need. When the Cabinet won the final victory, this political investment was expected to bring rich returns to Wei Dongsheng.

In 1608, the Treaty of Jinan was signed, and Mao Jiuzhong fully supported Fan Bike to govern the Luyu Republic as the first and auxiliary official.

Van Becker's position is not precarious, and there are concerns about the restoration of the Lu royal family externally, and there are many other factional opponents within the cabinet. Van Bik clearly understood his shortcomings, and when he held military power in his hands to implement a military dictatorship, he quickly planted his wings and rewarded those forces who were willing to be loyal to him. For example, Wei Dongsheng, who has been a political investor for many years, was awarded the honor of lifelong pavilion marquis by Fan Bike.

The Lifetime Pavilion Marquis is an honorary title, has no territory, and cannot be hereditary.

Despite this, Wei Dongsheng's social status has also improved significantly, and he has officially squeezed into the upper class.

In the contemporary era when the concept of blood is prevalent, honorary titles are attached to countless invisible privileges. For example, Wei Dongsheng's sixth persistent ideal of running a school, Fan Bike's party initially held an indifferent attitude, and when Fan Bike tactfully granted Wei Dongsheng the title of Marquis of Pavilion, the middle-level cadres of the Cabinet successively expressed their willingness to support Wei Dongsheng's education cause in a limited manner. After a year of operation by Wei Dongsheng, Fan Bike even allocated about 15 million square meters of vast land in the suburbs of Qingdao Port to Wei Dongsheng to build a new school free of charge, and helped raise education funds through tax exemption and sponsorship.

Unfortunately, the construction of the Qingdao campus is destined to be full of ups and downs.

During the period of Mao Jiuzhong's rise, the alliance between the two countries became more and more decaying, and the northern feudal domains such as Yan, Zhao, and Lu were beaten by Mao Jiuzhong again and again, and the royal family had no time to take care of naval construction because they were facing an existential crisis. Among the coastal vassal states, only Wu was not afraid of the threat of ground war, and merchant ships roared to all parts of the world. In terms of the most obvious economic indicators, before the Wei-Yan War, the average national income of Wu was about 0.8 times that of the Lu people, and after the signing of the Jinan Treaty, the average national income of Wu had slowly risen to 1.25 times that of the Lu people, which was a well-deserved golden age for the Wu state.

Unconsciously, Wu has become the new overlord of the seas.

The vassal states such as Yan may be willing to accept Wu's new maritime order, but the Luyu Republic cannot tolerate Wu's monopoly on global trade. As mentioned earlier, the cabinet represented by Van Beck is a large alliance of industrial aristocrats and industrial families, and commercial profits are their lifeline.

As the old saying goes, the state is the tool of the ruling class, and the machinery of the Luyu Republic must give priority to safeguarding the interests of the industrial aristocracy and the industrial family.

In 1611, Mao Jiuzhong attacked the Russian Empire at the same time, and his quasi-ally the Republic of Luyu took the lead in challenging Wu. The Republic of Luyu uses the state apparatus to safeguard the interests of the industrial class, and requires that the goods imported into the Republic of Luyu must be transported by ships of the Republic of Luyu, that is, to interfere with the free competition of the survival of the fittest by administrative means.

The sixth Wei Dongsheng was born in the State of Wu, and the Wei and Chamber of Commerce also had a strong flavor of the State of Wu, so they were naturally within the scope of the Luyu Republic. Fortunately, the Luyu Republic did not have any national ideology, and the industrial class only cared about the share of commerce, not only did not discriminate against Wei Dongsheng because of his place of origin, but eagerly invited Wei Dongsheng to move the headquarters of the Weihe Chamber of Commerce to the Luyu Republic.

Wei Dongsheng had decided to support the industrial aristocracy to disintegrate the landed aristocracy bit by bit, so he simply immigrated to the Luyu Republic.

In other words, the Wei Xia Empire can be regarded as Wei Dongsheng's legacy, and in the process of the sixth generation, he sometimes served the Jin State, sometimes served the Jiaozhi State, and sometimes served the Yue State, how could he care about the difference between the Luyu Republic and the Wu State today. On the issue of immigration, Wei Dongsheng has no psychological barriers, after all, Wu and the Republic of Luyu are his legacy.