Perhaps the most obvious change from a traditional agrarian economy to an industrial economy is that the state can invest a large amount of manpower and material resources in the armed forces and war industry.

The sudden expansion of industrial wealth allowed the state to support a much larger and more specialized army. In this race for productive forces, a serious imbalance of violent technology and armed forces has gradually developed in the whole world, and the cost of war is almost completely eliminated by the technological and military superiority of one military power in the face of other agricultural empires, such as the Mughal Empire.

At the same time, the natural law of the jungle of "natural selection, survival of the fittest" mentioned in the book "Theory of Evolution" written decades ago has been extended to human society, which has provided a ready-made excuse for the expansion of colonialism and the plundering of foreign wars, making some people take it for granted that "ignorant and backward races are doomed to be subordinate or extinct", and the human world has since become a battlefield for the strong.

In this logic of power, there is never the place of the weak, civilization and morality are the excuses of the weak, and conquest and plunder are the logic of the strong.

As a sharp weapon invented by human beings, the bow and arrow itself is a more efficient killing weapon. The advent of bows and arrows rewrote and dominated part of the history of warfare until the advent of guns.

Before the advent of firearms, warfare depended entirely on the physical strength and skill of soldiers, which required innate quality and long-term training.

After the advent of firearms, physical skills were no longer important, discipline, order and obedience became the key to determining war, and industrial power became an important support for determining victory or defeat.

In the agricultural era, barbarian peoples could easily conquer advanced civilizations by relying on physical advantages such as mounted archery, but in today's industrial age, barbarian peoples can only endure arbitrary blows from advanced civilizations.

After entering the industrial period, the so-called war completely turned into a great competition of industrial productivity and technological resources, and man was only an experimental object of technological progress, and even a ruthless sacrifice.

In the modern industrial system of mass production, people produce weapons as if they were any other machine, and no one cares about what it is used for, but rather about being able to produce and sell it in large quantities and at low cost.

In the era of Qin Shi Huang, the rapid production of bronze crossbow machines in units of 10,000 has achieved large-scale standardized manufacturing.

At present, in the military production workshop of Qi State, the production of flintlock pistols is not much different from the production of hardware products, and with the blessing of machines, they are continuously manufactured like flowing water.

"If you fall behind, you will be beaten."

Whether it is backwardness in technology or backwardness in national strength, it is not only the result of being beaten, but also a reason for being beaten.

In other words, as long as violence is sufficiently developed, there is a natural legal right to conquer and enslave others.

As Mozi said, "The king of a big country said leniently: I am in a big country and do not attack a small country, why am I big?" ”

A scholar of Qi once claimed, "The outcome of a war is often decided in the factory." ”

In the eyes of some Qi generals, the technology of war is a noble and complex science, and the final outcome can be calculated before the war.

In the Qi-British War, although the Qi State was an expedition across tens of thousands of miles of sea, it undoubtedly occupied an absolute advantage no matter what dimension it was.

Qi's annual fiscal revenue is as high as nearly 180 million yuan, which is equivalent to pounds, that is, more than 140 million pounds (every 1 gold yuan coupon is equivalent to 0.82 pounds). England's annual revenue was only £8 million before the war, only 5.7% of the country's.

In terms of steel production, although England obtained the technology of coke ironmaking (steel) from some source decades ago, the annual output is only 40,000 tons (the original history, the iron production of Britain in 1720 only reached 20,000 tons), while the steel production of Qi is more than 10 million tons, and the steel production of Jianye Mansion alone is more than 2 million tons.

It is precisely because of the huge steel production that Qi has built more than 90% of the world's railways, with a mileage of more than 35,000 kilometers, while England does not even have a single inch of railway.

In the comparison of maritime strength, in 1725, the Qi Navy had more than 320 warships and auxiliary ships of various types, with a total tonnage of 425,000 tons, while the British Navy only had more than 200 ships, and the number of small and medium-sized ships accounted for a large proportion, with a total tonnage of only 237,000 tons, followed by the French and Spanish navies with a total tonnage of 140,000 tons and 85,000 tons respectively.

However, although the strength of the Qi navy is already ranked first in the world, they still believe that they have not established absolute superiority. In the eyes of their admirals, in order to establish and maintain the supremacy of Qi, their naval strength was stronger than the combined strength of the other four major naval states (Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands) except for Qi. This ensures that Qi can accept the challenge of two, three, or even more navies at the same time.

Under this huge gap in strength, the Kingdom of England has been able to compete with the Qi State for nearly three years, which has already surprised the people in the country.

I still remember that the wars that our Qi Kingdom has fought over the years have never lasted more than two years, and even if the opponents such as the Mughal Empire and the Persian Empire are powerful, they have defeated them in a devastating way of fighting and had to be forced to surrender.

More than 90 years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, after winning one war after another, the people of Qi have developed arrogance and pride.

In the face of strife and confrontation, the state of Qi does not seem to show any of the gentleness and humility flaunted by the Confucian civilization on the Shenzhou continent.

"When we are driving the battleship, holding the muskets, and raising the cannons, the enemy can be silent; Otherwise, they will babble and argue with you. ”

Spencer Compton, Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of England and Baron of Wilmington, was mentally prepared for the strength of Qi and the possibility of facing their aggressive attitude.

As an English nobleman and a gentleman of noble character, Baron Compton was deeply reluctant to visit the trip.

Hunt on horseback on the estate, or have afternoon tea in the warm sunshine, talk about Shakespeare's plays, and talk about the operation of the farm and the factory. In the evening, when the lights are on, I take my beautiful female companion to a grand ball, which is so comfortable and warm.

However, his dear friend, King George II of England, begged him with great sincerity that in order to save England from the crisis, to save millions of his subjects from the haze of war, and to remove the blockade from the sea, he must make the most active mediation for the end of the war by going to the kingdom of Qi on behalf of the king and parliament to meet their emperor and prime minister.

The head of government, First Chancellor of the Exchequer (the predecessor of the Prime Minister), Robert Walpole, also said that the Kingdom of England really could not afford to continue the war.

The Royal Navy lost almost half of its ships, more than 10,000 officers and men, and dozens of generals with extensive naval combat experience killed or captured, so that the Royal Navy had few available commanders.

Ireland was already in full swing, with all but a few counties in the northeast still in the hands of the English, all the other counties were controlled by the Irish rebels, and countless English and Scottish immigrants were slaughtered, women were humiliated, and even children were murdered to vent the anger and hatred that the Irish had accumulated for centuries.

The Irish rebels not only received a large amount of military and material support from the Qi country, but they even had the assistance of thousands of elite black slave royal troops from the Kingdom of Morocco, coupled with the support of countless Irish people, so that the English counterinsurgency army gradually could not control the whole situation and continued to retreat to the northeast.

What shocked the Kingdom of England even more was that the mercenaries organized by the "old tyrant" James III successfully landed in Scotland and then marched into Edinburgh in April last year with the help of a group of Scottish Catholic nobles after several successive failed landing operations.

The local garrison of England, under the command of General John Cole, hastily responded to the battle, only to lose the battle, being flanked by the Jacobite rebels, and almost completely annihilated.

Edinburgh was then captured by the Jacobite rebels, and for a time, the entire Scottish region was surging, and dozens of Scottish Catholic nobles responded by raising troops to support the restoration of the Stuart dynasty.

The Crown of England had to make another national mobilization, conscripting army units to put down the Jacobite rebellion. The two sides fought a series of battles in the Northumberland Heights, and although they routed the rebels several times, they were unable to inflict heavy losses due to terrain constraints, causing them to retreat and then make a comeback.

In addition, the Qi navy watched the coastal ports, intercepted and attacked the ships of the Royal Navy, so that the royal government could not directly attack the Jacobite rebels by sea, so that the battle line was deadlocked, and the rebels could not be completely destroyed.

The Royal Navy suffered heavy losses, so that Gibraltar and Menorca, which could not be adequately supplied and supported, were finally captured by the Spanish army, and nearly 10,000 soldiers and civilians in both places were captured.

More than 1,000 officers and men of the Kingdom of England stationed on the island of Malta were also forced to surrender to the Qi Navy in February last year.

At this point, the Kingdom of England had completely lost control of the entire Mediterranean region.

Not only did it not improve militarily, but it also suffered frequent defeats, lost troops, and was extremely bad economically and financially, and even some of them were desperate.

More than two years of war have left the government with an additional debt of more than £8 million, which has overwhelmed the first Chancellor of the Exchequer. The government's desire to continue issuing new government bonds has also been met with a cold reception from the market.

Also, in a war that may not be won, no one will continue to invest real money in it.

Overseas trade and fishing have been devastated, and at least forty percent of the merchant ships that venture out at night will not be able to escape the pursuit of Qi naval vessels.

With the blessing of the steam engine, where can ordinary merchant ships outrun the pursuit of Qi warships?

It can't fight anymore, the Kingdom of England simply doesn't have the strength to fight a long-term war with the Qi State.

People's ships came from the mainland one after another, and it seemed that they would never finish.

What made the Royal Navy even more frightened was that after the Qi Navy tasted the benefits of steam engine warships, the ships that came to Europe to participate in the war in rotation were all replaced with steam-powered ships, and even sent two "invulnerable" ironclad ships in one go to wantonly ravage the Royal Navy warships.

Faced with such a difficult situation both internally and externally, the Kingdom of England was ready to submit to the Qi Kingdom, even if it cost some heavy money.

The arrival of the envoy of the Qi people to England showed a clear victorious posture. As if to exert more pressure on the Kingdom of England, after Baron Compton arrived in Jianye, a series of visits were arranged, allowing him to fully feel the wealth and strength of the Kingdom of Qi.

Jianye Shipyard, which has a variety of advanced equipment, several huge docks, and dense workers are building several merchant ships with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons at the same time.

The towering buildings in Jianye City are one after another, and the commuter rail street cars are clattering past one after another, and the bustling streets are constantly crowded with people, as if they have not been affected by any war at all.

As night fell, the sky was getting darker, but the streets were getting brighter. Rows of street lamps are lit one after another, making the streets like bright jade belts under the night sky of the city; The lanterns at the entrances of all kinds of shops were lit, and the waiters stood on the side of the street, hoarsely soliciting business; Night markets, hotels, and shopping malls are brightly lit, and it seems that burning lamp oil is like white water and does not cost money.

The city is dotted with factories, the roar of machines is coming from it day and night, and the tall straight chimneys stand like patches of dense urban jungle in all corners of the city.

Several top research institutions, more than a dozen universities with a full range of disciplines, hundreds of primary and secondary schools, and eight years of free education undertaken by the government provide the city with a steady stream of talents at all levels.

It is said that the city has a population of more than 600,000 people and generates as much wealth each year as a medium-sized European country.

In the country of Qi, there are several cities like Jianye.

After visiting the artillery production workshop and the steel mill of Daqi Heavy Industries, Baron Compton wrote in his diary: "In the place where these war machines and these terrible and destructive machines were made, the workers easily operated many machines, such as large cranes, winches, levers and pulleys, and everything was so new and so efficient. The powerful cannons are as simple and bright as the sausages made on the farm! ”

"The war of the machine age has made it impossible to nurture the virtues of noble knights, such as spirit, bravery, honor, and manhood. What it imposes on people is only the experience of the destruction of the red fruit and the feeling of being a small thing that can only be an insignificant thing under the giant wheel of unilateral slaughter. In the face of a country like Qi with a strong industrial production capacity, our kingdom is so helpless and so sad. ”

"This is a kind of crushing in strength, but also a huge gap in national strength, clever command art, fearless combat courage, in the face of Qi country's turbulent production and manufacturing force, everything seems so pale."

"The clamor of the machine is always on the side of violence against the holy soul, and on the side of death against the fragile life."

(End of chapter)