(The content of this chapter is a historical examination of the struggle between Yangbu and Tubu from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

In order to let book lovers have a deeper understanding of the foreign cloth business and indeed understand the grievances between China and Britain, it is better to spend a little space and introduce it carefully.

To explain why foreign cloth is so popular, and even to the extent of popularity, we must start with the production process of traditional Chinese homespun cloth.

If the cloth in Britain is produced exclusively by textile mills, more than ninety percent of the native cloth in China is woven by peasant households themselves, that is, they are engaged in cloth weaving business as a family unit, rather than relying on specialized textile factories.

Generally speaking, farmers harvest their own cotton, buy cotton, and then rely on the strong labor of the family to play the cotton, process it, and then spin cotton yarn, which is then woven by women who can weave cloth to produce cloth.

In most cases, the transformation from cotton to cloth is done in a single family, relying on the division of labor among family members, and there are also cases where cotton yarn is directly purchased and spun into cloth, but it is said that this method accounts for a very small proportion.

Generally speaking, three catties of seed cotton can be processed into a catty of lint, and a catty of lint can spin fifteen taels of cotton yarn, and woven into cloth is a width of about one foot and a length of one zhang two to one zhang five.

It is said that Indian cotton is worse than China's native cotton, and a pound of lint loses three or four taels, that is, only 123 taels of cotton yarn can be obtained.

In this way, the quality of Chinese cotton is much higher than that of Indian cotton, which is somewhat surprising.

In the spinning process, there is a huge difference between homespun cloth and foreign cloth:

First of all, because the cotton yarn used in China's homespun cloth is hand-spun, the cotton yarn spun is particularly coarse, resulting in the final woven cloth is also very thick, while the cotton yarn spun by machine in Britain is much thinner;

Another, less important feature, due to the rudimentary handloom used, resulted in a cloth width of only 0.9 to 1.15 feet, which was much narrower than that of British cloth.

In order to let you more intuitively understand how much difference there is between the thickness of cotton yarn used by homespun cloth and foreign cloth, let's first introduce the concept of cotton yarn count.

The so-called cotton yarn count is the total length of cotton yarn weighing one gram, that is to say, if the count of cotton yarn is 10, then the length of one gram of cotton yarn is ten meters, which is quite intuitive weights and measures.

I have read a source that says that the number of cotton yarn used in Chinese homespun cloth is 6 to 10, while the number of cotton yarn used in British foreign cloth is 20 to 30 periods, so that Chinese cotton yarn is two to three times thicker than British cotton yarn.

I just know that I am not a textile professional after all, and I don't know whether the data of this information is accurate, and I can't determine what its basis is, but from the records of a large number of documents in China and Britain, it is certain that the cotton yarn used in Chinese native cloth is two or three times thicker than that used in British foreign cloth, or even more.

As a reminder, it seems that the cotton yarn used in canvas and denim (denim is actually a type of canvas) is only 12, which indicates that the Chinese homespun cloth of the Qing Dynasty may be thicker and thicker than canvas.

As a result of the use of these two cotton yarns to weave cloth, Chinese homespun cloth must be much heavier, much thicker, and much more durable than foreign cloth.

On the other hand, foreign cloth is naturally lighter, better looking, and better to the touch, but the disadvantage is that it is not as durable as homespun cloth.

Moreover, thanks to the development of the dye industry, the foreign cloth pattern is also better-looking, but this does not seem to be as favorable as imagined, because a large number of documents prove that Chinese prefer to buy pure white cloth and then dye it into the desired color with Chinese dyes according to their preferences.

Because the thickness of the cotton yarn used is different, the appearance, weight and durability of the two fabrics are different, and the dyeing characteristics of the homespun cloth and foreign cloth are also very different.

In this era, the Chinese most like to use sumac wood to dye cloth, that is, after boiling sumac wood in boiling water, put the cloth inside, and then make it into the Chinese's favorite indigo, as for what this color is, refer to the cyan robes worn by comedian actors in the past.

The difference between homespun cloth and foreign cloth is that the homespun cloth woven from very coarse cotton yarn is put into Sumu boiling water to dye the cloth, and it is not easy to fade after being taken out, and it can be used for a long time;

According to the above process, the foreign cloth is dyed in boiling water of Sumu, and after being taken out and put into water, it is easy to turn purple, that is, fade.

In this way, homespun cloth and foreign cloth are two kinds of cloth that are completely different from the applicable people:

The homespun cloth is durable and thick, suitable for the poor who do manual labor, and it is also easier to dye with traditional Chinese printing and dyeing methods;

The cloth is light and good-looking, which is more suitable for rich people who do not do manual work, and is not very suitable for traditional Chinese printing and dyeing, but it can also be made very beautiful with British dyeing methods.

With the above characteristics in mind, let's talk about the price of cloth.

Looking at the materials of the late Qing Dynasty, you will find a very interesting phenomenon, that is, the impact of foreign cloth on homespun cloth is real, but it is not achieved overnight, but after decades of struggle, homespun cloth has withdrawn from the historical stage little by little, showing the tenacious spirit of resistance of the Chinese handicraft industry.

Moreover, there is also an interesting situation, some sources say that the price of foreign cloth is only one-third of that of homespun cloth, but there are also sources that say that foreign cloth is more expensive than homespun cloth, so it does not have much upper hand in the competition.

In order to better understand these questions, you need to read the following materials carefully.

According to the "Trade Report" sent back to England by the British Consul in Tientsin in 1866:

"When the trade began thirty years ago, a horse of natural cloth sold for about seven taels, and between 1840 and 1847 it was about three or four taels,... Between 1853 and 1859, the price of each piece of cloth was about three taels.

The following is a comparison of the weight and price of the natural city cloth imported from the United Kingdom and the native cloth of the province:

Natural Cloth: A horse is 38.5 yards long, 3 feet 3 inches wide, weighs 8 6.5 ounces, and retails for 41 wen per foot, 108 wen or 6 pence per yard.

Tianjin Tubu: The same wide cloth, weighing 15 pounds and 4.33 ounces, sells for 175 wen or 9.75 pence per yard.

From the above comparison, it can be seen that the value of homespun cloth is 441 wen, which is equal to 2 shillings and 0.5 pence, and that the foreign cloth is worth 495 wen, or 2 shillings and 3.5 pence.

The Chinese say that the superiority of homespun cloth over foreign cloth is more important than the difference in weight between the two. ”

For the sake of more professionalism, here is also an explanation of the Qing Dynasty weights and measures of this era (unless otherwise noted in this book, cloth and other weights and measures are calculated as follows):

One zhang is equal to ten feet (Qing Dynasty ruler), equal to 3.58 meters (that is, meters), equal to 11.75 feet, equal to 3.91 yards, equal to 140.9 inches.

In addition, one pound is equal to twenty shillings, and one shilling is equal to twelve pence.

As for the British system of weights and measures, the Qing Dynasty has not changed to this day, that is, one meter is equal to 100 centimeters, one foot is equal to 30.48 centimeters, one yard is equal to 91.44 centimeters, and one inch is equal to 2.54 centimeters.

One foot in the Qing Dynasty was equal to 35.8 centimeters.

The above data are analysed according to these weights and measures:

The cloth, which is 35.2 meters long and 99.06 centimeters wide, weighs 3,246 grams, and has a total price of 231 pence, which is equivalent to 0.9625 pounds according to the price of one pound equal to 20 shillings and one shilling equal to 12 pence.

The same area of Tianjin homespun cloth weighed 6,926 grams and cost a total of 375.4 pence, equivalent to 1.56 pounds.

A very interesting phenomenon is that when calculated according to the area, the price of the same area of homespun cloth is 1.625 times that of foreign cloth, and when calculated according to weight, the price of the same weight of homespun cloth is only about 0.76 times that of foreign cloth.

In other words, when calculated by area, foreign cloth is much cheaper than homespun cloth, and when calculated by weight, homespun cloth is much cheaper than foreign cloth.

In the Qing Dynasty, the method of calculating the unit price of cloth by area and the method of calculating the unit price of cloth by weight always existed at the same time, and it is no wonder that many documents seem to contradict themselves, sometimes saying that the unit price of homespun cloth is higher than that of foreign cloth, and sometimes that the unit price of foreign cloth is higher than that of homespun cloth.

The width of the homespun cloth is different from 0.9 feet to 1.15 feet, and the length is also from zhang two to zhang six, zhang seven and even three zhang, there are many sizes, and the price of Tianjin foreign cloth is normally two or even fifty percent higher than that of the foreign cloth of the magic capital, and this is still the data of 1866, and it does not fully reflect the sales of foreign cloth when the magic capital opened in 1843, but from here we can still see the general situation of the foreign cloth trade at that time.

It should be noted that from the above information, it can be seen that the area of one piece of English cloth is much larger than that of homespun cloth, which is equivalent to a cloth with a width of one foot and a length of 272 feet, which is about nine times that of a standard homespun cloth with a width of one foot and a length of three feet (i.e., thirty feet).

(Note: The above information is very interesting, interested friends can convert other data about the cloth trade according to this)

The price of foreign cloth quoted by Zhao Dagui is 2.5 yuan to 3 yuan per horse (calico is higher), which is equivalent to 0.27 yuan to 0.33 yuan per horse if converted according to the conversion of homespun cloth.

Songjiang cloth to the quality of the cheap and strong, the width of one foot, the length of the length of two to six zhang of the price of homespun cloth, 0.4 yuan to 0.9 yuan per horse, that is, the price of three zhang long standard homespun cloth is 0.8 yuan to 1.95 yuan period, if calculated by area, the price of foreign cloth is one-third of the homespun cloth.

According to the market research conducted by the British in Modu and Ningbo during this era, the wholesale price of homespun cloth ranged from 40 yuan to 90 yuan per 100 horses, while in Fuzhou and Xiamen, both the wholesale price and the retail price were even higher than this.

It is not difficult to understand that between 1843 and 1845, foreign cloth was sold at once, and Qing court officials in the five ports of trade cried to the imperial court, saying that the price of foreign cloth was only one-third of that of homespun cloth, but the quality was very good, light and easy to use, causing everyone to buy foreign cloth but not homespun cloth, and the local weaving peasant families were greatly affected.

After reading and knowing the above description, book lovers will understand why the above situation occurred, and will also understand why foreign cloth was sold so much during the period of 43 to 45 years, especially in the early days of the opening of the port, and even caused a large number of merchants to hoard foreign cloth at any cost.

This foreign cloth is stronger than the homespun cloth in terms of lightness, dyeing process and texture, but the price is only one-third of the homespun cloth.

After hearing the price of foreign cloth, several shopkeepers present couldn't help but be very moved.

Zhao Dagui entertained everyone diligently, and secretly observed, knowing that most of these people were moved, he couldn't help but sigh a pity.

In fact, the business of foreign cloth is much more complicated than what has been seen so far, at least it cannot be judged only by price and appearance.

On the surface, foreign cloth is much cheaper than homespun cloth, but that is also because the cotton consumed per unit area of foreign cloth is much less than that of homespun cloth, the cost of raw materials is low, and because it is produced by machines, the processing cost is very low; according to the weight of the cloth, foreign cloth is not necessarily cheaper than homespun cloth.

This is still secondly, there is a big disadvantage of foreign cloth, that is, because the cotton yarn used is very fine, it looks good, but it is not durable, and it will not take long to break.

This doesn't matter to the wealthy who don't usually do heavy manual labor, as long as they look good, it's very important for farmers, because they need clothes that are as strong and durable as canvas denim and can be worn while working in the fields.

Foreign cloth sold very well in the northern ports such as Modu (this is relative to Guangzhou, many British merchants like to call Modu, Xiamen, etc.) within a year or two of the opening of the port, and then there was a large backlog, one of the most important points is that the Chinese people began to be familiar with the shortcomings of this kind of cloth, and understood that the clothes made of this kind of cloth could not be worn when working in the fields.

The peasants around the treaty ports bought these foreign cloths and made them into clothes, and only wore them on important festivals or important days, so that they looked good, but they usually wore homespun cloth, and this was especially true in the inland areas.

Therefore, it is emphasized here that homespun cloth and foreign cloth are actually two kinds of cloth that are fundamentally different from each other in terms of suitable people and uses.

This also gave Tubu some respite, and in the following decades, from the 40s to the 90s of the 19th century, Tubu and Yangbu fought desperately for market share in China, and the story is singable.

Manchester's textile mills have tried to push homespun out of the market, but in the end they have not been able to do so, and most of the time the market share of foreign cloth is much lower than that of homespun cloth.

For a time, British textile mills wanted to spin very coarse cotton yarn to produce cloth, which was as strong and durable as homespun cloth, so as to seize the Chinese market.

As a result, after the factory demonstration, it was found that the cloth produced in this way consumed too much cotton, and it was not technically difficult to produce, but the cost would never be lower than that of Chinese homespun cloth, let alone the cost of transportation from England to China.

It is a sad conclusion that the British textile factory owners, who are calling for wind and rain all over the world, are actually defeated by such primitive machines and production methods in China, because "concubines can do it, but they can't do it".

In the end, the final blow to Chinese homespun cloth was accomplished by American and Japanese textile mills.

Beginning in the eighties and nineties of the 19th century, the factories of these two countries used very coarse cotton yarn to produce foreign coarse cloth imitating homespun cloth, which had the characteristics of cheap foreign cloth and durable homespun cloth at the same time, and successfully squeezed the homespun cloth woven by Chinese peasants out of the market, resulting in the bankruptcy of a large number of peasant families.

Considering that the era when foreign coarse cloth replaced homespun cloth was around the 10s of the 19th century, which is highly consistent with the time when the Qing court was overthrown, economists believe that the reason for the fall of the Qing court was the complete collapse of the handicraft industry, which has a certain reason.

You must know that for the peasant families of the Qing Dynasty, weaving cloth was a very important source of income, especially in areas such as the magic capital, more than eighty or ninety percent of families relied on women to weave cloth to balance family income and expenditure.

Suffice it to say, in most rural households in cloth-producing areas such as Modu and Suzhou, the income from weaving is much higher than that from farming, and most of the time, women in these areas earn more money from weaving than men from hard work.

On the one hand, it means that the economic structure of the Qing Dynasty in this era has become very deformed, and men with stronger physical strength do not make as much money as women; on the other hand, it can also give people an intuitive understanding of the dependence of these families on the textile industry.

After Zhao Dagui received the order for the foreign cloth business, he understood that the influx of so many foreign cloths into the magic capital would inevitably lead to the unsalable local native cloth, which made many peasant families and urban families who relied on textiles for their livelihood encounter economic difficulties and even went bankrupt.

It's just that he can't do anything about it, at most he will raise the price of foreign cloth and leave more living space for Tubu.

This is all the cause and effect of Chiguoguo, and Zhao Dagui will soon understand the seriousness of this cause and effect.

The article about the dispute between the native cloth and the foreign cloth seems to be a little longer, so let's go back to the current plot.