Chapter 1287 The Threshold of Industrial Society
Liu Shang wanted to get a glimpse of the secrets of Haihan military industry here, but he didn't know that this was just the origin of raw materials. Haihan's real military manufacturing units are all concentrated in Sanya Tiandu Industrial Zone. On the one hand, this is due to the need for technical confidentiality and production process arrangement, and on the other hand, it is to consolidate the security needs of Haihan's rule.
The Haihan Executive Committee is very aware that the territory it controls spans a huge span, and many places are thousands of miles overseas. Just relying on political maintenance cannot ensure long-term and stable rule. Military suppression is also required. to a great effect. However, the garrison is left unchecked all year round, and as time goes by, some generals may have other ideas, and someone may be bold enough to launch a rebellion.
In order to prevent this situation, the most effective way is of course to restrict the supply of weapons and equipment. This kind of restriction does not refer to simply controlling the quantity of weapons and ammunition supply, but to comprehensively control weapons manufacturing technology and equipment, preventing other places except Sanya from manufacturing high-end weapons such as guns and warships in the army. ability. As long as the overseas colonies cannot manufacture advanced weapons and equipment on their own, even if someone wants to rebel locally, it will be difficult to achieve anything serious.
Therefore, although there are many processing workshops related to military industry in Changhua Industrial Zone, most of them are arranged to produce raw materials and blanks, and there are no workshops for processing key parts and assembling weapons. All raw materials and components produced and processed here are shipped back to Sanya for processing and assembly. Although this arrangement will add a lot of extra cost and time, for the purpose of maintaining a stable rule, such efforts are certainly worth it.
However, for a special person like Liu Shang with ulterior motives, the gains from this trip are extremely limited. Smelting steel is both familiar and unfamiliar to him. Before he came here, he simply thought that Changhua's smelting industry was large-scale. It is relatively large, but after visiting it, I realized that there is too much professional knowledge in this industry that I don’t understand at all. If you want to understand Haihan's smelting technology, it's definitely impossible to just take a quick look at it.
Although I have seen a lot of unheard of steam processing equipment, these are only used for rough processing of metal materials. They have not yet touched upon the key links of real weapon manufacturing and assembly. I want to visit Haihan weapons manufacturing from here. The purpose of craftsmanship is basically completely defeated.
Of course, being able to see Haihan's advanced steel smelting technology and production scale here is also very valuable information for Liu Shang's camp. Although the information available is still fragmented and one-sided, it can at least be inferred that Haihan's attainments in smelting are as good as theirs in other fields, and the metal products they can produce are by no means just the weapons he imagined before. As with daily utensils, those large-scale equipment used to process metal are also made of metal, and Haihan seems to value these processing methods and equipment more than smelting steel.
Is this the industry that Haihan people talk about all the time? Liu Shang was not sure, but he did not dare to ask Yu Xiaobao and others about this issue. The tasks he undertook in this inspection team did not have much to do with industry. If he rashly raised such a question, it would inevitably lead to problems. A risk that attracted Zhang Qianzhi’s attention.
However, in the subsequent publicity activities, Yu Xiaobao's speech finally let Liu Shang know Haihan's general definition of industry. According to Haihan, the work and process of collecting raw materials and processing them into products can be called industry. Liu Shang felt that speaking of this, the Ming Dynasty actually had industry, but it might not be as developed as Haihan.
However, in Yu Xiaobao's next speech, he defined the industry currently owned by Ming Dynasty as handicraft industry, that is, activities that basically rely on manual labor for production. The path Haihan wants to take now is to get some domestic industries out of the handicraft industry stage with low production efficiency and upgrade to a more advanced machine industry stage. That is, a new business format that replaces human labor with machines and replaces manual labor with mechanized labor. Not only did this kind of machine industry not exist in the Ming Dynasty, but other countries in the world had not yet seen similar forms. Only Haihan State was unique in the world and took the lead in entering the era of machine industry.
"... What we are doing now are great achievements that have never been done before, or even thought of. The arrival of industrial society will soon change the face of Haihan. Industry will give us rich resources. products and a strong army, and use this as a basis to strengthen national strength, so that all citizens can live a prosperous and stable life! Haihan will become a unique power in the world in the future, and you are the foundation for our country to enter an industrial society. A great man and a great hero!”
Yu Xiaobao's inflammatory speech on the stage won warm applause from the audience. Liu Shang also pretended to applaud along, but he felt very uncomfortable in his heart. He could feel that Yu Xiaobao's speech was not pure bragging. The Haihan people were indeed proud of their achievements at this stage, and they also firmly believed that the goals and vision put forward by the executive committee would be realized. .
The most powerful country in the world! What an arrogant goal this was. Liu Shang did not even dare to say that the Ming Dynasty, which was currently facing internal and external troubles, could still enjoy this title. It was only eight years ago that Haihan appeared in the South China Sea, and it was only more than a year after the founding of the People's Republic of China. It had already set such a big goal, and did not even consider Ming Dynasty as a competitor. This has made the past decades Liu Shang, who has always regarded himself as a citizen of the Celestial Kingdom, is indeed a little hard to accept.
But if Haihan is allowed to continue to develop according to the current momentum, Liu Shang cannot think of where it will be in eight or ten years, and he does not dare to think about it in detail. The two southeastern provinces of the Ming Dynasty have gradually lost the courage and ability to compete with Haihan, and as the Haihan controlled area moves northward, the coastal areas in the east and north of the Ming Dynasty seem to be in danger. It is not that no discerning person in Ming Dynasty is aware of such dangerous changes in the situation, but it has become unable to do what it wants to do to change the balance of power between the two sides in order to gain an active position in the relationship between the two countries.
It's not that the Ming Dynasty's national power is really inferior to Haihan, which has a population of only a few hundred thousand, but it's just that at the moment, there is no way to concentrate resources in the southeastern region to cope with Haihan's continuous expansion. Regardless of military or financial resources, Ming Dynasty does not have enough power to fight in the local areas where Haihan has greater influence. It can only watch Haihan expand northward little by little on the sea.
After Liu Shang came to Hainan Island to see it for himself, he became more convinced that the Han people in Hainan had mastered many strange skills to rejuvenate the country. There were too many new things here that the Ming Dynasty didn't have and he couldn't understand them. He even didn't know how to stop the Han people. Development has not been able to find a clear direction. Without considering the premise of raising troops to conquer, Liu Shang has also been looking for the social contradictions in Haihan, hoping to use civil strife to stir up Haihan's rule. However, this period of time can be said to be fruitless, and there is no suitable solution. Chance. Where is the hope? While listening to Yu Xiaobao's politically charged speech on the stage, Liu Shang thought hard about the method of change. He has also read a lot of history books and knows that when society undergoes major changes, there will be many overt and covert conflicts of interest. As long as these opportunities can be taken advantage of, it may not be impossible to disrupt the situation in Haihan.
But Liu Shang had to admit that the social situation in Haihan was too stable, and most of the people lived without worries about food and clothing. Even if someone was instigated, how many people would have the desire to rebel? What's more, the reputation of the Haihan Executive Committee in the country is astonishingly high. Liu Shang can feel that ordinary people have transferred their past awe of imperial power to the Executive Committee, and many people have even worshiped it as a kind of belief. Its rule The firmness is not so easily shaken by external forces. In addition, the military power of Haihan was in the hands of the Haihan people themselves, and he had no chance to contact these high-level generals, let alone how to exert force.
Although he still had little understanding of the concept of industry, Liu Shang could vaguely feel that if the Haihan people really realized the industrialization they had always advocated and advocated, then there might really be a gap in the strength of the two countries. By then, Ming's hope of recovering his disadvantage will be even slimmer. It's just that we don't know how long it will be until this time. Neither Yu Xiaobao nor other Haihan officials he has contacted have mentioned specific figures, and Liu Shang does not dare to speculate on such things. But the more this happened, the harder it was for him to feel at ease. It was like a sharp sword hanging over Daming's head. No one knew when the sword would strike down.
Yu Xiaobao had finished his speech at this time, gave up his seat to Qiao Zhiya, and sat down in the first row. The theme of Qiao Zhiya's speech was even more explicit. He compared Haihan, which had begun to industrialize, to a higher-level country. In the future, traditional countries such as Daming and Annan could only deliver raw materials and supplies to Haihan. Items such as human labor are relatively cheap. After Haihan makes full use of them, the items produced will be resold to these countries. Of course, their prices will have increased several times.
"Traditional agricultural countries, compared with countries like ours that are gradually industrializing, can only play the role of raw material origin and terminal market. They will only become more and more passive in economic, cultural, military, political and other aspects, and will be overtaken by our country. Leading by the nose, this is an irreversible historical trend!" Qiao Zhiya on the stage unceremoniously expressed his views on the current international situation.
If it weren't for the official from the Ministry of Security sitting next to him, Liu Shang would have wanted to give Qiao Zhiya a big eye roll, but at the moment he had to continue to pretend to applaud to show his approval. The audience present were all local grassroots officials and foremen. Naturally, they had no doubts about Qiao Zhiya's words. On the contrary, everyone had an excited look on their face, and they were obviously quite proud of the scene Qiao Zhiya described. .
Then I heard Qiao Zhiya continue: "Director Yu also mentioned just now that our country's industrialization process is unique in the world, and it has become the most powerful country in the South China Sea relying on industry. Why can we do this, while our neighboring countries are much stronger than us? But can’t do it? Do you know where the threshold is? ”
When Liu Shang heard this, he immediately put aside his distracting thoughts and pricked up his ears to hear what Qiao Zhiya said next. If we can figure out the secret of Haihan's road to becoming a powerful country, it may also bring some help to the development of Ming Dynasty.
But before Qiao Zhiya could speak, some excited audience members responded loudly: "It's our executive committee!"
Qiao Zhiya was not angry at the unauthorized response from the audience, but affirmed: "That's right! It's the Executive Committee. With the development outline formulated by the Executive Committee for our country, Haihan can become a powerful country in the South China Sea in just a few years. Everyone here can live a stable and prosperous life here! ”
Liu Shang was immediately disappointed. He had thought that Qiao Zhiya would disclose some unknown policies here, but he didn't expect that the conversation would change in the end and return to political propaganda. The role of the Executive Committee in the Haihan Kingdom is just like the cabinet of the Ming Dynasty. Almost all administrative outlines and national plans are formulated and promulgated by it to guide and supervise the implementation. Legend has it that the big shots in the executive committee are all omnipotent gods. Where can you find replicas of such people?
The rapid development of the Haihan Kingdom is naturally inseparable from the good governance of the Executive Committee, but this cannot be copied and used in the Ming Dynasty. Should the cabinet bachelors resign and make room for these Haihan people? seat? Even if we can take a step back and ask Haihan to move the Executive Committee to Ming Dynasty to operate, who should listen to whom between the Executive Committee and the emperor? The cabinet is only the emperor's advisory body, while the executive committee is the highest power holder in Haihan. The contradiction between these is definitely irreconcilable.
Liu Shang's mind was filled with such messy thoughts for a while, but in fact, after thinking about it for a moment, he realized that it was absolutely impossible to realize it. The Ming Dynasty could not imitate Haihan's governing model, unless the whole world was given to the Haihan people to govern. But in that case, wouldn't the Ming Dynasty be destroyed?
The threshold mentioned by Qiao Zhiya sounds ridiculous at first, but when you think about it carefully, it is an irrefutable fact. The countries around Haihan all respect imperial power and do not have a governing body like the Executive Committee that can spare no effort to promote the industrialization process. How can they completely follow Haihan's approach?
The more Liu Shang thought about it, the more frustrated he became. He knew that it would be difficult for Ming Dynasty to catch up with Haihan's development speed by imitating it. Thinking that Annan Kingdom was bent on vassaling Haihan, even a large coal mine like Black Earth Port was dedicated to Haihan. Of course, they also received a lot of support from Haihan, and even the army was trained by Haihan, but But I have never heard of anything like Changhua Industrial Zone in Annan State. If the relationship between Annan and Haihan could not be achieved, it would be even more difficult for Ming to cross this threshold.
(End of chapter)