Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 419: National Civilization Roots
"Before I go with you to Professor Galileo, I have a lot of questions for you to answer."
Facing Rudolph's aggressive questioning, Philip frowned when he lowered his head, but when he raised his head, his face was already full of warm smiles: "Okay, my dear Rudolph, what's your question?"
"When I came back this time, I heard that the railway from Madrid to Bilbao was open. So I took a detour to Bilbao and took the train back from there. At the exit, I met a lot of refugees. They were ragged and looked obviously malnourished. I heard that they were leftovers from the factory or were worn out by the factory?"
"...Yes, in fact, most of them are worn out by the factory."
"Philip! How can this be! We are time travelers, modern people ! Of course I know that the primitive accumulation of capital is full of blood, but we are time travelers! Can't you do something for these people?"
"…Rudolph, please sit down first. Um, tea or coffee? Oh, since you are quiet, I will make you some tea."
Philip stood up, poured a cup of tea for Rudolph himself, returned to his seat, turned his chair, faced a huge French window outside the office, looked at the setting sun, and cleared his throat:
"Two and a half years ago, when , I also built a new industrial group powered by steam engines based on my previous private industry in Asturias. This group mainly involves the fields of energy, military industry, media and finance. In addition, I opened up the livelihood industries dominated by light industry to the public and provided technical support. However! Our Spanish farmers are conservative in their thinking and still stubbornly want to extract wealth from the land. There are too few people willing to join the business community. I had no choice but to open these things to the British, French and even Germans. My only requirement for these people is that the factory must be set up in the Iberian Peninsula.
Now, because all the railways extending to the sea converge in Madrid Madrid naturally becomes the first choice for these businessmen to open new factories. Dear Rudolf, what does it take to establish and develop a factory?
“Capital, land, technology, factories, workers, raw materials, products, sales channels, and markets.”
"That's about it. Capital is a thing, because the first batch of people who invested in the steam engine industrial factory were the most powerful merchant families in Western Europe, such as the Capet family, the Wettin family, the Este family, the Wittelsbach family, etc. They all enthusiastically entered this circle... It was equivalent to the richest group of people in Europe entering Spain with a large amount of cash. So, in the short term, there is no problem with capital.
As for land, technology, factories and so on, there is no need to say more. Next, I want to talk to you about workers and raw materials. In fact, most of the people you saw at the train station were not Spanish. "
"What is that?"
"British, French, Germans..." After a pause, Philip continued, "As I said just now, the nobles in our country of Spain have rigid thinking and still stubbornly guard their farms and land. Therefore, there are not many bankrupt farmers in Spain , and they don't need to go to Madrid to do hard work. In fact, the lords in places like England and France want more land to raise sheep, so that more wool can be sent to factories near Madrid to be woven into woolen fabrics and sold. Therefore, the most famous "sheep eating people" in the initial stage of free capitalism has begun to occur widely in Western Europe."
"Then a large number of English and French peasants who were driven off the land had no choice but to cross the ocean to Madrid in order to seek employment opportunities?"
"Yes." Philip once again supported the bridge of his nose without glasses and said, "When you led your army to station at the border between Denmark and the Holy Roman Empire, a new industry had been born in Western Europe. Well, it's not new to you and me. It's just human traffickers. Once they heard that the lord of a certain place had converted a farm into a pasture, they would immediately flock there, using all kinds of means to abduct the local farmers who had lost their land, and bring their families across the sea to Madrid, and then..."
"Philip, I'm not a communist, but in our time, the workers lived very well. Although I know that the current productivity cannot meet the conditions of later generations, isn't it your duty as a king to give these poor people some protection and help?"
"There will be appropriate protection. For example, I have suggested that factory owners reduce the working hours of workers from 18 to 20 hours a day to less than 16 hours. Increase the minimum daily wage from three copper coins to five copper coins. At the same time, I suggest that they urge their governments to further increase the colonial development of Africa and use the black slaves there to engage in the most difficult and dangerous work such as lead extraction, sulfide extraction, coal mining and other related work."
"That's all? And you're also importing a large number of black slaves?"
"What should we do?" Philip was a little angry when he saw Rudolph, who was still worried. But he quickly calmed down and continued to explain patiently, "Rudolph, I am a historian. Before I traveled through time, I was a visiting scholar in the United States. I had a conversation with an immigration officer. He told me that the United States is not afraid of a large number of Latino, African, and Indian immigrants entering the United States. What they fear most is a large number of East Asians, especially Chinese, entering the United States."
"How did this get to this point? Okay, why is this?"
"Because the first generation of Latinos, African Americans, and Indians who came to the United States would honestly wash dishes, and the second and third generations would also most likely continue to wash dishes honestly. And East Asians, especially Chinese, might honestly wash dishes as the first generation of immigrants. But by the second or third generation at most, they will compete with Anglo-Saxons for various high-end white-collar jobs such as engineers, lawyers, and doctors.
Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are all believers in Confucian culture. Confucianism, well, I don’t really know what kind of culture it is. But it seems that the people in this cultural circle are basically very smart, hardworking, and persevering. What’s even more terrifying is that they attach great importance to the education of their offspring. In order for their children and grandchildren to have a better education, parents are willing to sacrifice everything. This kind of national characteristics is the most frightening. ”
Sighing heavily, Philip turned his back to Rudolf and looked out the window: "We Europeans, although we all belong to the Caucasian race. But to be honest, at least we Castilians are not known for our diligence. If we really want to talk about the Caucasians, the ones who are hardworking and disciplined are probably the Germans, Anglo-Saxons and Russians. But even so, compared with the diligence, patience and tenacity of the East Asians, we actually have many shortcomings.
Dear Rudolf, you and I are both time travelers. You should have seen that in 21st century Europe and even North America, due to the expansion of trade union power and the decay of the democratic system, many European countries have too high a social welfare security system, which has supported too many lazy people. If I introduce too many worker protection policies at this time, on the one hand, it will greatly hinder the businessmen who invest to recover their costs and further expand production. On the other hand, it will lead to more and more social welfare requirements, which will make us have less and less assets to wage war in the future. Therefore, I can only give some basic protection measures appropriately and let Africans die instead of some Europeans.
I said that although there are seven time travelers, in the end, this is a competition between Eastern and Western civilizations. In such a competition, we are not at an advantage in terms of national roots. If we want to win, we can only rely on our European advantages in IQ, technological development, and the system that is most suitable for the productivity of this stage, which we are more familiar with than the Chinese time traveler. In addition, you have the most professional advantage in military development and tactics. Only by making full use of these three advantages can we win in the final civilization showdown! "
