C3365 The Food Crisis in Asia

At the end of the nineteenth century, the gap between the rich and the poor was very large in Europe. The lives of the people at the bottom were extremely miserable, and the conflict between the working class and the capitalists was extremely acute.

France even had an unsuccessful proletarian revolution and a civil war!

But the misery of the lower classes in Europe, compared with the destitute peasants of China at the time, was like a paradise.

As long as ordinary citizens did not meet with natural disasters and plague, they would be able to survive even if they begged for more. They might even be able to buy wine and drink as much money as they wanted.

The death rate of the lowest class in Europe was extremely high. In fact, most of the deaths were due to disease and cold!

Yes, there weren't many Europeans who starved to death in that era. Of course, the Irish Great Famine was a tragic combination of natural and human disasters.

At that time, if Britain had opened its doors to disaster relief, with British Empire's power, saving a small Ireland would have been like playing a game.

Hunger did exist, but it was not the sharpest problem yet!

Poor people were most afraid of disease. Once they had a disease in those days, especially an infectious disease, the death rate was very high due to the lack of antibiotics.

The medical fees were only high because of one thing, and another because of the lack of technology!

In addition to dying of illness, the cold of winter was the enemy of the poor. The homeless could not survive the winter, and every year hundreds of frozen bones were collected from the streets of London.

It may sound tragic, but if we put the dynasties in the east, in China, which is already on the decline, the poor people of Europe will be living in heaven.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the destitute peasants did not even have food. They ate Guanyin, gnawed on tree bark, and even easily became food for their children. In the most serious region of Great Famine, even in the entire village, the population of the entire county appeared to have gone extinct!

For thousands of years, China has been restraining commerce and the movement of people. The worst result is the circulation of goods and materials!

Forget about mobilizing food from overseas, even food from the Jiang-Nan region would find it hard to travel across the prefectures. In an era where there were no railways and there was no efficient commercial logistics system, the Great Famine was like an extinct population!

History records that during the era of the Wasteland, when one's family was starving to death, one would not dare to cry or cry. As long as others knew that your family had died, then a group of people would take away the dead body and eat it!

Ten million people had been starved to death in the Qianxiang Qi Wasteland back in Guang Xu's year. If this was placed in Europe, the entire country would have perished!

Millions or tens of millions of people had died in the great calamity. Small regional famines and hundreds of thousands of natural disasters were common throughout the country!

The government did not care, even the citizens of Historian were not willing to waste time on it!

In Tongzhi's ten years of history, he had only recorded a few incidents where the provinces were plagued by calamities. It was as if the deaths of over a hundred thousand people did not affect Tongzhi's rise to prominence at all.

No one cared about the names of the hundreds of thousands of victims of starvation. How did they grow up, and did they have ideals? Are parents and their families grief-stricken... It doesn't matter.

In the eyes of the rulers, what was dead were only numbers. They were walking corpses without any emotions!

Only one person was not like that, and that was Xiao Letian. The Chinese leader had never neglected a disaster, and the Chinese leader had even gone as far as to have the largest strategic food reserve system in the whole of Asia.

The Chinese had the world's most advanced and effective disaster relief system!

In Xiao Letian's stronghold plan, grain reserves were the most powerful tool to save the hearts of the Chinese people!

Nanyang high-yielding rice, vigorously develop ocean-going fishing industry, expanding the military grain production plants... For the sake of food security, the Chinese did not rely solely on the total population.

Rather, it was to guarantee that the food would be stored for a long period of time through high technology!

Compressed Biscuit was not only the army's food, it was also a life-saving food that could be stored and transported for a long time!

Heavy oil heavy salt then oil paper tightly wrapped compressed biscuit, shelf life can reach more than three years!

Seafood caught in the deep sea is marinated in heavy salt, even using the production technology of Fusang bonito dried external smoke, this kind of salted fish dry shelf life can even reach more than 10 years.

There were also various kinds of canned food that could be used as a supplement to the Chinese food reserves!

Others might not know, but old shopkeeper of the Ryukyu was very clear that the annual dumping of rice into the Great Qing through the Four Seas Trading Firm and the Mi family's grain store had reduced the price of rice by 20% in the Qing Dynasty!

With so many new increments, the food pressure of the Qing Dynasty was naturally alleviated. This helped to reduce the pressure on Qing Dynasty for the past few years.

It could be said that the Qing Dynasty's praise of Tongzhi's rise to prominence was due to him borrowing of the glory of the Chinese food trade. It was because Xiao Letian had deliberately gone easy on him that he was able to create such a flourishing world!

It was not that no one dared to complain. The Chinese had long wanted to end this welfare state of the grain trade. However, under the suppression of the Chief, no one dared to act rashly!

"Perhaps, this is the philosophy that the Chinese believe in all of life. Doing good deeds with virtue is similar to doing good works with charity that God teaches …"

The Queen and the Crown Prince shuddered when they heard the terrifying picture of Asia depicted by the Princess Cissie, especially the vivid and eerie picture of the Great Famine.

They simultaneously thought of the Irish Great Famine from before. At that time, the tragic scene was still fresh in their minds, and the Queen kept crossing herself in front of her chest in fright.

"What you mean is, the reason why Xiao Letian is so thirsty for more land is to alleviate the Qing Dynasty's crisis?"

"That's right, Your Majesty, you are very wise. At the moment, the social conflicts in China are very acute. It is even very different from what we have in Europe … They can even guarantee a basic level of contentment! "

"The constant land annexation caused the disparity between rich and poor to worsen. The backward water and agricultural science and technology caused the production of farmland to drop increasingly …"

"How do we solve this problem? It was impossible for Xiao Letian to overthrow the Qing Empire's rule … What other way does he have but to go overseas? "

"The refugees need new land to settle down, but there aren't any in the country. Ocean fishing needs more ports, and these Chinese are very scarce …"

"This is the main reason why he is constantly expanding outwards!"

"The French have ceded Annan, the Luzon has rebelled against the Chinese, and the Kalimantan Island has broken away from the Dutch rule and joined the Chinese …"

"But this is still far from solving the crisis in China. That country is way too big, and there are way too many people …"

"Once the refugees appear, they will be tens of millions of people in size. How many islands do we expect them to be able to support? "It's obviously unrealistic …"

"More importantly, to develop the oceanic fishing industry, it is impossible to develop without a series of seaports as a logistics supply point!"