284: Chapter 284 Zhao Fusu Plans to Launch an Economic War!

In Great Qin, the gold-to-silver ratio was one to six, and it was much the same in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions. He could dispatch Great Qin's merchant caravans to purchase potash and salt using large quantities of silver.

Money makes the world go 'round; by offering prices several times higher than the market rate to buy potash and salt, the people of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions would flock to mine them in order to get their hands on more silver.

Consequently, their domestic grain production would plummet.

The primary food crops of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions included wheat, soybeans, barley, millet, broomcorn millet (similar to foxtail millet), and rice.

Rice cultivation in the Western Regions had already reached a significant scale.

According to historical records, rice was grown at that time in places like Yanqi, Luntai, and Kuqa in the northern Tarim Basin; Kashgar and Shule in the west; and Hotan and Pishan in the south.

During the Qin Dynasty, water resources in the Western Regions were still very abundant. For instance, the site of the Ancient Kingdom of Loulan was an oasis, which could hardly be compared to the present-day no-man's-land of Lop Nur.

In Zhao Fusu's economic war, besides discouraging the people of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions from planting grain, he would also use massive amounts of silver to buy up their food, causing their domestic grain reserves to drop even further.

Furthermore, a large volume of industrial products from Great Qin could be dumped in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions at extremely low prices to monopolize the market. This would lead to the bankruptcy of their domestic handicrafts, causing widespread unemployment among those in the trade and sowing the seeds of future unrest.

With food shortages and a large number of idle people, how could a country not fall into chaos!

When the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions fell into turmoil, he would take the opportunity to open up the Hexi Corridor, establish commanderies and counties there, and use it as a springboard to invade the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.

Great Qin would not need to storm the cities; a siege would suffice.

With the grain reserves of the people in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions already depleted, how long could they resist once their cities were besieged and they had nothing to eat?

There would be only two paths before them. One was to hold out to the end, where the defending soldiers, in order to hold the city, would turn their blades against the common people, treating them as 'two-legged sheep' and consuming their flesh.

When the blades meant to protect the people were turned against them, the defenders would become demons, even more loathsome than the invaders.

Once things reached this stage, Great Qin could intervene under the banner of protecting the people of the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions, rescuing those suffering from the massacre.

Their Great Qin could then gain the approval of these people; the citizens inside the cities might even welcome the King's Army with food and drink.

In this way, the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions might be incorporated into the Great Qin territory even before the railways were built.

Of course, the railways would still be constructed.

Once the railways were built, they would strengthen the control over the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.

Zhao Fusu planned to establish the Protectorate General of the Western Regions in that area.

Completely assimilating the Protectorate General of the Western Regions would not happen overnight.

Only by migrating a large number of Great Qin people to the Protectorate General of the Western Regions, so that they made up more than sixty percent of the population, could they be considered to have truly occupied it.

Otherwise, if the proportion of Great Qin people remained low, the Protectorate General of the Western Regions would be extremely easy to lose.

Historically, the Western Regions were lost for nearly a thousand years!

The reason the Western Regions could be retained now was that the Manchu Qing migrated a large number of people from the interior to the Western Regions, thereby changing the demographic structure.

After conquering the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions, Zhao Fusu would formulate policies to allow the Great Qin population to migrate to the Protectorate General of the Western Regions.

The most secure method was to send a large number of soldiers imprinted with the Thought Steel Seal to the Protectorate General of the Western Regions and then transfer a large number of women there to become their spouses.

After securing the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions, Zhao Fusu intended to plunder the resources of the Western powers.

The Western nations were able to develop rapidly because they discovered large silver mines in South America, which were then exported to the Ming Dynasty in exchange for vast resources, including technology and intellectual products.

Standing on the shoulders of a giant like the Great Ming, how could the Western powers not develop quickly?

Now, he wanted to use the silver from the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine to trade for large amounts of grain from the Western powers.

He also wanted to establish a West India Company to dump large quantities of industrial goods produced by Great Qin into the spheres of influence of the Western powers, crushing their handicraft industries, causing mass unemployment, triggering internal strife, and weakening their national strength.

How could handicrafts compete with industrial production? Just as English peasant women once angrily smashed the Spinning Jennies that stole their livelihoods, this process was not honorable; it was filled with the bloodiness of capital.

This was also a major reason why he named the company the West India Company.

Such dirty deeds should not be blamed on Great Qin. If there was to be cursing, let them curse India; what did it have to do with Great Qin?