Chapter 148

The Manifesto is too niche, although it is also Old Ma’s labor of love, and even the biggest cornerstone of his desire to build a career, it is really too niche, and not as famous as his other book at all.

After Yang Yuyan made this amazing book, she was rewarded with confused looks from the public. But the author’s name still attracted attention, and soon some people remembered the masterpiece Capitalism.

Das Kapital was like a heavy blow against capitalism, and it was available in English translation from a very early date. There were also many people in this university who had read it, and at the first glance of Old Ma’s name, someone immediately talked about Capitalism.

As a nine-year compulsory education poisoned Yang Yuyan, meaningful recitation of the paragraph resounded through the ages of famous words: “…… When capital came into the world, every pore is flowing with dirty blood …… ”

Because the memory of the recitation was so profound, when Yang Yuyan recited it in the hall, it was really called the sound of the ground.

The reason why this passage can be recited by elementary school students from generation to generation is that it really exposes the truth of capital.

Capital has no country, no law, no nation, no humanity, no dignity, no shame, no belief in any god.

Its only truth is money. Money is his emperor, his master, his faith, the direction of money is his goal, he will always go forward, never retreat.

Yang Yuyan’s performance shocked the students, and even Zhu Yanshu felt that his youngest daughter had been transformed and was going to be ranked in the immortal class and become an immortal.

After all, more people to read the “Capitalism”, but also did not have that year’s summary of the political textbooks hit the nail on the head, that is, after all, condensed countless scholars blood and wisdom of the conclusion. She took out even a little bit of this conclusion – as long as she remembers – can not help but clap.

With Das Kapital in place, Old Ma’s Manifesto became a priceless treasure in the hands of the students. Besides, there may not be ten copies of this book in the whole city, and the Zhu family got this one back when Master Zhu went to Germany to listen to the salon performance, so things are more expensive than rare.

Zhu Yanshu does not remember this book, but remembered Zhu old master back then, she sat down to tell the story to the students.

At the time of the rise of the technological revolution, the national power of all Western countries increased greatly, people gathered in the cities, and more and more factories were opened. As soon as they were no longer hungry, the flowers of thought and art began to bloom and flourish like the rain of spring.

Salons are gatherings. In order to attract more people to the salon, in order to make the salon more popular, the salon must not lack of young women and ladies. Even in a male-only salon that only accepts gentlemen, singers are invited to sing or play the piano to cheer up the party.

Of course, cigarettes and alcohol would not be lacking.

Master Zhu traveled throughout the great western countries by ship, and he watched these countries replace their hearts of steel while attending their salons and savoring their lives.

After Zhu Yanshu told two little anecdotes from Master Zhu’s salons in England and France, as well as what he had seen in Germany, she saw Professor Dai sitting at the back of the classroom eavesdropping.

She immediately stopped talking and greeted the students with a smile, “Professor Dai is here, let him give a talk.”

The students turned their heads to see Professor Dai and immediately asked questions.

“Professor Dai, you’ve also been to England, is what Professor Zhu said true?”

“Professor Dai, you’ve read the book Capitalism, tell us more about it!”

“Professor Dai, have you read this book?” A student immediately held up the Manifesto.

Dai Yushu took the Manifesto, held it in his hand, walked over to Zhu Yanshu and stood beside him, pressed his hand against the classroom, and waited for the classroom to quiet down before he smiled and said, “This book is Master Zhu’s collection, and I haven’t read it. But I saw it a few days ago at Little Yang’s class, and it’s a very enlightening book.”

The foreign insights Zhu Yanshu spoke of were different from his experiences. This was because he and Zhu were simply two classes of people. Although both of them were foreign students at the time, Master Zhu brought his servants with him and went to school in the name of the official family, and they were destined to see a different world.

The Western world he saw was full of knowledge that China did not have, and he wanted to learn it all and bring it back to teach his countrymen.

What Master Zhu saw was the huge ships in the harbor, transporting around the clock; the workers whose bodies were dyed black with coal working non-stop until they died; the countless factories continuing to work at night, the huge chimneys spewing smoke into the sky, and the air was full of falling gray mist.

Not only England, not only France, not only Germany. Everywhere he traveled by ship had been replaced with a heart of steel and a skeleton of steel, the cities were growing at an extremely fast pace, the people were being transported by the heart of steel throughout the country, even to foreign countries, and they were getting stronger and stronger.

Therefore, after Master Zhu returned to China, he did not seek officialdom, did not seek wealth, did not open factories, but only accepted students and subsidized them to study, no matter whether they wanted to study in the country or abroad, he was willing to help them fulfill their heart’s desire.

Separated by decades, Dai Yushu looked like he had shaken hands with Master Zhu in space.

They both knew that their country had fallen behind, and they both put their hopes on the next generation, more next generations, forever.

Saving the country was no longer something that could be done by a single arm, what they needed was more people with more power. Until then, they would like to spend everything on raising the next generation.

A male student asked, “Prof. Dai, are there really so many factories in foreign countries? Then why do they come to our country to run factories?”

This first question, Yang Yuyan did not know, but this latter one she could answer!

So she snatched the answer, “Because our workers here only need very little wages.”

The students around her immediately looked at her, and during this time, she proved that she wasn’t a little kid, even though she was a few years younger than them.

“The less the labor costs, the less they cost and the more they make.” She said, “It’s like bonded labor, where you don’t even have to pay, then all the factory owner has to shell out is money for raw materials and electricity and water.”

Prof. Day said, “Because there’s still selling oneself into slavery in my country.” He sighed darkly, walked over and closed the classroom, and said in a lowered voice, “Because our country is a slavery society, our country is allowed to openly store slaves.”

The students all cooperated by lowering their voices.

One boy asked, “But don’t foreign countries have slaves too? They have black slaves.”

A girl retorted to him, “It’s because their own people in their own countries can’t afford to be slaves that they have to rob black slaves from outside.”

It was really heavy. Everyone’s heart sank that their country was not against slaveholding, which gave the foreigners an opportunity to take advantage of it.

One boy stood up and yelled, “We should abolish all slavery now! Let all people no longer be able to use house servants and underlings! This way ……”

Yang Yuyan was very sensitive and immediately retorted to him, “Do you know what happened after Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery in the United States?” She wasn’t against abolishing slavery, but she was against a sweeping decision! If Zhang Ma was forced to leave the Zhu family, then she would definitely have no way to live.

America had a long history of black slavery, so they also had a long history of abolition.

Lincoln’s abolition of slavery history class these students have all been to, Yang Yuyan is also not the first time in the classroom to refute this issue, she does not even need to say more, with her small friends who have been to the class with her, they are all in the same breath to refute the boy for her.

All Yang Yuyan had to do was conclude by saying, “If you don’t have the means to create that many jobs, you’re sending them to their deaths.”

There was actually a living example here, the Ma Tianbao family.

But Yang Yuyan hesitated not to say anything.

Yang Yuyan was silent for a moment and said, “I once had a very good friend whose parents were both working as underlings. He was a very good person, none of his friends discriminated against him or looked down on him. But then something happened and his parents were kicked out. They had no house, no job, and no income, and soon became destitute.”

Some of the students here do not have underlings in their families, while others do have underlings in their families, and they have more or less heard about what happened to the underlings in their families, from the chickens coming home to roost to the whole family having an accident.

Maybe the situation is different from family to family, but the same thing is that all the underlings who were kicked out, as long as they are young and strong, will soon sell themselves into slavery again.

It wasn’t that they wanted to be slaves, but this was the only work they were familiar with, other than that, there was no other place they could find work to support their families.

Zhu Yanshu was the most vocal here, as the Zhu family was once a large family.

She said, “The Zhu family used to have many subordinates, many textile factories in Jiangnan, and salt tanning factories in Shanxi, most of these factories have a history of several hundred years, and some are a few decades old. When the Zhu family fell, all these factories had to be sold. Many of the workers in the factories were local people who had been doing the same kind of business for generations. Of course, they were all hired slaves. The factories paid them for their work, but they also signed a contract of sale. So when our Zhu family sold the factory, it was with the workers as well.” She paused, sighed, and said, “But at that time, when there were a few textile factories for sale in Jiangnan, the buyers didn’t want so many female textile workers; they intended to use American textile machines in the factories, and they only needed some young female workers who could operate the machines, and they didn’t want any of the older ones.”

Some of the emotional female students in the classroom were already crying.

Yang Yuyan and Yang Yucan had never heard of these things, they were surprised, but they wouldn’t have talked about this at home before.

It was only now, when Zhu Yanshu became a professor, that she would talk about these things in class. She didn’t have to tell the two sisters about these things, because it was of no use to them. But she could tell these students, so that they could have a greater appreciation of the world.

That male student was shaken as he said, “Professor Zhu, what happened then?”

Zhu Yanshu shook her head, “I don’t know the rest, I wasn’t even born then. I heard from my family that for every female laborer that was dismissed, the Zhu family gave twenty taels of silver for them to settle down, but this was no match for a job. These women workers can only go to other textile mills to find work. What if all the textile mills had to use American machines? What if none of them want these older women textile workers?”

The male students sat down and fell into deep thought.

Zhu Yanshu said, “The abolition of slavery was a seemingly simple thing, but it was not simple at all. It requires a lot of preparation to avoid greater harm.” She told all the students, “Every one of us needs a job, not just men, but women, and millions of people on the streets. A job is the only way to support yourself and your family, so that you can be fed and clothed.”

A female student said, “Does that mean we still have to run factories? Is industrial salvation the right thing to do?”

Another student rebutted her, “Factories don’t want illiterate workers anymore either, not even the older ones, not even the physically handicapped ones, there is no work if you can’t operate the machines. Any factory is machine operated now.”

The third student immediately said, “The government has organized literacy classes! Our school has run them too, and it’s only when we have to fight illiteracy and make everyone learn knowledge!”

More chatter joined in.

“How long will it take to learn? Those people out there on the street, they can’t even write their own names for the rest of their lives, and you tell them that they have to go to school for a year before they can find a job, so what will he eat and drink for that year? What will his family eat and drink? They have to support their wives and children. So many literacy classes have failed, no, no, no, this is a castle in the air, it’s impractical.”

Yang Yuyan also joined in and said enthusiastically, “It can be targeted. For example, if you want to be a shaver, teach him to shave his head, if you want to be a laborer, teach him how to operate a machine, teach whatever you want to learn.”

“You have a point with this!”

“The law is not lightly transmitted, the art is not lightly taught, how can there be so many masters willing to teach their crushing skills to others for nothing.”