Chapter 9 The New Strategy of the British Empire

〖In the middle of the 19th century, with the opening of the free trade policy, the protagonists on the British economic stage changed from industrial giants to bankers.Financial currency, international trade, and raw material advantages constitute the three pillars of the power of the British Empire. 〗 The history of the past 100 years has been a history of battles to seize and control the world's oil reserves, and no other factor can compare to this.First, the United Kingdom, and later the United States, were mainly influenced by the interests of these two countries. Around raw materials and oil, the power map of world politics and economy was formed, but people know little about it.

In the late 1890s, Britain had unrivaled political, economic and military power in the world.Since 1815, the pound has been the world's most important credit currency.The status and role of the pound is based on the British gold reserves and is under the strict guardianship of the Bank of England.The whole world is full of envy.In Waterloo, Prussia's military superiority was the key to defeating Napoleon's army, but it was Wellington and the British who won the reputation of the victors. Therefore, a large amount of world gold flowed into London, making its reserves occupy the largest share in the world. "As reliable as a British shilling" was a truism at the time. On June 22, 1816, the British Empire promulgated a law declaring that gold is the only standard of value.Over the next 75 years and more, British foreign policy has increasingly focused on protecting Britain's treasury, the Bank of England's underground vaults, including the world's newly mined gold, whether it comes from Australia, the United States or South Africa .The inevitable result of this policy is to implement a policy of "strategic suppression" against competitors with gold reserves at any time.

After 1815, in the world's seas, the hegemony of the British navy was unrivaled.The British fleet sailed around the world loaded with British steel, coal and Manchester textiles exported abroad.British manufacturing has led the world for decades. However, while the UK is showing its power externally, there is a crisis hidden in the UK.The farther the credit of British firms stretched in world trade, and the more the banks in the City of London lent money in the construction of railways in Argentina, the United States, and Russia, the worse the economy at home became.Few people understand how two seemingly unrelated things can be so closely related.

The Congress of Vienna from 1814 to 1815 redefined the political map of Europe after the Napoleonic era.After this, the British Empire gained control of the seas through deals with the Habsburgs of Austria and other continental European powers, under the diplomatic mediation of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Kasuri.At that time, the European continent was divided and weak, and it was impossible to challenge Britain's global expansion.By controlling the seas, Britain controlled the world's seaborne trade, which formed one of the three pillars of the new British Empire after Waterloo.The terms of trade at that time were drawn up by a consortium of Lloyd's of London marine insurance and banks, and manufacturers on the Continent, like many in the rest of the world, had to accept them.The British Royal Navy is also the most powerful navy in the world, acting as a policeman on major shipping lanes around the world, providing free "insurance" to British merchant ships.The competitor's fleet had to purchase insurance from the Lloyd's of London insurance consortium to protect against pirates, disasters, and threats of war.

For much of the world's seaborne trade, London bank letters of credit and cash exchange are necessary.The private Bank of England, co-founded by famous financial consortiums such as the Baring family, the Hambro family and the Rothschild family in the "Financial City" of London (the collective name of the London financial district), controls most of the world's currency gold. supply, which they orchestrated, resulted in the indiscriminate dumping of vast quantities of British exports into rival markets.The dominance of international banking was undoubtedly the second pillar of British imperial power after 1815.

The third pillar is Britain’s geopolitical dominance over the world’s major raw materials such as cotton, metals, coffee, coal, and the emerging “black gold” oil at the end of the 19th century.This pillar has become more and more important as time has passed.