There are always people who have a wrong feeling, and they always feel that the decline of the British Empire and the dominance of American imperialism are a smooth and smooth abdication of power. The British Empire sincerely handed over the power of the world to the United States, and the United States replaced Britain to take charge of the world. It seemed that these two families were peacefully handed over and were a harmonious faction.

But is history really like this? Is the special relationship between Britain and the United States really that beautiful? Anyway, Li Xiaofeng doesn’t believe in such nonsense. Who doesn’t like power? Who is willing to be the boss and be willing to be the second child? Especially those who have been the boss for many years, is it really that easy to let them hand over power obediently?

Some comrades may say that the reason why the British were so "willful" to be the second son was because the rise of the Soviet Union was because the Red Empire put too much pressure on Britain, forcing Britain to make concessions to the United States, and both families were happy to take their own needs.

To be honest, this is nonsense. Indeed, after the end of World War II, due to the need to jointly fight against the Soviet-East group camp and the ideology of the United Kingdom and the United States, there were indeed many common words between Britain and the United States. Moreover, Britain did suffer heavy losses and its empire was shaky. In order to prevent Germany's resurgence and respond to the challenges of the Soviet Union, Britain really needed the help of the United States.

However, although the special relationship between Britain and the United States has the above-mentioned realistic basis, the so-called "peaceful abdication" of hegemony is just a modified statement. To put it bluntly, it is the writing style of spring and autumn. Although there was no overheating war between the two countries at the critical moment of the rise and fall of the new and old hegemony, it does not mean that the two countries did not engage in arduous wars to maintain or obtain hegemony. As the main participating country in the two world wars, Britain has undoubtedly been fighting to maintain hegemony.

In other words, the British were by no means willing to hand over the authority to the United States. If the British were so easy to talk to, there would not have been anyway in the Napoleon era, World War I and World War II. Anyway, Britain doesn't care about hegemony, so it would be over if it was handed over.

But the problem is, are the British so generous? The British were suffering from Napoleon back then. The reason why the anti-French alliance was formed again and again was because the British were paying for it. Almost every country that joined the anti-French alliance could get financial aid from the UK. Without the British, the Russians sent troops, the anti-French alliance was a joke.

Looking at the war again, Britain invested an unprecedented 6.7 million troops during the entire war. The autonomous regions and colonies of the British Empire were also mobilized, contributing a large number of troops and labor to the war. Nepal alone had more than 50,000 Gurkha soldiers joined the British Indian army to fight. Among the main colonies, India contributed 1.4 million troops, Canada provided 630,000, Australia provided 50,000, South Africa provided 150,000, and New Zealand provided 130,000.

If the British could be transferred to hegemony at will, would he be overwhelmed and mobilized the colony in full?

Not only was the mobilization large, but the price paid by Britain for World War I was also heavy. Before the war, the United States owed Britain more than 400 million pounds in debt, but after the war, Britain owed the United States 500 million pounds. Britain's gold reserves fell by 42 million pounds due to World War I, and a quarter of overseas assets were forced to sell due to tight funds during the war.

Don't care about the hegemony that Britain took the wrong medicine to fight this war?

Even from the situation in Russia after World War I, we can see how passionate Britain is about hegemony. Britain and France secretly signed a secret treaty to divide Tsarist Russia in 1918. In order to completely eliminate Russia, the threat of the British Empire hegemony, the British invested 46 million pounds in related expenses to interfere in the Russian Revolution from 1918 to 1920 alone.

Fortunately, the economy of the great powers collapsed after the war, which made Britain, which was burdened with huge burdens, unable to continue to invest huge intervention costs, so it had to stop and change armed encirclement to peaceful evolution. Even Lenin sighed at that time: "Although there is a siege of capitalism, we can basically survive internationally."

The above can only explain one problem, that is, Britain is never willing to give up hegemony. Since this is the case, there will be no peaceful abdication between Britain and the United States, but a pure power struggle. Britain lost this power struggle and had to bow to the United States. As for the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States, it is just that the British used it to paralyze themselves and the Americans to give the British a step.

So when did the British lose this battle? In Li Xiaofeng's view, the British did not lose hegemony in 1947, nor did they lose hegemony in 1945, but 1925, which was twenty years ahead.

1925 was a very critical year. Although there was no earth-shaking event in this year, this year was a watershed. Before this year and the moment when World War I ended, it was actually a precious period of adjustment left by the great god of history to Britain. Although Britain was severely damaged by the war, it could do something for five years. If we seize these five years to make changes, Britain may not be able to continue its hegemony.

Unfortunately, from 1920 to 1925, the British did nothing, and then they were still dozing off from 1925 to 1935. What they squandered in these fifteen years was not just time, but the last vitality of the British Empire.

Britain in more than ten years had no change from Britain in the previous hundred years. The old gentlemen adhered to the traditions of the past and became increasingly out of place until they were eliminated. In those years, Britain stubbornly adhered to the imperialist line and the dogma of free trade, and its foreign policy was still the principle of maintaining the balance of power on the mainland for thousands of years.

To be honest, these are inappropriate. I will not criticize imperialism, and the foreign policy of maintaining the balance of power in the mainland is not nonsense. These two points have been said too much. Let’s talk about the internal economic factors now.

Frailed thinking and blind freedom are the fatal points of the British economy. Due to great achievements in the first industrial revolution, the British elites were always in a state of self-satisfaction. The liberal economic theory proposed by British economists such as Adam Smith and Ricardo is almost equivalent to the economic Bible in the UK and must not be violated or blasphemed.

The so-called liberal economic theory is the core of the emphasis on restricting government behavior, reducing tax burdens and free trade. This theory in the 19th century was in line with objective reality, so we can see that Britain achieved unprecedented achievements. However, the realization of this theory is also objectively based on the premise that Britain first completed the first industrial revolution and had technological advantages over other countries.

However, by the end of the 19th century, this technological advantage had been lost. Britain's industrial capacity and technological update speed had been surpassed by the United States and Germany. Continuing to implement low taxes and non-intervention economic policies was almost the same as letting go in industrial competition. From the mid-to-late 19th century to 1900, the tariff rate of the United States remained between 40% and 50%. This policy effectively protected the domestic industries in the United States and gave it a basic environment to surpass the British industries. For example, in 1869, the market share of imported finished products from foreign countries in the United States was about 14%, while by 1909, the number was only 6%.

On the other hand, Britain, in the decade after 1880, imports increased by about 7 times, and Britain changed from its previous exporter to the largest market for foreign goods. The market for goods that became a domestic one was basically equivalent to slaughter, which was in a completely passive position in the international economic system. Logically speaking, with the intelligence of the British elites, this is not impossible to see that this is a very fatal thing, but the reality is that the British almost ignored it.

Why? The reason is that the Sun never sets. After the Napoleon era, the British Empire, baptized in World War I, obtained the vastest territory in the world. By 1931, Britain had obtained 59 colonies of all sizes and large, with a total area of ​​colonies reaching an astonishing 34.8 million square kilometers, and a total population under its jurisdiction reached 6.3 billion.

What does this mean? It means that the UK has a vast area of ​​cheap primary raw materials and the same cheap labor resources. Some comrades may say again, isn’t this a good thing? Who doesn’t want to have a big family and a big business?

It is true that the benefits are true, but there are also hidden worries. Because the resources are abundant and labor is cheap. For British bosses, you can make a lot of money by engaging in the simplest agricultural planting and mining. Since making money is so simple, why do you have to engage in complex industries and why do you have to climb the tech tree?

In fact, similar examples in later generations are not missing. The oil bosses in the Middle East, Venezuela in Latin America and polar bears all fell into this pit. For these companies, there are many oil resources, which are simple and convenient to sell crude oil, and industrial investment is slow to achieve results, which is so exhausting.

So we can see that Russia has been eating the Soviet Union's old age, but it has gained the love of the people by making some money by selling oil. But once the demand for oil is not strong, even tycoons like Saudi Arabia have to tighten their belts and live.

As the saying goes, if a person has no long-term thinking, there will be immediate worries. It is harmful to have too superior life. From frugality to extravagance, it is easy to go from extravagance to frugality. Once a person gets used to being lazy, it is probably difficult to be diligent again.

The same is true for the British. The huge colonies gave the British countless opportunities. It was too easy for them to forget the hardships of their ancestors in accumulating the family business, and they all became prodigals. They all took the path of making money easily, and did not honestly climb the technology tree to engage in technological innovation, and instead sold resources or simply played the financial trick of money turning into money. As a result, the advantage was getting smaller and smaller until they were caught up by later generations.

As mentioned earlier, Britain actually had a chance after World War I. With the power of Britain's financial capital at that time, it could have taken out a large part of the funds to innovate technologically and at the same time carry out real development of the colonies (rather than simply engaging in planting or simply plundering resources).

But history tells us that the British did not do this. Financial tycoons were all stingy, while political elites blindly believed in the experience of their predecessors and turned free trade into dogma, which could not be surpassed by half a step. As a result, the basic industrial capacity for trade was lost and there was only the appearance of the growth of trade volume. The long-term disadvantage of industrial capacity led to the gradual occupation of the trade market by emerging countries. After the domestic market was occupied by foreign goods, especially German goods, it caused dissatisfaction and panic among the whole country. Economic problems were thus transferred to the political and diplomatic fields, which became the main reason for the later detonation of the British-German conflict.

Some comrades may want to say again, is the no1 in the United States that was the industrial one good? German goods can panic Britain and trigger a political crisis, so why doesn’t American goods not? Doesn’t this just prove that the relationship between Britain and the United States is a special relationship?

It is not like this. Back then, because the United States has stronger domestic purchasing power, the domestic market can digest most of its industrial products, so American goods have little impact on the British market. Germany is different. Originally, the domestic population was limited and the market was small, while foreign countries lost all their colonies because of the defeat in the war. They could only go to the British market to work hard, so Germany had a greater impact on the British market.

In fact, the British were also trying to die. If they could really develop the colony well instead of just treating the colony as the object of plunder and shearing, the purchasing ability of their huge colonies was actually quite amazing. Unfortunately, Britain did not care about the life and death of the colony at all, and then its domestic industries did not upgrade their technology, resulting in a huge colony but not much purchasing ability. Then the British opened up all markets openly and were run by a stronger opponent. How could they not collapse?

Let me put it this way, it was not the new challenging forces led by Germany and the United States that defeated the British Empire, but the British elites. These people were too eager for quick success and instant benefits, which led to the constant outbreak of conflicts later. Just imagine, once one day, the British had no financial advantages or technical advantages, and the military stick that they relied on to dominate was no longer powerful. Can he barely survive by sucking the blood of the colonies like before?

Some comrades may complain. You have said so much, does it have to do with the previous chapter? Haha, it really matters. I said before that Attlee was naive and thought that as long as he had cash flow and did not make too much changes, he could continue to maintain the old routine of the British Empire, which was also the fundamental reason why he actively slaughtered Japan. But from the above whine, we can see that the British Empire was not dumped because he had no money. The temporary capital injection was like a blood transfusion, which could indeed make him craving for a few days, but the problem was that the fundamental problem was not solved. What should I do when the extorted funds were squandered?

Could it be that you can beat the United States' quarrels one after another, two times and three times? Now there is the excuse of Japan's war compensation. What about the next time? I'm afraid that the British Empire will either sell itself to pay back the debt or cede land to pay back the debt. But the chassis left by our ancestors is limited, and can withstand such repeated tossings? What's more, the United States is not a fool. This time it's impossible to deal with you in the United Kingdom, but after this time, he has some means to make you submit, such as making a fuss in the colony where the British Empire relies on to survive and get rid of the firewood... (To be continued.)

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