No “agriculture” is unstable, no “industry” is not strong, and no “business” is not rich. Because agriculture is subject to relatively limited output, of the three industries, industry is the industry with a really strong hematopoietic function, and has extraordinary significance for continued economic prosperity and social stability.

Just as the Chinese people have completed the historical achievement of preliminary industrialization, there are some disharmonious notes in society – some people associate industry with sweatshops; Some people even regard industry as an industry that is bound to be eliminated by history, and propose to learn from the Western “advanced experience” and engage in “deindustrialization”.

So, is industry really the main culprit of environmental pollution and an industry that is bound to be eliminated by history?

1783-US8T The rise of great powers is due to strong industry

1 Britain became an empire on which the sun never sets thanks to the Industrial Revolution

The British Isles were isolated overseas, and for a long period of history, the United Kingdom was marginalized politically, economically and culturally – the British aristocracy demonstrated its nobility by speaking a few words of French, and English was regarded as the language of the lower class in continental Europe. However, the arrival of the Industrial Revolution gave the originally marginalized Britain an opportunity to turn over.
In 1733, mechanic John Kaye invented the flying shuttle, which doubled the efficiency of weaving cloth. In 1764, weaver and woodworker James Hargreaves invented the spinning Jenny, which increased the spinning efficiency by 15 times. In 1785, engineer Edmont Cartwright invented the hydraulic loom, which increased the working efficiency by 40 times, and the traditional handicraft industry gradually disintegrated and was replaced by mechanical mass production.

1783-US8T With the rise of the textile industry, higher requirements were put forward for the power system, and the steam engine originally used only for pumping water in the mine was improved for the textile industry – the first steam spinning mill was established in Britain in 1784. Later, the steam engine was used in the metallurgical industry, railway transportation, steam ships and other fields. By 1825, there were 15,000 steam engines (375,000 horsepower) in Britain. From mines to factories, from land to sea, machines everywhere were roaring, turning and galloping……

At this point, Britain not only basically got rid of the shackles of traditional handicraft industry in the textile industry, realized mechanization, but also realized the replacement of machines for people in many fields such as transportation and metallurgy. By 1850, Britain’s industrial output accounted for 39% of the world’s industrial output, and its trade accounted for 21% of the world’s total.
1783-US8T When the British opened up the Manchu Dynasty with the Opium War, we should not only see the British ships and guns, but also see the industrial base that provides support for the ships and guns, which is the material guarantee for the Red Shirts to fight all over the world in the 19th century, and is the cornerstone of Britain to become an empire on which the sun never sets.

2 Germany has the ability to challenge the old international order because of its strong industrial strength

Germany industrialised 50 years after Britain. In 1830, Germany’s industrial population accounted for less than 3%, was still an agricultural country, and Germany was still in a state of fragmentation, these factors made Germans become third class citizens of Europe and bullied, so that the 19th century German romantic poet Heine said, “The land belongs to the French and the Russians, the sea belongs to the English,” Only in the kingdom of dreams in the air is the power of the Germans indisputable.”

1783-US8T It was not until 1834, under the appeal of scholars such as Liszt, that the German Customs Union was established, and the German country embarked on the road of industrialization. By 1846, the German states of the Customs Union had 313 mills and 750,000 mechanical spindles, as well as 1,139 steam engines (21,700 HP). By 1848, the German states had 2,500 km of railway lines.

Subsequently, the German country seized the opportunity of the second industrial revolution, the steel industry flourished, and the Ruhr Industrial Zone, Saar Industrial Zone and other industrial centers emerged. By 1870, the power of the steam engine in Germany reached 2.48 million horsepower, the output of coal reached 34 million tons, the output of pig iron reached 1.39 million tons, the output of steel reached 170,000 tons, and the railway line was 18,876 kilometers long.
1783-US8T At this point, German industry surpassed France, accounting for 13.2% of the world’s total industrial output, and this also laid the material foundation for Prussia’s victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871.
During the Second German Empire, relying on the exploitation of domestic cheap labor and the war reparations of France, China and other countries, Germany’s industrial strength achieved leap-forward development – to the eve of World War I, Germany’s urbanization rate reached 60%, industrial output accounted for 15.7% of the world’s total industrial output, steel output is 2.26 times that of the United Kingdom, power generation is 3.2 times that of the United Kingdom. The railway mileage reaches 60,521 kilometers, which is 90% of the UK, and the coal production is 95% of the UK, making it the largest industrial country in Europe.
The strong industrial base also became the base of Germany’s courage to challenge British hegemony.

3 The powerful industries of the United States and the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the new post-war international order

1783-US8T In 1800-1850, the United States was still a backward agricultural country. The industries in the north were mainly food processing and textile industries, and raw materials such as wood and minerals were also produced. The South had a plantation economy, with farms holding slaves and growing cotton, tea, and grain.

After the Civil War, the United States, like Germany, seized the opportunity of the second Industrial Revolution. In addition, the United States had better development potential than Germany — vast territory, rich resources, huge population and unique geographical environment, which made the American industry explosive growth from 1868 to 1880. American steel production grew at an average annual rate of about 40%, to the eve of World War I, the United States ranked first in the world’s industrial production, accounting for 32% of global industrial output, steel, coal, oil and food production ranked first in the world.

By the eve of World War II, the United States accounted for 38.7 percent of global industrial production. This is why the United States built a fleet carrier every two months during World War II, producing 40,000 aircraft and 20,000 tanks a year.

On the eve of World War I, Russia’s industrial output accounted for 8.2% of the world’s total industrial output, although it seems that the industrial strength is not bad, but a large part of the industrial output comes from foreign investment in light industry, domestic heavy industry only accounts for 1/5 of the total industry, which is why Russia is called “mud giant”.
In the First World War, the Russian army was much less equipped than the Germans, and in some cases even three soldiers shared a rifle. After the establishment of the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin’s guiding ideology of steel industrialization and planned economic system, the Soviet Union ushered in the era of high-speed industrialization, to the eve of World War II, the Soviet Union’s industrial output accounted for 17.6% of the world’s total industrial output, and the industrial structure to military, heavy industry as the main body.

It was on the strength of heavy industry that the Soviet Union produced 108,000 tanks and self-propelled guns and 144,000 aircraft during World War II, and ultimately won the Great Patriotic War, meeting with the Allies on the Elbe River and redrawing the post-war international order with the United States.