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

H1127.0101  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.

H1127.0101  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……

H1127.0101  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.
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.

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H1127.0101  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.”

H1127.0101  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.
H1127.0101  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.