OBS Chapter 1859 The Vanishing Nobility (Please give me a monthly ticket!!! Please subscribe!!! Please r
Chapter 1859 The Vanishing Nobility (Please give me a monthly ticket!!! Please subscribe!!! Please r
Chapter 1859 The Vanishing Nobility (Please give me a monthly ticket!!! Please subscribe!!! Please recommend!!!)
Max is depressed!
He really didn't want to kill anyone, he just wanted to escape, but for some reason, things turned out like this.
At this time, Spider-Man also joined the battle. Gwen is different from Peter, she is a rational person. Peter doesn't rely on strategy when fighting. He doesn't have any strategy, just one - quick reaction!
His reaction speed is even faster than his own thoughts, so when he is fighting, he will talk nonsense. It is not that he really wants to say those things, but he starts to say them involuntarily. In simple terms, he does not think.
The same is true for his fighting. He doesn't observe the enemy, formulate a strategy, and then start the fight. He always rushes in and starts fighting first! As he fights, he naturally finds a way. He is a pure talent player, with talent stronger than awareness.
Gwen is relatively more stable. She does not have the strong reaction ability like Peter. She is just an ordinary girl. She learned how to fight from Agent Kingsman. The most orthodox way of fighting is to observe the enemy, analyze the enemy's weaknesses, observe the environment, and find a way to fight that is beneficial to herself.
Never be reckless.
In fact, her training results were very good, and Kingsman even hoped to recruit her as a new gentleman... Kingsman has also been reforming in recent years. There is no way, Kingsman has to change.
Kingsman has been around for a hundred years. Since World War I, it has only recruited elites from the British aristocracy. It was OK at the beginning. After all, after World War I and before World War II, the British aristocracy was still very strong. There were many elites.
But as the world structure adjusted after World War II, the British aristocracy began to decline as a whole!
With castles, manors and servants, elegant and polite, these are people's impressions of British aristocrats. British aristocrats have always been the favorites of pretenders, but some people should have noticed that there are basically not many aristocrats now. There is a saying that the aristocrats led the way and were wiped out in World War I. But the real situation is not so. The reason why the aristocrats disappeared is actually - taxes. This is actually a widely circulated joke, saying that British aristocrats have a sense of honor, are very brave, and walk at the forefront of the war, so they suffered the most casualties in the war, so that they were wiped out in World War I. According to later statistics, in World War I, 600 million people participated in the war, 72 died, and the civilian mortality rate was 12.5%. The mortality rate of the officer class was as high as 20%. After the war, Britain directly attributed this to the fact that the officers were mainly of aristocratic origin, had a sense of honor, fought bravely, and died more. But think about it carefully, everyone, Britain has fought countless wars, and in almost all wars, the civilian casualties rate was high. Why did the aristocratic casualties suddenly rise in the "First World War"? In the past, nobles had no sense of honor, but during the First World War, they suddenly had an overwhelming sense of honor?
This is obviously illogical. In fact, if you understand the Western war model, you will know where the problem lies. One hundred years before the First World War, the main form of Western war was "line infantry", which is commonly known as "line shooting". The rifles at that time had low accuracy and slow firing rate, so they needed numbers to make up for it. The soldiers lined up in a horizontal line and walked forward. The officer controlled the speed in front. When both sides approached within the range, they held their guns flat and shot at each other according to the commander's command. Whoever could not bear such casualties first would withdraw first, and the other side won.
Everyone, pay attention to the one on horseback in the front. He is an officer, usually a noble. He walks in front to control the speed of the troops. During the march, the soldiers carry their guns on their shoulders. When they are about to enter the range, he will walk to the side of the queue, and the soldiers will put their guns flat, and then follow the order of the superior to fire together. Before the First World War, Europe was a "noble war" between each other, which was very decent. In war, you will not aim directly at the superior, so even if the superior is wearing a very cool uniform and riding a horse to command on the side, no one will shoot him, but the soldiers will attack each other. Nobles are not killed, but captured. Everyone knows from watching the TV series "A Song of Ice and Fire" that when the nobles are captured, the first reaction is to ask for ransom, rather than killing them directly. Most of the nobles in Europe are related by blood. Even if they don't have a common blood, they may share mistresses. They meet each other every day. It is an acquaintance society and they are very disciplined.
So this set of "no killing officers" rule lasted for more than a hundred years, so that it seems very strange to us now. In modern wars, officers are afraid of being spotted and becoming targets. At that time, it was just the opposite. Officers dressed up in fancy clothes, fearing that the other side would not see them - if they could not see them, they would be mistaken for civilians and shot. It was not until the First World War that the situation suddenly changed. At the beginning, it was still the same as before. The noble officers rode on tall horses, dressed like cocks and walked in front, leading the soldiers from their hometowns to the front line. When they arrived at the front line, everyone lined up in neat rows and advanced forward. The noble officers walked in front to control the speed of the queue. But this time it was different. Before they could see where the enemy was, they saw bullets raining down from the sky, and the people walking in the front fell one after another.
Rifles should shoot straight, so how come bullets fell from the sky? This is the characteristic of World War I. At that time, rifles were no longer the low-precision muzzle-loading rifles of the Napoleonic era, but were updated to breech-loading rifles with an outrageous range (the rifles of that time are still used as sniper rifles in the Middle East), and the latest large-scale Maxim. At that time, the range of rifles had reached a terrifying one kilometer. You can try to see things one kilometer away. Do you find that you can't see people clearly? Of course, it was also unclear more than a hundred years ago. In fact, there was no need to see.
All you have to do is wait for the enemy army to enter the pre-determined position. After the commander observes with a telescope, everyone adjusts the scales, raises their guns and shoots upward into the sky, and countless bullets begin to whistle and harvest lives. But this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that when the war starts, the officers continue the spirit of "classical warfare" as before, continue to dress in strange clothes, and walk in front of the queue. Every time a sudden wave of barrage rains, the people walking in the front are often shot out, and the officers are gone. The same is true for the confrontation between the two sides. The officers continue to walk in front as usual. I thought the other side would not hit me, but I didn't expect that they would open fire at a distance of one kilometer. I couldn't see each other, and the people walking in front were immediately useless. Later, the British officers no longer walked in the front, but hid in the middle. If the situation looked bad, they would quickly retreat.
Therefore, the casualty rate of officers in the early stage of the war was a bit ridiculous. When the news reached China, everyone was stunned. According to Western tradition, the family of each soldier who died in battle would be told that "your child fought very bravely", but the truth was that they were killed without even seeing the enemy (most of the dead soldiers in World War I died without even seeing the enemy).
Although the casualties were higher, they were only 20%, which was not a serious injury at all. The British used to be like the Americans. The upper class gave birth to children just like giving birth to pups, and three was the standard. It was precisely because of the large number of children that the youngest sons often had no inheritance rights, were extremely poor, and then ran away (in the end, they were often more successful than the eldest sons who relied on their parents). It was also mentioned in the Debrett Report that about one-tenth of the nobles lost their first heir at the time, so they had to let the second heir take over. In other words, the war did not have much impact on the inheritance of property and titles.
So where did the British aristocracy go? They were so poor. With the development of the economy, the common people in Britain gradually awakened and began to unite and make trouble. So the government accepted more and more common people into the parliament. At this point, everyone may wonder, is it okay not to accept common people? It is not impossible, but at that time, Europe was surging with revolutions, and the king and queen of France next door had been beheaded. If you were a king or a noble, would you be panicked? So all countries are slowly accepting the common people - talk about it nicely, don't revolutionize us. In the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, power slid to the House of Commons little by little. Now there is no House of Lords. The British parliamentary debates we see on TV are actually debates in the House of Commons. In the late th century, the social movement in Britain was in full swing. In order to ease social conflicts and prevent ordinary people from not being able to survive, the government began to improve social welfare, such as providing old-age care, medical insurance and other things for the people. This bill is also quite interesting, called the "People's Budget Bill".
But if you want to give money to the poor, where will the money come from? It just so happened that the voice of the nobles declined, and everyone began to calculate on them. In 1894, the UK passed the inheritance tax, which was to collect 100% inheritance tax from those with assets exceeding 8 million pounds. Later, it kept rising, 15%, 40%, 50%, and as high as 1939% in 60. Not only that, but also greatly increased the land tax. When the bill was mentioned to the parliament, the House of Commons was of course happy and passed it smoothly. The nobles in the House of Lords understood at a glance that this was sharpening their knives towards us, so they decisively rejected it. The two houses fought back and forth over this matter, and those great intellectuals we are familiar with, such as Adam Smith, Ricardo, etc., all made a lot of remarks criticizing the nobles as parasites. After a debate, the nobles finally lost the upper hand. Slowly, various taxes became more and more severe. The main business of the nobles is land. Now the country is staring at their land every day, which is naturally extremely painful. They can't run away, and they can't afford to pay taxes.
Moreover, each noble had a huge fixed expenditure, servants needed to be hired, castles needed to be repaired, and various social activities needed to be attended to. Now, with the increasing tax expenditures, most nobles could not make ends meet and had to sell their estates, dismiss their slaves, and reduce the scale of their industries. The most severe was the inheritance tax. Most of the property of noble estates existed in the form of land. Every time a noble died and the family had to change the inheritance, a large number of properties would be sold to raise the high inheritance tax.
How much of an impact do property tax and inheritance tax have on the British aristocracy? From 1809 to 1879, 88% of British millionaires were landed aristocrats. Soon, from 1880 to 1914, it dropped rapidly to 33%. More than half of the aristocrats died of poverty during these 97.5 years. During the most tense period of World War II, the income tax rate reached a terrifying 65%, and the inheritance tax was as high as %. Many old aristocrats went bankrupt directly after the war. Some people may say that this is not right. Isn't it said that inheritance tax is very difficult to collect? How did the UK do it? This is partly related to the fact that the British are serious about doing things. They have always been determined and motivated to collect taxes. (Who doesn't take collecting money seriously?)
On the other hand, it was also related to the lack of "globalization" at that time. Most of the assets were real estate, such as manors, farms, mines, and castles. People could not escape even if they wanted to. There were no tax havens, tax planning, or tax saving plans, so tax evasion was impossible, and no one studied tax saving (philosophy and art were more popular at the time).
The nobles made their fortunes through military exploits and lived parasitically on the land. Some nobles held on to the land and were harvested by inheritance and income taxes; others invested in mining and cotton textiles and barely survived the first industrial revolution. However, the second industrial revolution broke out in the United States, and some nobles did not come and were also harvested. Many British nobles and financiers invested in the United States and were ready to continue to be parasites in the New World, but they did not expect that the Americans would play dirty with them. The Americans were very good at playing with bonds, and in the early days they mainly made money from the British by issuing bonds.
How do they cut the British leeks? First, they find a concept and issue bonds at a low price, such as issuing bonds for building railways, and then they speculate on the bonds themselves. When the British see that it is profitable, they rush in and speculate together. Then the Americans cash out and leave. The British can't find anyone to take over, and the market goes bankrupt. After the explosion, the bonds become waste paper, and the Americans collect them back, convert debt into equity, hold them for a long time, and do value investment. They hold them for a hundred or eighty years, and when they need them, these bonds can be used as mortgage loans or something. So every few years in the United States, there was a major financial crisis, and a large number of stocks fell to waste paper. People thought that the United States was going to be in trouble, but in the end, the British were poor and died, and they were cut by the Americans.
As the British government and the Americans continued to encroach on the nobility, the old nobility was also looking for ways to survive, but only a few of them succeeded in their transformation. No one would have thought that the nobility at that time was worried about their livelihoods, and every day they were worried that the little wealth left by their ancestors would be completely gone. This matter has become a topic of entertainment for the British, and there are often reports that a certain baron’s castle was rented to a pornographic company to make movies and pay property taxes. Most of the fallen nobility have now become ordinary people. When picking up girls, they may brag about their titles and family crests, but at other times they just move bricks with everyone else.
So in fact, the "first generation" followed the old king to fight everywhere, and they might be quite capable of fighting. But in the later period, when the nobles were enjoying the division of territories, they boasted too much about themselves. The so-called "aristocratic etiquette" and "chivalry" were just circle cultures compiled by the victors of the war. In the later period, the British titles were clearly marked with prices, so what nutrition could the content have? Under the glamorous surface of Western aristocracy and religion, what lurks is the evil of human nature. Therefore, the people are happy to see the establishment of tax laws to cut the wallets of the nobles, and killing a nobleman may benefit the people.
This resulted in the number and quality of the nobility declining to a pitiful level.
Kingsman is finding it increasingly difficult to recruit people from this group, so the reform has already begun.
First, the selection group was changed from aristocrats to all classes, and women were also included in the selection group.
Outstanding people like Gwen will naturally be included in the selection targets.
(End of this chapter)