Here's the line-by-line translation:
'For the Qing government to purchase a musket, it cost seventeen taels of silver, while on the international market, muskets were priced at ten taels each.'
'From this, we can conclude that the corruption of the Qing government was extremely severe!'
Hua Country's history textbooks, when placed under the lens of reality, seem like collections of humorous anecdotes. A single musket under the Qing government's Smith commissioner only cost seven taels—how could that be considered corruption?
Simple broth for the elders, that's all!
America's Smith commissioner is far more audacious. The tale of six million goats is still a fresh cautionary story; pushing out seventeen thousand-dollar wheelbarrows has already surfaced.
But when faced with nine thousand dollars for a single packet of screws, the prior antics of these Smith commissioners start to seem laughable by comparison.
