Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1227 Start of War ([-])
The Duke of Choiseul had to agree with these words of the Dashun envoy.

But he could only make it clear to the people in Dashun that he was not an idiot.

I only became the Minister of State this year, in order to clean up this mess.

It is impossible for him to conjure up a main fleet or another mobile corps for the French Army in a short period of time. He does not have such magic power.

Everything he can do must be based on reality.

The reality is like this, there is a problem with the idea of ​​​​naval construction, there is a problem with the country's finances, and there is no problem with the construction of the army. The commander had many scruples and did not dare to let the cavalry risk their lives to attack directly, which also led to a failure.

These things cannot be resolved overnight, let alone as a minister of state.

This is not to say that freezing three feet is not a day's cold time, but that the matter has come to this point, what should be done now.

The Duke of Choiseul believes that his strategy is in line with the reality of France.

The reality is like this, the matter has come to this point, the reminders and accusations of many Dashun missions are a bit like standing up and talking without back pain.

Of course, if Dashun joins the war, reality itself will change.However, even if Dashun sent a high-standard envoy to France, looking at it for the time being, it seemed that Dashun had no possibility of participating in the war.

Now Dashun's European trade is booming because of the wars between the major European countries.

Merchant ships flying the Dashun flag roamed around, under the banner of armed neutrality, and constantly exchanged various goods for silver on the route where privateers from various countries hijacked each other's merchant ships.

It is difficult to say that there is any real friendship between countries.Maybe Dashun could have a slightly better relationship with France because of the fact that it is an absolute monarchy, but that's all I can think of.

Spain is also involved in direct interests such as Gibraltar, colonies, slave trade, Portugal, etc. Even so, it still has not participated in the war.

From the Duke of Choiseul's point of view, the cost of Dashun's participation in the war is very high, but the benefits it can get do not seem to be much, and France does not have enough things to exchange.

After all, once participating in the war, it means that Dashun's armed neutrality will go bankrupt, and Dashun's trade will be greatly affected.

This is not more than 20 years ago, when European trading companies monopolized trade between East and West.

Now, Dashun, the manufacturer, basically monopolizes the trade and transportation between the East and the West, with an annual trade volume of tens of millions of taels.

This huge trade surplus alone is enough to make France, which is famous for its mercantilism, consider that Dashun is unlikely to give up such a large trade volume.

Such an inference is very reasonable.

It's not that France didn't send envoys to Dashun before, but it was only to establish good relations, because the aristocratic circle of the King of France believed that France could not exchange enough things with Dashun—including India.

In the eyes of France, India is worthless.

Therefore, a worthless India, in exchange for the suspension of East-West trade of tens of millions of taels of silver a year in the neutral state of Dashun, and possibly tens of millions of taels of military expenditure?

And the duke known by the French to be in charge of Dashun's behind-the-scenes foreign policy obviously possessed shrewd diplomatic skills and would not make a loss-making deal.

Therefore, after the Dashun group pointed out that his strategy was not correct and that the gambling was too much, the Duke of Choiseul could only explain patiently, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the previous policies of France in words, And showing a somewhat pessimistic and disappointed mood: Maybe, no matter whether you win or lose, the war will end next year.Then France will carry out a comprehensive reform involving finance, army, and navy through the truce period, and will fight back later.

However, the members of the Dashun Mission still insisted on the strategy of taking a big gamble and landing in Scotland. It seemed that they were forcing the Duke of Choiseul to publicly admit that the success rate of this strategy was very low. .

"Masters in China, I admit that the success rate of this campaign plan is very low. But very low, not zero."

"On the contrary, the premise of the method you proposed is to allow France to have a main fleet of more than 60 battleships within a year, with sufficient sailors, officers, and cannons. Obviously, your plan The success rate is zero."

"My king's treasury doesn't have that much money. And even if it did, it's impossible to expand another twenty standard battleships a year. Just for the shipbuilding alone, it would cost another 4000 million livres. Even if your country gives unlimited support to France and supports a low-interest loan of [-] million livres, it will take three years for the shipbuilding work to be completed."

"Unless... unless it is the same as the support of the Celestial Empire in India back then, the formed warships will be leased to us by lease."

The members of the Dashun Mission Group thought, what you think is beautiful, it is not impossible to lease, the key is, what do you exchange for it?
This time, Dashun actually wanted quite a few things.

In addition to some hardware interests, such as North American colonial issues, Indian issues, and trade issues, Dashun will insist on some soft power interests.

For example, Dashun can cooperate with France, and the two sides jointly recognize a zero-degree meridian, and use France's influence in Europe to make this zero-degree meridian a world-recognized zero-degree meridian.

Another example is that the two sides formulate common, rational, and universal weights and measures.For example, the length unit produced based on the length of longitude and latitude or the diameter of the earth, such as the weight unit produced based on this length unit and the specific gravity of water, etc.

Of course there are many more, but Dashun can make appropriate concessions in some places. In short, it is a matter similar to "cars on the same track and one weight and measure" led by China and France.

This is of course very possible.Because of the factors of the Enlightenment Movement, as well as factors of learning from the East and learning from the West, and the enthusiasm for China, Dashun only needs to properly abandon an old thing and adopt a brand new, universal, and universal thing to become national and national.

The earth is the world.Water is also the source of life for all human beings in the world.

But pulling the length of the earth and the density of water to create a brand new, universal, nation-created unit of measurement, under the influence of the Enlightenment and China craze, will not arouse too much opposition.

On the contrary, with the help of China's enthusiasm, Dashun can also be used as "the utopia imagined by rationalists and full of rational tone".

Of course, this kind of weights and measures will not be popularized within Dashun for the time being, and will be mainly used in foreign exchanges and foreign trade, but it will have great significance in the future, and will further divide the School of Practical and Confucianism within Dashun.

These things have to be discussed slowly, but once the discussion starts, it must be clearly stated and settled.

If the Duke of Choiseul knew that Dashun wanted to talk about these things, then he knew that Dashun's intentions were serious this time.

On the contrary, it would make him happy, because his ambitions were not small, so he could clearly believe that Dashun was willing to pay a huge price to participate in this European war, which was temporarily out of reach with Dashun, and turn the European war into a world war.

The problem is that these people in the Dashun Mission did not talk about this, nor did they show their mouths, but insisted on strategic and tactical issues, which made the Duke of Choiseul somewhat puzzled.

In fact, the reason why the Dashun envoys insisted on this issue was mainly related to the most critical part of Dashun's strategy.

It is the French king, the French minister of state, who has to hold his breath.

The so-called calmness means that if the British send troops to harass the French coastal cities on a small scale, don't be taken away by the British.

Because once led by the nose by the British.

In other words, if you can't bear the pressure of public opinion, it is easy to cause big troubles.

The British are likely to play a routine similar to a land battle to siege the city and mobilize the French fleet. It will be uncomfortable if the British win a decisive naval battle.

Moreover, in Dashun's strategic plan, among the various coping methods of the British, this possibility is the greatest.

At that time, there will be pressure on both sides, and it depends on which side can sit still.

If the French side can sit still, then the main force of the British navy will not dare to move around, and will be forced to a decisive battle by domestic businessmen and financiers, because they can't stand Dashun's trade smuggling and playing tricks in the colonies.

Conversely, if France can't sit still, Britain makes a gesture of attacking some ports, and the pressure of public opinion forces the French navy to make a rescue, then it will be easy to be defeated by the British one by one.

In short, when the time comes, it depends on who can sit firmly.

Although the King of France has the right to make decisions, the Minister of State must first be able to withstand the pressure.

If the Minister of State cannot withstand this pressure, and if the public opinion or being criticized by others today, he has to listen to the public opinion or the accusations of the public, then even if the King of Algorithms can still withstand it, this matter will be difficult to handle.

If Louis XV really had the courage to say "after I die, no matter what the flood is", it would be easy to say.In fact, he didn't have the guts. He just complained that "after we die, there will be a flood", and he might not be able to withstand some pressure.

Especially on the issue of taxation, he tried to put pressure on the privileged nobles with the public opinion of the middle class and the third class, which made it easy for the public opinion in Paris to influence the French decision-making.

In this era when the standard French is not yet unified, and local forces still only recognize the locality but not the motherland.

Paris is France.

The circle of salons in Paris was the center of public opinion in France.

The small circle of nobles around Louis XV was the entire French court.

Just like the shooting of the admiral that happened in the United Kingdom, once the storm of public opinion blows, whether the King of France and the Minister of State can withstand the pressure of the attack on the French coast is not known.

At that time, both Britain and France will be under tremendous pressure. Relatively speaking, the pressure on France is actually less.If Britain's trade line is really cut off by Dashun, Britain will bear much more pressure than France.As long as you can sit still, you have a big chance of winning.

In order to prevent being unable to sit still, the Duke of Choiseul must be given enough pressure before the formal cooperation, so that he will be on the psychologically weak side in future cooperation.

This will make it more inclined and easier to accept Dashun's opinions in future cooperation.

(End of this chapter)