1825 My New Daming

Chapter 182 The last rupee of the British Empire! (ask for subscription, ask for monthly pass)

Versailles, residence of the British negotiating delegation, Marly Palace.

"Prime Minister Robinson, Minister Palmerston, Brigadier General Elliot, my father said that if the British Empire feels that the 1000 million ton shipbuilding quota is too high and there is no money to build it, he can also consider reducing the burden on the British Empire. They are not short of money, so they can build more, such as 400 million tons or 500 million tons. If you have no money in the UK, you can build less, 300 million tons or 350 million tons.

In addition, my father thinks that the defense of the Strait of Malacca should be jointly undertaken by Ming and Great Britain. Your British Empire can persuade the Kingdom of the Netherlands to hand over Sumatra Island to Ming. Da Ming can pay for it. Eight million yuan is easy to say, but it needs to be paid in installments. Payment. "

The one who is helping Zhuge Weijiu as a lobbyist in the Marly Palace is of course the Duke of Marseilles, the half-blood posthumous son of King Louis XVI of France.Yesterday, when Zhuge Weijiu said that he wanted to build a warship of 1000 million tons, he immediately ran away with anger from Robinson, Palmerston, and Elliott—in fact, he could not be called "running away from anger", but the three of them had to go back and count with their fingers After counting, there are still a few pounds in the pocket of the British Empire to bet with Daming!

In fact, the shipbuilding industry of the British Empire is not weak. After all, the British Empire is an island country with a large number of overseas colonies, and it has also dominated the European shipping market for a long time, which is enough to cultivate a huge shipbuilding industry.

In fact, until the era of motor sailboats, the shipbuilding industry of the British Empire still had an overwhelming advantage over Ming.The situation began to reverse when the age of steamships came to an end.

After basically eliminating sailing, the Europeans' leading edge in the sailing era basically returned to zero.The Ming Dynasty, which led the industrial revolution, relied on its leading advantages in the fields of external combustion engines and metallurgy to catch up with the latecomers, and it has already surpassed the shipbuilding industry of the British Empire in terms of technology.

However, thanks to the British Empire's protection of the local shipbuilding industry, and the fact that Britain has also thoroughly understood the technology of coal-fired boilers and steam engines, their shipbuilding industry can still overwhelm Ming Dynasty in terms of scale in the era of coal-fired steam engines.

But now the shipbuilding industry is experiencing a power revolution again!This revolution is composed of two parts, one is oil instead of coal - oil-fired boilers and diesel engines are replacing coal-fired boilers!The second is that the steam engine was replaced by a steam turbine—although there is only one more word for "wheel", the efficiency is much stronger.

Because of its "poor oil", the British Empire was completely backward in technologies such as oil-fired boilers, diesel engines, and gasoline engines.

And their steam turbines are not as good as Daming because they started relatively late. Daming has now completed the development of direct-drive steam turbines with a single set of output power exceeding 13000 horsepower.Its civilian type (power generation) has been put into use, and the military type has also been tested!

The UK can only produce steam turbines with a single output of 700 horsepower, and they can only be used on speedboats for the time being.The most advanced power system used by their large surface ships is still a coal-fired boiler plus a triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine.However, by burning coal and using a three-expansion reciprocating steam engine to produce power, it is also possible to achieve tens of thousands of horsepower.The Nassau, the first "dreadnought ship" of the German Empire in history, also used a coal-fired boiler and a three-expansion reciprocating steam engine, and still produced a main engine power of 2.2 horses.

So at present, the British shipbuilding industry can still compete with Daming in the "[-]-million-ton competition", but the problem is that Great Britain's pound is not enough.These days, they are all redeemable currencies, not random banknotes. If you really want to brush casually, it will become the rhythm of waste paper!

In addition, the bigger trouble is that the industrial scale of Great Britain is a little bit unable to support this "[-] million tons competition".The fight between Great Britain and Ming Dynasty for "[-] million tons" is a bit like an arms race between Mao Xiong and Mi Di in history.The Midi family has a big business, and there is a large circle of industrialized powers around it as younger brothers, who can use their own base to hurt people and engage in armaments.In order to catch up with the United States in terms of armaments, Mao Xiong can only concentrate resources on military industry.This is actually a wartime system.

The wartime system can only be implemented during wartime, how can it be tolerated every day?

Now if Great Britain insists on engaging in a "tens of millions of tons of competition", it can only transfer its own economy to wartime!

But if they don’t follow suit, they will continue to concede defeat at the Versailles Naval Conference, give up the title of the world’s number one navy to Ming, and then cooperate with Ming to annex the Dutch island of Sumatra. Then what will Western countries think of Great Britain?

Great Britain is not number one in industry and population, but lost the number one in the navy, and keeps ceding land to Daming (the land of the Netherlands is also ceding land!), what will this big brother do?
"Prime Minister, we must not compromise with the Ming Empire! If we compromise this time, then the sunset of the Empire on which the sun never sets will not be far away!"

When the lobbyist, the Duke of Marseilles, was dismissed by Robinson with vague words, the Lord of the Navy, Viscount Palmerston, immediately gave the most resolute opinion!
Prime Minister Robinson looked at the resolute Secretary of the Navy, frowned and said: "But do you know how much the 1000 million ton shipbuilding plan will cost? Is there any way for us to raise so many pounds? Even if the British Empire can come up with Can the House of Commons agree to this money? Can the factory aristocrats (referring to the Whigs) and London bankers support the cabinet's fundraising request?"

"Prime Minister!" Seeing that Prime Minister Robinson was wavering, Viscount Palmerston immediately said firmly to him, "It is precisely because of those factory aristocrats and London bankers that I resolutely oppose concessions. Don't you remember those Why did factory owners and bankers abandon the Netherlands and emigrate to England? Didn’t they take a fancy to our England’s superior geographical location and powerful army and navy, enough to protect their interests from being violated by the feudal monarchs on the European continent? What we want is a strong England, not a submissive England in front of the Eastern Empire. If England is no longer strong, can’t their money leave England?”

"Leave England? Why?" Robinson frowned at Viscount Palmerston, "Our homeland is very safe."

"Why? Because we are losing a competition for world supremacy," said Viscount Palmerston. "What happened to France after Napoleon lost? Spain and the Netherlands also lost earlier, and what happened to them now?" ? If our empire on which the sun never sets loses, do you think we will not be punished and still maintain the glory and prosperity of the empire?"

Robinson trembled, "Then, where will they go?"

"Maybe go to France!" Viscount Palmerston said, "Louis XVII and the Duke of Marseilles have a good relationship with Ming Dynasty, and their Bourbon dynasty has just acquired the stock of the Suez Canal and a large piece of land in the Rhine region from the Zhuge family. It is the land on the coal field! Zhuge did this for a long time, not because he was afraid that we would confiscate the property of the Zhuge family during the war, and it was not because of his special friendship with the Queen Mother of France, Louis XVII, and the Duke of Marseilles. Everyone shows Ming's support for France! Once Great Britain loses her glory, Paris will replace London as the financial center of Europe, and the Ruhr area, Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, and Belgium will become French under the protection of France. Industrial centre, sucking out our England's factories. What's left of Great Britain without its banks, factories, India and Australia and the colony of Malacca?"

"But we don't have the financial and industrial strength to compete with Daming for shipbuilding, and the lower house of parliament will not agree to the 1000 million-ton shipbuilding plan!" Robinson glanced at George Elliot, who was counting fingers beside him, "George, count Okay? How much will 1000 million tons cost?"

"Forget it," Elliot said, "the preliminary estimate will cost 10 billion - 12 billion pounds!"

"We only have an annual income of 1.4 million pounds!" Robinson gritted his teeth, "How is it possible for Parliament to approve such a huge military expenditure project?"

Viscount Palmerston smiled slightly, "Prime Minister, actually...we don't need to go through Parliament!"

"Not through Parliament? We are Britain!"

Viscount Palmerston nodded and said, "If we plan to spend the last rupee of the British Empire on the 1000 million-ton shipbuilding plan, we don't need the approval of the United Kingdom's parliament!"

(End of this chapter)