Crossing the Continent in the Eighteenth Century

() "Damn it, it would be great if Rome didn't show its weakness of food shortage!" Alexander whispered through gritted teeth.

I comforted him and said: "There are too many causes and effects in it, we cannot change it in a short time, but we will not just sit and wait for death."

The sound of the quill pen recording in my ears stopped, and the meeting fell into silence at this moment. I sat quietly on the chair, thinking, thinking about how to respond to the counterattack from France,

Knowing yourself and knowing your enemy can help you win a hundred battles.

Does the empire have no land to grow food?

On the contrary, the empire sits on the Lower Middle Plain of the Danube River. Romania, Serbia, and Hungary, which were built on this land in the past world, are all major grain-producing countries, and more than 10% of the national economy is supported by agriculture!

But why is there such a dilemma?

It is human self-interest!

Since the predecessor invented perfume, because the manufacture of perfume requires a lot of raw materials, the lower Danube plain has been developed and filled with roses.Why?Compared with cheap food, it is of course better to grow roses and provide them to perfume processing factories in exchange for wealth.

Bear's paw and fish can't have both. The empire's perfume has occupied the entire western European market and brought a huge amount of wealth to the empire. No one can veto this point.Therefore, both perfume and food have always been difficult to choose.Although successive rulers had mandatory orders, under the impact of Poland's cheap grain exports, under pressure, the ban was lifted!A small part of the huge wealth gained from exporting perfume is used to buy food from Poland, while the vacated land is used to plant more raw materials to increase the production of perfume!

What about the Middle Danube Plain?

There is also a lot of land there!

The natural danger of the Katrakta Canyon and the existence of the Southern Carpathian Mountains blocked the grain produced by the fertile soil in the middle reaches of the Danube, making it impossible for the empire to use the river there.

The key point is already obvious. It's not that the empire has no food, but that it can't transport it!

What about Colbert?If there is a faction in this world with many characters in the game whose ability value exceeds 120, it is obviously France, and Colbert, to put it an exaggeration, has a political value of at least [-].The role is like that of Uesugi in Nobunaga's Ambition, just pull ten thousand or eight hundred and cut you fifty or sixty thousand in minutes.

I'm not kidding.Ever since Colbert came to power, the Empire has had to deal with this guy every year. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer heard that even if he was sleeping at home, he would have nightmares yelling his name.

For such a strong man, I racked my brains to recall, and I probably knew that there was such a man in French history.In the past world, Colbert was Louis XIV's Minister of Finance and part-time Minister of the Navy. He devoted his life to escorting the French Conquest and the Sun King's inexorable feats.

In this world, Colbert also fulfilled his destiny, or the task entrusted by the old man of God, to make France strong!This Frenchman, who was recommended by the Sun King's cronies, overwhelmed the French aristocrats who ate vegetarian meals and slept in the open when they appeared in the important position of the French treasurer.After being appointed as Auditor General by Louis XIV, he spent three years rebuilding the French financial system.Then the Frenchman held high the banner of mercantilism, and frequently used the iron fist of tariff barriers and a series of measures to attack the enemy's economy, thereby clamping down on the revenue of other countries.Although some of these methods are unavoidably naive after 300 years, don’t forget that in this era, Colbert is a wise man who is more than one step ahead of others. Many of the traps he set up are not yet clear to others.

And our Minister of Finance is not wrong in dealing with the French export tariffs. Faced with such malicious policy revisions, the empire can only force the other party to soften by resorting to the same policy to retaliate.But in this way, both parties may fall into the prisoner's dilemma.

The Prisoner's Dilemma, an economic definition of being self-confessed and clever but being cleverly mistaken.Using the current problem to analyze it, because one country raises tariffs alone, the other country will respond in the same way, which triggers a tariff war, and the products of the two countries lose each other's market, which in turn causes damage to their own economies.

But the problem is that the goods manufactured by France, a new powerful country, are available in the empire. The French market is not large in the internal market of the empire, so the import tax, the most effective weapon, is useless to the French, but Rome, as the boss The brand empire is different in France, where all kinds of luxury goods have a large market share!More importantly, even if export tariffs can be used to fill the vacancy in grain purchases for a while, without new places to buy grain, the empire will always be subject to France, the enemy that replaced Poland as the empire's largest grain importer!

What a tricky question!

"The French thought they had enough of an advantage over the Habsburgs, so they didn't accommodate us in tariffs. Colbert received his king's will and happily fulfilled his long-cherished wish. Erics." Cheap Dad called the name of the Minister of Finance of the Empire, "Stable food prices, this is not the first time, everyone knows what to do, I don't want to see the Romans starve on their own land! Your proposal is very good, give It inspired me a lot...Well, it is possible to allow the French to buy goods equivalent to the currency they hold after selling their food at the shore. This can be adopted. Disclose the news that we have been raised by the French to Austria Habs. I think they'll be happy to hear that, Eriks, you and your people do a survey of the trade goods in the German area and hand them in. I'll use this to the Foreign Secretary later Talk to the Austrians about the German Regional Tariff Agreement. As for retaliation against France...."

I saw the so-called noble people at the table, all of them were in high spirits in an instant, and their eyebrows danced for a while, which made me almost think that I was not sitting in the power center of the entire empire, but standing on the street and meeting a group of people Hearing the boss say hello, a group of hooligans who came to flick their cuffs when they said they wanted to copy the guy to make trouble in the next block...

Well, can this be regarded as the prelude to the struggle between the Roman Empire and the French Kingdom for hegemony in Western Europe, and Alexander and I happened to quietly watch the Roman Empire Caesar sound the horn to declare war on this day?

"I have to think about some things carefully. Remember, after today's adjournment, immediately come up with a proposal to reduce the budget of various departments of the empire! Submit it in two days!"

that's it?

That's it, if an empire wants to launch an offensive, many details must be carefully studied!Because, at that time, it will no longer be a military offensive, but an all-round, overwhelming attack. Military invasion is just the most direct and easiest way, but besides this, there are diplomacy and economics!

After talking about the affairs of France, it is the turn of the Muslim issue in the east.Muslims in the south have made small moves in Syria.

Speaking of Muslims, in my impression, these guys used to be able to marry four wives, not eat pork, and Uncle Bin Laden. If they had nothing to do, they would ask the world Jingchamidi to make a few gestures. The most sensational success was to turn on the black machine Take a look at the Empire State Building in Midi.

But in this world, Muslims have been brought to Yuchi because of my predecessor's strong resistance to the two Western Expeditions.He is a brother and sister of our Roman Empire.But at any rate, they pushed back the Persian Empire. They were worried about the gray hair of many Byzantine emperors. They were not the strongmen who attacked the Crusaders head-on.

He bowed his head and proclaimed himself a minister, and sent a lot of banknotes and beauties over.This soft knife stabbed the Mongols on the eastern front into a sharp drop in combat effectiveness.How else can we say that beauties are a national strategic reserve just like gold!There are beauties in Arabia, and our Millennium Empire is not bad.There is a saying, priests hold back, veterans stand at the head of the city, generals rebel to death endlessly, educated youths sing about the ancients and visit flower houses, emperors worry outside the city, princes worry, worry, loli, ladies, housewives marry barbarians... ..

Anyway, basically, the two sides' offensives against the beauties of the tribes and leaders on their respective borders have been going on harmoniously.Until one day in the last century, the Muslims in the south ushered in a savior who radiated a sense of sacred mission, and then the Muslims rebelled.Our side also intervened, and we completely expelled the power of the Mongols from the Arabian Peninsula.During that time, the Muslims were very prosperous. They defeated the Roman Empire twice, and there were countless small victories. Even the old guy's teeth were polished by that guy.However, that guy with the aura of sacred mission all over his body was very short-lived, he died in his 40s, and the sons of his dozens of wives who didn't know if they were their own sons fought to divide up the family property.

The people in our empire are not good people. It is natural to bully a group of brats while they are awesome and I am dead.Like my great-grandfather, he chopped off three sons of the Muslim savior who was said to have impregnated [-] cows and tens of thousands of horses, laid eggs with countless hens, and produced [-] catties per mu.My grandfather wiped out two sultanates, captured a grandson of that guy, hundreds of grandsons-in-law and their great-grandchildren.When it came to Daddy Cheap, he was relatively inferior, so he captured Damascus and happily ran back to Constantinople to be named Caesar.

It has been more than ten years since the cheap daddy was named Caesar. If the southern Muslims are itchy, they want to take advantage of our shift in strategic layout and try to unify several Islamic countries that are split in half of the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt.

I don't know the reason why Cheap Papa spared those Muslim countries. Maybe he also realized that although Muslims are easy to fight, it is not realistic to want the entire empire to benefit from it.So today's motion against Muslims is just a taste of it. It is only handed over to the ministers of the Ministry of Military Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is not as grand as it is against France.

"Long live Rome!!"

With his back to the empire map, Father Cheap suddenly raised his hand high. In the hall, all the senior officials, including me, had to immediately raise their right hand to respond.

"For the Empire!!!"

Cheap Daddy kept us all at the end of the meeting, and he announced to us that he was going to revise the terms of the military academy, so we don't have to go back to the military academy anymore.We will do some things in the future.After telling the news, he wanted to be alone in meditation, so we resigned and left the conference hall.