New Shun 1730

Until the arrival of the high-profile envoys of Dashun at Versailles, France was still in a state of peace and prosperity, and the advantage was in my hands.

As for the army, the French were very confident.

As they described it: Hanover was the King of England's eggs, and the British fleet was like two hands, which could snatch jewels, wealth, spices, and trade. But it was useless, because the British eggs were in the hands of the French army. No matter what the British hands snatched from France overseas, as long as they squeezed the eggs hard, the British would scream and let go, and give everything back.

As for the navy, the French were not very confident. The construction idea of ​​the administrative navy has enabled France to gather a total of 63 battleships, of which 45 can still be used, and the rest are basically in a semi-dead state. This is a few decades of inventory. Unlike the crazy increase in the past two decades of Dashun, the French are indeed capable of warship design, but the problem is that there is not much increase.

However, even the navy, which was not very confident, still gave the British a hard job.

The French fleet defeated the British fleet in the Mediterranean, captured Minorca Island, and occupied Mahon, the British naval base in the Mediterranean.

By the way, the British Admiral John Byng who went to rescue was sentenced to execution after returning home.

Britain is a naval country, and there is no shortage of naval talents. Many people are waiting in line to be promoted to admiral.

Execution itself is not a big deal, and the French should expect a British admiral who lost a naval battle to France to continue to be the commander-in-chief of the fleet.

But John Byng's execution gave the French great confidence, and they were even about to cheer for victory in advance.

Because this proves one thing:

Britain is in chaos and is seriously underprepared for war.

John Byng is obviously a scapegoat, and directly taking the admiral as a scapegoat proves that the financiers in Britain who support the war are in urgent need of an explanation, otherwise they may not continue to support the war.

If the internal doubts were not so strong, the admiral who went to rescue would not be directly shot.

Compared with the tactical capture of the British naval base in Mahon, this strategic response made France ecstatic.

It seems that everything is moving forward on the war track set by the French, and the initiative of the war is in the hands of France: it can attack Gibraltar, let the Mediterranean Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet meet and land in Scotland, and the army can also directly take Hanover.

Even before the Dashun envoys arrived in Versailles, France had not yet sold official positions and titles. The enthusiasm of French capitalists to buy national debts was high, and they subscribed to 136 million livres of national debts in one year.

You must know that this is France, an absolute monarchy in France. It is said that "anyone who is ready to lend money to the king must be prepared to lose all his money and the king will not repay the debt." France.

One livre is about 5 grams of silver, which can be simply understood as 7 livres is one customs tael, which is about 20 million taels of silver in national debt.

Then...

It was as if the Dashun envoys had some kind of magic, or as if the comet that appeared this year would really bring disaster.

With the arrival of the Dashun envoys in France, bad news that was unfavorable to France began to come one after another.

The first thing that arrived in France with the Dashun envoys was the bad news from India.

After the British captured Bengal, they immediately went south. France believed that the British were entangled in Bengal, and the rear must be empty, so they sent troops to capture the British castle. But the British won too smoothly in Bengal. After receiving the support of the Bengal cavalry, they quickly went south and wiped out the last mobile field force of France in India, which had been stationed under the strong city for a long time.

At this point, the situation in India was completely out of control, and the strategic initiative created by Dupleix was completely lost. What's more terrible is that France has completely lost its field combat capability. Five cities were broken one by one by the British, leaving only the last one, Pondicherry, still holding on.

The French Navy fought with the British Navy several times, and they were evenly matched in India.

But the problem was that the fortress was broken, and Dashun refused to allow the French navy to go to Ceylon or Malacca for supplies and repairs, so it could only retreat to Mauritius.

Basically, it can be said that France has completely failed in India.

On the European continent.

Bad news also kept coming.

Frederick II used the standard strategy of "I will only fight one way no matter how many ways you come" to win two genius-level tactical victories in the gap between the anti-Prussian coalition forces, directly reversing the strategic situation that was almost over before and stabilizing the situation in Prussia.

He also won the value of united front by relying on his tactical ability. A subsidy of 1.9 million taels quickly arrived in Berlin from London.

For Prussia, the victory in this battle, which was fought in one direction, allowed Prussia to survive. It also allowed Frederick II, who had previously wanted to "opportunistically capture Prague and annihilate the Austrian field mobile forces before Russia and France mobilized to facilitate peace talks", to regain confidence from more than half a year of confusion, decadence, and even despair and suicide.

For the Anglo-Prussian alliance, this battle directly reversed the attitude of the British and promoted the strategic unity within the UK.

The previous capture of Mahon and the loss of the Mediterranean led to the fall of the British cabinet.

The disagreement within Britain over the war strategy was still about the fundamental question: Are you, George II, the King of England? Or the Elector of Hanover? Are you British? Or German?

Protect Hanover but not England?

The fall of the cabinet of the Duke of Newcastle made the "little patriots" represented by William Pitt officially enter the political arena.

Originally, when he was offstage, Pitt's main task was to criticize the government and the king, saying that the king's heart was in Hanover and he was not a qualified British king... This is how they got the title of "little patriot".

Pitt saw it very clearly, as he said himself: prestige and power in the House of Commons come from national influence, and national influence generally comes from anti-government activities.

So he had been busy opposing the government to expand his influence across the country, just waiting for the old cabinet to fall.

With Frederick's two genius tactical victories, William Pitt, with his national influence, was promoted to Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and Secretary of the Navy. He quickly changed his previous attitude of absolute opposition to investing too much in Europe and gave an explanation: If France captured Hanover, the French would unite the forces of Europe and isolate Britain. The Prussians proved their combat effectiveness, and it was beneficial to Britain to give the Prussians enough funding to let them hold back France on the European continent.

So far, Britain has a clear and definite strategic goal.

That is, on the European continent, use Prussia as a thug to hold back France. This thug has proved himself to be really useful and can really hold back France.

Overseas, the British Navy used its naval advantage to harass France and tried to land, causing panic in France, forcing France to keep a large number of fleets on the mainland.

Because every landing harassment would cause a great uproar in France, under pressure, France could not make the right decision, and could only leave a large part of the few navies on the coast to prevent Britain from harassing again.

In fact, France was not afraid of the British landing. If they really landed, it would be great. It would be a delivery. But the problem was that the public opinion was so loud that France had to keep a large number of naval forces in the mainland to prevent another landing.

In the Atlantic, Britain wanted to completely strangle France's overseas trade, block the relationship between France and the colonies, and let Britain defeat each colony and seize France's colonies.

Of course, there was a loophole in this policy, that is, some of France's traditional allies, such as Spain and Dashun, did not participate in the war.

Britain did not dare to hijack the ships of these two countries at this time. Although it was not perfect, it was enough to contain France and give birth to opposition within France.

The colonies were mainly in the following places: North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, and India.

India was basically solved.

West Africa was not a big problem.

The Caribbean was evenly matched for the time being.

North America was more disgusting.

France's strategic failure in North America was due to the fact that France was too rich.

The population was similar to that of Shandong in Dashun at this time, and it seemed that there were even fewer people in Shandong, and the cultivated land area was five times that of Shandong in Dashun at this time. If Shandong in Dashun had such per capita arable land, there would be no large-scale migration to Guandong.

The rich don't want to go.

The poor... the poor can't afford to go to Dashun, and the poor don't want to go to France either.

The self-employed farmers are mentally ill, and they will go there to cultivate the land.

To go there, you have to give up all your interpersonal relationships, buy your own boat tickets, and reclaim the land.

With this money, can't you buy land in your home country?

Those small islands in the Caribbean can grow sugarcane, what can be grown in North America?

Besides, I have enough money to open a plantation, so why don't I invest the money in Caribbean sugarcane, indigo, and fur ginseng in North America? For the long-term interests of the French nation, why don't I invest in low-return reclamation and immigration for the sake of high-return projects?

Louis XIV pondered for a long time before and realized that in this case, the only way to promote immigration is to rely on absolute royal power and government means.

It's not that he didn't think of a way, and he even came up with a policy like "the daughter of the king": any woman who married into the colonies would have her dowry paid by the king and receive a subsidy of 50 livres, and would be recognized as the honorary daughter of the king.

But it was useless, and no one went.

As for the "Edict of Fontainebleau", which forbade Protestants from going to the colonies... I can only say that Dashun should understand this situation very well. Dashun would never allow Muslims and Christians to go to the South Ocean, let alone move all the Christians in Macau to the South Ocean for reclamation, unless Dashun was crazy.

Including the wives of the troops stationed in Ceylon, if they were Bourgeois, they had to trample on the holy elephant, at least after this formality was completed, they would be allowed to follow their husbands to cultivate the South Ocean in the future.

Of course, the more fundamental reason was that the level of agricultural productivity in Europe was generally too low before.

Before the British Agricultural Revolution, the yield of wheat per acre was 11 bushels. In other words, the yield per mu was 90 kilograms.

To be honest, it was really the level of productivity before the Han Dynasty. The Chinese plow and ridge cultivation method were not introduced until the end of the Ming Dynasty.

So the population has never increased.

But with the advent of the era of great technological exchange between the East and the West, agricultural productivity has increased rapidly, and people are generally rich and have abundant resources per capita. It is really the level that every family has a chicken in the pot during the New Year. It is impossible to immigrate.

Including when the four old things were smashed later, the feudal patriarchal system of primogeniture inheritance was abolished, which led to the unwillingness of French farmers to have children. It was also because they did not want to decline in class due to a slightly higher living standard.

This is easy to understand. After proportional conversion, if Shandong of Dashun maintained 75 million mu of arable land, but only had 4 million people, if there was no enclosure movement, why would they go to Guandong?

As for the long-term bloody battles between Shandong and Jiangsu in the Weishan Lake area in history?

Unless France persecuted religion or a minority of people, forcing them to move to the colonies.

But the same problem as Dashun, let a minority group build a new France, and then can they believe that this new France is in the same mind as themselves?

This is different from Liu Yu in Songsu.

When Liu Yu was in Songsu, he did not persecute a minority of people who were labeled with religion or language, forcing them to go overseas to the southeast of Guandong.

Instead, I don’t care whether you believe in Buddhism, Confucianism, White Lotus, Green, or Taoism, as long as you are a hired farmer or a poor farmer, I will force you to quit your tenancy, run away, and work.

When Liu Yu was in Songsu, he was not doing labeling, but engaging in class struggle.

It's just that he temporarily stood on the side of the big landlords and capitalists, and launched a struggle against tenants and poor peasants.

This thing is not only a struggle between the lower and the upper, but also a struggle between the upper and the lower.

The difference is that if the salt workers' uprising won, Liu Yu would be hung on the windmill in northern Jiangsu for drying salt and drawing water; and the salt workers' uprising was suppressed by Liu Yu, so the salt workers could only go to Guandong as agricultural workers.

France certainly can't use similar means, and can't learn Liu Yu's "universally applicable class system forced immigration" policy in Songsu.

As for France's policy, it is actually appropriate overall. After all, the loyalty of the French in North America to France is much higher than that of the British in the south to Britain.

It's just that there are fewer people.

And this is related to the pit that Liu Yu had buried for France before, which boosted the economic value of North America. The income brought by the ginseng and mink trade made it impossible for France to give up easily. In contrast, it was found that India was a money-losing commodity, far inferior to North America, not to mention the sugarcane islands in the Caribbean.

So after the outbreak of the war, France's military strength in North America was basically OK, and it was not a problem to withstand the British attack in land warfare.

But Louisbourg still fell, because such a place, without a navy, is a dead end.

Except for Louisbourg, other places are OK.

France can hold on for the time being, and the forest pistols provided to the Indians by Dashun before also allowed the Indians to delay the British attack.

However, the fall of Louisbourg and the two genius battles of Frederick II made France anxious.

This is the strategic guidance submitted by Liu Yu to the emperor and then issued by the emperor to the envoys; Louis XV, judging from the situation of the last war, this guy is an opportunist.

It is difficult to change the opportunistic route.

So, obviously, France is now anxious, what can it do?

There are only two ways.

Concentrate the army, make a desperate bet, go straight to Hanover, and use their egg theory to force Britain to negotiate.

Concentrate the navy, take a gamble, rush to Scotland at all costs, use the Jacobite Party as an insider, and force Britain to negotiate.

These two moves are standard opportunistic routes. What did you do before? If you don’t do your work in advance and wait until something happens, you will be opportunistic. What are the chances of success?

Therefore, Dashun’s strategic guidance to the envoys also depends on the situation.

Opportunism may not necessarily fail.

Once France captures Hanover, or the French navy explodes and directly lands in Scotland... It is not impossible... Then there is no need to talk, and don’t sign the Sino-French Paris Treaty. Go home immediately, run as fast as you can, and don’t even go back to the capital, go directly to Ceylon, convey the news, and start a war directly.

If that really happens, Dashun must declare war on Britain and seize India before France negotiates with Britain, so that France can take advantage of the fire and increase the price to Britain, and don’t fucking plan halfway.