New Shun 1730

Duke Choiseul had to agree with the words of the Dashun envoys.

But he could only make it clear to the Dashun people that he was not a fool.

He became the Minister of State this year just to clean up this mess.

He could not create a main fleet or a mobile corps for the French Army in a short time. He did not have such magic.

Everything he could do must be based on reality.

The reality is that there is a problem with the navy construction idea, the national finances, and the army construction. However, the commander has to take many things into consideration when commanding. For example, when the cavalry charged, the only son of the Minister of the Army served in the cavalry, so the commander was very cautious and did not dare to let the cavalry charge directly, which also led to a failure.

These things cannot be solved overnight, let alone by him as the Minister of State.

This is not the time to say that the ice is frozen three feet and it is not a day's cold, but the time to do what should be done now that things have come to this point.

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

This is the reality. At this point, many reminders and accusations from the Dashun envoys are a bit of a waste of time.

Of course, if Dashun joins the war, the reality itself will change. However, even if Dashun sends a high-level envoy to France, it seems that Dashun is unlikely to participate in the war for the time being.

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

Merchant ships flying the Dashun flag are roaming everywhere, under the banner of armed neutrality, constantly exchanging various goods for silver on the routes where privateers from various countries hijack merchant ships.

It is difficult to say that there is any real friendship between countries. Perhaps Dashun can have a slightly better relationship with France because they are both absolute monarchies, but I think that's all.

Spain also involves direct interests such as Gibraltar, colonies, slave trade, and Portugal. Even so, it has not yet participated in the war.

In the eyes of Duke Choiseul, the cost of Dashun's participation in the war is very high, and the benefits it can get seem to be not 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 the trade between the East and the West.

Now, it is Dashun, the producer, that basically monopolizes the trade and transportation between the East and the West, and the annual trade volume is tens of millions of taels.

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

Such an inference is very reasonable.

It is not that France did not send an envoy to Dashun before, but it was just to establish good relations, because the French king's aristocratic circle believed that France could not come up with enough things to exchange with Dashun-including India.

In the eyes of France, India is worthless.

So, 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 possible military expenditures of tens of millions of taels?

The duke who was in charge of the foreign policy of Dashun behind the scenes, as known to the French, obviously had shrewd diplomatic skills and would not do business at a loss.

Therefore, after the Dashun group pointed out that his strategy was not right and the gambling element was too big, Duke Choiseul could only explain patiently, and expressed many dissatisfactions with France's previous policies in his words, and revealed a somewhat pessimistic and disappointed mood: Perhaps, whether it wins or loses, the war will end next year. Then France will carry out a comprehensive reform involving finance, army, and navy during the truce period, and fight back in the future.

However, the people of the Dashun envoys still insisted on the strategy of taking a gamble and landing in Scotland, as if forcing Duke Choiseul to make a public admission that the success rate of this strategy was very low.

"My Chinese lords, I admit that the success rate of this battle 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. But obviously, the success rate of your plan is zero."

"My king does not have so much money in the treasury. And even if there is, it is impossible to expand 20 standard battleships in a year. The money for shipbuilding alone requires about 140 million livres. Even if your country gives France unlimited support and supports a low-interest loan of 100 million livres, it will take three years to complete the shipbuilding work."

"Unless...unless, like the support that the Celestial Empire gave us in India, the finished warships are leased to us."

The people of the Dashun envoys thought, you are thinking beautifully, leasing is not impossible, the key is, what do you have in exchange?

This time, Dashun actually wants a lot of things.

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

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

Another example is when both sides formulate common, rational, and universal weights and measures. For example, the length unit is created based on the length of longitude and latitude lines or the diameter of the earth, and the weight unit is created based on the ratio of this length unit to water, etc.

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

This is certainly very possible. Because of the factors of the Enlightenment, as well as the spread of Eastern learning to the West and the China craze, Dashun only needs to give up an old thing appropriately and adopt a brand-new, world-wide and universal thing to become national and national.

The earth belongs to the world. Water is also the source of life for all humans in the world.

But taking the length of the earth and the density of water to create a new, universal, and nation-created unit of weights and measures, under the influence of the Enlightenment and China fever, it will not arouse too much opposition.

On the contrary, with the help of China fever, Dashun can also serve as "the utopia imagined by rationalists that sounds full of rational tone at first sight."

Of course, this kind of weights and measures will not be popularized within Dashun for the time being. It is mainly used in foreign exchanges and foreign trade. However, it will be of great significance in the future and will further divide the practical school and the economic school within Dashun.

These things must be discussed slowly, but once the discussion begins, everything must be made clear and settled.

If Duke Choiseul knew that Dashun wanted to talk about these things, then he knew that Dashun had serious ambitions.

That would actually make him happy, because his ambition was not small, so he could clearly believe that Dashun was willing to pay a huge price to participate in this European war that was temporarily out of reach of Dashun and turn the European war into a world war.

The problem is that these people in the Dashun envoy did not talk about this, nor did they reveal it, but they insisted on strategic and tactical issues, which made Duke Choiseul a little confused.

In fact, the reason why the members of the Dashun mission were obsessed with this issue was mainly because it involved the most critical link in Dashun's strategy.

The King of France and the Minister of State of France must keep their composure.

The so-called calmness means that if the British send troops to harass French coastal cities on a small scale again, they should not be misled by the British.

Because once the British lead them by the nose.

In other words, if you cannot withstand the pressure of public opinion, big trouble will easily happen.

The British are likely to engage in a strategy similar to a land battle, siege the city and mobilize reinforcements, and mobilize the French fleet. It will be uncomfortable if the British actually win a decisive naval battle by gambling.

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

When the time comes, there will be pressure on both sides, it depends on which side can sit still.

If France can sit still, then the main force of the British navy will not dare to move, and it will be forced to a decisive battle by domestic businessmen and financiers, because they cannot withstand Dashun's trade smuggling and conspiracy in the colonies.

On the other hand, if France cannot sit still and Britain makes a move to attack some ports, and the pressure of public opinion forces the French navy to rescue the siege, it will be easy for the British to defeat them one by one.

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

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

If the Minister of State cannot withstand this pressure and is criticized by public opinion today, he will first have to obey public opinion or the criticism of the public. Then even if the King of France can withstand it, this matter will be difficult to handle.

If Louis XV really had the courage to "not care about the flood after I die", it would be easy to say. In fact, he doesn't have the courage. He just complains that "after we die, there will be a flood", and he may 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 estate, making it easy for public opinion in Paris to influence French decision-making.

In this era when even standard French has not yet been unified, and local forces still only recognize the local area and not the motherland.

Paris is France.

The Paris salon circle is the center of public opinion in France.

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

Just like the shooting incident of an admiral in the UK, once the storm of public opinion arises, it is unclear whether the French King and the Minister of State can withstand the pressure of being attacked on the French coast.

By then, both Britain and France will be under tremendous pressure. Relatively speaking, the pressure on France is actually smaller. If Britain's trade lines were really cut off, Britain would bear much greater pressure than France. As long as you sit tight, you have a good chance of winning.

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

This will make them more inclined and more receptive to Dashun's opinions in future cooperation.