Xinshun 1730

Chapter 242 Changes in Taixing 16 Years

India, Pondicherry occupied by France.

A beautiful large ship stayed in the port, and the rest of the accompanying ships were busy loading supplies, waiting for the arrival of the monsoon season, and they were going to China.

Along the way are British or Dutch ports with poor relations, and there is no chance of resupply after leaving Pondicherry.

Fortunately, the merchant ships of the East India Company will guide the diplomatic fleet of the special envoys of the King of France to Guangdong, and then go north to Weihai.

This time the envoys sent by France were extremely gorgeous, and the envoys were the highly valued Count Morpa.

In the future, he will be the supervisor and chief minister of the Louis XVI era, and the "prime minister" during the economic reform period that triggered the French Revolution.

But at this time, Count Morpa was still very young, but he was already in a high position.

Now 34, he is already France's Minister of the Navy, in charge of naval, trade and colonial affairs.

This trip to China, since China sent the Duke to Paris, the French king must also send enough important ministers to show equal respect.

Presents of all kinds were carried on board, and besides French luxuries, there was a great deal of machinery.

This point is the suggestion of the great colonial leader Duplex.

He believes that China does not lack any luxury goods, and France does not have any luxury goods that can impress the Chinese emperor. It is better to buy some tools and equipment.

The young Duplex is not yet the governor of India, or the person in charge.

The current head of the East India Company is Dumas, who is very prudent and cautious. The French do not want a conflict with Britain here, let alone a war.

Duke Price's ideas were too radical, and this time the envoys to Dashun also brought Cardinal Fleury's warning: Do not continue to expand in India, so as not to touch the interests of Britain.

Duplex was rather dismissive of this, thinking that his bosses were a bunch of cowards.

In his view, France's interests in India are not trade at all, but should invest more resources to seize India and collect taxes.

If the French are not enough, the local Indians can be trained as soldiers to solve the problem of long-distance transportation.

Moreover, the military factories in China can also produce cannons and rifles now. I have to say that their imitation 1728 rifles are quite good, and the price is not expensive.

If necessary, it is entirely possible to buy enough arms from China, arm the Indian soldiers, take advantage of the opportunity of the declining Mughal warlords to seize land and collect taxes, instead of relying on trade for granted.

As for trade... After the Mississippi bubble burst, many aristocrats went bankrupt, and unfunded paper money filled the French treasury hole, but many people were also involved in the scam.

People no longer believed in overseas trade as fanatically as before, and for the East India Company, it was a disaster.

After the bubble burst, France had extremely poor consumption capacity for silk and porcelain.

Kolbe's previous extreme trade protectionist policies even caused the Netherlands, Britain and others to impose heavy tariffs on French products, resulting in sluggish exports, and the domestic sales of luxury goods of the East India Company were also not good.

All of this gave Duplex a bold idea: why not conquer India and make a profit by collecting taxes in India?
This time Earl Morpa went to Dashun as the special envoy of the King of France. Duplex became famous because of his familiarity with Chinese affairs and the 120% profit he had gained from presiding over Guangdong trade before. He, of course, is also his escort now.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Duplex was able to talk to Count Morpa about his vision.In his opinion, Count Morpa should support his idea.

Moreover, his concept of India has an important premise, that is, the French navy is strong enough to ensure that the navy can support India instead of being stuck in Europe by the British.

Wanting to boost the navy, Earl Morpa, as the Minister of the Navy at this time, is a suitable spokesperson.

"My lord, I have gained a lot of experience in dealing with the Chinese. One of them is that in the previous dynasty of China, the Ming Empire, their generals were restrained by civil officials, so they perished."

"And our French navy is taking this path. The dispute between the Feather Party and the Saber Party has seriously weakened the strength of the navy. Without a strong enough navy, there will be no trade."

The Feather Party refers to civil servants.

The Saber Party is the French saber aristocrat and an important composition of naval officers.After the Great Revolution, a wave of nobles was purged, and the combat effectiveness of the French navy plummeted, but the combat effectiveness of the French navy now has a big problem.

The centralization policy of the Louis XIV era, some missionaries’ praise of the Chinese system, and the policy of weakening the nobility by the civil servants who must go through the centralization, all made the French naval reform present a strange "Ming army after the civil castle" state.

In Kolbe's naval reform, a very important one is that civilians control the army.

Richelieu hoped to improve the centralization of power. The political system that Richelieu dreamed of was the civil politics of the Eastern Empire, which weakened the power of the aristocracy and strengthened the power of the civil servants.

In the Richelieu era, in the French Navy, civilian officials controlled promotion, logistics, supplies, and military pay.Generals are in charge of combat.

Corbet's reforms followed Richelieu's direction and went a step further.

The civil service director not only retains all the administrative power and military finance, but also has the power to supervise the military, military law, and most importantly: when the war starts, the civil service director has the final decision on the fleet's strategy and tactics, and the civil service is restrained.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that the navy is a technical arm, and civilian officials with no experience in naval warfare have too much control, which seriously weakens the combat effectiveness of the navy.

Even later, France realized this problem, and took back the strategic and combat decision-making power of civilian officials, and the war committee composed of military generals was in charge.

However, delegating power is easy and difficult to collect power. Civil servants have obtained many powers such as port affairs and administration.

It's hard to return.

Since then, the battle between the Feather Party and the Saber Party has not stopped.

They have been arguing all day long, and no one is convinced. The contradiction between the two sides is deepening, which makes the naval operations timid.

Of course, this centralized reform also has great benefits.

Under the civil service system, the French shipbuilding industry was formalized, and the various shipyards under bureaucratic control gave France many advantages in warship design and warship assembly.

And Kolbe's overly advanced concept of "standardization" has made the French Navy's warship assembly speed the highest in Europe. It can even assemble standard warships with some standard parts. It is said that a standard cruise ship can be assembled within a few days. ship.

However, the battle between civil servants and generals made the combat effectiveness of the French navy very confusing. At least in Duplex's view, it is impossible for this naval system with excessive power and responsibility of civilian control to win against the British navy.

The army may be able to do this, but the navy is a technical arm, and a group of civilian officials who don't know how to navigate can fully control the navy, which is a bit too restrictive.

For this reason, France took a different path to the same goal as the Dashun military reform at this time: to open a naval academy, with military students as the intermediate force, to maintain civilian restraint and at the same time have a good combat effectiveness.

A retirement system is adopted for sailors. After retiring, sailors can receive one-third of their salary, but they may be recruited to board the ship at any time, and receive full military pay after boarding the ship.

Adopt the military rank system and so on.

The problem is that Dashun's army has no opponents around.

So after such a military reform, even if someone commands indiscriminately, with the advantage of being an officer, they will still keep crushing the surrounding area.

And the French navy... fighting hard may not be able to beat the UK, and it is even more useless to be restrained by civilian restraints who do not understand navigation and naval warfare.

It was the first time Earl Morpa had heard about civil servants restraining generals in the Ming Empire, but he knew that the problem Duplex said did exist.

As Minister of the Navy, he hopes to revive the French navy, at least to maintain a balance of power against Britain and the Netherlands.

And as a hereditary nobleman, one can imagine his attitude towards civil restraint.

But this matter is too difficult, and now he is more concerned about whether the development of Dashun's navy will affect the interests of France.

"Mr. Duplex, based on what you know about China, isn't the navy they are training now controlled by civilians?"

Duplex shook his head.

"The emerging navy, if it is put in shackles too early, it will not develop. Perhaps, one day in the future, their navy will also be put in shackles, but not now. Their earls are fully responsible for this matter, although There is no Minister of the Navy in China, but it may be considered that the Earl we are about to meet in Weihai is the Minister of the Navy of the Shun Empire."

Earl Morpa asked: "You don't have the slightest worry about the naval construction of the Shun Empire?"

"Yes. It may take another 100 years for the navy of the Shun Empire to catch up with us. And they still have many potential enemies in the South China Sea. I think when their navy is built, the enemy of choice will be the Netherlands .”

"My lord, from the envoys of the empire, we can know that they hope to make an ally with France. As for Russia, they are just to demarcate the border."

"Also, even if we don't sell warships, the British, Dutch, and Spaniards might sell them. This eastern empire is too rich."

At least at this time, these colonial leaders can only express their envy for China's prosperity, but they dare not have any unrealistic ideas.

Even if the Mughal Empire hadn't collapsed, Duplex would not have had all kinds of bold ideas.

Count Morpas agreed with Duplex's judgment. In fact, this alliance with Dashun was a rare unanimous attitude of the French court.

In the war of Polish succession that broke out not long ago, the peace faction and the war faction in France had been fighting openly and secretly for a long time.

Cardinal Foles, who was in power, had always hoped to mediate relations with Austria and maintain peace on the European continent as much as possible, thereby isolating Britain.

Regarding the issue of the Polish throne this time, Forlus did not advocate war.However, the king got the support of the war faction and advocated for the rights and interests of his father-in-law.

The start of the war completely ruined the cardinal's idea of ​​a good relationship with Austria.

The only thing the cardinal can do is to actively mediate to ensure that France is only fighting in Germany and Italy, ensuring that the interests of the Netherlands and Britain will not be touched, so as to avoid the involvement of Britain and the Netherlands in this war.

Britain and the Netherlands, which were severely injured by the South China Sea bubble, did not want to be involved in this war, and the two hit it off.The French army was "counseled" very much, and did not dare to "surprise" the Dutch "friendly countries".

But in Asia, when Dashun’s envoys arrived in Paris, and when Duplex sent Liu Yu’s letter, the French court was still very positive about this diplomacy.

Whether it is the main combat faction or the main peace faction, they have shown great interest in this diplomatic invitation from a country tens of thousands of miles away.

After all, it is the most magnificent imperial crown in the world.

The main combat faction hopes to get an ally who just started war against Russia not long ago. The enemy of the enemy is my friend.

The peace faction hopes to expand trade with China and fill up the French economy after the Mississippi bubble burst.

However, Duplex is not optimistic about the prospect of the special envoy of the King of France going to Beijing this time.

Judging from the news revealed by the Earl, this time it seems that he hopes to send people to Jingdezhen to learn the technology of burning paper and porcelain, allow some tea seeds to be taken away, and learn silk weaving technology.

This made Duplex have to wonder if the king and the court ministers were out of their minds.

Judging from his previous experience dealing with Liu Yu, Dashun officials are not fools. How could they allow the three most profitable trade technologies, porcelain, silk and tea, to flow out?
Judging from the experience of dealing with Liu Yu, Dashun is most interested in various technologies.

However, instead of buying these technologies from France, they can also be bought from other countries. They are willing to sell silver and gold, and they are not short of gold and silver.

Naturally, the hen that lays eggs will not be sold, and Dashun has no shortage of eggs.

As for the expansion of trade, Duplex, who is in charge of trade in India, thinks it is purely a dream.

There is nothing in France that can be sold in Dashun, and most of the cargo ships bound for Guangdong every year are silver.In the past few years, he has established a good relationship with Liu Yu. The woolen, asphalt, canvas, cables, etc. needed for the naval construction are all handed over to France as a diplomatic olive branch, and finally they can sell more goods every year.But that's about it.

China's handicraft industry is too developed, and many things can be imitated in Dashun after a short time.Even for things like clocks and watches, many people in Guangdong can make them, although the quality is still slightly inferior.

Instead of thinking about how to expand trade with China diplomatically, it is better to be more realistic and grow more American ginseng in the North American colonies... That stuff is still very easy to sell.

Tariffs are already very low, and Dashun does not have any trade protection policies. If it cannot be sold, it will not be sold. This cannot be solved by diplomacy.

Or, you should consider the Sino-French alliance and drag China into the war in Europe.Even if it is to instigate and instigate Dashun to go to war against the Netherlands, it will be beneficial to France.

Even an alliance with great fanfare will deter countries such as Britain, the Netherlands, and Russia.Duplex felt that among those idiots in Paris, none of them understood China, nor did they understand trade. They didn't even understand that the root cause of the trade deficit was the lack of goods to sell in France, not China's trade protection policies.

No European country has such low tariffs as Guangdong and Fujian.Compared with the 120% tea tax in the UK and the luxury tax on silk fabrics in France, Dashun is simply a model of free trade.

It's just that Duplex doesn't know what Count Morpas is going to talk about this time, what is the diplomatic deal that France hopes to reach, so he can only complain, reminding Count Morpas not to do unrealistic things delusion.

"My lord, France's interests in Asia should focus on India. A rich India can not only trade, but also rule India and collect taxes. Our handicraft industry has no advantage over Asia, whether it is India or China. "

"The alliance with China is good for us and not bad. China is surrounded by rich Japan, and the Netherlands, Britain, and Spain in the south. With Malacca as the boundary, France's India and China's Southeast Asia, this is for us. is the most beneficial."

"As for trade... I suggest that you stay in Guangdong or Fujian, and look at their towns, and their silk and cotton textile industries. If you can go to Jiangsu for a stay, you may be able to understand more intuitively what is the Kingdom of Heaven Everything."

(End of this chapter)