Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2441 Waves ([-])

September 1701, 9, Louvre.

Louis XIV finally left the lovely girls and returned from Versailles.To be honest, at his age, it's better to keep such things in check.Not to mention what time is it now?King Carlos II of Spain died of illness, and the throne of Madrid was suspended. Envoys and spies from almost all of Europe gathered there. Louis XIV should have made a decision early.

"Now is an era of storms. The history of our country is advancing at a rapid pace, and the current year sometimes exceeds the past ten years. When people summarize our era in the future, they will inevitably establish some reform policies for this time. Make a very high evaluation. We need peace now and it takes time. The wounds caused by the last war are far from healed, and the government debt has not been digested. huge negative effect."

It was Baptiste who spoke, and Louis XIV could hear him.Since Colber's death, Baptiste has entered politics, working successively in the judiciary, military logistics and trade.To be honest, Louis XIV was very dissatisfied with his work, especially when he was the head of the finance and trade department, he could not raise enough money, food and materials to support his conquest ambitions, which made him very hopeful.Therefore, Baptiste has been reprimanded, transferred and even demoted by him several times, but now there is a shortage of talents in France—to be precise, the lack of talents in the nobles. Bit—Louis XIV always felt that he was surrounded by idiots, so he transferred Baptiste back from the provinces. At least he was cutely stupid, wasn't he?

To be fair, Baptiste's talents are definitely not as good as his father Colbert's, but he may have been influenced by his family, and he pays more attention to industry and commerce.After returning from other provinces, referring to the experience of people from the East Coast in running enterprises, they carried out drastic reforms to a large number of textile factories, military factories, leather factories, and paper factories jointly run by the government or government and businessmen in Paris and nearby towns. The main purpose is to reduce costs. ,Improve efficiency.To this end, he also sold the equity of many factories, that is, privatization, and the funds returned were contributed to the finance to repay the principal and interest of various debts that are about to mature.

Louis XIV was noncommittal about Baptiste's reform measures.On the one hand, those factories spent a lot of money, and some didn't make much money. On the other hand, the large sum of money exchanged did make France's finances a little looser, which was overwhelmed by debts.However, Louis XIV has ordered to stop the sale of factories, and the reason is very simple. He is no longer prepared to repay the huge debts he owed during the last war, and he still needs these factories to serve his ambitions, so everything resumes naturally. As is.

Baptiste was worried about this, and believed that it was not appropriate for France to be involved in the war now.Domestic industry and agriculture, which have just started to improve, are in urgent need of respite and capital injection.He hoped for a peace period of more than ten years, but Louis XIV obviously could not meet his request.So he was very angry and full of complaints, which made Louis XIV frown.

"You are too stupid to think so." said the fourth generation of Conti Prince Francois: "Now is a good opportunity. Carlos II has no heirs, and we have legal principles to obtain the throne of Spain. Once successful , our influence can extend to the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, Catalonia will be merged into France, and Spain will annex Portugal. Not only will our territory be greatly expanded, but we will also be able to obtain huge resources from the overseas colonies created by the Iberians , This is of great benefit to future development, Europe will no longer have our opponents, and everyone will prostrate before His Majesty and beg for forgiveness."

It is said that Francois, Prince of Conti, has an embarrassing position in the French court.This gentleman participated in the anti-Ottoman Turkey war with his elder brother when he was young, and later served in the French Army. It cannot be said that he has made many military exploits, but his performance is not bad, he is quite satisfactory, and he has completed his mission well.

A few years ago, for some reason, King Louis XIV of France became suspicious of him, so he was transferred from the army and a secret review was launched on him.But Louis XIV also knew that it was too much to treat a royal family and aristocrats like this. In order to silence the public, he gave Prince Conti a sum of money and a boat, and asked him to take his entourage to run for the king of Poland.It is worth mentioning that the Poles’ invitation to Prince Conti was also very suspicious. Many people speculated that it was actually the result of the efforts of Louis XIV’s instructing his diplomats to send Prince Conti away from France.

Prince Conti was naturally unwilling to leave Paris.He knew what the king of Poland was, a big fire pit, and it wasn't comfortable being one at all.August of Saxony is nothing more than coveting, after all, what he wants is the title of king, and he still has the basic base of Saxony, so he is not worried at all.But Prince Conti has nothing, and he can't fart when he arrives in Warsaw. What's the point of being a king?But Louis XIV's attitude was very firm, Conte had to go, and he had to go if he didn't!In desperation, he dawdled for a few months, and seeing that he couldn't go on, he left the port of Le Havre by boat and headed for Poland.

As a result, I don’t know whether it was his good luck or bad luck. When the ship he took had just arrived in the Free City of Gdansk, news came from Warsaw that August, Duke of Saxony, had successfully campaigned to be crowned King of Poland.Disappointed, Prince Conti didn't say much, and returned to France directly.

After returning to Paris, Prince Conti has been relatively obedient and actively integrated into French political life. At the same time, he continued to cater to Louis XIV on various occasions to reduce his suspicion.For example, he was very aware of Louis XIV's thoughts and ambitions, and his desire to conquer. Therefore, during the court discussions, he was always a resolute main fighter, advocating that France send troops as soon as possible to occupy all of Spain's territory—including The southern Netherlands and the Italian territories—not everyone agrees with Prince Conti, not even the fifth Prince Conti.But Prince Conti insisted that the purpose was to show his loyalty to Louis XIV, which was well-intentioned.

"When a person is extremely weak, it is impossible to seize any opportunity." Baptiste was not afraid of Prince Conti, so he said plausibly: "Wars cost a lot of money, and you need to study the situation carefully. Have you seriously considered preventing the intervention of foreign interference forces?"

"The Austrians are nothing to worry about. The Grand Vizier Effendi of Turkey is a militant, and he has been seeking to recover lost territories such as Hungary. As long as we keep in touch with them and give some financial and material assistance, I believe he will You made the right choice. As for the English and the Dutch, they are old opponents, and we are all familiar with their methods. I think I will teach them a good lesson on the battlefield."

"They are not so easy to defeat. The navy of the British is very powerful, and the navy of the Dutch is also very powerful, and they have sufficient funds to purchase military supplies and recruit mercenaries all over the world. Once the war lasts for a long time, the victorious The balance will slowly fall to their side, which has been proven before." Baptiste responded without hesitation: "Also, you forgot a much more terrible than the British and the Dutch The country, that is the East Coast Republic of China. The strength of their naval fleet cannot be underestimated, and their economic strength is even more powerful. They also have troops stationed in Italy and Portugal. If they join the war and stand on the opposite side of us, it will How to deal with the matter? As far as I know, the people on the east coast covet Spanish America very much, and do everything possible to seize those lands and join them with their existing lands. The possibility of their participation in the war is not low, my lord prince .”

"I read some Italian newspapers recently, of course it was a month ago." The fifth generation Prince Condé who had been sitting silently on the side spoke, only to hear him say: "All the newspapers have been published for several weeks in a row. published fierce articles announcing that the East Coasters were on their side and supported their war against the South. And an emissary sent by the East Coasters to the area was also very active, and he kept uttering some very inflammatory words, It excited the hearts of Genoa*, Venice, Florence, Milan, etc. According to intelligence, the Northern Italian Federation’s parliament called the generals commanding the divisions to Venice for a meeting, and even those stationed in Corsica went. Parliament has been meeting after meeting, the people are noisy and excited, and it seems that war is about to break out. Gentlemen, I think this is an important signal that the people of the east coast are likely to take action in the Apennine peninsula. Now, What we need to know is whether the eastern coast government intends to directly intervene once the Northern Italian Federation decides to invade and annex other peninsula powers, and to what extent. If they are deeply involved in Italy, I think It is difficult to spare energy to deal with other directions in a short period of time, this is an opportunity for the Kingdom of France. Gentlemen, we should start from this direction."

Obviously, Prince Condé is also a main combat faction.He directly refuted Baptiste's words, pointing out that France could take advantage of the favorable opportunity to launch a war when the people on the east coast had no time to care about him.As long as they move fast enough, it seems that they can invade Madrid before the people on the east coast express their opinions, creating a fait accompli-don't doubt that the vast majority of nobles in the Kingdom of Spain support the Kingdom of France. Once they march, there will be little resistance, and even There may be a large number of leading parties.

"Gentlemen, the possibility of peace still exists, but it is very small." Louis XIV entered the room boldly, put a copy of the will on the table in his hand, and said: "The throne of Spain belongs to the Duke of Anjou (Louis XIV Grandson of Si), this is stipulated in the will, and the Spanish nobles also recognize it. But London, Vienna, and The Hague will not let it go, they will not recognize the legal rights of the Duke of Anjou. Therefore, I hope you will do it as soon as possible Prepare, prepare for war!"

(End of this chapter)