Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 898 Public Relations ([-])

The winter of 1651 was destined to be difficult for Candin, the head of the Florence Mercantile Station on the east coast.

At this time, he had already taken several personal entourages, boarded a brigantine ship under the name of Frank, the son of the Baron of Toulouse, and prepared to go north to Paris.They will first go to the port of Nantes to deal with a baronial family business, and then take a riverboat to Paris via Orleans to meet some powerful officials.

Recently, there has been bad news from the upper echelons of France. Even though the country is in the midst of a civil war, some gossip circulating among the upper echelons still makes the small East Coast Republic very nervous.For example, many French businessmen pointed out convincingly that their ships that had accidents in the Caribbean Sea had been captured by the people on the east coast, and the navy of the people on the east coast pretended to be pirates and committed ugly and despicable privateers.These rumors are not big or small, but they are extremely lethal. Although the French have no time to take care of them due to the civil war, there is no guarantee that they will not settle accounts after the autumn. The East Coast Republic of China was labeled an "evil country".

Frank's family has great influence in the Bas-Gallon and Languedoc regions. Therefore, this time Contin was ordered to go to Paris to carry out public relations, so he invited their family relationship.Of course, not only this, the East Coast people also have some channels of their own, such as the Talon family of the High Court and so on.In short, a dead horse is a living horse doctor, worship all the gods who can worship, and by the way, work hard on the high import tariffs on goods from the east coast, and see if there is any possibility of reducing it—to some extent In other words, this matter is probably more important than the public relations cleanup.

Their ships depart from the port of Bordeaux.Today, this formerly the most prosperous port in France has gradually faded from its former glory. After occupying this commercial city, a group of Fronders (the Duke of Bouillon, the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, and the young wife of Prince Condé) occupied this commercial city. Immediately, he distributed donations in the city, recruited troops, and prepared to attack the royal party (led by Mazaran).Many businessmen were forced to "voluntarily donate", and the common people were looted enough. Of course, there were also some nobles who wanted to restore feudal privileges to speculate and fund these Fronders.

In short, this once the largest port in France has been completely messed up, and has become the base camp of the Fronders.The Spanish envoys came in and out here, and their army was also marching towards the south of France. A large amount of military funds were shipped here through the port, and the army recruited by the Frondemen was quickly armed.Moreover, there have been "rumors" in the city recently that Prince Condé, Prince Conti, Duke of Langeville and others who were released from Le Havre Prison by Mazarin have arrived in Bordeaux and are currently actively planning to expand their occupied area .What's more, some people pointed out that Prince Condé, who also came from the Bourbon family, was no longer satisfied with the position of prince, and wanted to have a glimpse of the throne of the king.

To be honest, the power that these nobles have in France is quite amazing, but they are still not satisfied, and they still want to return to the good old days when they were emperors and lords who did whatever they wanted. The measures that have been devoted to clearing up the separatist princes and strengthening the centralization of power are extremely hated. They no longer want to be court nobles who flatter the king or the prime minister all day long. They want to control the future of the country.From this, it can be imagined how shocked and delighted they were when the news of Charles I's execution reached France. They couldn't wait to imitate the British and send the king to the guillotine, and then their family He has held power for generations.

Contin was very clear about the thoughts of these French nobles, and at the same time he personally sneered at these nobles.Being a commoner, he looked down on these nobles who had nothing to do other than fish and meat all day long. These people owned a large amount of private property in the countryside (usually manors and fields), but they only paid a very small part of taxes. .Bou Agilbel once wrote: "Those who receive three or four thousand livres of land rent only pay ten or twelve ecu (one ecu is about 1 livres); It has become commonplace for those who rent the land to pay a tax of one hundred livres."

Kang Ding once heard Mo San tell him about the so-called "nobles" who did not pay taxes in the Ming Dynasty in the East, and the serious consequences brought about by it.He originally thought that such ridiculous things would not happen again, but now he found that he was wrong. Starting from the new tax bill in 1648, the Kingdom of France has also entered this vicious circle——for the whole year of last year (1650), France A total of 4800 million livres of Dayi tax (a tax levied according to land and population) was collected throughout the territory, accounting for [-]% to [-]% of the total fiscal revenue, most of which were borne by the poor.

The French taxation system is basically collected by diocese. Each diocese has a quota every year. The tax collector must collect enough tax within the specified time limit, otherwise he can only pay in advance by himself—but this is rarely the case. Tax collectors are not ordinary people, they always have many ways to get taxes.For example, they will take away the livestock of farmers who cannot pay taxes, they will take away their furniture from their homes, and sometimes they will put people in prison-when the relatives of farmers want to get people out of prison, they will not only need to count Paying taxes, and spending more on administrative expenses, this often leads to many people going bankrupt.

These "gentrymen" who wielded power in the French countryside shifted all the tax burden onto the poorest and most powerless, and watched them go bankrupt, waiting for the government to auction off their estates for ludicrously low prices Buy it away, and then the land incorporated into their names can no longer pay taxes or only pay very little taxes, and the amount of taxes apportioned by the superiors can continue to be passed on to the poor or handicraftsmen.

Under such a vicious circle, a large number of low-level French people have gone bankrupt. In the past four years alone, many handicraftsmen who are about to go bankrupt have left for the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal. In addition, those ordinary French who have no special skills can only become sailors, enlist in the army, or go to overseas colonies to try their luck. At present, the number of French sailors in the Netherlands has reached [-] to [-], and the number of bankrupt French farmers who work is even more I don't know how many.

And this is just the beginning. With the increasing degree of land annexation and the gradual reduction of the French tax base, sooner or later, there will be big troubles in this country.This chaos is not a chaos like the current nobles against the king, but a profound social turmoil that has swept across France, or according to the term on the East Coast, it is a "revolution."Now that the fire of revolution has been ignited, perhaps in another hundred years, the blazing flame of revolution will completely devour the nobles, businessmen and priests of these common people.

"These rubbish-like goods beat each other, and the people were made miserable. Look, in the years after the Battle of Rocroix, France didn't need to import food very much, but last year, a ship in the port of Nantes Another Dutch grain ship brought them tens of thousands of rye from Poland and the Duchy of Moscow. The civil war caused by the Fronders, the foreign war with the Habsburg Dynasty, and various The domestic problems caused by the domestic problems made the originally rich France gradually become impoverished, the fields were abandoned and the vineyards were abandoned, and even I, an outsider, couldn't stand it." Contin was wearing a well-made woolen coat and an expensive Beaver hat, standing on the pier in the slightly windy Bordeaux port, thinking with great emotion.

I am afraid of comparison in everything. Compared with the farmers on the east coast who have very little tax (in fact, the tax system on the east coast is still very imperfect, which means that a lot of taxes have been missed), the life of these bottom-level farmers in France is really too difficult.Wheat growers can't afford to grow the wheat they grow themselves, and can only eat sea wheat transported from the Levant by unscrupulous businessmen; handicraft workers work all year round and put in countless efforts, but in the end they find it difficult to support their families——Farmers They can’t afford to consume, but the tax is still rising; the young people who went to overseas colonies to escape and earn some money have just returned to their hometowns, and they are immediately blocked at home by the tax collectors who come after hearing the news. The tax police and the tax collectors in collusion beat him up, and his property was drained...

"How can I survive this kind of life!" Kang Ding shook his head, decided not to look at the increasing number of beggars on the Bordeaux pier, but returned to the cabin, and had a good discussion with Frank on how to go to Paris to carry out a public relations operation .Frank's family is a big agent of East Coast goods in the provinces and regions of Baja Gallon, Languedoc, and Provence in the south of France. They have made a lot of money over the years and have long been inseparable from the interests of the East Coast.Coupled with the personal friendship between Frank and Mo Ming, as well as his status as a natural person shareholder of the Southern Railway Company, all these allowed Kang Ding to talk to him about some more in-depth topics, such as how to bribe French officials, which in turn affected their policies.

Of course, both parties have tacitly avoided discussing whether the naval ships of the East Coast Republic have played pirates in the Caribbean Sea.In the past six months, the East Coast Navy has withdrawn the last warship wandering in the Caribbean Sea, and all of them have gathered in the waters from the Gulf of Guinea to the northeastern part of Brazil. There are also many smuggling ships heading to La Plata. During the event, people from the east coast intercepted here, which is also very helpful for expanding the market for domestic products in La Plata.As for the resurgence of the smuggling trade in the Caribbean Sea after the people from the east coast left, there is no way to do it. We can only count on the Spanish compradors to solve it themselves. They have a lot of political resources in the Viceroyalty of Peru. not difficult.

On December 1651, 12, after sheltering from a wind on the way, the brig under the name of Frank arrived in the port of Nantes.The two also disembarked with their entourage, planning to go to Paris sometime.

(End of this chapter)