Fox of France

On the first Monday after the New Year, Napoleon delivered his New Year's State of the Union Address. Napoleon declared that France was now in new danger because of the destruction of some internal and external enemies. But France is still the most powerful and richest country in the world. He and his government will definitely be able to overcome the current temporary difficulties and make France continue to be great.

Napoleon then presented a budget for the new fiscal year to the State Council. In this budget, Napoleon proposed to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and actively expand domestic demand to restore the French economy. As a concentrated expression of "expanding domestic demand", France has greatly increased its military expenditure.

First of all, France has completed the action of expanding the army by 500,000 troops. Of course, Napoleon emphasized that the expansion of the army was not to destroy peace, but to defend peace. The newly expanded Army will not be organized into combat units, but will be incorporated into the newly formed Corps of Engineers.

Of course, other countries do not believe this statement. What they don't believe is not that they don't believe that the French will form a new contingent of engineers, but that they all understand that even if the half a million soldiers are really engineers, at least they can liberate a lot of combat troops.

However, the bulk of the increase in military spending has still increased to the navy. In the new budget, the Navy got a large amount of shipbuilding costs. It is said that the navy had previously proposed a shipbuilding plan that it thought was scary, and then Admiral Treville reported the plan to Napoleon, but was quickly beaten back. Napoleon also added on the cover of his plan Such a comment: "Petty!"

So Admiral Treville made major revisions to the plan. A new goal was proposed, which is the so-called two-strong goal: the French Navy should become the world's largest navy, and the total displacement of the French Navy's warships should reach the sum of the total displacement of the ships of the world's second and third navies. .

Considering that the French navy already has an advantage in the quality of weapons, if there is such a quantitative advantage, will the days of the British be over? For a long time, although the British have to admit that the French are slightly ahead of the British in technology, but in terms of scale, the British still have a little advantage. Considering that the British navy is better trained and has a higher level of command, (at least, the British themselves think so), so the British navy is still the world's number one navy.

Especially last year, the British also launched a steel warship named "HMS Queen Elizabeth". This warship is a more powerful warship than the French "Inberado" class battleship. The "Rado" class battleship is even bigger, and the full-load displacement of the "Queen Elizabeth" has exceeded 10,000 tons. "It can only be said to be slightly larger. But the British prefer to advertise its full load displacement) and it is equipped with more and bigger guns.

The "Queen Elizabeth" is equipped with six of the world's largest ten-inch breech-loading rifled guns, and each shell weighs 500 pounds. Of course, the British did not know that the French 150 guns used a tube retreat mechanism and a semi-automatic loading system, and each gun had a rate of fire of five to six rounds per minute. As for the British 10-pound gun, it would be good to be able to fire one shot in five or six minutes.

Among other things, the British claimed that their warships had thicker and stronger armor. This is also true, but the British did not mention the price they paid for it, that is, the ship was dubbed the "Iron Turtle" by soldiers of the British Royal Navy. As a ship that is actually about the same size as the "Imberado", it has more and heavier guns and thicker armor than the "Imberado", so the displacement left for the power system is a bit Not enough. And these displacements have to be weighed between the size of the coal bunker and the size of the steam engine. If the steam engine is installed larger, the speed is guaranteed, but the voyage will be tragic. So, in the end the boat had to make a compromise and reduce the top speed to 12 knots.

Of course, the drop in speed will bring various problems in combat, but the launch of this ship still inspired the British. They felt that they had finally caught up with the French in naval technology.

However, when France announced their new ambitious shipbuilding plan, the British suddenly felt that I couldn't breathe.

The French's shipbuilding plan intends to start building a new type of warship called the "Augustus-class battleship". The standard displacement of this kind of warship will reach 11,000 tons, the firepower of the equipment will also far exceed that of the "Inberado class", and the armor will be further strengthened, while the speed will continue to be maintained at the Inberado class grade level. The French intend to build six large docks for this purpose for the construction of such warships. And it is planned to produce eighteen "Augustus-class battleships" in the next six years.

If it's just a problem with the "Augustus-class" battleship, that's all. What's more, the French shipbuilding plan is fully rolled out. It also includes the two-thousand-ton "Astute-class" unprotected fast cruiser, the four-thousand-ton "Virgil-class" armored cruiser, and the seven-thousand-ton "Hull" supercruiser, which is the next generation of the "Free Trade-class" supercruiser. Mers class super cruiser.

Among these warships, the 2,000-ton "Smart Class" unprotected cruiser was mainly used as a colonial warship, highlighting its speed and endurance, and its firepower and protection were only average, posing a limited threat to Britain. But the 4,000-ton "Virgil-class" armored cruiser poses a greater threat to Britain. With a displacement of 4,000 tons, it becomes a fairly balanced warship. It has weak firepower, but it is used to deal with merchant ships and The steel-framed wood-hulled steam cruisers with a displacement of about 2,000 tons in the hands of the British are more than enough, and the larger tonnage also makes them quite self-sustaining. These warships could easily cross the Atlantic Ocean, coupled with a speed of up to 18 knots, the British could not catch up or run away. Their threat to Britain's sea lanes was fatal. And this kind of terrible thing, in the French plan, one guy will build fifty!

There is also the "Hermes-class" super cruiser. Its firepower is comparable to that of the "Inberado-class", but its speed is as high as 20 knots. Although the defense is a little worse, it is also worse than the "Inberado-class" battleship. One point, better than any British warship except HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Now the British are in a huge trouble. If they concentrate their efforts on building the follow-up ships of "Queen Elizabeth", then they will not have the strength to meet the challenges from "Virgil" and "Hermes". And if they concentrate their efforts on producing escort ships against the latter two, then they must consider whether one day the French will directly use the "Augustus-class" battleships to cover the French Army's landing in the UK.

These two results are unbearable to the British, so even if the current economic situation is very bad, even if the British government is short of money, the British must immediately adjust their budget to meet the challenge from France.

The British Parliament held an emergency meeting, Pete Jr. was re-elected as Prime Minister, and quickly passed a package of shipbuilding plans. The British threatened that for every ton of warships launched by the French, the British would launch 1.5 tons of warships. In order to support this huge shipbuilding plan, the British issued a large amount of national debt and forced the citizens to buy it. And this naturally caused a lot of opposition in the UK.

Considering that patriotism is the equal right of every Briton, all Britons should be equal when it comes to buying national debt. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to discriminate against a person because of their small wealth and reduce the amount of national debt they should buy. All Britons, from the king to the factory worker, should equally buy a share of the national debt. What? Workers have no savings to buy? It doesn't matter, the factory owner will directly buy the national debt in advance with the corresponding salary when paying the wages, and then issue the national debt to them.

This is not plunder, this is for their good! You must know that these poor people always like to spend money recklessly and don't know the importance of savings. Well, the interest rate of national debt is a little higher than that of savings.

Of course, there is always a reason for the poor to be poor, either greedy or lazy. For example, now, they got those national debts, and in order to buy a bite to eat, they even wanted to buy the national debts and exchange them for money. Of course, the helpful "good people" naturally extended their warm hands to them, and bought the national debt in their hands with a discount of up to 20%.

These poor ghosts, without a plan at all, quickly ate up the national debt. Then they start starving. This starvation is entirely caused by their own indiscretion, poor financial management, gluttony and laziness. However, not only did they not reflect on themselves, but they honestly stayed in their small shabby houses to wait for the call of God, but they caused trouble like those praying mantises who did not know what to do.

This time is not the same as before. In the past, Britain was still worried about foreign interference. Now the French are too busy to take care of themselves. At most, they talk about it. What else can they do? So the British directly used the army to suppress it.

But the suppression is like trying to hold down ten gourds with one hand in the water, one is pressed down, and the other is floated. First, the workers in London went on strike, then there were rebels in Scotland who started to fight for independence, and then there was some unrest in Wales, and then the London Police Station was suddenly attacked by grenades... In short, the British government may need to issue some more National debt, used to maintain domestic stability.