Fox of France

With the sound of "boom", a French cruiser rammed straight into the middle of the British cruiser Berkshire. Fortunately, the cruisers of the French Navy did not ram, otherwise the Berkshire would be over immediately. But in this way, it hit the middle, and the cruiser Berkshire was also seriously injured. It had a big gash in the side of the ship, but fortunately it didn't tear below the waterline, and a section of the bridge was also torn off.

Another British cruiser was also rammed by another French cruiser, but it turned its rudder quickly and avoided the impact.

It's just that such a turn, naturally gave way to the navigation route, and then the French merchant ship sailed into Carol Port smoothly.

The fact that the French warship rammed the British warship naturally caused some disturbances in diplomacy. After receiving the news, both the British Foreign Office and the French Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassadors of each other to lodge solemn protests to each other.

The British summoned the French ambassador to lodge a serious protest against the savage collision of the French navy against the British naval ships, and demanded that the French government apologize to the British, punish the relevant responsible persons, compensate for the losses, and promise to restrain the navy and not create such incidents again.

Almost at the same time, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand also summoned the British ambassador to protest to the British government against the British navy's unprofessional brutality of interfering with the free navigation of the French navy and intercepting and ramming French warships. On behalf of the French government, Talleyrand asked the British government to apologize to France, undertake relevant responsible persons, compensate France for its losses, and assure France that they will respect France's right to freedom of navigation.

The diplomatic negotiations between the two sides basically consisted of talking about each other. After everyone finished talking, the British began to send reinforcements to Ireland and instructed the British troops in Ireland to turn to defense. As for the French, naturally they seized the time to sail freely. As a result, the Irish Independence Army, which suffered huge losses, became active again.

As a result, the supplies and troops originally intended to be sent to North America were intercepted and temporarily transferred to Ireland.

Of course, the impact of this matter is not limited to this. First of all, after this incident spread, the British people felt more like paper tigers in everyone's hearts. Since the ass of this paper tiger can be touched by the French and the Americans, why can't I touch it?

So the old enemy of the British, the Dutch also moved.

In 1795, the British seized the Dutch colony in Cape Town, taking advantage of the European continent to unite. The Dutch were powerless to resist at the time, so they had to admit it. Later, after peace in Europe, the Dutch asked the British to return their colony in Cape Town more than once. Of course, in this regard, the British said: "Who cares about you?"

And that's no surprise, since Cape Town controls one of the most important shipping routes today—the one from Europe to the East. For a world-wide colonial power, the strategic position of this colony cannot be overstated. So since this colony has already been obtained, how can it be returned?

However, the British colonization of Cape Town was not successful. Because of the involvement of various things in Europe, the British could not invest too much manpower in Cape Town. So in Cape Town, except for the indigenous blacks, most of the remaining people are Dutch. These people were originally in Cape Town, far away from the wars in Europe. When they were free, they went to bully and bully black people, and got some black slaves to work. From time to time, I collect some road money from the passing merchants, ah, it should be a berth fee, and then sell the supplies at a high price to make a fortune. In short, it is eating hot pot and singing songs, I don't know how comfortable it is.

But who knew that such a beautiful life would be envied by the bad guys, and suddenly a group of British people came from nowhere and snatched the port of Cape Town.

Although the British didn't bully the Dutch very hard, they just gave themselves the authority to collect tolls. As for those Dutch people, they can still bully and bully African blacks, and they can still practice their slavery, which no longer exists in European civilized countries. In general, life for these Dutch people is actually not bad. In other words, compared with other places, the British are practicing benevolent government in Cape Town.

However, in order to be effective in practicing benevolent government, there must be a process of "not doing justice to benevolence". This matter is still an investment policy mentioned by Master Lu: "If there is a kind of violence, 'improperly treating people', it is not only improper, but also inferior to cattle and horses, and it is nothing; "When he sighed, he was given a price slightly equal to that of a cow or a horse, just like the law of the Yuan Dynasty. If you kill someone else's slave and pay a cow, people will be convinced and praise the prosperous age of peace. Why? Because although he is not After all, people are equal to cattle and horses."

Even Mencius, the master of Confucianism, when he was discussing the feasibility of benevolent government with His Majesty the King of Liang State, the first evidence to prove the high feasibility of benevolent government was "the kings of today, none of them don't like to kill." In other words, those kings have completed the preparatory work of "treating people as human beings", and now as long as you declare that "you are already equal to cattle and horses", you can gain the support of the majority of the people.

However, the British in Cape Town did not have this process of "'improperly treating people', not only being improper, but also not as good as cattle and horses, and they are nothing." Instead, they directly gave a price that was "slightly equal to the price of cattle and horses." In this way, it is no wonder that those people have no resentment.

It is true that the English left much to those Dutchmen. If the previous rulers here were not Dutch, but black Africans, those rights would not be left to them at all. But the Dutch immigrants in Cape Town don't feel that they have received preferential treatment. They only know that those benefits used to belong to us, and now many of them have been snatched away by the British.

In this way, these Dutch people are naturally full of hatred for the British. It's just considering that the Dutch were hanged and beaten by the British not once or twice. (Although during this process, the Dutch occasionally suppressed the British in turn, but in the end they were hanged and beaten by the British.) Just a Dutch immigrant in the Cape Town area, really Don't dare to do it directly with the British.

But now, with the glorious examples of North America and Ireland, especially this time, the French openly played bumper boats with the British, but the British dared not fire. This guy, the British paper tiger, was known almost immediately. So even the Dutch had the idea of ​​regaining lost ground. Of course, Cape Town is far away, and the Dutch immigrants there don't know about it yet, but the Netherlands is already helping them prepare in advance.