Harry Potter Morning Light

Chapter 2326 Petermnnchen (eight)

At the reception in Antwerp, Georgiana met Joseph de Villemont, the second son of the Count, whose grandfather Athenasa fought in the American War and inherited a fortune from relatives in the Marne A nearby vineyard, which is said to be the origin of the chief French champagne.

Although the Germans love to drink beer, the nobles still love to drink champagne. Before the outbreak of the Great Revolution, Joseph's father met a German winemaker. He left his motherland and came to France to learn the champagne wine trade. The count's daughter, Charlotte de Villemont, mother of Joseph and his brother.

It stands to reason that they should follow their father's surname, but the German winemaker is just a commoner, and the earl has only one daughter. According to the tradition of the old times, nobles were not allowed to do business. With the hard work of the young winemakers, the scale and planting area of ​​the winery continued to expand. After the two sons became adults, Joseph was in charge of sales, and George and his father were in charge of the management of the wine cellar until the outbreak of the Great Revolution.

Joseph can speak fluent English, German, and French. Through his previous connections, he sent his parents to England, while he and George stayed in Antwerp to continue doing business. Because Napoleon stipulated that exiles must return to the country before the Portuguese month, George went back. and Joseph remained in Belgium.

When traveling to and from England, he heard about the situation of the French prisoners there. He even visited the prison. There are two types of prisoners, those who live well and those who live badly. Dieppe is good at ivory carving. Some captives used leftover beef bones to carve exquisite works of art, which were exchanged by jailers for money. These people can have clean single rooms, hot water, and clean clothes in the prison, almost like a small hotel. Not only do people who are not doing well have none of these things, they are sometimes driven to abandoned boats to make room for other prisoners.

They were all fishermen, but they were taken as prisoners of war. Georgiana remembered the French minister's severe protest.

A considerable part of these prisoners of war were prisoners of Egypt and other battlefields. Medieval nobles could also be released after paying a ransom. Any problem that can be solved with money is not a problem. But the trouble is that what France lacks now is money, especially after losing Santo Domingo, a colony with one-third of its total foreign trade, which is almost equivalent to England losing India.

For some people, waging war is just a means of making profits. The most direct expression of government credit is public debt. "Charles II also issued a moratorium on repayment, not only temporarily not repaying the interest, but also not changing the principal loaned by the banker, and a lawsuit was filed for this.

This kind of debt is often a short-term loan borrowed by the king privately, with various privileges as collateral, such as the Peruzzi Bank's monopoly on wool sales in the UK. After William III of the Netherlands arrived in England, he drew on the experience of the Netherlands and used the method of issuing public bonds to raise funds.

Public bonds are different from private loans. Public bonds are issued to the public in the name of the government. Once defaulting on the debt, it will not only damage the dignity of the country, but in order to prove that you will exchange money, you must use a tax as a guarantee to ensure that you will repay the debt and interest.

During the reign of Louis XIV, France was the most powerful country in Europe. Even the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were at a disadvantage. After Britain was involved in the war against France in 1689, it had to pay a large amount of money to France. In 1694, bankers headed by William Paterson suggested to the king to establish a central bank based on the experience of the Netherlands. That is, in 1689, because James II sneaked out of London while others were not prepared, threw the king's seal into the Thames River, and tried to flee to France, but was caught by fishermen in Kent. William did not want James to be a "martyr", so he deliberately let him escape on December 23, 1688.

There was no parliament when James left the kingdom, and William II called a "customary meeting" to make James' daughter Mary queen, who ruled with William III, and it wasn't long before the events of Salem.

At that time, Isaac Newton had become a celebrity because of Newton's laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, but fame did not bring him economic income. At this time, Newton's friend Charles Montagu, who was the chancellor of the exchequer, wrote a letter telling him that the royal family The office of Overseer of the Mint was vacant, and King William III had agreed to appoint Newton to the office.

Newton also had the nickname "The Last Alchemist". In fact, in addition to gravitation and Newton's laws of motion, Newton also discovered the law of cooling. The heat dissipated is proportional to the temperature difference, and this proportional coefficient is called the heat transfer coefficient.

This law is generally accepted to be announced in 1701. Silver is a very soft metal. Good quality silver coins can be cut off a little and look like they are worn. People at the mint did this before. Don’t look at it as just a Angle, the accumulation of a small amount is also considerable.

At that time, William Landis, the chancellor of the exchequer, advocated doing so, reducing the silver content in the coins, devaluing the recast silver coins by 20%, and the same silver can mint more coins, which is equivalent to paying off part of the debt .

In addition to the silver content, the fineness of silver coins also has craftsmanship, but how can an illiterate farmer understand what calculus is?

As a result of the cabinet debate, the silver content of the recast silver coins remains unchanged, and the government bears all the costs of recasting the silver coins, with Locke's friend Newton in charge of the work. In the process of minting coins, Newton's theory accumulated a large amount of data, and copied the records about the quality and quantity of silver coins minted from 1659 to 1691, and continuously improved the technology of machine operation, casting speed, metal purity, etc., and finally cast into The new coins met the design requirements in terms of precision, purity and pattern.

Sterling prices recovered in Amsterdam, and British government bonds were quickly subscribed. No one bought the French government bonds issued in 1802 with higher interest rates than British government bonds, which shows how bad France's credit rating is.

In addition to using tobacco tax as "mortgage", if the new franc has high gold content, good quality, and exquisite workmanship, it can also improve the confidence of international buyers. The Bank of France can also win this credit war like the Bank of England. Financing does not need to go through the Netherlands.

If Dutch merchants are the number one merchant group, then the powerful navy of the Kingdom of England defends this commercial order.

There is more than one "rule of the game" that makes up Leviathan, but one fundamental law that remains constant is that no one "involved" feels injustice.

For example, in prisons, those who are able to make dental carvings live a good life, but those who are not have a bad life. This is the result of free competition-survival of the fittest.

"Without free competition, there will be no business prosperity, but in a market economy where the fittest survive, polarization will inevitably occur." That is to say, freedom and equality cannot coexist.

There's a movie called "The Shawshank Redemption" and one of the main characters in it is a banker who's been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife, and he's had a bad start, but he's going to make fake accounts for the guards, Amass a lot of wealth for them, and then the bankers not only get the protection of the prison guards, don't need to be harassed by other prisoners, but also can ask the prison guards, repair the library, or drink a cold beer after a hard day's work.

But this also led to the fact that in the end when it turned out that he was innocent, the warden was unwilling to avenge him because he needed the banker to continue to serve him for free.

Hobbes said in Leviathan that the laws of a country are like the rules of the game. In fact, the "rules of the game" that make up Leviathan are not just laws. If a group of people are playing cards on a table, one person keeps winning and one person keeps losing. Of course, the winner thinks the game is interesting, and the loser doesn’t want to play anymore. At this time, the winner will accuse the loser of breaking the rules of the game. Because this game originally stipulated that 4 people should play, and if the loser leaves, one person will be missing, so the game cannot continue. Unless the loser finds someone to replace him, the winner will not let him go. Does the person who wants to quit at this time think the rules of the game are fair?

Suppose the loser does what he does, and finds a hapless ghost to replace him. The rules of the game are still the same, but the winner finds that he can't always win as before, and the fun of the game is halved.

The root cause is that the new player does not play according to "his heart", but unless the winner brings back the lost loser, the replacement will not change his way of playing.

At this time, the winner must either change the rules, or continue playing so boringly. Once the rules are changed, those who originally agreed to participate may also choose to quit.

In the past, one person won the big head, and the others shared a bit. In the new rules, the big winner has to eat the small winner. Who will do this?

Whoever has more participants in the new game and is popular is the sovereign.

Today is roulette, tomorrow is Texas Hold'em, and the day after tomorrow is Pai Gow.

The goal of people's respect for others is power, because when a person sees others being respected, he will think that this person has power, and then it is easier to obey him, which makes his power stronger.

This is the birth of the Leviathan, or, in Hobbes's words - the birth of God.

As Voldemort said, greatness breeds resentment, and resentment breeds envy. Leviathan represents the original sin of envy. In Hebrew mythology, it means "things that are entwined", so Leviathan is also called Known as the "entangled snake", it is much more terrifying than the basilisk.

There will also be a kind of black oil squeezed out of the coffee. Anyway, it is difficult to get rid of the relationship with the Middle East. Will you die if you don't drink coffee? Isn't there a chicory substitute?

She pounded the pepper-and-salt steak hard with a hammer, and the "boom, boom, boom" sounded very rhythmic. Although she could use magic to do it, she felt comfortable doing so.

After smashing the steak, she checked the sky, it was already dark, it was almost ready to fry, right?

"He didn't ask me to wait for him." She murmured to herself, she wrapped the steak in egg liquid and bread crumbs and fried it in a frying pan with a sound of "Zla", the oil splashed everywhere, and she subconsciously took a step back.

"Wow!"

"Ah!" She jumped up in fright, and turned to look at the person who frightened her. He was still wearing the court uniform of the First Consul, and the sword had not been untied. It looked... very unsuitable for a place like the kitchen.

"What are you doing here! Get out!" She pushed him hard, "It smells like oily smoke."

He opened his hands and hugged her tightly.

"I know, you'd rather not have me in your life, but please don't take away the short-term happiness you gave me." He said softly, "I'm the happiest person in the world right now."

She lost her ability to think for a moment, and she wanted to say something to tease him.

"That's what I want to do most on this tour."

She stood stupidly, time was flowing in silence, and the steak in the pot was still sizzling.

"Do you need my help?" He let go of his arms and rolled up his sleeves.

"Is there a guest today?" She asked back.

He shook his head.

"Then take out the tableware." She said listlessly, "If you don't want to smell the oily smoke, take the tableware to the restaurant."

"Eating in the kitchen?" he asked.

"Is it strange, sir?" she sneered.

He smiled and turned to get his plate.

At this time, she glanced at the old steak in the frying pan. It was a pity that magic could not conjure food, nor could it "rejuvenate", but she still scooped it up before it was burnt.

Food can't be wasted, especially now that many people still can't get enough to eat, although the fresh and juicy taste better, the older it is, the older it is.