I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 566 Maybe what you are planning is just something I am tired of seeing

Joseph was a little surprised and asked: "It seems that you need to mobilize a large amount of funds. Can you tell me in detail?"

"Oh, of course, Your Highness," Mirabeau said hurriedly, "In fact, the Development Fund has experienced rare rapid development in recent months.

"This is definitely due to the good tax and market environment brought about by your reforms. The revenue of factories in Lyon, Nancy, Saint-Etienne and even the Southern Netherlands has increased significantly. Did you know that in March and Order volume doubled continuously in April, and various factories are increasing the number of workers on a large scale.

"As a result, the factory's production funds are tight. After all, to cope with so many orders, just purchasing raw materials requires a lot of money.

"Recently, the headquarters of the Development Fund has been busier than a dance party. Every day it is crowded with managers from factories from all over the country, all coming to seek increased investment from the fund."

He said with a helpless expression: "But there are currently only more than 4.2 million francs left in the development fund's books, which is prepared to pay the next dividend..."

Joseph looked at him and said: "So, you want to use the money to invest, including the second phase of the University Scholars Palace?"

"I have this plan," Mirabeau nodded repeatedly. "Injecting capital into the factory now can yield very high returns. And the development fund can promise to subscribers that it will significantly increase the dividends for the next period. This period will be postponed. I believe many people will be happy to accept it.

“As for the University Scholars Palace, the utilization rate of the completed part is only 12%. This is because you have specially approved many academicians of the Academy of Sciences to move in.

"I have had people assess that as long as the follow-up construction can be completed before April next year, it should not affect the talent introduction plan. If the construction period is postponed, nearly 1.7 million francs can be mobilized.

"Including the private funds raised by the development fund, a total of 10 million francs will be immediately invested in factories across the country to expand production. The effect will be to at least increase the scale of our country's industry by 20% this year!"

Looking at his excited expression, Joseph seemed relatively calm. With the in-depth reforms of the market and taxation, as well as the new technologies brought by itself, it is not surprising that French industry began to explode.

He nodded and said: "You can prepare a plan on this matter and submit it to me as soon as possible."

"Yes, Your Highness."

The plans had been made long ago, so the next morning documents concerning the raising of additional funds for the Industrial Development Fund were sent to the Tuileries Palace.

Joseph looked at Mirabeau's plan and smiled.

Lyon's factories received more than 3 million francs in new orders in April alone. Nancy's steam engines achieved large-scale exports for the first time. Iron products, paper, wine, furniture, carriages and even Paris Coke all experienced explosive growth. .

He turned to the order trend chart at the back and saw that starting from mid-March, almost a 90-degree straight line turned upward.

Seeing this, he was slightly startled and quickly found the order source page.

On the order composition pie chart, Germany and Italy are like two huge folding fans, squeezing all orders from France into a small piece.

He immediately thought of something, looked at Mirabeau and said: "Do you know the domestic sales growth of the German regions, oh, such as Austria and Bavaria in the past six months?"

Mirabeau thought for a moment and replied: "If I remember correctly, it should be 2% and 1.6%, Your Highness."

“What about Sardinia and Tuscany?”

"3.5%, 3%, Your Highness."

Joseph immediately frowned: "Their own sales growth is only this small, but they have ordered a large number of goods, so who are they going to sell to?"

Mirabeau hurriedly explained: "Your Highness, there are many possibilities for this. For example, the data collected by our intelligence agency has a large deviation."

In this era, there is no practice for government agencies to publish various national data in real time, and even classify this as confidential.

Therefore, the intelligence agencies of various countries need to send their own personnel to investigate. There will also be intelligence personnel in the target country who deliberately mislead. This raises the possibility that the information obtained is far from the actual situation.

Mirabeau continued: "In addition, it may be that our country's products have eaten up the market share that originally belonged to other countries. For example, iron products, in the past, the German region was mainly dominated by products from Austria and Bavaria, but now our country has gradually occupied the market share. More than one-third.”

Joseph continued to check the planning book calmly, and soon noticed that the new orders in the past two months were mainly given to medium and large companies in France, and small factories received almost no benefits.

A strange feeling arose in his heart. Not only Austria, but also the purchasing power of the Italians had become so strong. Didn't they look down on bargains?

He closed the planning book, looked at Mirabeau, and said seriously: "Don't inject large amounts of capital into the factory for the time being. No, not only don't inject capital, it's best to let them slow down the production speed first. I always feel that something is wrong here.

"I will let people conduct a detailed investigation before making further decisions."

Mirabeau suddenly said anxiously: "Your Highness, this is a development opportunity given to us by God. If there is a lack of funds, many factories may not be able to complete orders on time."

"No, we can't take any chances. Please do as I say."

What Joseph was thinking of at this moment was the usual method used by a certain financial empire in later generations——

First, release a large amount of funds to stimulate a country's economy in a targeted manner, causing it to overheat in a short period of time, and then suddenly increase interest rates to tighten liquidity, causing the target country's hot economy to be short of funds and trigger an economic crisis.

When the target country's enterprises go bankrupt in large numbers under the devastation of the economic crisis, the financial empire will come back and buy these enterprises at extremely low prices.

The current situation in France made him smell a similar smell.

In the situation where Europe is about to enter a situation of great power hegemony, he must be more cautious. Once the country's economy is hit hard, there is no need to fight militarily.

But Mirabeau's concerns are not wrong. If he just thinks too much, it is likely that France will miss a good opportunity to take off, and even seriously hit the enthusiasm of domestic factories.

Joseph gestured to Emman standing at the door: "Please invite Director Fouché."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Two hours later, after Fouché heard Mirabeau's explanation of the current situation, Joseph ordered: "Mr. Fouché, I need you to confirm as quickly as possible whether there are any problems in these transactions."

"This is my duty, Your Highness." Fouché immediately bowed and accepted the order, and then immediately continued, "However, as Count Mirabeau said, if the investigation is delayed too long, it will have a serious impact on a large number of factories."

Joseph nodded slightly: "So what is your opinion?"