New Shun 1730

Dashun really has to guard against France's possible swing.

According to Liu Yu, this kind of all-or-nothing risk-taking and the kind of wanting to seek peace after a setback and failure are just two sides of the same thought.

Today, the fanatical cock gets hard at every turn, and tomorrow, he feels sluggish and feels that failure is inevitable. It is better to make plans to fail early in order to gain some dignity and mercy from the enemy.

Therefore, the Dashun Mission also needs to assume the responsibility of "psychological counseling for the French King and Madame Pompadour."

Fortunately, money is no problem.

Dashun's bill of exchange system and the court's reputation, which is still decent for the time being, can allow the cargo ships of Dashun Western Trading Company, which trades in Europe, to collect bills of exchange in Europe and directly leave the silver for European trade.

Take the money order and go back to Songsu to change the money.

However, the time for their return is fixed, and it also involves issues such as the requisition of merchant ships next year and the amount of trade next year.

Therefore, the best result is that the French will face a defeat before the end of this winter monsoon.

Or a victory.

Fortunately, the French are no longer so naive when it comes to the Hanover issue. Previously, the Duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of the British King, was defeated. The Duke of Cumberland privately signed the "Kloster-Zevon Agreement" and recognized the disarmament of Hanover.

But when he turned around, the King of England refused to admit it and tore up the agreement directly.

The French were slapped, and they finally understood that they had to defeat the Anglo-Prussian forces on Prussia's western front in the field and completely capture Hanover, otherwise the battle would not be over.

Then, after a long wait, Dashun's envoy finally received the news of the French army's defeat in Minden. Although the loss is not too big, the possibility of Hannover being decided in one battle will not be completed this year or next at least!

After learning the news, the Dashun envoys reveled all night long. Although the team was led by members of the royal family, the people actually responsible for the negotiations were people from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and behind them were senior officers from the General Staff of the Privy Council.

At this point, it can be confirmed that the obstacles to signing a treaty with France, completely transferring Indian interests, and cooperating in the war against Britain, Portugal, and Prussia have been completely cleared.

What remains is how to activate the "lobbyist" ability that has existed since ancient times, tie France to Dashun's chariot, and use Dashun's established strategy to finish the second half of World War I.

It is no secret that the French are going to land in Scotland. Before the Dashun mission arrived in France, France's major ports were frantically building transport ships.

As for why we don’t build battleships...because we can’t afford them, and because we don’t have enough preparations in advance. High-standard warship-specific wood and cannons cannot be produced at once.

Moreover, they don’t have much money. They have to take into account both land and naval battles. How can they still have the money to build such expensive warships-even though France has relatively the best warship design capabilities in Europe.

Those behind the scenes in the Dashun mission who were responsible for determining the details of the negotiations certainly supported the strategic guidance of His Majesty the Emperor, because this strategic plan was what they studied before Liu Yu resigned.

It is very dangerous for the French to try to accomplish everything in one battle.

Once the French fleet begins to assemble, if Britain can seize the opportunity and go all out to defeat the French fleet, it will be greatly detrimental to subsequent operations.

Even if the game ends smoothly, it will be a big disadvantage, and it will become a standard game of coming and going all the way.

The goal of Dashun itself is to lay out post-war European trade, so the problem here is this:

Now, the French might land.

Therefore, the main force of the British fleet does not dare to be used indiscriminately and must stay at home. If there is chaos, here we have just left our home, over there the French army has gone to Scotland, and our home has been stolen, then why fight?

And if the French want to engage in opportunism, if they fail, the fleet will be destroyed by the British.

That works.

The British main fleet was liberated directly.

Leave a third to look at France, and the rest can be spent as you like.

They could even take a preemptive strike and hijack the Spanish treasure ship before Spain even joins the war.

The key thing is that once the French navy's landing operation plan fails, the British fleet can completely block Europe's main routes and monopolize maritime trade.

This is of course a situation Dashun doesn't want to see very much.

Therefore, since Dashun has entered the stage, the proud French must follow Dashun's baton.

Implementing a strategy that seemed to be in the interests of France, but actually weakened Britain and France, was truly in the interests of Dashun.

The key points of this strategy are to stay still and to move, to focus on being anti-customer, and to wait for work.

That is, after Dashun's battleships meet with the French army, they will first deal with the British fleet monitoring the French army in the Mediterranean, and then the main force of the Chinese and French combined fleets will meet and stay at home.

They mainly turned against guests, forcing the British navy to follow Dashun's strategy. Dashun's navy stayed stationary at the port, while the British navy's main fleet did not dare to go anywhere.

Even if West Africa is on fire, North America is besieged, and the Caribbean is robbed, we will not dare to move.

Once Britain's trade is cut off, Britain will be forced to choose a radical decisive battle mode.

Once Britain is forced to choose a decisive battle, the choice of battlefield will be in the hands of China and France.

In this way, the Dashun Navy, which originally came from afar, became a side waiting for work, and firmly grasped the strategic initiative.

For Dashun, this is also in line with the actual situation of Dashun's naval construction.

Basically, in the East Asian waters, Dashun's battleships are useless and basically unusable. This has nothing to do with the pride of the Celestial Empire. It is really useless within the scope of "the world".

All battleships were originally built for the decisive battle in Europe. Everything was decided by a consciousness that was superior to the court officials.

So, relatively speaking, the number of such seemingly useless battleships built by Dashun is relatively small.

And the most Dashun has are cruisers, because Dashun has to control the trade in the South China Sea, fight against the pirates squatting in the Sulu region and sending jihads to Dashun all day long, patrol Japan and Korea, investigate smuggling, and launch threats and invasions against small countries in the South China Sea from time to time. All these require a large number of fast and non-bloated cruisers.

Another thing is various armed merchant ships, a large number of high-quality sailors, and an excess of naval officer talent reserves. Dashun really has no shortage of these.

These armed merchant ships have the ability to sail long distances.

Because the company system of Dashun is a monopoly-style imperial franchise, and even the Dongyang Trading Company that went to Japan was forced to build ocean-going ships in the privilege clause.

Build those cheap, cheap, hard sailing ships that cannot sail far? This will have lower costs and higher profits?

No.

Either give up the monopoly franchise, or earnestly fulfill the military obligations stipulated in the transformation rights.

If you don't want to do it, there are people waiting in line.

If you do it, you have to accept the additional conditions of the monopoly franchise; if you don't do it, get out.

Free trade is a competition of cost and whose ship is thinner than the Dutch ship with a coachman, but sorry, the Dashun court does not allow cost competition, which means that the company is forced to build large soft sailing ships with ocean-going capabilities even if it goes from Weihai to Korea.

This is the rule set by Liu Yu when he was tossing Japanese trade.

The rules have been relatively loose in recent years. Don't forget that at the beginning, there was also the military obligation to train sailors.

Because Liu Yu knew very well that he could open up free trade with Japan and cancel the monopoly franchise. But before the European problems were solved, once they were released, no one would build standard long-distance ships that must be produced by regular shipyards, because the cost was high and more wood was used.

These layouts that started twenty years ago are now reaping the rewards, allowing Dashun to have sufficient reserve tonnage, qualified sailors, and an oversaturated naval officer population. The strict monopoly system made all the captains of all the monopoly companies, including the shipping companies that transported rice, graduates of Jinghai Palace.

Indeed, if they were allowed to do it freely, these merchants would have gained more benefits and higher profit margins. But when fighting, a group of ships that can only run to Japan, expecting them to participate in this stranglehold war in the Atlantic?

In addition to these hardware, there is another crucial thing.

That is the lunar distance angle method of navigation positioning, and the popular version of the navigation astronomical almanac, which can quickly look up the table to determine one's longitude and latitude.

These advantages make Dashun's strategy very clear.

The main battleship fleet will join the main force of France to hold back the main force of the British Navy. And a large number of cruisers, armed merchant ships, and smuggling ships will start the free mode.

In groups of three or five, four or six, they intercepted, smuggled, and sold goods between British colonies.

Didn't the British East India Company want to sell Indian cotton cloth to West Africa? Well, thank you for opening up the cotton cloth market in West Africa and cultivating their cotton cloth consumption habits.

Didn't the smugglers in North America want to buy French sugar and smuggled tea? Well, don't look around this time, kick out the middlemen, and trade directly with the real owner. The freshly picked Wuyi tea does not have the high tariffs of the London Tea Exchange.

Didn't the British silk textile industry use more raw silk from Turkey and Tuscany? Well, don't use it this time. The Mediterranean is controlled by the Sino-French coalition. Try Rajshahi silk and Liaodong tussah silk. The quality is definitely better than that of Tuscany.

This kind of smuggling, trade, cruising, and escorting, to the end, is a competition of shipbuilding capacity, sailor reserves, treasury revenue, and industrial and commercial production capacity.

Dashun is not afraid. Dashun has made up for the weakest sailor reserve 20 years ago.

Dashun has the best teak, cypress, and oak production areas in the world.

Because Dashun had too few long-distance ships before, Dashun's shipyards have been expanding their production capacity in recent years, and because Dashun's current shipbuilding capacity is also the best in the world. The more it was behind before, the faster it has been catching up in recent years. The British stock is too much, which makes its shipbuilding capacity far worse than Dashun.

As for the level of industrial and commercial production, Dashun is not Spain, and it never has to worry about Spain's colonial policy, which can make the colonies have no domestic products. Steam engines and the like are just a bonus.

As for government finances... Britain is still carrying a national debt of nearly 300 million taels of silver. If the East India Company is destroyed again, Britain can't hold on.

Even if Britain finally makes a desperate bet and wins the battleship decisive battle, it will be useless.

The financial system was in turmoil, smugglers were active, and the trade system was in chaos. Even if the main fleet won, it would not be able to fight again in a short period of time. It could only sign a contract to admit defeat, abolish the Navigation Regulations, accept "free" trade, and set fixed tariffs.

Besides, will it win? Dashun battleships were not built in large numbers, only compared to those cruisers and heavy merchant ships.

Moreover, is the will of unity within Britain really united? The West Indian merchant group, whose total capital is far greater than that of the East India Company, but whose voice is not strong because it does not have a special quasi-military regime, produces white sugar, mead, raw materials, and sells industrial products to the colonies.

Dashun does not sell white sugar, mead, or raw materials because they do not make money.

And does it make any difference to the West Indian merchants who sell industrial products to the colonies, whether they are produced in London or Songjiang?