New Shun 1730

This is probably the first time that the French idiom "pulling chestnuts from the fire" has been used in Chinese to describe the situation.

The Duke of Qi smacked the story and laughed, "Excellent. As expected, the cat will not blame the monkey for eating chestnuts, but will blame the maid."

"If France truces and withdraws its troops now, it will be completely in vain. If it can sign a contract with the Netherlands, the Celestial Empire will also be considered to have eaten a good chestnut."

"In the end, France will have to thank the Celestial Empire!"

Kang Budai also laughed and said, "As expected. France will definitely say thank you several times!"

The two laughed very happily. Kang Budai's story of pulling chestnuts from the fire really expressed the current situation of France.

Speaking of India, although Dupleix was defeated so badly in India, Dashun supported two warships and went to India to stand up for France. As for the supplies that George Anson's fleet in Luzon and the Philippines obtained from Dashun, India quickly supported the defeat of France, but this cannot be blamed on Dashun. Of course, Dashun should be thanked for its help in India.

In America, although Louisbourg in France was breached by the British, the British army was heading straight for Quebec. However, Dashun supported the trade of ginseng, mink and ice, and sent guns to the Indians, as well as a group of ginseng collectors and Catholics. Although this led to the British colonists becoming jealous of the ginseng and mink trade, they attacked the French North American colonies with all their strength, and the number of troops was much larger than in history. However, this could not be blamed on Dashun, and they should thank Dashun for its previous trade cooperation.

In Europe... In Europe, it is even more impossible to blame Dashun, and there is only the word "thank you" for Dashun.

Instigating Sweden to go to war with Russia, Dashun also backed Sweden in the back; the Russian court coup, Dashun directly supported it before taking office; the Netherlands provided the Allied Forces with gold and silver coins in the State Rescript, and Dashun directly abolished the financial industry of the Netherlands...

After helping so much, if you still say that Dashun is not an "ally" and does not do well, then there is really nothing to say.

As it stands now, what Dashun has done on the surface is absolutely worthy of the word "ally".

On the French side, they have invited Duke Qi several times, hoping that Duke Qi will go to the Palace of Versailles after dealing with the Dutch affairs. France will hold a grand welcome ceremony and will officially declare at the Palace of Versailles: absolutely support Dashun's "recovery" of Southeast Asia and recognize Dashun's undisputed sovereignty over Southeast Asia.

Who will benefit more from this "roasted chestnut eating" war?

France will definitely not get a hair, don't even think about it. North America and India were pitted by Liu Yu without knowing it; on the European side, Prussia has withdrawn from the war. Once the Russian army joins the battlefield, France's situation will be ugly.

On the Russian side, the empress is preparing to sing a double act with Liu Yu: Dashun will show up and express her attitude, hoping that Russia will not be hostile to Dashun's traditional allies, and the empress can take the opportunity to say to Britain: No, you have to pay more.

In this way, France owes Dashun another favor.

If Dashun succeeds, Dashun will not send a single soldier or warship to Europe.

However, it gained Southeast Asia, and would also gain the initiative in European trade that China had been looking forward to since the Ming Dynasty. By the way, it would also gain the foundation of a traditional naval power in Europe that could resist Britain, and prepare for the future full-scale competition with Britain for the hegemony of the seven seas.

To be honest, there were actually two winners in the War of the Austrian Succession.

Prussia gained Silesia.

Dashun gained Southeast Asia and the initiative in trade.

It is true that Dashun was the "monkey" that ate chestnuts and France was the cat that had its paws burned off.

After the agreement was reached, the "monkey" who was about to eat chestnuts set off from Amsterdam with great fanfare under the cordial invitation and absolute gratitude of the "cat" whose paws were burned off.

So, in the spring of the Bingyin year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dashun, the Duke of Qi, ordered a hundred cars to go to Paris.

When they arrived in Brussels, Hermann, the Grand Marshal of the Kingdom of Lancia, the General of the Netherlands, the bastard of the former King of Poland, and the German Hermann, sent a thousand of the most elite Hebenia soldiers of the Kingdom of Lancia to escort them to show their respect and gratitude. Hebenia is the ancient word of Daqin, and now it refers to Ireland.

At that time, Duke Qi thought of the jokes of Marquis Jinghai in the past, saying that if the Kingdom of Lancia used women and foreigners as generals and used foreign legion elite soldiers, it would surely win a great victory. Seeing this scene, except for the women, everything was ready, and he sighed secretly: If Luosha did not participate in the war, the Kingdom of Lancia would have the hegemony of Kuiqiu and Jiantu.

When they arrived in Paris, the King of France and his close ministers went out of the city to greet them, and their attitude was fully revealed.

Duke Qi had also heard Kang Budai say that before Louis XV ascended the throne, his grandfather, the Sun King, once said: Be good at listening to advice, but be arbitrary.

However, Louis XV only listened to the second half of this sentence. He did not listen to his ministers, but liked to make decisions on his own.

Especially after the death of Prime Minister Fleury, he was in power and did not appoint a prime minister.

He abolished the prime minister and established a cabinet meeting in front of the emperor, secretly causing the cabinet to fight for the emperor's intentions, and he was in a superior position.

In order to prevent the cabinet from fighting for the emperor's intentions, he secretly established a "secret du roi".

This "secret du roi" was responsible for major affairs such as diplomacy and military affairs.

Especially for diplomatic affairs, they were often decided by the "secret du roi" without the participation of the foreign minister or cabinet meetings. Those who could enter this position were all confidants and favorites, thus ensuring that the cabinet party would not easily guess his true thoughts, which was conducive to his unpredictable grace and power and control.

For example, the famous bisexual knight Dion de Beaumont was born in the "secret du roi".

If we look at the system of the Celestial Empire, because the Celestial Empire does not need diplomacy and there are many European countries, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is generally second only to the Minister of Finance. Therefore, this "secret du roi" is a bit like... the officials around the emperor in the Han Dynasty, the eunuchs and confidants later, or it may be a bit like the "Military Affairs Office" of the Qing Dynasty. In short, it is a small circle that is above the cabinet and specializes in executing the will of the monarch.

Or from the perspective of the court politics of Dashun, this "secret du roi" is definitely not the Tianyou Hall of Dashun. It is more like this small circle of the emperor, Liu Yu, Duke of Qi, Privy Council, etc., bypassing the Tianyou Hall and the six governments, and directly executing the emperor's will in diplomacy and military affairs.

Basically, all countries that take the path of monarchical centralization will end up with similar things in different ways.

Like Liu Yu and others in Dashun, it participated in major events such as diplomacy, military affairs, and politics, but it was not a permanent institution with a legitimate administrative name.

If you say it is not legitimate and not a permanent institution, then you say it has no power, which is definitely wrong, because it cannot even control the cabinet and bypasses everyone to directly execute the will of the monarch; but if you say that everyone who enters it has great power, that is also wrong, because whether to enter or not is only up to the emperor's words. It is neither a permanent institution nor a formal status - it is just an extension and manifestation of the monarch's power.

Duke Qi has also been in Dashun for many years. He has seen a lot of things like centralization, checks and balances of party disputes, and unpredictable means of the monarch in France.

If he goes to Britain and watches the British Parliament quarrel, he will definitely not understand it in a short time.

But coming to France is really like a fish into water and a bird flying in the sky. With a little understanding, he knows everything.

I thought that France had no eunuchs and no imperial examinations, but he did this. No wonder Shouchang bribed several women before. In this case, it was the easiest thing for a hen to crow at dawn.

It was also a good thing that the King of France came to greet him directly with the people from the secret diplomatic office today. He could bypass the French ministers and cabinet and discuss secrets with the King of France directly.

As long as he persuaded the King of France, he could succeed. If it was in Britain, it would be different. He had to consider the opinions of the party struggles, and even the king could not act arbitrarily.

Before the Duke of Qi saw the King of France, the news of his high-profile trip to France spread throughout Europe.

Especially in the context of the collapse of the Nanyang financial system caused by the sudden attack of the Netherlands by the Dashun, the signing of the subsidy treaty between Russia and Britain, and the exhaustion of all the participating countries, it was inevitable that many speculations were generated.

The gossip ability of the European court circle was definitely not low.

Some people speculate that the reason why the Marquis of Dashun went to St. Petersburg to help Princess Elizabeth launch a coup was because Princess Elizabeth used her bed skills and even fought two people alone, which made the Marquis of East Siberia in China and the Marquis of Lachetadi in France unable to distinguish between east, west, south and north.

In the end, the coup was successful, but it was thrown away directly like chewed sailor cigarettes and juiced sugarcane. China and France only thought that they helped this woman to launch a coup, and Russia would be pro-French and pro-Chinese in the future, and the two Marquises thought they had taken a big advantage.

Who would have thought that Russia would contact Britain in the blink of an eye.

Now the Duke and the Plenipotentiary Foreign Minister of Dashun heard about the Russian-British affairs and immediately went to Paris to discuss how to deal with Russia.

Maybe Dashun and Russia will go to war again.

Such speculations and gossips are still a little bit reliable.

As for the more unreliable ones, we have to admire the imagination of Europeans. Because of the Southeast Asian War, which was triggered by the Dutch "tribute" or "free trade", Europe can now definitely distinguish between diplomacy and tribute. So some people still speculated that the Duke of Dashun went to France at this time to ask the King of France to pay tribute to Dashun, so that Dashun would send troops or provide financial support.

In short, at this sensitive period, the visit of the Duke of Qi to Paris did indeed cast a layer of uncertainty on the direction of the Austrian Succession War, which had not yet ended.

This layer of uncertainty stems from Liu Yu's stunning appearance in two coups in Europe for China, and also from the fact that Dashun went to Southeast Asia and directly destroyed the Dutch financial industry - Dashun proved that it was indeed capable of interfering in European affairs, using all kinds of bizarre and unpredictable means.

If there had been no previous appearance, Dashun would always be a "distant and mysterious country" that existed in the story and background.

Although Europeans have begun to get used to considering the existence of Dashun in "diplomatic considerations".

But at this time, the whole of Europe did not guess correctly what Dashun came to France for this time.

Obviously, they are not yet accustomed to the existence of Dashun, and we must take this opportunity to make them more accustomed to it, so that when they consider diplomacy in the future, they can include the distant country that could only serve as a background before into their realistic considerations.