Wild North America 1846

Chapter 567
Brittania, the westernmost region of France
port of st malo

This is a coastal port town with a population of just over 1.7. It is not conspicuous among the 10 ports in France, but after it was occupied by the German Empire, it became more and more lively when it was assigned to the import merchants of the Tang Empire. and shine up.

From late September 1870

A large number of ships gathered outside the port of Saint-Malo. They brought strange steam cranes, and installed 4 of them in just one week, and then unloaded a large amount of cargo.

The entire port of St. Malo was in a state of turmoil, because these overseas merchants from Datang brought in commodities that were in short supply in France.

Hundreds of thousands of barrels of high-quality kerosene, diesel oil and lubricating oil, various cans, toffee, chemical products, including plastic bowls, basins, barrels, raincoats, shoes, fish, fruits and canned meat, and other popular products.

The French are keenly aware that the port of Saint-Malo has ushered in huge business opportunities.

Through the convenient telegram, the news spread almost throughout the provinces of central and southern France in the first place.

Whether it is a businessman, a manor owner or a farmer who got the news, they drove the carriage to St. Malo with their accumulated money bags immediately to grab these hot commodities.

As long as you grab it, you earn it.

In less than a week, more than ten thousand horse-drawn carriages went to St. Malo, where they returned with a full load of goods, and at the same time used up all the money in their pockets.

in the port of st malo
All security is maintained by strong and armed Chinese patrols, with a total of more than 640 people. The Germans only stationed two companies of soldiers here, and sent 13 government officials as customs.

They are responsible for checking the number and type of goods landed, and taxation is calculated accordingly.

Of course, compared to the 200% tariff imposed by the French on kerosene, and the 30%~45% tariff imposed on grain and various foods, the maximum imposed by the Germans is no more than 18%, and less than 5%, such as grain or food Classes are subject to a 5% tax rate.

Even so, it is two and a half times higher than the 2% customs tax that was released after the implementation of the "Corn Law" in the United Kingdom, and twice as high as the 9% kerosene tariff imposed by the United Kingdom. Naturally, it also made a lot of money.

The merchants of the Tang Empire used almost half the price to dump products in large quantities, and the high trade barriers that had been erected by France were instantly smashed down.

It can be seen from a set of data that the purchasing power of the French who exploded with buying enthusiasm is astonishing;

According to the statistics of the German working group in St. Malo;
Since October 1870, the total amount of kerosene imported in that month was 10 barrels, which rose sharply to 33.7 barrels in November, and broke through the million-barrel mark in December, reaching 11 million barrels. The rest of 85.9 rose month by month. , As of May, it has reached an astonishing scale of 12 million barrels.

Based on the average price of 21.5 Tang yuan for a barrel of kerosene, the amount of kerosene alone is as high as 4 million Tang yuan, which is an unprecedented sales peak figure.

According to the 18% tax rate of the Germans, the monthly income of this item alone has reached more than 800 million Tang yuan, which can be said to have made a fortune.

Of course, businessmen in Datang earned more.

Does France really need so much kerosene?
Never underestimate the wisdom of a nation. After the initial carnival passed, many French nobles, manor owners and usurers quickly realized a problem;
How long will the turmoil continue?
Does wealth depreciate?
Is it possible to double your wealth when the situation stabilizes?

So

They all turned their attention to the product of kerosene. Kerosene for lighting is the hard core demand of society, no matter what time it is needed.

Compared with traditional products such as rapeseed oil and olive oil, kerosene has the characteristics of low price, good lighting brightness, long duration, stable lighting and no peculiar smell.

The key problem is that there is no kerosene production in almost the whole of Europe, and it must be imported from the Tang Empire or Tsarist Russia.

However, Russia's backward refining and chemical capabilities led to low output and abnormally high kerosene prices, and there was no market competitiveness at all.

A large barrel of kerosene weighs 306 pounds and costs only 21.5 Tang yuan, which is equivalent to 86 francs.

Compared with the after-tax wholesale price of 145 francs (about 36 Tang yuan) per barrel before the war, it is almost [-]% cheaper, and there is a huge profit margin.

You must know that after layers of handover, it takes one franc to buy a pound of kerosene in a French town grocery store, and the retail price is about 300 francs for a large barrel of kerosene.

With such a huge space, the profits are touching!

At first, the majority of grocery store owners in the south-central provinces of France frantically hoarded goods, from kerosene, lubricating oil, toffee, cocoa, various cans to plastic chemicals, all purchased in large quantities, and even borrowed money.

Like ants moving from the port of St. Malo, they came back with a horse-drawn cart full of goods. Many products were quickly sold when they returned to the local villages and towns, triggering a buying boom among the local people.

This has prompted grocery store owners to travel more and more to the port of Saint-Malo, becoming part of a large and busy chain of interests in smuggled goods.

The turmoil in Paris has not affected the money-making plans of these grocery store owners in the slightest.

Shortly thereafter
The French provincial nobles, capitalists and usurers with rich capital immediately joined this smuggling army. Their capital strength was stronger and they took more goods.

Every time I came to the port of St. Malo with a long carriage, and soon returned with a full load.

Datang exporters, Germans, grocery store owners in south-central France, and aristocratic buyers all benefited. Imports, the sharp reduction in commodity prices even benefited ordinary French people, which also stimulated their desire to buy and greatly increased the commodity prices. Sales volume.

In this carnival, who is the victim?

The answer is the French government and customs taxation, the question is...is there a government in France now?

The Adolphe Thiers government was driven out of the city by the Paris Commune in embarrassment, and finally settled in the town of Versailles on the outskirts of the city. It then launched a fierce attack on Paris from April 1871 and achieved a decisive victory at the end of May.

The chaotic situation in Paris caused the new government to struggle. It was not until the end of August that the situation was initially clarified. More than 8 rebels were executed through various simple trial procedures, more than 2 people were imprisoned, and more than 7500 Parisians were exiled. .

At this moment

After settling down, Adolphe Thiers discovered that the west coast had been smuggled and infiltrated into a sieve, and the same was true for the east and north. The east was smuggled goods from the German Empire, mostly industrial products.

In the north, it came from Britain, the traditional enemy across the English Channel. A large amount of cheap textile fabrics poured into the French market without collecting customs taxes, forcing a large number of textile factories in central and southern France to close down. The number reached more than 170.

face this situation
Thiers angrily accused Datang; "It's a thief who stole the wealth of the French Republic, stealing millions of francs every day. This is an unforgivable crime..."

So why not blame Germany or Britain?

Cough cough... How can France nowadays provoke these two strong men?

Especially Britain, a vicious guy who is smiling in front of his face and playing tricks behind his back. The reason why the French Empire has fallen to such a point today is that Britain secretly supports the Kingdom of Prussia. This is a well-known fact.

But the French dare not say it, and they can only swallow it with tears in their stomachs if they feel wronged!
Britain already has a new darling, the German Empire. This powerful little brother can lift France up and hammer it, no matter how you look at it, you can't afford it!
After counting and counting, it seems that only Datang can figure it out, warning these robbers not to go too far.

After Thiers, the head of the French government, spoke out, the public opinion media joined the ranks of accusations, and this naturally aroused the great attention of Datang.

Baron Luo Zhaohui, the ambassador to France, held a press conference in Paris, expounding that Datang has always abided by international conventions in trade, and that the export of goods to Britannia is a purely commercial act, which is naturally driven by the market, and the government has not participated in it. .

The merchants of the Tang Empire paid taxes according to the regulations, but the taxes paid were in accordance with the taxation standards of the German Empire, because the above-mentioned areas were German-occupied areas, and the only ones in operation were the German customs officers.

This explanation is tantamount to kicking the ball to the feet of the Germans.

I am not an organized smuggling operation, I still pay taxes according to local conditions, but I am a law-abiding businessman.

As for the ownership of the Brittany region, that is a matter between Germany and France, and has nothing to do with Datang.

With this explanation, the French Provisional Government was immediately dumbfounded.

According to the "Treaty of Frankfurt", France, the defeated country, not only had to cede the Alsace and Lorraine regions, but also had to pay huge war reparations of up to 50 billion francs, as well as a series of clauses for the loss of national sovereignty.

Among them, the victorious country has the right to maintain the existing occupied area until France fulfills its huge war compensation obligation.

The provision of this clause is to use the occupied area as collateral to ensure that it fulfills the provisions of the Treaty of Frankfurt.

After receiving such an explanation, France was also dumbfounded. It was impossible for them to go to the Germans to make trouble, so they had to pinch their noses and suffer this big loss.

After the news came out, the whole of Europe was in an uproar.

France has become a new laughing stock. Seeing this always tyrannical European overlord suffer such a big loss, the surrounding small European countries are simply too happy, and teasing the French has become a new focus.

Today's precarious France is a broken ship, and anyone can step on it.

The problem of smuggling in the Saint-Malo area is an unsolvable problem. As long as the German-occupied area is one day, the unprecedented rampant smuggling will be difficult to stop.And France is bleeding every day, losing a lot of financial funds.

But who is to blame?
It was the French Emperor Napoleon III who brazenly provoked the war at the beginning. This Franco-Prussian War has been defined as a French war of aggression, but it was bruised and swollen by the Germans.

As the initiator of the war, France has no sympathy even if it pretends to be innocent.

In this world where the weak prey on the strong, all countries only respect the strong, and no one will be sympathetic to care about an old bandit.

(End of this chapter)