The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 349 Big Trouble

The sky was low, covered with dark clouds, and the rain was as fine as needles. A drizzle that lasted for several days shrouded the port of Toulon in fog.

Raindrops fell on the sea, causing ripples, and the waves gently hit the reefs, making a dull and rhythmic sound.

Rainwater flowed along the ancient stone road. Some of the stone slabs under the eaves were covered with moss and looked extremely slippery. The tiles on the roofs of the street made a dull sound in the rain, as if telling the vicissitudes of time.

Rainwater flowed down the eaves, forming columns of water that washed over the ground, making a gurgling sound. Occasionally, a few stray dogs, soaked like drowned rats, shuttled through the rain, whimpering as they searched for a corner to take shelter.

Pedestrians were hurrying, wearing rain hats and raincoats, their footsteps made a "patter" sound in the rain.

Several luxurious carriages came from a distance. The brisk horse hooves and galloping wheels continuously splashed the accumulated water on the street, forming flying water splashes, which then shattered in an instant.

"Ugh……"

Admiral Adrien Jean Rabiot, commander of the French Mediterranean Fleet, looked at the drizzle outside the window and felt even more annoyed. He sighed deeply and retracted his gaze.

The guard adjutant sitting opposite opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but when he saw the general's gloomy expression, he chose to close his mouth.

Yesterday, His Majesty the King sent an order requiring the general to lead more than 20 warships of the Mediterranean Fleet to leave the port immediately and sail to the Italian waters to reinforce the joint fleet there in order to continue to exert strong military pressure on the Qi people.

Although the general was very resistant to the king's orders, as a soldier of the Kingdom of France and a loyal subject of the king, the general could only follow orders and comply with the king's wishes. He took all the belongings of the Mediterranean Fleet to the Italian waters to show his power to the Qi navy in order to safeguard the dignity of France.

Although, information collected from various channels indicated that the Qi people had deployed about fifteen warships in southern Italy and Sicily. If the Mediterranean Fleet were to join forces with the joint fleet previously formed by France, Spain and Sardinia, the number of coalition warships would reach thirty-five, more than twice the number of the Qi fleet.

However, the general was still wary of the Qi navy and was not optimistic about his own naval power.

He had complained in a low voice last night that His Majesty the King must have been instigated by pro-war nobles such as Fouquet to issue this order, without caring at all that this move might put the Mediterranean Fleet in extreme danger and might even trigger a terrible war.

As we all know, Qi's naval power was the best in the world and was not comparable to the small European countries.

The Qi-British War several years ago (1725-1728) allowed all countries to witness the strength and superior combat power of the Qi navy.

The English navy, which had once risen by stepping on Spain, the Netherlands and France, only lasted three years in front of the Qi people before it simply surrendered and ended this tragic war in a very undignified way by ceding territory and paying compensation.

Those proud sailing ships were sunk one after another at sea by Qi's new steam warships. The indestructible ironclad ships made all the English naval officers and soldiers feel despair.

The Qi-England War made Qi officially become the world's maritime hegemon, and no one dared to challenge it in the ocean anymore.

And now, His Majesty the King has ordered the Mediterranean Fleet to gather all its warships and head to Italian waters, which will undoubtedly further intensify the tension in the area. If we are not careful, it may lead to a war.

In fact, half a month ago, when Vienna publicly announced the news that the Austrians sold Sicily to Qi for two million thalers (equivalent to about 50 gold yuan), the dispute over Sicily could be said to have been settled.

Because, Sicily legally belongs to the Austrian Habsburg dynasty, and now it has been sold to Qi. If Spain wants to take it back by force again, it will be unreasonable.

You can't just shout at others to stop their free trade and then roll up your sleeves to grab the goods, right?

This is robbery!
Of course, during this period, people would just pick up their weapons and rob certain territories if they had a disagreement. Such acts of robbery were innumerable and were not new. But afterwards, an agreement had to be drawn up and a treaty signed, and then the illegally robbed items would be turned into legal possession.

After all, we are all civilized people.

However, what the people of Qi did was truly disgusting.

Clearly, before everyone took action, they had already tacitly locked onto their own targets, and then attacked the Austrians together. After a hard fight, they were about to take the target into their arms.

But they never expected that the Qi people would suddenly intervene and directly occupy Sicily. Then, they even went through the formalities with the Austrians, saying that they had bought it from them.

Think about it, before this, Spain, France and the Kingdom of Sardinia jointly sent a note to Qi, trying to use strong diplomatic pressure to force Qi to withdraw from Sicily, stop interfering in the affairs of Italy, and do your business honestly.

Now, the Austrians sold Sicily to Qi, making the diplomatic note jointly issued by the three countries a joke.

This caused internal injuries to the governments and diplomats of the three countries!
At this point, Spain decided to stop its efforts and give up. It suffered a loss and accepted the fact that the Qi people occupied Sicily.

Spain, which has many overseas colonies and overseas interests, really does not want to fall out with the Qi people, otherwise it will cause too much trouble.

The Kingdom of Sardinia was originally a minor power, following the two great powers of France and Spain, taking advantage of Austria, thinking about grabbing some territory and looting some property from the Duchy of Milan. They would stop when they saw the opportunity, and offend as few great powers as possible. So, they followed the Spaniards and withdrew the diplomatic note with harsh words to Qi.

Seeing this, France wanted to take the opportunity to back off and withdraw its diplomatic note in order to ease relations with Qi.

France should not interfere in the Spanish affairs. It is fine for the Qi people to occupy Sicily. Although it poses a potential threat to our French Kingdom in the Mediterranean region, it has not actually infringed on the core interests of the Kingdom and will not cause a rift in the relationship between the two sides.

In the eyes of the French, the general impression of Qi is that they are an Oriental group of people who are good at making good things, mysterious and rich, like to do business, and are harmless to people and animals.

Oh, and they have some strength at sea, so don't provoke them too much. However, in late November, when the French-Sardinian coalition forces were preparing to force a crossing of the Ticino River and continue their attack into the depths of the Duchy of Milan, they suffered a serious defeat.

The Austrian army, which thought it had suffered heavy losses from the coalition forces, was no longer able to fight after losing a large number of weapons and ammunition and abandoning all its artillery in the previous series of battles. It could only retreat to the city of Milan and wait for help.

Unexpectedly, the Austrian army assembled more than 13,000 troops in Palestro and attacked the main force of the Allied forces which had just crossed the river. With intensive artillery offensive, they quickly disintegrated the defensive formation of the Allied forces.

In this battle, the coalition forces lost more than 6,000 soldiers and retreated to the west bank of the Ticino River in embarrassment.

According to feedback from frontline generals, the Austrian army seemed to have received a large number of weapons and ammunition support, and the artillery fire on the battlefield was extremely dense and fierce. What made the Allied officers and soldiers even more upset was that the Austrian artillery actually used a large number of shrapnel and incendiary bombs, which caused heavy casualties among the Allied soldiers in a very short period of time, and eventually caused the entire army to be in chaos. The Austrian army launched an assault at the right time and defeated the Allied forces in one fell swoop.

Afterwards, information obtained from different channels indicated that the Austrian troops located in the Duchy of Milan received military support from Qi. They pulled several ships of military supplies from the Istria Peninsula (that is, the Anzhou Governorate of Qi), then passed through Venice, transported them to the Duchy of Milan, and delivered them to the Austrian army.

In other words, in this war, Qi State rarely stood on the side of the Austrians!

Soon after, some bad news reached the ears of the French.

With the mediation of Qi, four states including Genoa, Venice, Modena and Lucca formed the Northern Italian Alliance, intending to implement unified tariffs, establish a coordinated political consultation meeting, and even prepare to establish a military defense community.

This move not only surprised France and Spain, but also made the Kingdom of Sardinia very suspicious.

Any one of these four northern Italian states is simply an insignificant little character in front of the European powers, but if they unite together, they will be a powerful force that cannot be ignored, enough to shake the geopolitics of the entire Italian region.

With a population of more than three million, developed industry and commerce, and considerable economic strength, if the alliance is initially integrated and its armaments are strengthened, it will become the third largest force in the region after France and Austria, enough to compete with the Spanish Italian territory and slightly surpass the Kingdom of Sardinia.

No one knows what role Qi will play in the newly formed Northern Italian Alliance, but given the other party's strategic need to balance regional forces, it will certainly provide various military and economic assistance to the alliance, and even does not rule out signing some kind of security treaty to curb the expansion of France, Spain and Austria in the area, and then increase their influence.

In addition, there is another piece of news that in addition to signing the agreement to purchase Sicily, Qi and the Austrian Habsburg Dynasty also reached a package of economic aid plans.

It is said that the people of Qi provided the Austrians with a financial loan of up to 4 million thalers, which enabled the financially impoverished Austrians to instantly have sufficient funds.

This gave the Austrians enough confidence to equip more soldiers, purchase more military supplies, and continuously transfer these soldiers and supplies to the Western Front to deal with the aggressive French army.

The French government was very angry about Qi's aid to the Austrians, believing that this was tantamount to a disguised war against France.

It has to be said that the people of Qi have caused a lot of trouble for our Kingdom of France.

French Cardinal Fleury (although he was not the Prime Minister of France, he was a private tutor, political adviser and confidant of Louis XV and played a dominant role in French politics) had always been against France's involvement in large-scale wars. During the Polish succession crisis, he also tried his best to limit France's military actions to Germany and Italy to avoid the expansion of the scope of the conflict, thereby arousing the vigilance of European countries and once again falling into the encirclement situation faced by the "Sun King".

Now that the Austrians have received financial assistance from Qi, there are signs that the war is expanding, which inevitably puts the French government in a difficult position.

If the war cannot be ended in a short period of time and the Austrians cannot be forced to sit down at the negotiating table, it will inevitably cause many chain reactions throughout Europe, and more countries may be involved. This is not a good thing for France.

At present, the French army has occupied the entire Duchy of Lorraine. In northern Italy, it has also joined forces with the Kingdom of Sardinia to severely damage the Austrian army. Spain has also captured Naples. It can be said that the strength of the Austrians has been weakened to the greatest extent from multiple directions, and the pre-war goals have been initially achieved.

If we do not choose to lock in the victory and consolidate the results we have achieved, but instead continue to fight with the Austrians, it would be a waste of time and effort.

"Therefore, we must adopt an active diplomatic strategy to force the Austrians to stop the war."

When General Rabiot arrived at the Toulon naval port and began to reorganize the fleet, replenish supplies and prepare for the long voyage, he unexpectedly received a guest from Marseille - Baron Francisco Melz Delle, the Ottoman envoy appointed by His Majesty the King.

"How to force the Austrians to sit down at the negotiation table? There is only one way, and that is... to give them a big trouble, a big trouble that will force them to divert all their attention!"

"Oh, what big trouble?" General Rabio asked curiously.

"The Austrians' great troubles have always come from the Ottoman Empire, haven't they?"

"That's right!" General Rabiot nodded. "However, as far as I know, the Ottomans are currently engaged in a military standoff with the Russians. They should not have the extra energy to cause trouble for the Austrians, right?"

"So, His Majesty the King sent me to Istanbul to encourage this ally to attack the Austrians in order to share some of our military pressure."

"It's probably not that easy to persuade the Ottomans to attack Austria." General Rabiot shook his head and said, "More than 20 years ago, during the European war caused by the succession to the Spanish throne, we seemed to have invited the Ottomans to attack Austria to ease our military pressure, but they ruthlessly refused. Now, facing the military threat from the Russians, they will not risk fighting on two fronts and attack the Austrians."

"If we tell the Ottomans that Russia and Austria had signed a secret "Russian-Austrian Alliance Treaty" against the Ottoman Empire many years ago, agreeing that after the outbreak of war, both countries would have the obligation to provide military assistance to each other and jointly launch an attack on the Ottoman Empire." Baron Darry said with a smile: "General Rabiot, do you think that after the Ottomans hear this news, they will take the initiative and suddenly launch a military strike against the Austrians when they are not ready for defense, so as to gain the strategic initiative?"

"Uh..., it's very likely." General Rabiot was stunned for a moment and was about to nod in agreement, but suddenly he thought of something, "However, we should consider the attitude of the Qi people. They have unparalleled influence in the Ottoman Empire. After learning of our intentions, they will definitely stop us. I think Qi has the ability to persuade the Ottomans and Austrians to avoid war."

"Not necessarily. In recent years, a huge rift has appeared in the relationship between Qi and the Ottoman Empire, and the influence should not be as great as before." Baron Darry said confidently: "In addition, Qi's sudden friendship with the Austrians will inevitably anger the Ottoman Empire, which will think that it has been shamefully betrayed. ... Therefore, the Ottomans may not necessarily listen to the words of the Qi people."

(End of this chapter)