I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 906 Resources Are the Future
Theodore secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

After all, there are no available troops in the whole of Bavaria, and even if the French want to take over his coal mines, he does not have the courage to refuse.

Fortunately, the French still left the bulk of the coal mine to him, which was barely acceptable.

Theodore nodded and said, "Thank you for your kindness. I wonder how much capital our country needs to invest?"

Segur raised his glass to him. "The funds and equipment are provided by the French Industrial Development Fund. You can use the title deeds to the mines as a stake. Oh, and the local officials of Iphofen will help recruit some miners."

Theodore's eyes lit up when he heard this.

He had previously thought that the French wanted him to pay and they would get shares in the coal mine for free.

I didn’t expect that the French would provide all the funds!
Although there is coal in Iphofen, only a small amount of coal seams exposed on the surface have been excavated for hundreds of years, and it has never been mined on a large scale.

If the French paid, it would be like getting a large coal mine for free.

For a moment, he even felt that France's 45% stake was too small.

He clinked glasses with Segur and said, "To the friendship between France and Pakistan! I will definitely let them recruit the best workers."

Of course, Joseph did not invest in the coal mines in Bavaria to be a sucker.

Building large coal mines is only the first step.

Only if there was a plentiful supply of cheap coal would the Bavarians be willing to buy steam engines.

Bavaria's iron smelting industry, building stone processing industry and salt mining industry are very developed, which are industries where steam engines can be used to great effect.

Once the Iphofen coal mine was built, French steam engines could be sold to Bavaria in an endless stream.

As for the Bavarian factory owners' reluctance to try new things?

France would choose some large factories to invest in and send technicians to help them improve the technology of using steam engines.

When other factories found they could not compete with them, they had only two options: to follow suit and use steam engines, or to go bankrupt and be acquired.

Bavaria's size is second only to Austria and Prussia among the German states, and will bring considerable sales to the French Steam Engine Company.

In addition, the most important management decision-making power of this coal mine is still in the hands of France.

In other words, France has the final say on how to mine, to whom to sell the mined coal, and for how much.

When most European countries started the Industrial Revolution, the value of coal would be revealed. By then, the Iphofen Coal Mine could sell coal to French companies at cost price.

Compared with the control of core resources, this initial investment is nothing but a drop in the bucket.

Moreover, even these "small amounts" of money will not go to outsiders - all the equipment used in the coal mine must be purchased from France, and the management and technicians are also French.

This means that the money from the Industrial Development Fund has gone around and returned to France's pockets.

In fact, the money used to invest in Bavaria was "given" by the British when they attacked France's gold reserves last time.

As for why Bavaria took up the majority of the coal mine shares?
That's of course to give them a taste of the sweetness.

In this way, the iron mines in Sulzbach, the lead-zinc mines in Schwarzenfeld, and the copper mines in the Fichtelberg can all be mined in cooperation with France.

Well, Bavaria does have a lot of valuable resources.

This is also the reason why Germany's industrial revolution started very late but developed extremely rapidly - Germany's coal and iron resources are simply too abundant.

What Joseph had to do was to make arrangements in advance and use these resources for France as much as possible. …

Northern Italy.

8 kilometers north of Trento, tens of thousands of Austrian troops were deployed in an extremely strict formation along the east-west direction, approaching the strategic town of Trento step by step.

As long as we capture this place, we can form a connection with the Mantua Fortress to the south, greatly reducing the defensive pressure on the fortress.

Yes, it was less than 40 kilometers from the town of Kleis to here, but Alvinzi walked for a full 11 days in order to concentrate his forces and advance steadily.

At this time, Napoleon had led 20,000 soldiers from the west to the rear of Alvin's troops.

Augereau Marmont's right wing also arrived at the left bank of the Avisio River, only 8 kilometers away from the Austrian left wing.

They walked nearly 70 kilometers longer than Alvinzi, but completed the encirclement before the Austrian army attacked Trento.

Outside the town of Molvino, Napoleon personally counted the number of shells and made a check mark in his record book.

In fact, he didn't need to do this at all, because the ones who came with him were the Royal 2nd Cavalry Battalion. Their excellent military quality ensured that there would be no shortage of ammunition before the battle. It can only be said that Napoleon had used inferior soldiers for too long and had developed a habit of using them.

Napoleon looked through the record book in his hand again and said to Lucien beside him:

"Tell the soldiers to have a good rest tonight. We will launch a general attack on the enemy in the early morning."

"Yes, General."

Lucien turned and left. Grouchy hesitated and said, "Commander, we haven't contacted the Augereau Legion yet..."

With the communication capabilities of this era, it was common for two troops more than ten kilometers apart to be unable to communicate with each other.

Napoleon raised his hand to interrupt him: "I believe they will arrive at the designated position on time."

His troops were too close to the Austrians, and if they delayed here any longer they would be in danger of being discovered by the enemy Hussars.

Then the raid would likely turn into a positional battle.

What Napoleon wanted was to quickly and completely annihilate the Alvinzi Corps.

The next day.

The weather was clear enough that Alvinzi could already see the buildings of Trento through the telescope.

He couldn't help but take a deep breath.

The troops under his command were the empire's last strength, so there could be no mistakes, otherwise the entire empire would be exposed to the French cannons.

He looked at the messenger beside him and said in a deep voice: "Order General Kostanovich to speed up and cooperate with the cavalry to cut off the French retreat route to the south.

"The Bajahaza Legion will launch an attack on Trento at noon tomorrow at the same time as the Central Army..."

Before he finished speaking, he heard the sound of artillery fire from the northwest. He frowned and turned to look: "Send the Hussars to see what's going on?"

Half an hour later, the sound of artillery fire seemed to be getting more and more frequent, and Kostanovich's messenger finally arrived and reported to him in a panic: "Marshal, a large number of French troops appeared behind us. There are at least tens of thousands of them."

Alvinqi's expression froze when he heard this. He had been so careful, so why was he ambushed by the French army?

Little did he know that it was because he was too cautious and advanced too slowly that Napoleon had the opportunity to outflank him.

(End of this chapter)