Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1549 The End and the Beginning ([-])

"The golden age of the French is coming, and the nightmare age of the French will also come at the same time..." Jiang Yaohui, the commander of the Spanish Provisional Task Force and Navy Lieutenant Commander, who was directing orderlies to pack documents and luggage in the port of Dover, lit a pipe. Captain Ding Zhen, captain of the "Polaris" light cruiser, said: "It is a huge expense to support the 20 army for a long-term campaign. The French are very rich, but I don't think they can last too long. Think about it. Well, 20 people, this is more than ten times the total number of our army, and it will cost 200 million yuan in military expenses for a year without fighting. Of course, in a feudal country like France that treats people like livestock, the cost of raising troops is impossible It’s very high, but 2000 million yuan a year still needs to be spent, equivalent to about 7000 million livres. 7000 million, haha, the fiscal revenue of France’s harvest is only 1.2 million livres, and the average year is only 8000 It looks like 7000 people, but in the end it will cost [-] million yuan to supply this huge army for combat. Do you need to pay officials, build places, and rebuild the navy? Tsk tsk, I really have nothing to say It's..."

"Now the French are just relying on the money they saved from the treasury, but this will come to an end one day. What should we do then?" Lieutenant Ding Zhen picked up a report on the table and casually read it. Said: "Oh, yes, they can still raise taxes, they can also send tax collectors to various towns to supervise the payment of taxes, and they can arrest some criminals with huge wealth but a reputation for corruption, but this is not sustainable. The patience of commoners and nobles is always limited, so the best strategy for Louis XIV at this time is to accept it as soon as it is good, and look at the health of the poor little King Carlos in Madrid. After all, he may not be able to take over What about Franche-Comté, the Southern Netherlands, etc., which save money!"

"However, it is also good for the French to spend more money on the army. At least, they will have insufficient funds to build ships and recruit sailors. That will be very beneficial to us and Spain. After all, there is one less competitor. Well, the same is true for England, a European country with a very special geographical location, especially when they are still having financial problems, the strength of the French navy is not good news for them." Major Jiang Yaohui looked at the residence for a long time His temporary command post was gradually cleaned up, and he stroked the bluestone window sill with nostalgia, looked at the dark and gloomy sea outside the window, and said: "In this world of great strife, there is no strong So what can the navy do? Do you stay at home and farm? This is quite in line with the image of the army full of old-school conservative ideas. In today's era of rapid industrial production capacity expansion, overseas interests are getting bigger and bigger In this era, the interests of the country still depend on our navy to safeguard! What the French did, huh, oh, it's outrageously wrong!"

As expected, they are the best among the two generations of young and middle-aged officers in the navy. Jiang Yaohui and Ding Zhen are merciless when they complain about the army.In their view, the army system actually takes a huge military expenditure of more than 150 million yuan a year from the Joint Staff Headquarters. ), this is simply intolerable!If it weren't for these nasty armies, if there wasn't the creator of the new army surnamed Mo robbing military funds in the military department, their navy would not be forced to seal up some active warships in order to reduce the high expenditure - the peak was one year No less than 250 million yuan-everyone will not fight for a limited number of positions.After all, everything is the Army's fault!

However, as the saying goes, one should not be too pretentious.On the east coast today, the army is already showing signs of declining, and its ability to compete with the navy for military expenditures is getting worse and worse. If it weren't for the support of some respectable old soldiers, the size of the army would not be maintained. It will continue to shrink, instead of maintaining the size of four full battalions, four shelf battalions and several independent troops as it is now.Under such circumstances, if the navy wants to kill them all and continue to reduce the size of the army, maybe the army will make "big news", although the possibility of such a thing happening is very small.

And the situation in England they mentioned just now is honestly the perfect ratio of national military power allocation in the eyes of the navy. How miserable it is, the number of people is not only suppressed to only 5000 people, the equipment is also relatively poor, not to mention the treatment of soldiers, this can be seen from the desertion of many people.

Compared with the tragic experience of the army, although the navy has also sealed up a large number of warships in peacetime, the overall cost is still far higher than that of the army, and the personal treatment of soldiers is also incomparable. Before the war in the province, it had obtained the power from the Congress to collect an additional huge sum of 250 million pounds for three years, just to prepare the navy.And after the war, money was spent like running water. At that time, the total expenditure of the English Army for a year did not know whether there was one-fifth (or even one-tenth?) of the Navy. This shows the gap.

"However, Commander, although the French have invested far more money in the army than in the navy, their fiscal revenue base is too large (about 3000 million yuan a year in East Coast silver dollars), even if it is only a little A little leakage is enough for their weak navy to do a lot of things. The plan of 65 heavy warships in five years, after so long, seems to be barely completed by the end of next year (1670) no matter what! I heard from the Dutch before that the French Navy is even buying shipboards, sail cables, tar and other shipbuilding materials on a large scale, and it is incredible to start a new round of shipbuilding operations. The Continental Army, this will obviously drain France’s national strength, right?” Ding Zhen shifted the topic to the French Navy, only to hear him continue: “A few days ago, I escorted a few merchant ships from the south to the Baltic Sea. I encountered a large French warship from a distance. Commander, I am very sure that it is a large professional warship that we have never encountered before. The tonnage is comparable to that of my Polaris, and the firepower may be on par. I guess, this may be a battleship that the French have recently completed training and went to sea for drills—well, if I and another light cruiser were not escorted, maybe this French ship would use our merchant ships for drills——Commander , perhaps with the passage of time, the French will have more and more warships to complete the integration, and perhaps one day they will secretly gather at various ports such as La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Brest or Dunkirk, and then attack the Our country's trade lines pose a significant threat."

"This kind of thing will happen sooner or later. Our strength is limited, and it is impossible to escort every batch of merchant ships." Hearing Ding Zhen's words, Jiang Yaohui also frowned, because this was obviously what he was worried about I just heard him say: "The French have been pretending to be cowardly for a long time. After their strength gradually increases, although they still may not have the courage to attack our main fleet, but if it is only attacking merchant ships, I think These cowardly French seals are advancing faster than anyone else, but our strength is not very sufficient, and it is inconvenient to divide our troops, which is troublesome."

"Speaking of it, do we still want to end the war with the French as soon as possible?" Captain Ding Zhen smiled and said, "To be honest, I have no objection to doing so. Although this may make me lose the opportunity to make contributions, but It may be the most appropriate option if one thinks rationally from a national point of view."

"Special Envoy Li Qing already has such an idea, but the price has not yet been reached, so he is still delaying. However, he and the French Plenipotentiary Envoy have not left Aachen, the meeting place. Obviously, both parties have the willingness to continue the peace talks. Maybe after some time, when both parties take a step back, the agreement will finally be reached." Jiang Yaohui obviously knows more about the inside story of the negotiation than Ding Zhen, which is directly proportional to their positions, just listen to him He also said: "Special Envoy Li Qing first asked the French to recognize that the Caribbean Sea belongs to Spain's sphere of influence. Unless a treaty is clearly signed with Madrid, all Caribbean islands are the territory of the Kingdom of Spain, but the French obviously do not agree. He simply refused, and said that if the East Coast people handed over Santo Domingo, Martinique (the East Coast people occupied a part), and St. Lucia (the East Coast people occupied a part) to the Spaniards, they would still Recover it through various means. Therefore, now Special Envoy Li Qing has given up on this, and instead intends to use these French overseas colonial islands in exchange for some economic benefits, such as opening up the French market or directly exchanging ransom, etc. Well, I heard that special envoy Li Qing offered the same price as Dunkirk for Martinique, which has thousands of French white colonists, that is, 500 million livres. Haha, I can imagine the price of the French envoy at that time expression."

"Only Martinique is worth the price. There are only more than 1000 people in Santo Domingo, France. If you can extort 200 million livres from the French, it will be amazing. As for St. Lucia, the price may not even be certain. It can be sold, it’s really pitiful.” Ding Zhen immediately said with a smile: “However, whether the French are willing to pay is a problem! Louis XIV’s navy is now powerful, so it’s hard to guarantee that they won’t take the risk of secretly escorting and carrying goods. Army ships are heading to the Caribbean, and if we don't find out in time, it will be a disaster for the army cannon fodder stationed on those islands."

"Maybe I will pay, maybe I won't, who knows!" Jiang Yaohui knocked his pipe on the window sill, and finally took a look at the villa of a dilapidated British nobleman who had lived there for a while, turned and walked out, and said: "We only need to do our own thing well. Now Special Envoy Li Qing needs our navy to move around to help them negotiate in Aachen, so we will do it well. Anyway, with the recent period of our blockade With the weakening of the strength, the trade along the French coast has been strengthened. This time the large fleet is dispatched, just to reap a wave, and see who is unlucky. As for whether the French navy will jump out to stop our actions, hehe, I would like to see it Well, but it’s probably unlikely. A considerable part of their ships are either insufficiently equipped with artillery, or the sailors have not been recruited, let alone the whole ship’s joint training. In such a state, they can only reap shame when they come out, so I guess They will continue to hide, or sneak out at night in a wretched manner, and then hunt our merchant ships in the open ocean to attack."

The two walked out while talking, and soon came to the pier.In the humid and cold port, more than [-] ships from the east coast, large and small, are mooring in the harbor. If you count the other dozen British merchant ships, it really feels like a forest of masts.

On the pier, there are many British mechanics in linen clothes preparing supplies for the fleet that is about to sail: gunpowder, projectiles (cast according to the caliber of artillery made in the East), spare canvas, ship boards, wood tar, ropes, skins and even The manual water pump made in England—to be honest, it feels good to use. Although the price is more expensive than the ones on the east coast, it has exceeded the European average level. The necessary supplies have to be replenished, even a large amount of fresh water has been purchased, and fresh cattle and sheep have been transported to hundreds of merchant ships as food reserves, so that the British merchants, handicraftsmen and farmers in Dover have sent a lot of money. Not a small fortune.

Jiang Yaohui quickly boarded the light cruiser "Polaris" in a small boat, and then ordered the captain of the ship, Captain Ding Zhen, to raise the commander's flag, which meant that the ship was to be used as the flagship.Before leaving the port, Jiang and Ding noticed that there was an extra steam-powered lifting machine on the pier of Dover Port, which surprised them a little.

After asking the sailors who knew about it, they learned that this lifting machine was built by a well-known businessman in the Port of Dover (who is also one of the owners of this section of the wharf) with huge sums of money.The businessman made a fortune in the process of contracting the sale of spoils from the East Coast Fleet, and he was also particularly interested in steam machinery, so he spent a lot of money to hire a number of craftsmen who can make steam engines from London, Birmingham, and Newcastle (At present, such people are also scarce talents in the UK, and Gein's steam engine technology has just started at this time, and is at a relatively low-level stage), and a steam boom that is common in local seaports on the east coast was manufactured on the pier.

But obviously, perhaps because their technology is not up to standard, the current steam boom is completely unusable, and there are many problems.But it is undeniable that after the British used steam machinery on canals (for water transfer) and mines (for pumping water), they have also begun to try to introduce steam power to dock equipment. In any case, this is an improvement. A progress that deserves the attention and vigilance of people on the East Coast.

On May 1669, 5, on a gloomy afternoon, more than 2 ships from the east coast sailed out of the port of Dover one by one, arranged their formation in the open sea, and then set foot on the coast of France for the first time. journey of.This time, they are assisting the special envoy Li Qing who is negotiating in Aachen. I hope they will have good luck.

(End of this chapter)