The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 299 Napoleon in Germany

In the tenth year of Tiangong, in 1803 AD, the Ming army launched a full-scale campaign in America, conquering cities from the four directions of east, west, south and north.

The Spanish knew that the American army could not withstand the attack of the Ming Dynasty, but there was no way to send more troops to America in the short term.

Godoy presided over military reforms in Spain, striving to increase the army's strength to 200,000 men, but this would take time and money.

After the Ming army captured Spain's American colonies and blocked the shipping routes around America, the Spanish royal family lost its source of financial resources in the New World.

Spain is now actually unable to raise any additional money, and they can hardly guarantee even the salaries of officials and soldiers next year.

What the Spanish did was similar to what the British did, sending envoys to visit various parts of Europe.

Spain was still trying to win over other countries to fight against the Ming Dynasty, while Britain was using the support of the Ming Dynasty to win over other countries to form an anti-French alliance.

The Civil Code was completed under the personal supervision of Napoleon. It was reviewed and passed by the Legislative Yuan in June 1803 and officially promulgated and implemented after Napoleon signed it.

Subsequently, the French Senate granted Napoleon the title of Emperor of France and began to draft a new constitution and prepare for the coronation ceremony.

On January 1804, 1, Napoleon was officially crowned Emperor of the French.

Napoleon then merged the areas controlled by France in the northern part of the Italian peninsula to form the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon himself serving as the King of Italy.

He then began to confer noble titles on his confidants and family members, and awarded the title of marshal to important French generals.

During this period, the Ming Dynasty did not launch any offensive military operations on European soil.

Only the defense facilities were strengthened in the Ming Dynasty's vassal states and territories such as Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Taranto, and Hadron.

Build more fortresses and fortresses in border areas, dig trenches, deploy barbed wire, and build airports.

Build more fortress barracks in the rear and more fuel and ammunition depots at the docks.

They took a stance of defending their current borders and focused on occupying land in America.

At the same time, it began to cooperate with Britain, supported the anti-French alliance, and exported percussion caps and picric acid to Britain, Austria, Prussia and other countries.

When Napoleon appointed kings to his family, the anti-French alliance formed by the British was re-established, and they eventually jointly declared war on France.

Napoleon was also ready and began to attack Germany in the summer of 1804.

First, they captured the British king's territory of Hanover, and then directly entered Prussia and headed straight for the Prussian capital, Berlin.

Britain and Prussia had already received picric acid and percussion caps provided by the Ming Dynasty, but found themselves still no match for the French army under the current system.

The army led by Napoleon occupied almost the entire Prussia, and then defeated the Russian and Austrian troops that came to support.

In the original history, after Napoleon occupied Prussia, he believed that he could not completely rule Prussia, so he signed an armistice treaty with Prussia.

The land that originally belonged to Poland would continue to provide strength to Prussia if it remained within Prussia, so Prussia could not be allowed to retain it.

However, between France and Poland, there were two major countries, Prussia and Austria, and France could not directly rule Poland's land.

So France released Poland, which became a semi-independent vassal state of France, while claiming to have liberated Poland.

But now Napoleon faced the threat from the Ming Dynasty and felt that he could not stop the war in Europe.

So Napoleon went a step further and directly occupied Prussia and Berlin, forcing Prussian King William III to move to Königsberg.

The intention was to leave Prussia with only its ancestral Prussian land and completely abandon regions such as Brandenburg and Silesia.

At the same time, the lands seized by Prussia from Poland were released, and the Kingdom of Poland was re-established, with Napoleon himself serving as the King of Poland.

On this basis, Napoleon was crowned again in Berlin and forcibly became the King of Germany.

King of Germany was originally a subsidiary title of the Holy Roman Emperor.

Although the Holy Roman Empire had actually been dissolved at this time, the Austrian Habsburg family was still the nominal Holy Roman Emperor and German King.

So Napoleon sent someone to Austria to inform the Habsburgs and ask them to give up the titles of King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor.

Napoleon now didn't care much whether the Habsburgs agreed publicly.

Napoleon's radical actions offended the Prussians greatly, and the Prussian Junker nobles certainly could not accept it.

The nobles of other major German states were also unable to accept it.

It’s not just because Napoleon was an Italian-French king, the key point is that Napoleon completely destroyed the original order in the German region.

Then rebellions began to occur one after another in the core areas of Germany.

Napoleon ordered his marshals to lead the army to continue fighting against Russia, Austria and Britain.

Napoleon himself stayed in Berlin to concentrate on suppressing the rebellion in Germany.

Napoleon now knew that the traditional aristocracy would never accept him.

Even if they temporarily succumb to their own military power, they are always looking for opportunities to launch a rebellion.

However, Napoleon has carefully studied the history of Shenzhou over the years, especially the history of the era of dynasty changes and separatist wars.

In addition, he was directly influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution and the experience of the wars in which Napoleon participated.

Napoleon believed that he could learn from the Ming Emperor, abandon the traditional land aristocracy, and strive to gain the support of soldiers, civilians, and intellectuals.

According to the historical experience of the Ming Dynasty, the easiest way to get soldiers and civilians to follow you is to give them land.

The land in Europe, especially in Germany and Poland, was basically in the hands of the nobles.

The nobles would not truly support me, so I could just kill them and divide the land.

Every time Napoleon suppressed a rebellion in a place, he executed the local old nobles and landlords and announced the liberation of the local serfs.

The lands owned by these nobles were integrated, one-third were distributed to low-ranking officers and soldiers from France, and two-thirds were distributed to local freed serfs.

Let these low-level French officers stay in the local area and lead volunteer soldiers formed by serfs who have obtained land and freedom to guard the places where they live.

Then, a part of these volunteers were selected and reorganized into the main force of the German Kingdom, who went out to fight with the main force of France to conquer other countries and regions.

At the same time, according to the current methods of the Ming Dynasty, public examinations were held in these places to recruit officials.

Except for the nobles themselves and their eldest sons, other intellectuals, second sons of nobles, and illegitimate children can all take the exam.

Those who passed this unified examination directly served as civil servants in the German region and handled local government affairs.

After a simple pilot project, Napoleon found that the effect was good, so he began to expand the scope of implementation.

First Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Saxony, Silesia, then the rest of Poland, Hanover, Holstein.

Next, all the territories in Germany that once belonged to the church and that France had previously indirectly controlled will also be managed in the same way in the future.

Finally, the same is true for Hesse, Württemberg, and the Palatinate, which have long become French vassal states.

In the future, except for the territory of Austria, most of the states and church territories in the German region will be transformed into territories directly under the kingdom.

Grassroots officers from France were used to command peasant volunteer soldiers to garrison local areas, and German intellectuals were used as officials to handle administrative affairs.

In this way, not only will it be unnecessary to deploy a large number of French troops to suppress the occupied areas, but manpower can also be drawn from the occupied areas to organize more troops, making the local area more stable.

You can get more main forces to conquer more countries and lands, and then transform the occupied areas in the same way, and finally conquer and control the whole of Europe.

When Napoleon was doing these things, he felt an unprecedented sense of joy in his heart. The heads of the traditional nobles fell to the ground, and the soldiers who gained land and the serfs who gained freedom all cheered warmly from the bottom of their hearts.

The officials in charge of government affairs, the second sons and illegitimate sons of former nobles, and the intellectuals were all grateful to him.

Now there is no middleman between others, all of them directly support themselves, all directly worship and follow themselves.

But Napoleon also felt that these things were not the most important.

The most important thing, and the thing that made Napoleon feel most happy, was that he felt he was really destroying the aristocracy completely.

In the past, when I fought against other monarchies, no matter how many victories my army won, there was always a superficial sense of illusion and unreality.

After the huge war, the nobles were still nobles. They continued to control the land and population and continued to control social order.

They seemed to be in a special high and mighty position, and the war with themselves seemed like an insignificant game.

Because without them, others cannot maintain social order or a large country.

But now I have touched their true bodies and I am killing them completely.

While Napoleon was concentrating on fighting on another level, unexpected changes occurred on the side of his ally Spain.

In the autumn of 1806, the Spaniards could no longer stand their royal family and prime minister, and supported their crown prince in rebellion.

The internal logic of the current rebellion in Spain is simpler than that of previous historical events.

The current Spanish king and queen, as well as the prime minister, are not considered to be outstanding monarchs and politicians.

The king was believed to be slightly mentally ill, and the queen's favorite young minister, Godoy, was rumored to be the queen's illegitimate son.

Spain in this world was the first country to try to dig the Panama Canal on its own, which took several years and cost a huge amount of money and manpower.

He then joined the anti-French alliance and consumed a large amount of money and manpower in several wars against France.

Godoy planned to expand his army to 200,000, which would again require more money and manpower.

It is also necessary to cooperate with France's combat plan, repair and expand the fleet to attack Britain, which also requires a lot of money and manpower.

But the most critical issue is that after the Ming Dynasty began to besiege Spain's colonies in the New World, the Spanish Kingdom's largest source of funds was basically cut off.

In this situation, even if all war plans were stopped, the Spanish royal family and prime minister would need to collect more taxes in the country to maintain the operation of the court and the life of the royal family.

Spain itself was not a very rich place to begin with, and the already overburdened Spanish people endured the pressure for two years until they could no longer bear it.

They launched an uprising, demanding the removal of Godoy, the treacherous minister, and even demanding that the king abdicate directly and let the crown prince succeed to the throne early.

Napoleon originally felt that Spain was too weak as an ally and too dangerous as an enemy.

So Napoleon's idea was to directly control the country of Spain.

In history, Napoleon planned many actions and conspiracies in order to seize Spain, taking advantage of the internal rebellion in Spain.

But Spain is different from the German region. During the establishment of modern Spain, the Arabs were expelled and lost territories were recovered, or Iberia was conquered again.

In this process that lasted for hundreds of years, Spain already had the foundation for modern nationalism.

Under the influence of nationalist thought, most intellectuals and even many ordinary people would spontaneously fight for their country's independence.

Such a modernized country is difficult to be easily conquered by outsiders.

A war to conquer such a country is of a completely different scale and depth from defeating a traditional aristocratic monarch and obtaining his surrender and allegiance.

Even if a rebellion or even a civil war breaks out within a country, it may not necessarily be a good opportunity for other countries to conquer it.

Historically, Napoleon's conspiracy against Spain seemed to be successful.

Napoleon took advantage of the chaos to depose the king of Spain and arranged for his eldest brother to be the new king.

But Napoleon was also bogged down in the Spanish War, which, like the Russian expedition, seriously depleted France's strength.

When Napoleon said "Things in Spain are always so bad", he was not mocking the Spanish for being unreliable.

Instead, he was worried that he had conquered Spain on the surface but could not truly control it.

Napoleon in this world no longer had much interest in Spain after the Ming Dynasty began to besiege the Spanish colonies and drastically consumed the Spanish navy.

Without the cooperation of the Spanish Navy, and with Napoleon finding a new direction in Germany, he did not even launch a naval battle against Britain.

Napoleon's campaigns throughout Europe, led by his own marshals, were to some extent defensive in nature.

After learning that a rebellion had broken out in Spain, Napoleon immediately sent people to investigate for more intelligence.

Napoleon even expected that the rebellion in Spain would expand rapidly to the point where their crown prince would actually overthrow his parents and take the throne directly.

It would be best to withdraw from the alliance with France directly, so that France can sign a ceasefire agreement with Ming Dynasty again.

The more the "war" between Napoleon and the traditional feudal aristocracy in Europe deepened, the more solemn and fearful their mentality became towards the Ming Dynasty.

Napoleon now knew how much the power of the state could be increased by breaking down the feudal aristocracy.

The entire Ming Dynasty was established after the feudal aristocratic system was abolished.

The entire power of the Ming Dynasty was in the hands of the emperor.

The Ming Dynasty had a total population of 500 million. According to the standards after excluding the feudal aristocracy, even if five million troops were mobilized, there should not be too much pressure.

Napoleon believed that the Ming Dynasty had the ability to mobilize 10 or even 20 million troops, a force that was beyond the reach of others.

The key is that the Ming Dynasty also has the most powerful navy and army equipment in the world.

The key to truly unifying the European continent is to eliminate all feudal aristocrats and completely integrate European power from top to bottom so that we can have the strength to fight the Ming Dynasty.

Until then, direct confrontation with Ming must be avoided at all costs.

For this purpose, Napoleon could even abandon his ally Spain and temporarily give up the land on the peninsula where Spain was located.

Compared to the German region, the land in mainland Spain is not fertile.

Compared with the Italian region, Spain, which had lost its colonies, was not rich.

The best outcome would be to keep Spain neutral while ending the nominal war between France and Ming.

Napoleon knew that if he simply waited, the result he most expected would most likely not occur, so he had to intervene proactively as much as possible.

So after careful consideration, Napoleon summoned his foreign minister Talleyrand and assigned him a new task:
"You should contact Ming officials again in secret and try to cooperate with Ming to resolve the civil unrest in Spain.

"We jointly supported the Spanish crown prince to take power, and let him sign a ceasefire agreement with Ming on behalf of Spain, ceding the New World colonies to Ming.

“At the same time, let Spain withdraw from its alliance with France, and then France and Ming will sign a truce agreement.

"And let Spain always maintain peace with Ming and France in the future."

Talleyrand already knew the situation in Spain, so he took the order and left without asking any more questions.

Napoleon continued to concentrate on transforming Germany and Poland.

(End of this chapter)