The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria’s Mandate of Heaven

v3 Chapter 14: Britain won't back down

Ji Zuo has long been accustomed to facing the people's poverty. In his heart, only the bottom line of goodwill between Britain and France is immutable.

Just like the speech he gave when he was in office early.

"We don't want to talk about conquest, war, and revenge. Let France prosper, let it be free, rich, intelligent, and carefree—and we shall not regret that it has no influence on world events."

The current road of colonial expansion is not actually designed by Kizuo alone. What he hopes is to develop France's own market potential in exchange for a stable external environment.

However, the world is a whole. The Austrian Empire joined the German Customs Union, which greatly enhanced its competitiveness, which made France feel the crisis.

After the Spanish Civil War, Queen Regent Christiana made an offer that the French could not refuse.

During the Battle of Texas, Kizuo saw the opportunity and won Texas, which was repeatedly contested by the United States and Mexico, at a very good price.

It was during the Mexican Civil War that the remaining funds were lost, saving France a large amount of money.

The Texas colony has brought a lot of resources to France, as well as quite good taxes, and the potential of this colony is huge, and it is fully expected to become the second France.

Afterwards, although it lost its exclusive interests in Egypt in the Turkish-Egyptian War for hegemony in the Near East, with the end of the Spanish Civil War, it was able to free up more power to look around the world and start establishing colonies.

Invade Algeria, invade Morocco, compete with the Austrian Empire for West Africa, compete with Britain for East Africa, carve up the Central American Federation, and jointly develop Asian colonies with Spain...

Unknowingly, France has gone further and further down the road of colonialism, but this has indeed injected strong vitality into France at this time, allowing it to quickly recover from the economic crisis.

However, what François Chizuo was thinking about the most was "French-Belgian Customs Union. At this time, although Belgium had just been independent from the Netherlands for more than ten years, it was the second fastest-growing country in the entire European economy. The speed exceeds 20%.

The first is Luxembourg, but the volume is too small to have much reference value.

Kizot hoped that through concessions, Britain would accept the "French-Belgian Customs Union" to counter the increasingly powerful "German Customs Union".

If it is possible for Britain to make concessions on the Argentine issue, then there is no way to talk about the Low Countries.

The Low Countries refer to the Netherlands, namely the Netherlands and Belgium.

The United Kingdom will resolutely fight back against any behavior that may threaten the British mainland or undermine its glorious independent status, and this time is no exception.

As soon as the British cabinet received the news, it reached an internal consensus that the French-Belgian customs union must not be established. Because if it is allowed to act indiscriminately, it will not only revive Napoleon's dead soul, but also directly threaten the core interests of Britain.

Palmerston still directly clamored for war as usual. Although the British have been reciting their words recently, there is no doubt that they are the most powerful country in the world at this time.

The Battle of Kabul, the Battle of Pangong Lake, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and successive disastrous defeats forced Britain to transfer troops from the mainland to fill the vacancy in the Nanyang military force.

At this time, the North Sea Fleet and the defense forces of the British mainland were relatively weak, and what was even more terrible was the domestic labor movement, which was the famous "Charter Movement".

Britain had the earliest industrialization, the largest number of workers, and the strongest power. Although Queen Victoria, who had just ascended the throne, resolved the crisis with her charisma, due to objective factors, the promise made by the queen could not be fulfilled at all.

As a result, the workers were organized again to seek their own rights, this time Victoria simply quit, and as she grew older she grew tired of those stupid and double-faced politicians.

At the same time, the queen also met the love of her life—Prince Albert. The two would rather enjoy the good time together than deal with tedious state affairs.

In fact, these two people have certain political skills, but the British system and the politicians in power at the time were really strong, so they could only choose to settle for the second best.

The complicated situation at home and abroad and the huge pressure almost made the cabinet members unable to hold their heads up. Prime Minister Viscount Melbourne also had to convene a parliament to bring Kizuo's proposal to the parliament for a vote.

But fortunately, all the parties in the UK were surprisingly unanimous in the French-Belgian customs union, and voted unanimously against the establishment of a legal currency customs union in France.

It's just that serious differences have arisen on the issue of the Governor's District of La Plata. Most of the members oppose the threat of force in this matter, because Britain has too many enemies, such as Russia, France, Austria, the ancient empires of the East, and Those barbaric indigenous tribes of Oceania and Africa.

Most of them objected that Russia was the greatest threat to British world hegemony, but Palmerston disagreed.

"Gentlemen please be quiet! Russia is a potentially great threat to Britain, they will threaten the Near East, they will threaten Central Asia, they may even occupy Afghanistan, cross the Hindu Kush Mountains, and invade our India!

but! Gentlemen! Believe me, no one in this world knows Russia better than I do! They haven't gone out to sea yet, which means they can't pose a real threat to us! "

Palmerston's words~lightnovelpub.net~ are to the point, and he deserves to be the man who knows Russia best. But lawmakers will not agree to the threat of force against France just because Russia is less of a threat, he said quickly.

"But the French have already gone to sea! They want to compete with us for North America! For Africa! For India! For Central America! Now they want to compete with us for South America! Faced with such an opponent who wants to compete with us for the world, the British Empire should choose Back off?!"

"My answer is no!"

Never! Never! Never!, the English context is actually quite emotional.

Palmerston's words ignited the passion of the MPs, and there was only one voice in the Congress at this time.

"The British Empire will never back down!"

.....

Of course, based on the communication conditions at the time, a series of events would occur within a few months. The United Kingdom mobilized the main force of the West African Fleet to support South America and brought 6,000 British soldiers with it.

However, it was not to attack the French army, but to protect the legal property of the expatriates and the United Kingdom. After all, at this time, most of the leaders of the two sides had experienced the Napoleonic Wars and understood the tragic war and its terrible destructive power.

And they are all old Yinbi, waiting for the other party to come to him to negotiate terms.

At this time, the sky of Spain was once again shrouded in the cloud of civil war. Although the Queen Regent Christiana had been deprived of most of her rights by the French, she was still not a peaceful person.

The queen regent, Christiana, is a woman who desires extravagance. Although she gave up her rights, she will not give up the opportunity for material enjoyment.

On the one hand, Christiana sought out a large number of young and beautiful men and bought gold, silver and jewelry for her own enjoyment. On the other hand, she borrowed heavily in the name of her daughter and the royal family, but she was unable to repay and did not want to repay.