Chapter 2347 Great Illusionist (Part 2)

The story of westward expansion is probably one of America's favorite epics, and it wasn't just cowboys, lawmen, Indians, and warehouse managers who took part in the feat.

For at least the first two hundred years of European colonization of the United States, the pace of westward expansion depended in large part on the ability of the colonists to transport commodity crops to Europe to sell.

Most of the pioneers borrowed money to start a business. At least they had to buy shovels for reclamation, and mirrors, clocks and other things that represented their status, and they mainly relied on imports. In the 18th century, Britain generally eliminated pirates. This not only reduced the cost of insurance, but also reduced the cost of shipbuilding. Cargo ships are just ships. There is no need to build that kind of armed cargo ship, so the cost of ship building is reduced, and you can rely on fewer crews. operate.

Sailors could hardly survive without the owner paying the tax ashore in any port other than their home.

Napoleon's fleet to Egypt stopped in Sardinia and Malta. The ships at this time were different from the cruise ships in the 21st century. The French army has always lived on land. When the fleet passed Corsica, it encountered a big storm. It also set off from the port of Gibraltar. Nelson, who intercepted Napoleon, almost arrived in this sea area. Many light ships used for reconnaissance were severely damaged. . Although both the big boat and the small boat are like dead leaves in the face of the turbulent waves, the big boat should be more stable.

This storm greatly weakened Nelson's detection ability, and it is precisely because of this that he passed Napoleon's fleet several times.

While the ship is waiting for repairs, buyers have to visit various plantations, inspect the crops, and bargain before closing the deal. During this period, the sailors' expenses in the port are all borne by the shipowner. Before there is a warehouse, the longer the stay in port, the greater the cost of the shipowner. The warehouse can solve this problem.

Agents collect cash crops from various states in the United States in advance, store them in warehouses, and wait for ships from Europe to arrive, and they can be shipped immediately. Basically, these two sets of changes have lowered shipping costs, so that farmers can go abroad. With the expansion of the West, they can send the goods to the warehouse through an agent or by themselves to exchange for the European goods they need. Even if they are produced in relatively remote areas, they don't have to worry about the problem of buyers not coming to their door.

The next step is price competition. For example, both Virginians and Marylanders export tobacco. Who will the buyer buy?

Maryland borders Virginia, and their geographical environment is not much different, but Maryland is a slave state, and Virginia is Washington's hometown.

The goods brought by Europe are not like the cash crops of the United States, which take up a lot of space. There is always room on board to carry a group of European immigrants.

Jack returned to the United States on the Titanic. He was playing cards with people at the time, and he gambled on the ticket. The Titanic is a cruise ship, it looks very comfortable, just like a palace on the ground. That means that when the weather is calm, experienced captains will also choose routes with better sea conditions to avoid bumps on the sea.

But there are risks in the Atlantic Ocean that the Mediterranean Sea does not have—icebergs, even the giant ship that claims to be unsinkable, and the Titanic sank on its maiden voyage.

Before proposing a plan to go to Egypt, the Directory had hoped that Napoleon would lead his army to land on the British mainland, thereby forcing Britain to surrender and ending the war that began with the French Revolution. However, the British firmly controlled the English Channel, even though it was much narrower than the Mediterranean Sea. Napoleon did not believe that the French naval strength could guarantee the supply line of the landing combat troops, and the investment was huge, the success rate was extremely low, and it was basically not operable, so he turned to the Directory and proposed the Egyptian plan.

This is also related to his selfishness. He has longed for the "East" for a long time, and the Governorate also has this intention, sending him away and training a new general to replace him.

There is also a certain reason that the generals of other countries were bluffed by Napoleon's reputation. The same square formation produced different effects in the hands of Menu than in the hands of Napoleon.

On this long list, the first candidate is Morrow.

Originally there was another Osh, but he died during the fruit month coup. Some people say that he was poisoned to death, and the murderer was Napoleon.

Also, most of the troops sent to Santo Domingo this time came from the Sambre-Meuse camp. This force has been under the command of Moro and Osh, and there is also the 82nd regiment of the regular army. They were sent to the no-go because several officers were suspected of joining Madame de Stael and her salon. Although I don’t know how the news leaked, but when they were about to board the ship, the Swiss mercenaries in Marseilles mutinied when they knew they were going to Santo Domingo, as if the place where coffee and sugar were produced had become Bonaparte’s “grave” field".

Georgiana did not dare to ask Bonaparte the "secret" just mentioned, but told him the plan of the Dutch West India Company.

In fact, coffee was not so popular at the beginning, because it was a pagan drink, and the rulers of the Middle East were worried that coffee would promote the intermediary ability of human communication. At that time, there were few so-called restaurants, and taverns were also Moose Forbidden places, the cafés of Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, and Algiers were among the few public places that gained secular sanction, and gradually became hotbeds of political intrigue. From refreshing to addictive to subversive, there are rulers who have closed some cafés, including Charles II. But he did not reach the level of the Ottoman Empire. The Grand Vizier issued an edict that anyone who runs a coffee shop will be punished with a stick, and if he commits another crime, he will be sewn into a leather bag and thrown into the Istanbul Strait.

In Europe, the coffee shop has gradually become a symbol of the status of the developed and wealthy people. The successful people with a successful career are determined to have their own meeting place and not mix with the low-level people. In Sweden, coffee is included as a national monopoly to prevent common people from drinking this coffee Gustav III once conducted an experiment to save two death row prisoners from death. The condition is that they can only drink one kind of beverage for the rest of their lives, one drinks tea and the other drinks coffee, and the one who drinks tea dies first, so Sweden has become the country with the largest coffee consumption per capita.

During the reign of Gustav III, a deal was reached with Louis XVI. France gave Sweden the island of St. Barthelemy in the West Indies in exchange for the tax-free rights of the port of Gothenburg. The dock and free port were developed, and a lot of coffee and sugar produced by Santo Domingo were sold to Sweden, Denmark and other Nordic countries.

Frederick the Great believed that coffee was not good for health and set high tariffs, but it still couldn't stop the wealthy class from tasting it.

This is probably the case in France and Austria. Cafes are the earliest men's clubs, filled with the smell of bitter coffee and tobacco, discussing politics, opera, literature, and any topic they like. In the 17th century, Viennese cafe owners added honey and milk to make coffee more acceptable to Europeans, but Arabica coffee was still a very rare specialty at this time.

The problem at this time is that coffee is very expensive. Yemen uses artificial production methods, and middlemen increase prices layer by layer. Just like silk on the Silk Road, it is priced in pounds rather than units of length when it reaches Europe.

Yemen’s production area is on a steep mountain with no irrigation facilities. There are only a few hundred farmers. The Arabs don’t know what the harvest season is. They bring coffee beans to the market every week, but when the price is low, they hold them back and don’t sell them. The business is run by Indian merchants and Arabs, both dutch and british east india companies are represented in mocha but they don't hold much status as they have no political influence and the only european commodity the yemenis want is mexican silver Made of piaster coins.

Not only is it difficult to purchase coffee beans, but it is also difficult to transport coffee beans. First, they have to be transported to the port of Mocha, and then to Jeddah, the largest port of the Ottoman Empire on the Red Sea. In Jeddah, the goods are loaded on a Turkish ship and shipped to Suez, where the coffee beans arrive in Suez. The camels were loaded and shipped to Cairo or Alexandria, where they were shipped to Constantinople. Before Dela Roque's voyage, almost all coffee beans were taken from Alexandria, and then shipped to Marseilles. The cost of such transportation was very high. Louis XIV planted a coffee tree in the King's Botanical Garden, which was shipped from Holland. Yes, the king left the coffee beans it produced to his favorite courtiers.

Dela Roque's voyage from Mocha around the Cape of Good Hope took two and a half years, but he found that transporting coffee beans in this way was still profitable.

If growing coffee beans in a greenhouse is cheap, why not use a greenhouse?

Later, the seeds of this coffee bean spread all over the world. It broke the monopoly of the Arabs on the coffee trade, and colonial coffee gradually replaced Mocha coffee in the Cairo market.

Arabica coffee beans are produced in the Abyssinian Empire, and now its seeds are all over Brazil, mainly because the Portuguese helped Abyssinia. The reason why Arabica coffee beans are rare and expensive than mocha is only because It has low acidity, and many people can't accept the sour taste, but some people like the "charming sour taste" very much.

The price of coffee beans had risen ninefold because of the Europeans' love for Arabica coffee, which angered the Turks, and the Turkish ambassador complained to the Shah of Yemen about the direct European purchases.

The Ottomans worried that the system they had gone to so much trouble to set up would collapse. Americans have not been interested in tea since the Boston Tea Party, and coffee beans can also be grown at their latitude, so they developed the habit of drinking coffee instead of tea.

The business of exchanging woolen cloth for coffee beans can be done. No matter how cheap the cotton cloth is, it must be exchanged for coins. But how to do it, Bonaparte said he had to "think about it."

She directly reminded him that this is a trap, because the Dutch West India Company that proposed this plan may have Hope Bank behind it, that is, the bank that monopolized the Brazilian diamond trade, the Russian sugar trade, and almost contributed to the Louisiana acquisition. Hope Bank, who persuaded Napoleon to attack the United States and become the "King of the United States".

He still said he was going to "think about it".

She looked at his big head. Can his brain surpass so many people's?

At this time, the lunch break came, and he left the lounge. Georgiana also wanted to go to Farron, but what did she want him for?

She is old, and she really has a bad memory. Next time, she will find a note to write down, so as not to forget it.