Chapter 734 Threat
Chapter 735 Threats
Lord Grenville gave a speech for the fleet review on behalf of the King of England.
Then, the sailors of the "Victory" skillfully raised the main sail, and the battleship slowly sailed out of the port.
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The port suddenly roared with salutes, and then, dozens of warships in the naval port sounded melodious trumpets at the same time.
Lord Grenville bowed slightly to the diplomats from various countries sitting on the front deck and smiled:
"The fleet review has officially begun. I wish you all a pleasant afternoon."
Five huge first- and second-class battleships passed by the crowd first.
Behind them were the third-class main battleships, which were slightly smaller and arranged in two rows, as many as 16 ships.
Behind them were the fourth-class battleships with less than 60 guns, as many as 21 ships.
On the "Victory", except for the Dutch Foreign Minister who had some naval background, the diplomats from other countries were all shocked and wide-eyed.
In fact, even the Dutch Navy, which is the fourth in Europe, has only a few fourth-class ships as its main force.
As for the Prussian navy, which is a dwarf, it doesn't even have a few cruisers.
After the large black mass of warships passed in front of the "Victory", Admiral Jervis said on the side:
"Next, please watch the actual combat demonstration of the formation."
The "Victory" immediately issued a series of flag signals, and the British fleet that received the order outside the port immediately divided into two teams, each circling in the distance, forming two battle lines, pulling full sails, and rushing towards each other at high speed.
15 minutes later, the two battle lines began to intersect.
The gun ports on the side of the two second-class ships in the front were fully opened, and more than 40 cannons on one side roared like thunder at the same time.
On the "Victory", which was only half a mile away, diplomats from various countries covered their ears at the same time, staring at the large black smoke in front of them with wide eyes.
Then, more warships began to meet. The two battle lines were parallel to each other, and the cannons on each ship spared no effort to shoot at the opposite side. A large number of flames intertwined together, just like a raging fire on the sea.
For a while, although the diplomats of various countries knew that the cannons were firing blanks, they were still overwhelmed by the terrifying power.
At this moment, they all firmly believed that anything that appeared on the sea would be easily crushed by this invincible fleet.
After an unknown period of time, the sound of cannons on the sea gradually stopped, but the hearts of the people on the "Victory" were still beating wildly.
Lord Grenville stood up first, looked at the expressions of the crowd with satisfaction, and smiled towards the cabin:
"A sumptuous dinner has been prepared in the officers' meeting room, please come and enjoy it."
In the cabin, the band has changed to a soothing and lively tune. Under the flickering candlelight, plates of delicious food were placed on the table.
Before the banquet started, Grenville came to the left of Count Rheinfels, the Austrian Foreign Minister, sat down, and said in German:
"Voratel, my old friend, I am glad to meet you."
"It is an honor to receive your invitation, my friend."
Grenville skipped the greetings and said seriously:
"Obviously, this is a very good opportunity for both of us."
"What do you mean?"
"The opportunity to solve the troubles facing our respective countries." The British said, "Let me be frank, your country's financial situation is not optimistic, the serf reform has been interrupted, and at the same time, the nobles in various places are also quite dissatisfied with His Majesty the Emperor. "The word."
Count Rheinfels did not comment:
"I want to hear what you mean by 'opportunity'."
"Yes, opportunity." Grenville nodded, "I think you should know very well where the root of Austria's current problems lie."
"..."
Grenville looked across the sea through the porthole: "France. Austria's fiscal revenue has been shrinking. The core reason is that the vast southern German market has been occupied by the French, and even your domestic market is full of French goods.
"If I remember correctly, your trade income has dropped by 17% compared with the previous year, which has led to a large number of factories reducing production and even closing down."
Count Rheinfels's face was not very good, but he did not respond. In fact, Austria's trade volume has dropped by a huge 27% compared with the previous year!
For the sake of the face of the empire, His Majesty the Emperor ordered the 17% figure to be announced to the public.
Grenville continued: "And the Southern Netherlands, which is Austria's traditional source of revenue, is now providing taxes for the French.
"Oh, I've been there to see it. There are ironworks that are almost constantly feeding coal from major coal mines into blast furnaces day and night. The iron ingots produced are twice as high as the total output of other places in Austria!
"I remember the French said that they would share the benefits there with you. But look, what did Austria get from there? Negligible taxes."
He was just changing the concept.
The original agreement between France and Austria was to jointly own the market in Wallonia and both could invest there.
After that, Austria was either busy fighting or coronating a new emperor, and never invested a penny there.
The French government alone invested tens of millions of francs in the Southern Netherlands, and private investment would only be more. That's why they bought all the large coal mines in Wallonia, built a large number of ironworks, and built wooden tracks to transport products to southern German countries for sale, forming a virtuous circle.
Of course, this is also because Joseph knew the coal reserves and development value of Wallonia based on the information of later generations, so he dared to invest heavily.
If the same information was told to the Austrians, even if they did not invest so much, they would definitely not do nothing.
But the reality is that Austria had never cared about Wallonia before.
When they saw that the French made money and wanted to invest again, they found that all valuable industries had been invested by the French.
In fact, the tax revenue of Wallonia still belongs to Austria, after all, it is still nominally Austrian territory.
Therefore, the tax revenue they received still increased significantly with the development of Wallonia. However, compared with the high profits of coal and iron companies, Austria looked down on this little tax revenue.
Count Rheinfels nodded subconsciously:
"That's true. But we have an agreement with France..."
The British Foreign Secretary immediately said:
"Unreasonable agreements should be abolished! This also includes the Rhine-Seine Treaty, which allows France to invade the southern German market without worries.
"If there is no damn treaty, those markets are all yours. Any financial problems will be solved. "
Count Rheinfels sighed:
"You are right, we have tried to amend this treaty, but..."
"It's just that the French threatened you with force... Oh, I mean those southern German states. "
Grenville's tone was full of temptation:
"And now, we must unite and prevent the French from threatening any country! "
(Because some paragraphs in this chapter have been slightly modified, the comments of book friends have been swallowed by the system. The author apologizes to everyone! Please understand.)
