King's Landing in France

Page 181

After An Ning finished speaking, Talleyrand suddenly realized: "So that's the case, replace gold with the necessities of life! Wonderful, wonderful!"

An Ning smiled, and then changed the topic: "I thought you would hide in London until the terror policy was completely stopped, why did you come back suddenly, Your Excellency the Priest."

Talleyrand smiled: "Of course it's because you're getting married. I guess Fouché is coming soon. You can't miss such a big event like your wedding."

An Ning looked at Talleyrand, and suddenly felt nostalgic—ah, I originally wanted to be such a character.

Chapter 316 Everyone Wants to Embrace the Age of Steam

When An Ning was attacked by the sudden surge of feelings, Talleyrand said again: "About the wedding, have you confirmed the bishop who will preside over the wedding?"

An Ning couldn't help squinting her eyes: "Well, you Talleyrand, you came this way!"

To hold a wedding in Europe in this era, a priest must preside over it.

In fact, Europeans in this era have been related to priests since birth.

When you are born, you have to be baptized by the priest, when you are an adult, you have to receive the blessing of the priest, when you get married, you have to ask the priest to officiate, and after you give birth, you have to ask the priest to baptize the child... Finally, when the life comes to an end, the priest must preside over the funeral.

Therefore, the priests have great energy. The previous priest oath law led to the division of the priests, which will lead to the division of the whole of France.

Although Talleyrand took the initiative to sell the church property back then, he proposed the confiscation of the church property to save the parliament, but he is indeed a bishop certified by the Pope of Rome.

An Ning: "Why, are you going to be the host?"

Talleyrand smiled: "Nothing can be hidden from you."

——Damn, are you hiding something?Why didn't I see you hiding it?You put "I want to be the host" all over your face, and then say "I can't hide anything from you", this flattery is too direct.

An Ning'an resisted the desire to flatter Talleyrand, and said directly to the business: "Actually, Christina and I are still considering whether to invite a bishop to officiate the wedding."

Talleyrand was shocked: "Don't preside? This is absolutely impossible, it will put you on the opposite side of the entire Holy See! Not only that, but the religious people will also have opinions on you, saying that you are the son of Satan or something."

There is indeed such a possibility.

By the way, Christina also tends to find a priest to officiate the wedding. An Ning is an atheist, but his wife is not.

He had just said this to see Talleyrand's reaction.

An Ning: "Don't worry, we just thought about it and didn't really make such a decision. Your Excellency, Bishop Talleyrand, are you sure you still have... um, permission to officiate the wedding?"

Talleyrand shrugged: "Although I have sworn allegiance to the Pope of France instead of Rome, the Pope has not revoked my bishop appointment. I am still a fake Vatican-certified bishop."

As he spoke Talleyrand took out the bishop's little hat and put it on his head.

To be honest, An Ning always thought this kind of priest hat was funny——he had thought so since before he crossed over.

An Ning: "Okay, since you have the qualifications, I would like to ask you to be the officiant of our wedding."

Talleyrand smiled slightly: "I will definitely complete the mission. By the way, have you decided on the church for the wedding? If not, please allow me to recommend..."

"We are going to use Notre Dame de Paris." An Ning interrupted Talleyrand, "If you want to, it's because I really like this building."

The main reason is that a great writer wrote a book named after this building a long time later, and An Ning happened to like this book very much—and the movie of the same name based on the book.

Talleyrand: "Oh, Notre-Dame, good taste, good taste, Monsieur General!"

An Ning: "Can you stop your endless flattery, haven't you asked about it, I don't like this kind of thing very much."

Talleyrand: "Sorry, this is my habit of dealing with people, I forgot that you are a..."

"Here we go again. Alright, I agree to preside over the wedding ceremony. You can leave if you have nothing else to do, Your Excellency the Bishop."

Talleyrand did not leave, but rolled his eyes and said, "I have other things to do. I don't know you. Are you still accepting... accepting investment?"

"You also want to come to get the dividend?" An Ning asked back, "You know the UK, you should know that we have indeed reached the threshold of the steam age, right?"

Talleyrand: "Of course I know that many chimneys have been erected in England, spewing thick smoke every day, and there are steam boilers underneath. But I also know that the British have broken out several times to smash the machines!

"For example, the incident in 1778 was particularly large-scale. After that, small-scale incidents of destroying machines also occurred from time to time. It happened several times during the six months I was in the UK.

"The era of steam you advocated will not be as beautiful as you imagined."

An Ning thought nonsense, don't I know?

But on the surface he said with a smile: "There will be some side effects, but there is nothing in this world without side effects.

"The British used steam engines to greatly improve their own production, and their national strength is getting stronger and stronger. It may not be obvious now, but one day in the future, they will definitely become the hegemony of the world.

"We, the French, cannot allow this to happen. So we must develop our own steam industry and surpass the British in this respect.

"Talleyrand, you know the UK, you know that what I said is not a high-sounding excuse, I am not looking for a fig leaf to make money for myself, I really intend to develop the steam industry, and I really intend to give every investor a good return!

"This return is not the kind of return that many people understand, but a real financial return!"

Talleyrand was overwhelmed by An Ning's sudden enthusiastic speech. After An Ning finished speaking, he froze for a moment before realizing that he should respond: "It's really a great idea. Then please let me contribute to this great idea. By the way, I I also want to make some money."

An Ning: "You also want to pay five hundred ounces of gold?"

Talleyrand: "I... don't have that much, I can only take out a little over 100 ounces."

That's a lot!

You co-authored the proposal to confiscate educational property and subsidize the council, and you made a lot of money yourself!

How can France do well with such insects?

However, Talleyrand has already counted among speculators and ambitions. After all, he has really promoted the progress of France.

Like Fouché, Fouche is credited with establishing the modern police system.

An Ning: "Yes, you can send the gold bars to the bank I opened. Now the bank is holding an event. If you deposit gold, you will get paper francs equivalent to gold. This is one of the means I use to consolidate the value of paper money.

"After you take the banknotes, you can buy any product in the chamber of commerce under my name."

Talleyrand: "Only paper money?"

"Of course, there are also investment certificates, documents and so on. As for the dividend rules, we stipulate that a gold bar is [-] shares, and the dividends are distributed according to the shares at the end of each year." An Ning is also very proficient in this set, like A seller of insurance.

Talleyrand: "You speak so skillfully, have you already told many people who come to invest?"

An Ning pretended to be stupid and said: "Yes, especially after the news of my marriage was released, I don't know why more people invested! Everyone really hopes to embrace the future steam era!"

Chapter 317 Fulton's Refuge

After that, Talleyrand chatted with An Ning about some unimportant things, and then got up to leave.

An Ning: "I won't see you off, I've been very busy these days, and there are still people queuing up to find me after you."

Just as An Ning finished speaking, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in!" he answered.

The door opened and a middle-aged man entered.

"Hello, Mr. Frost!" he said in heavily accented French.

Talleyrand hadn't left yet, so he said directly, "I want to call Your Excellency the General."

"Oh sorry, Your Excellency General!" The visitor immediately corrected himself, "I'm sorry, I'm not very familiar with these rules yet."

Talleyrand: "You should be thankful that General Frost is an informal man, notoriously informal."

An Ning looked at Talleyrand, thinking that this walking sycophant really never misses any chance to sycophant, so she gave me two more.

While thinking about this, An Ning didn't leave the visitor alone: ​​"Hello, what's your name?"

The visitor was a little nervous, and the little hands that had nowhere to rest mingled together: "I... I am an American, my name is Robert Fulton, and I am an inventor. I heard that you welcome inventors and engineers from all over the world to develop steam. Technology is here."

An Ning let out an "oh", seemingly calm on the surface, but in fact she couldn't calm down at all.

People who are not familiar with history may only think of the funny Fulton recovery device in Metal Gear Solid 5 when they hear the name Fulton, but An Ning is a person who is familiar with history.

This Robert Fulton is the guy who invented the steamship. His most famous story is that he dedicated the steamship to Napoleon who became emperor, but Napoleon didn't know the goods! '

Steamboat!If France wants to defeat the Royal Navy, there is only one way, which is to innovate naval technology and use ironclad ships to smash sail warships.

The French Navy beat the Royal Navy in the era of the American Revolutionary War, but that is past glory.

It takes a great deal of money to maintain a large naval fleet, and the National Assembly has no money.

Anning has money, but the money is used to develop steam engines, and there is not enough money to build a fleet.And now the fleet is built with good wood.

There is a famous story that after a certain country was defeated by the Royal Navy, it planted a batch of good wood and planned to build a fleet to fight back when the wood grew well.

These timbers have been grown for more than 200 years, and finally grew in the 21st century. Their forestry minister also informed the Prime Minister with a sense of ritual that our timber has grown and can be cut down to build a fleet to fight back against the Royal Navy. Fuck it .

The funniest thing is that the Royal Navy at that time wanted to fight sailing warships, but I am afraid they could only use the classical tactic of ramming, because the Royal Navy had no money to buy shells.

The post-modern shape of the Queen Elizabeth seems to be very suitable for post-modern things like ramming a sailing warship.

Asking is art.

After a round of brainstorming, An Ning said to Fulton, "I've heard that you build steamships."

Fulton was overjoyed: "Yes! You actually know me! I read the article you mentioned about the age of steam in the newspaper, so I packed my things and came from England. I even packed my good friend and mentor Watt. , but he seems to have a prejudice against France."

An Ning: "Ah, Watt is an Englishman. It's normal to have prejudice against France."

After all, the Anglo-French feud began during the Hundred Years' War.

Fulton: "I'm going to start building a new steamship in France, give me a little time and it should be done soon!"

An Ning: "Don't worry, France is still in chaos, and there may not be enough resources for you to concentrate on developing steamships for the time being. I will arrange for you to go to the south, where it is relatively stable and gathers a large number of skilled craftsmen.

"The steam engine industry over there is also more mature. I just established a factory to produce steam engines. You can find all the resources you need over there!"

Fulton: "Great, I knew you must be very interested in this! I will do my best to build a steamboat with excellent performance!"

An Ning shook her head: "No, no, the point is not excellent performance, but good reliability, do you understand, reliability! If the cylinder explodes after running for a while, such a ship is unqualified!"

Fulton: "Got it, reliability."

"Okay, you go to my adjutant Murat, he will arrange for you to go to the south."

Because Murat has no military merits yet, she cannot be promoted to an official, so An Ning brings her by her side to serve as an adjutant.

Because Murat was more handsome, he suddenly became the most popular person among ladies in Paris, and Lasalle's teeth gritted with envy.

But Murat envied Lasalle's military capabilities to lead troops to counter the rebellion.

After Fulton left, Talleyrand, who watched the whole process, sighed: "It seems that not only the soldiers have ushered in a good era, but the engineers have also ushered in a good era."

An Ning: "From now on, it will always be a good time for engineers."

——If you don’t believe me, go to Little John’s hardcore and ruthless series.

Talleyrand: "When I was planning my future, I thought that being a priest would definitely make me a profit. I didn't expect that I would take a wrong step in the end."

An Ning: "You didn't want to emulate Richelieu at that time, did you?"

Talleyrand laughed loudly: "You guessed it, yes, I really admired Richelieu when I was young."

Talleyrand was silent for a few seconds before asking An Ning: "Do you really think we can defeat the Royal Navy with a steamship?"

An Ning: "A simple steamship may not work, but when we install iron armor and breech-loading guns on the steamship, it should be fine."

"Iron armor and breech-loading guns... My God, the British Navy is still saying that breech-loading guns will never run out of ammunition in the fleet." Talleyrand lamented.

An Ning immediately became interested: "Did they say that?"

"Yes, all breech-loading technology is ridiculed in England, and the proof they show is you! They say you like the new technology of breech-loading so much that your troops still carry flintlocks gun."

An Ning: "Damn, I don't want to use breech-loading guns? I can't make a gun that can arm all the troops, otherwise I will let everyone use breech-loading guns."

Talleyrand: "They don't know you, of course they don't know this. But there is one person who is very interested in the results of the elite marksman army you formed."

"Who?"

"A little guy named Arthur Wellesley, a lady with a corgi."

An Ning was shocked: "Wellington?"

"what?"

"Uh, ah, I mean who is this?"

Seeing that An Ning was interested, Talleyrand immediately changed his attitude just now, and explained in detail: "A young man is still working as the adjutant of a certain celebrity, and he is writing a sonnet chasing a certain young and beautiful woman. And play some terrible violin, boy.

"After he knew that I was French, he came to me and curiously asked about the results of your elite shooter unit. Of course I boasted to him fiercely!"

While Talleyrand was eloquent, An Ning fell into deep thought: The future Duke of Wellington has become interested in my tactics, so he won't be my formidable enemy like in the past, right?

But An Ning thought about it, why couldn't Wellington admire me and come join me?