Chapter 836: The Struggle of Napoleon IV

  Chapter 819 Napoleon IV’s Struggle

The continuous victories on the African battlefield did not make the French happy for long. Defeating the rebels doesn’t mean that things are over, and the aftermath is the real trouble.

Scattered in the countryside of the routed soldiers aside, anyway, the Egyptian region has been all scourged pretty much, escaped the French immigrants have run to the city to avoid the trouble, there is nothing to worry about.

But the flooded Nile could not be ignored. Now is the dry season, the destructive force is not too amazing.

If the river cannot be dredged in time, when the flood season arrives, including the most fertile delta, the Nile coast do not want to get any harvest.

Looking at the Egyptian reconstruction plan in his hands, Napoleon IV’s face grimaced, and even the good news of the front line’s defeat of the rebel main force couldn’t give him a hint of relief.

“Why do we have to spend so much money?”

Napoleon IV had also seen big scenes, and to be able to move him, naturally it would not be a small sum.

Egypt’s post-war reconstruction program spending has approached one-fifth of the reconstruction program of France after the civil war, need to invest money up to billions of francs.

This was a colony, not a homeland. Spending such a large price, but also only able to restore the social order of Egypt, not to talk about the true meaning of development.

The new prime minister, Terence Burgin, hastened to explain: “Your Majesty, the rebels have gone too far.

Egypt’s first major river, the Nile, has been devastated, blocked in more than a hundred places, forming seventy-three large and small weirs.

As a result of the severe blockage of the river, the river continues to flood to both sides, and much of the farmland along the Nile has been destroyed.

The cost of dredging the river alone is in the hundreds of millions of francs, and the restoration of these farmlands requires an even greater investment.

Because of the war, most of the small towns and plantations in the Egyptian region were devastated, and the local economy was completely destroyed.

As a result, many of the country’s agricultural insurance companies are in crisis and need to be bailed out by the government.

Capitalists, plantation owners, and ordinary immigrants in the Egyptian region who have suffered heavy losses are in need of government assistance.

In addition to this, one of the biggest expenses is the relief of refugees.

According to incomplete statistics, two out of every three people in the Egyptian region are refugees, and the total number of refugees may exceed the two million mark.

If these problems cannot be solved, it will be difficult to stabilize the situation in Egypt.

The government has counted all these necessary expenses, together with the military expenses for maintaining local stability after the war, as part of the post-war reconstruction funds.”

Hearing this explanation, Napoleon IV still did not feel relieved. No amount of justification could change the fact that money still had to be spent.

Without waiting for Napoleon IV to take a stand, Roy Vernon, the Minister of Finance, jumped the gun and denied, “That’s impossible!

Egypt is just a colony, even if it’s no more important, it’s not worth the cost.

The government’s financial resources are limited, and we have more meaningful things to do than waste precious funds.”

It was sincere, the French government really didn’t have any money. Affected by the Egyptian rebellion, France’s economy suffered heavy losses, and its revenues followed suit.

Revenue has decreased, but financial expenses have not decreased, especially military expenses have also increased significantly.

Not long ago, the Paris government also launched a large farm program, in French Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and other regions have planned more than a hundred farms.

At present, one third of the farms are already under construction, and some of the farms have completed land leveling and are ready for spring plowing.

These results are all made with money. There are no surprises, all the farm projects are funded by the government.

As for private capital?

Unfortunately, the gang of plantation owners in Egypt is the most enthusiastic representative of France’s agriculture, and now every one of them is busy licking their wounds, who dares to take money to fill the bottomless pit of agriculture.

Prime Minister Terence Burgin looked at me angrily: “It can’t be done, but it has to be done! All other projects can be postponed, but the Nile must be dredged as soon as possible.

This year’s agriculture in the Egyptian region is less than one-third of a normal year, and the fall grain along the Nile River is close to extinction.

According to the colonial government’s estimates, the local population of the Egyptian region has dropped by at least a quarter due to war, hunger, and disease.

If the river cannot be dredged before May, the grain harvest along the Nile will be extinct again next year, and the famine will continue for another year.

Once this kind of thing happens, the situation in Egypt, which has now been stabilized with great difficulty, will be plunged into chaos again.

When things are over, it is an open question whether one-third of the local population will remain.

Without enough population, there won’t be enough labor, what about our cotton plantations?”

Having just suffered from a lack of cotton supply, a large group of capitalists in the cotton industry in the country are now urging the government to stabilize the situation as soon as possible so that production can resume.

This is known by looking at the crowds demonstrating outside, seven or eight out of ten are workers in the cotton industry chain.

Because of the insufficient supply of raw materials, most factories are unable to start work normally. When the enterprises are having a hard time, the workers are having an even harder time.

Terrence Burgin could care less about the Egyptians, but could not ignore the consequences of the labor shortage.

The present French Egypt, including half of the Sudan, was two million square kilometers in area.

However, on such a large area, including the indigenous tribes living in the mountains and forests, there are less than five million people.

This is still the number before the outbreak of the rebellion, and when the situation stabilizes, it would be God’s blessing if 3.5 million people could survive.

If the famine continues, it is not a dream that there will be no one for thousands of miles. After all, Egypt’s rich land, only a Nile Delta, the rest is mostly desert.

If you want to rely on hunting, picking wild fruits to survive, unfortunately this is the wrong scene, North African countries do not have the ability to do so.

Whether it’s dredging rivers, helping plantation owners get back into production, or repairing damaged towns and cities, it takes a lot of labor.

Essentially, these projects are disaster relief. Lest the locals all starve to death, there was no cheap labor to continue exploiting.

The severity of the consequences was teased out, and Napoleon IV couldn’t sit still. Against the backdrop of heavy industry struggling to get off the ground, France couldn’t do without its cotton fields.

“The work of dredging the river must begin as soon as possible. Order the troops on the front line to speed up, we can’t let the rebels continue to destroy the river upstream.

The National Bank issued low-interest loans to plantation owners to help them resume production as soon as possible, and the farms that were originally planned for the Egyptian delta region were started immediately.

Send a telegram to the colonial government to distribute a portion of the relief rations, so that the locals are not allowed to starve to death.”

In a sense, Napoleon IV was really bitter. Although he was a second-generation emperor who was born with the emperor’s destiny, what he, the emperor, had taken over was a super mess.

Napoleon III is the scenery is unlimited, all the way smooth and open, finally took the “great emperor title”, but the aftermath are left to Napoleon IV.

Huge debts, complex ethnic conflicts, the economy towards recession, the international relations of the open group of ridicule, all at once exposed.

In such a bad situation, to be able to stabilize the situation, did not let the collapse of France, Napoleon IV is already enough to rank among the contemporary monarchs in the first few.

Whether it was the African development program or the current big farm program, all were measures taken by Napoleon IV in an attempt to reverse the decadence of France.

Unfortunately, time waited for no one, and his rivals kept adding to his troubles, not giving France a chance to turn the tide.

The African development program met with a man-made economic crisis, and even triggered a civil war, the end is self-evident.

This time, the big farm program was born only in the war. Originally Napoleon IV was very optimistic, after all, this move hit the soft underbelly of Russia and Austria.

However, the plan did not change quickly, this has just begun to implement, the government first ran out of money.

After a pause, Napoleon IV added: “The Ministry of Finance issued another five billion francs of government bonds to raise funds.”

Open mouth is five billion francs, even if the current French Empire is much larger than the same period in history, this is still an astronomical amount, equivalent to the French government’s revenue for an entire year.

Hearing this news, Roy Vernon, the Minister of Finance, was directly confused, and he very much wondered if there was something wrong with his ears.

In recent years, the French government’s debt has continued to soar upwards, and is about to cross the twenty-five billion mark, and at this time another five billion in bonds, it will directly break thirty billion.

“Your Majesty, even if you put aside the government’s financial pressure, and do not consider the issue of interest on funds, and even ignore the aftereffects of monetary tightening, the Ministry of Finance will not be able to complete this fundraising task.

In recent years, the government has issued a huge amount of bonds, absorbing a large amount of idle funds in the market. In the short term, there is simply no way to raise so much money in the domestic financial market.”

In the era of the gold standard, limited by the amount of gold reserves, the amount of currency issued by each country was very limited.

Britain and Austria such as the main gold producing countries are okay, their own gold reserves are enough, the market has enough confidence in them to raise leverage.

Even if a portion of the banknotes are printed more, the British pound and the divine shield as an international currency, there is still an international market that can be digested, as long as the play is not too much, it will not affect the value of the currency.

France such as gold importers will not be able to, not control the ratio of issued currency and reserves, it is easy to be international lobbyists to take advantage of the situation.

The French have already personally learned once, before the financial turmoil, the French government followed the British and Austrian countries to play with high leverage, the franc even in the international currency settlement system occupies an important position.

Unfortunately, the French government’s gold reserves are insufficient to cope with the run on the crisis, the franc’s status as an international currency has been knocked to the dust.

Napoleon IV asked: “domestic can not, is not still the international market?

I remember that year, Austria issued bonds to the whole of Europe once, obtained a large amount of money.

It was with the funds raised from the international market that Austria completed the Industrial Revolution and revived again.”

Roy Vernon, the Minister of Finance, shook his head, “Your Majesty, we are not the same as Austria, and the international situation now is different from back then.

Just because the Austrian government can do something does not mean that we can do it as well. At least with the political interference from various countries, we have no solution.”

Money is not a good thing to borrow these days. International loans come with strings attached, and why should the issuance of international bonds be any different?

Austria issued huge bonds to the European world to finance, in addition to the Vienna government came up with enough collateral, but more critical is a good international environment.

Austria and the European countries, most of the agreements reached in that era, a series of secret treaties down, and the relationship between the European countries, if not an ally, that is also a quasi-alliance.

The relationship is good, naturally, no one stuck his neck. The French government will not be able to change, it is estimated that the bonds have just entered the market in various countries, it is too late to sell, political interference will come.

The ball was kicked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the expectant eyes of Napoleon IV, Foreign Minister Karel Kadlec directly lowered his high head.

(End of chapter)