Chapter 856: The French version of a large overturned car scene
Chapter 839 The French version of a major rollover scene
St. Petersburg, received a positive answer from the government of Vienna, Alexander III was not happy.
“Franz has always been not to see the rabbit, this time promised so quickly, not a single condition, do you think there is some kind of conspiracy?”
Do not blame Alexander III suspicious, is really in recent decades, the Russian Empire dumb loss ate more, has let him produce a psychological shadow.
Foreign Minister Oscar Jimenez replied, “Your Majesty, you are overly concerned. It may seem like the Austrian government is helping us, but in reality they are also helping themselves.
The British wanting an arms race is itself aimed at France and Austria. Now that England, France, and Austria have all ridden the tiger, there is no stopping it until they can tell the difference between a winner and a loser.
With or without Afghanistan, the Austrian government will have to be moved to join this arms race.
By supporting us now, not only have we caused trouble for our rivals, but we have also sold us a favor.”
There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s true that the Vienna government agreed to help hold the British at bay, in reality they don’t need to do anything other than pay lip service to the idea at this point.
The arms race itself was going on, many warships had already been started, so they couldn’t stop work and put it on hold, could they?
Even if the British were distracted by the Central Asian problem and wanted to suspend the game, France and Austria, who were already involved, could not agree.
Britain, France and Austria have been competing for decades, and no one thinks that they are worse than others, you say stop, which makes everyone’s face where to put it?
The saying that the enemy of your enemy is your friend is not entirely applicable, but there is absolutely no obstacle to Russia and Austria joining forces when it comes to fighting the British.
Hearing this reasonable explanation, the uneasiness in Alexander III’s heart eased a little, and then his head ached again.
“Alas! Even with the support of the Austrian government, we are at a disadvantage in our competition with the British in Central Asia.
Afghanistan is separated by the Central Asian Khanate, and because of the continental wars, we have reduced our attention to Afghanistan in recent years.
Afghanistan did not fall to the British, still because of the hatred left over from the last Anglo-Afghan war.
If the British take a soft approach, the Afghan government may not fight hard; after all, the support we can give them is too little.”
Hearing the Tsar’s complaint, Oscar Jimenez secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It was good that the Tsar was able to be sensible, it would have been a big trouble if he had directly gone hard regardless.
Now the Russian Empire really does not have the ability to do a war with the British in the Afghan region, seeking Austrian support, essentially still want to rely on negotiations to solve the problem.
“Your Majesty, rest assured. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is making diplomatic efforts, and if we can get the support of the French again, maintaining stability in Central Asia is still not a big problem.
What we need now is time, as long as it is delayed for a few more years, the situation will be very different.”
It had been some years since the end of the Russo-Prussian War, and the Russian Empire had regained a few moments of its strength, the most crisisful moments had passed.
The problem now is that they don’t want to fight, not that they “can’t fight”.
Perhaps not a match for the British in Afghanistan, but it is still possible to deal with a few of the British-supported minions.
The key to not taking military action is not having enough money in your pocket. Alexander III is a rationalist, naturally, will not be unprepared, blindly and the British against.
……
With the whirring of machinery kicking up flying dust, a rambunctious group of laborers, spurred on by whips, began another day’s work.
Suddenly, a large contingent of guards appeared, and after a brief exchange of words, the administrators came forward and mercifully ordered the laborers to rest for the time being.
The guards dutifully inspected the site, seized the “weapons”, including shovels, and evicted the laborers to a clearing.
There was no doubt that someone big was coming, and it was important to check out any hidden dangers.
This included the flying dust, which was one of the hazards, and could have soiled the clothes of the bigwigs, so they had to be let down first.
Time rushed by, and in a flash it was noon, the sound of ten thousand horses galloping came to mind, and from afar one could vaguely see the flying dust stirred up by the cavalry running in the distance.
Nearer, the scene responsible for the Alingren excited. Pointing his finger ahead, he asked in a low voice to the captain of the guards, “Your Majesty, has he come in person?”
The only thing that responded to him was three cold words, “I don’t know!”
This was truly unknown, the exact time of the Emperor’s trip was not something that people like them should know.
Especially for this kind of inspection, many places are temporarily determined notification, the final go or not is still an unknown.
Looking closer and closer to the troops, Alingren breathed a sigh of relief, look at this situation even if it is not the emperor himself, that is also accompanied by a big man.
……
An old blonde man in his late fifties pointed at the construction site and said, ”Your Majesty, this is the Sharif River Dam that is under construction.
Once the project is completed, more than 150,000 hectares of land downstream will be able to be effectively irrigated, freeing them from the dilemma of relying on the sky for food.
It can also safeguard the downstream towns are, farmland from the threat of flooding, and is one of the key projects in the agricultural program.”
Napoleon IV nodded slightly, looking at the great river that ran to the sea and never returned, and then looking at the distance there was a ragged, barely tidy team.
Frowning, he asked, ”What’s going on here, why the sudden stoppage? Did a strike movement break out here?”
Seeing the emperor’s ugly face, the old man in charge of the introduction, hurriedly explained, “No, how could there be a strike here, they should be having a halftime break.
Your Majesty, you see that all this soil is newly dug, just now they are all still working, why don’t you call the project leader over ……”
Napoleon IV waved his hand and interrupted, “I told you, don’t engage in this messy formalism.
The farm program is related to the future of France, if it is delayed because I came over to inspect, rather unattractive.
The site is here, the progress can be seen at a glance, I don’t know about this piece of engineering, so I won’t make trouble for them.
Let them resume the work at once, and we will go on to the next place.”
After saying that, Napoleon IV directly turned around and got on his horse and left, leaving the bitterly waiting, Alingren secretly hurt.
The opportunity to get close to the emperor just flew away.
After the guards withdrew, Alingren immediately waved his whip, walked to the middle of the workers, and sternly scolded, “You cheap bastards, immediately get up and work for me.”
As if to vent his heart’s dissatisfaction, Alingren also used the whip to ruthlessly entertain a few laborers who reacted a step slower.
Seeing the boss start to act, the surrounding overseers also joined in, and for a while the construction site once again resumed its hustle and bustle.
The inspection of Algeria was entirely the brainchild of Napoleon IV.
The main reason was that he was still uneasy with the bureaucrats under his command, fearing that someone would embezzle public funds from the project and cause the big farm plan to fail.
His judgment proved to be correct. The progress of the Big Farm program was far below the data reported by the officials.
For example, this do Sharif River dam, obviously just construction soon, the reported information is the project near the end.
Similar cases are many, theoretically in 1887, the state-owned farms were able to send 1.2 million tons of wheat, 580,000 tons of corn to the mainland ……
After the delivery of these agricultural products, the food gap in France, will be narrowed by one-third, significantly reducing the country’s foreign exchange expenditures.
The reality is that the state-owned farms of food is in place, and even there are beyond, it is said to be this year’s grain harvest. But the country’s foreign exchange expenditures have not been reduced much, but rather a small increase.
It goes without saying that we all know what the problem is. From the international smuggling of grain back to the country, the top of the state-owned farms under the banner of self-production into the grain market.
Because of the tariff barriers, just one in and one out, the official who handles it makes a lot of money, far more than the honest operation of the farm earnings.
In the trend of profit, similar things are still increasing. Almost all the projects linked to the farms showed an amazing speed.
The most awesome one was still a farm named Talus, from the project to the grain harvest, before and after, it took less than half a year to open up 50,000 hectares of land, and also realized a bumper harvest of 1,000 kilograms per acre in the same year.
Greed is the devil, in order to obtain greater benefits, the bureaucrats who handled it were not even professional in falsifying data.
Presumably they thought that as long as the money was there, the people above them would play dumb with them.
Needless to say, this kind of project statement, which is full of loopholes and regards the top government officials as fools, was naturally uncovered by the French government.
Napoleon IV has always abhorred this kind of digging into the country’s foundations.
Spending huge sums of money to create state-owned farms, the main purpose is to achieve food self-sufficiency, reduce foreign exchange outflows to balance the trade deficit.
Now actually become the bureaucrats money machine, a rage Napoleon IV personally killed to Algeria.
How to fake, overnight can not change so many projects.
Then, as the Cherif River dam such false progress of the project, one after another in the eyes of Napoleon IV overturned.
As one lie after another was exposed, Napoleon IV’s mind was about to collapse.
Can hold back, did not take down these bureaucrats on the spot, even if it is cultured, good face don’t even want to think.
……
(End of chapter)