The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 257: The situation in European countries changes again, Napoleon fights in Corsica during World War II.

The British Foreign Secretary's actions in Austria and Spain were quite successful.

The Spanish royal family naturally believed that this was a good opportunity to interfere in French affairs, and they could not allow the Duke of Orleans to inherit the throne under any circumstances.

There was no great trouble in Prussia either.

King Frederick II of Prussia, also known as Frederick the Great, who led Prussia to victory in the Seven Years' War, completed the First Partition of Poland, blocked Austria's territorial transactions, and formed the Alliance of German Princes, died of illness four years ago at the age of 74.

Frederick II had no children, so his nephew Friedrich William II succeeded him and became the new King of Prussia.

William II was far less ambitious than his uncle. He lacked plans for Prussia's domestic development and had no opinions of his own on domestic politics.

He was passionate about religion and mysticism, obsessed with culture and art, lustful and had many mistresses, indulging in pleasure and neglecting military construction.

However, he was quite arrogant in foreign policy, and was more tough and reckless than his uncle Frederick.

The key is that there is not enough understanding of the Alliance of German Princes.

After being persuaded by his blood-related British royal family, William II accepted the British advice and decided to intervene in France together with Austria and Spain.

It looked as if a British-organized alliance to intervene in France was about to be established.

However, a big problem occurred on the Ming side, where there shouldn't have been any problems.

The kings and prime ministers of various countries made up their minds and began to assemble their own troops while arranging for representatives to go to Antwerp.

Prepare Ming officials in Europe to determine the intervention plan, confirm the situation of Louis Joseph, the legitimate heir to the King of France, and coordinate the goals that all parties want to achieve.

But at this moment, shocking news came from Antwerp.

The Ming Dynasty's European Commander had already arranged for the navy and sent the Joseph brothers to the Ming Dynasty in accordance with the request of the Ming Dynasty's Crown Prince.

It may have passed the Suez Canal and entered the Indian Ocean.

The heads of state of various countries were stunned when they heard the news. Edmund Burke went directly to Antwerp and met with the main officials of the Ming Dynasty in Europe.

Then he asked the Ming European Commander and the Provincial Governor in great confusion:

"Why did the Ming Dynasty send Prince Louis Joseph to the Ming Dynasty? Shouldn't they immediately arrange troops to escort Prince Joseph back to Paris to succeed the throne?"

The European commander said directly:
“This is an order from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and we are just following orders.

“This time the intervention in France will no longer be a matter solely for the king and the nobility.

"Instead, we should treat all French people as enemies that need to be dealt with."

The governor in charge of government affairs received more direct reminders from Zhu Jianxuan, and now gave Burke a simple explanation:

“Our Prince believes that the riots in France this time are of great significance and are not comparable to the conventional civil uprisings in European history.

“It is a social revolution unprecedented in European history, in which the forces of all France will be mobilized.

“Without a modern army of hundreds of thousands, it is impossible to fully control the situation in France.

"The Ming Dynasty is now busy integrating the territories it has just recovered, while also relocating and integrating local vassal states including Japan.

“There is no way to mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, and no way to prepare sufficient supplies for the army to directly interfere in French affairs.

“Furthermore, after this riot, France is likely to take the initiative to attack the countries surrounding France. Our garrison here may not be able to ensure the safety of Antwerp.

“So we can only send the extremely important Prince Louis Joseph to the safer Ming Dynasty first.

“Wait until the Ming Dynasty has freed up enough troops and resources, and the political situation in France becomes clear, then we can intervene in the unrest in France.

"If the Ming Dynasty does not intervene in French affairs immediately..."

After hearing this, Burke was filled with disbelief. When did the Ming Dynasty become so cautious and even timid?

"Your Excellency the Governor, has His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty exaggerated the power of the French?

“We have been working with the French struggle for many years and we know exactly what they are capable of.

"How could it take hundreds of thousands of troops to control France?"

The European governor said quite frankly:
“According to the judgment of His Royal Highness, once the current nationwide revolution in France is completed, the power of the entire country will be mobilized.

“That is to say, all ordinary citizens and ordinary farmers in France could participate in this revolution and take up arms to fight on the battlefield.

"France now has a population of nearly 30 million, so it can organize at least more than one million troops to participate in the war.

"So without tens or even millions of troops, it is impossible to truly contain France."

Starting from the French Revolution, with the support of Enlightenment and nationalism, European countries began to be able to mobilize all their citizens and fight large-scale total wars.

During the Napoleonic Wars, France mobilized a total of over a million troops, and the anti-French alliance eventually organized over a million troops.

This assessment of the future is difficult to understand for those who have not experienced this era.

Even officials such as the Ming Dynasty's European Commander and Provincial Governor could not fully understand the logic behind it.

However, they have absolute trust in His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

At the same time, it can also be compared with the comprehensive garrison system of the Wu Kingdom and the large-scale military settlement system currently being established in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty.

The Weisuo was actually a mobilization system.

All the families in the garrisons can directly select one young and strong man to join the army.

Under extreme conditions, the total population of a Wei is only about 50,000, but it can directly mobilize 10,000 soldiers.

Based on this estimate, it would be reasonable for the French rebels to set up a similar organization and mobilize one million troops with 30 million people.

So Ming officials could accept this possibility.

Traditional European aristocrats and officials found it difficult to accept such "unreliable and exaggerated judgments."

However, Edmund Burke was slightly different. He was quite familiar with the European Enlightenment thought that developed around France.

Compare the ideas of Montesquieu, Rousseau and others with the so-called Declaration of the Rights of Man recently issued by the French.

Edmund Burke began to vaguely understand the logic of this possibility.

"Everyone is equal, sovereignty belongs to the people..."

“Everyone is the master of the country, so everyone will fight for the country?”

"If there really is a country built on this idea, if the majority of the country's citizens really agree with this idea..."

"That's really crazy..."

After Edmund Burke made this judgment in his mind, he no longer worried about why the Ming Dynasty sent the brothers Louis and Joseph away.

Burke immediately set off back to London and reported the judgments of the King of Wu of the Ming Dynasty, the Crown Prince of the Ming Dynasty, the King of the United States, the King of the Netherlands, as well as his own analysis to the Prime Minister, the Marquis of Rockingham.

After all, the Marquis of Rockingham was a traditional aristocrat. After listening to Burke's analysis, he asked directly:

“You mean, the new government that emerged from the riots in France might give all the ordinary workers and farmers the right to vote?

“However, it is still a small number of French nobles, military officers, and wealthy businessmen who actually control the situation in France.

"How could they allow the lowly, ordinary workers and peasants to have the same rights as them?"

Burke agreed:

"I think so too. For example, if a barber or a tavern servant is allowed to participate in the governance of the country, I can't imagine what the consequences will be.

“But if they really followed the trend that has been popular in France in recent years, they might do so.

“It’s hard to say what will become of the French government after the French do that.

"Once they did that, it would be possible to mobilize ordinary people across France.

"Let these barbers, bartenders, laborers, and farmers think they are the masters of the country, and then fight for it.

"We really have to be on guard..." The point is that Ming Dynasty is indeed unable to participate in the intervention operation immediately, and the legitimate king of France has already been sent to Ming Dynasty.

"Should our intervention with Spain, Austria, and Prussia continue?"

Lord Rockingham thought for a moment:

“Wait a little bit and see what the French are going to do next and whether they will give ordinary people the right to vote.

"However, military mobilization preparations cannot be stopped. We must be prepared to send troops at any time according to the plan."

The British slowed down slightly.

The chaotic situation in France did indeed soon undergo new changes.

Because France's financial problems could not be solved, France's finances after the revolution seemed to be worse than before.

Because the trade in luxury goods from the Ming Dynasty stopped, a large amount of fiscal revenue provided by the king was gone.

After the riots, it cost money to convene a constitutional convention, organize local committees and the army, and government spending was higher than before.

In order to demonstrate the justice of the new government and maintain its own political credibility, the newly established French government promised to accept all of the French government's debts.

As a result, they soon discovered that they had no suitable way to resolve the debt, and instead the debt continued to grow.

In this situation of confusion, many people naturally thought of revolution.

I thought of the old nobles imprisoned in prison, the new nobles in the government and parliament who participated in the revolution, and the French Catholic Church which is still waiting to see which way the wind will blow.

Robespierre proposed to solve the problem by confiscating the assets of the traditional nobility and the church.

The aristocratic representatives in the new government cabinet were of course strongly opposed to this, believing that the direct confiscation of assets violated the principle of the sanctity and inviolability of private property.

Confiscating church assets will push French Catholics and even other European countries to the opposite side.

The Parliament and the Cabinet argued endlessly on this issue, and the elected King Philip also saw the opportunity to speak for the nobles of the Parliament and the Cabinet, as well as the church.

Philip intended to strengthen his power through them.

However, this action angered radical revolutionaries such as Robespierre and Brissot, and directly intensified their fundamental contradiction with the conservative constitutionalists.

Having already staged a riot and a coup, they were now brewing a new internal conflict.

The radicals led by Brissot and Robespierre suddenly launched a coup and arrested Lafayette and other major aristocratic members of the government and parliament.

The government immediately began to confiscate the assets of the old nobility and officially began to execute the old nobility imprisoned in prison.

King Philip, who had not yet held a formal coronation ceremony, was directly transformed from a king under a constitutional monarchy into a prisoner, just like Louis XVI in history.

The French Revolution entered its second phase more quickly than historically, roughly corresponding to the period when the Girondists were in power.

Foreigners who were paying attention to the development of the French Revolution were shocked again. At the same time, they began to become more hostile to the French Revolution and began to accuse it of its cruelty and tyranny.

Because at this point, the depth of the French Revolution finally broke through all previous turmoil in Europe.

Commoners began executing nobles in droves.

It began to completely subvert the old social system and started to make all representatives of the old forces feel terrified.

Edmund Burke, who was not particularly hostile to the French Revolution, published an article entitled "Reflections on the Revolution in France" in a newspaper criticizing the French Revolution.

He believed that the Great Revolution had become a riot that subverted the traditional order, and was no longer an ideological enlightenment and reform movement pursuing equality and human rights.

The Great Revolution is destroying the old rational relationships in human society and is turning into a horrible disaster.

Excluding all nobles and real elites and allowing lowly craftsmen and farmers to manage the country is a persecution of everyone in the country.

At the same time, Burke went directly to Lord Rockingham and proposed:

"Mr. Prime Minister, I think we should immediately send troops to intervene in the riots in France.

“It was no longer just a reform movement between the social elite and the king to coordinate their powers and responsibilities through struggle.

"It is completely subverting the order on which we live and the traditions of Europe as a whole.

“The new king they chose themselves, regardless of whether he is legitimate or not, has now been completely imprisoned by them again.

“We don’t need to consider the issue of the legitimate king. We can just send troops in the name of maintaining order.

"At the same time, there was a fight among the French rioting gangs, which means that they are already full of internal conflicts and the strength of this rioting gang has weakened.

“We don’t need to worry too much about the forces they can mobilize!

"The French rioters executed a large number of nobles, which inevitably caused panic among the remaining French local nobles.

"We can contact them and ask them to cooperate and respond to our requests."

The Marquis of Rockingham agreed with Burke's judgment and took Burke to meet King George III of England, asking Burke to explain his point of view again.

George III was also a traditional monarch. He was naturally terrified by the rebellion in France and naturally wanted to intervene.

So George III quickly authorized Britain to send troops.

The Marquis of Rockingham immediately sent people to rule Austria, Spain, and Prussia to jointly intervene with troops.

The nobles in northern France were basically concentrated in Paris and were wiped out by the revolutionaries.

However, some local nobles are still retained in the southern region of France.

So, as if out of some historical inertia, the first place that the various countries chose to intervene was the important port of Toulon in southern France.

At the same time, Catholic forces in France also began to contact Austria and other interventionist powers, preparing to cooperate with their actions.

Edmund Burke and the Marquis of Rockingham believed that the second coup d'état by the French revolutionaries had weakened their power.

But the actual situation may be exactly the opposite of what they guessed.

This coup cleared out the compromising factions and made the entire management system more radical and unified.

In fact, they became more powerful.

While they were executing the nobles imprisoned in Paris, they also realized that the remaining local nobles in the south needed to be cleaned up and that their control over the local areas was not solid.

They became even more furious when they discovered that local nobles and church forces were colluding with foreign countries.

They immediately arranged to organize the army to march south, intending to annihilate these rebellious local aristocratic forces and repel the joint intervention army of various countries.

At the same time, military arrangements were immediately made to go to various parts of the country to form volunteer armies locally.

Napoleon Bonaparte felt that a new opportunity had come, so he returned to his hometown of Corsica again.

Napoleon, carrying orders from the new government, recruited and organized volunteers in Corsica and participated in the election of volunteer lieutenants.

According to the democratic ideas of the new government built under the Enlightenment, the officers of this volunteer army will be elected.

Napoleon had the assistance of his family power, and his own military ability was indeed outstanding. In addition, Napoleon did not mind using some gray methods.

For example, maliciously attacking or even secretly kidnapping competitors, bribing local officials and vote counting staff, paying to treat voters to food, drinks and entertainment, etc.

Napoleon was eventually successfully elected as a lieutenant of volunteers and directly led a battalion of volunteers.

Napoleon, who was still immature at this time, felt that the time was ripe and decided to begin formally planning Corsica's independence.

Napoleon was preparing to lead his soldiers in a secret attack to seize his birthplace, Ajaccio, as a stronghold.

But Napoleon's solo action was not cautious enough and was discovered by officials of the newly formed local committee.

Napoleon only had one battalion at that time, and still did not dare to openly raise the flag of rebellion. He could only accept mediation and disposal, and prepare to continue waiting for the opportunity.

So Napoleon had to leave Corsica for the second time and return to Paris, the center of the revolution.

(End of this chapter)