v3 Chapter 331： The war bonds that drove Napoleon III crazy

On November 28, 1867, the French Empire unilaterally announced that it would suspend the military invasion of the Kingdom of Siam in the Far East. Napoleon III asked Rama IV to come to Paris to discuss the armistice with him in detail.

But Rama IV refused. He publicly declared that he would not accept the French Empire's request to cede eastern Cambodia to the French Empire.

To this end, the king announced that he would increase the import of weapons from countries other than the French Empire to show how firm the will of the Siam Kingdom under his leadership was to resist the French invasion.

On November 29, 1867, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark announced that due to the shortage of funds for the purchase of weapons by the Kingdom of Siam, the three countries would accept the war bonds issued by the Kingdom of Siam in the name of leasing weapons from the Kingdom of Siam.

The three countries subscribed for more than £500,000 in war bonds.

For a time, the government of the Kingdom of Siam, which had been impoverished due to the war with the French Empire, was resurrected with blood.

Other countries, though extremely cautious, were also attracted to high-interest war bonds, so they also bought them.

This made Napoleon III almost jump up and scold these countries. After all, the French Empire originally wanted to rely on its comprehensive strength to consume the other side. After all, its economic volume is there, and the Kingdom of Siam is so weak. .

In any case, the Kingdom of Siam is unsustainable.

Originally, Napoleon III had been collected by intelligence agencies for a long time, and the Kingdom of Siam had reached the point where the oil was exhausted, and they had no money. It just so happened that he came out in the name of peace negotiations. The other party should run over and ask for a stop to the war. In that case, France can slowly enjoy the threat to the Kingdom of Siam under the premise. It's fun to cut meat.

Unexpectedly, the three Nordic countries such as the Netherlands would come to such a blow. This is definitely a big blow to the French Empire. Although this is not new in Europe, he did not expect that the Far East will also issue war bonds, and It is also worth buying with confidence in Europe and the United States.

This time, his wishful thinking failed again.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help hating the three Nordic countries.

......

On November 25, 1867, the Privy Council meeting of William IV continued.

As William IV just asked the members to promote industrialization, mainly in the Netherlands, the Minister of Industry Wem Cotter became the next object of attention, because he was named by the future, William IV, and asked to tell the process of industrialization.

Especially recent developments since 1867.

"On February 1, 1867, the Dutch company William Gunpowder and the Swedish Nobel company jointly invented the match, and the two companies established a joint division to jointly manage the global sales of matches.

There are five parts: stem manufacturing, stem processing, match tip manufacturing, box manufacturing, packaging, and phosphorus brushing. They are beautiful and safe to use. Once they are on the market, they have captured a large number of users.

With its wide spread and wide range of use, it has crushed most similar products in the world at once, and even the ancient country in the Far East, the flint that he, um, has used for thousands of years has been quickly replaced, and their thirteenth The matches imported by the foreign trade company are less than a month short. Just bought 1 Luo (1 Luo is equal to 144 boxes) at the price of 5 yuan of silver and imported more than 100 million boxes from William Gunpowder Company. In just one month, William Company paid nearly 700,000 taels of silver, not counting Europe and the United States. This makes the joint invention suddenly become a gold-eating monster.

Although European and American countries are distressed, they have to admit that the emergence of this invention has destroyed all similar products. Just like the Far East flint (also called fire sickle), it was suddenly dumped by the monopoly implemented by the Dutch William Gunpowder Company and the Swedish Nobel Company. Completely occupied the global market.

According to our statistics, in the first 9 months of 1867, more than 1.2 million pounds of matches were sold worldwide, and more than 2 million pounds in the next 1 year from the current orders alone. We expect the combined company's turnover to exceed £10 million in 1868 next year, and this will continue to increase as the market expands. "

William IV asked: "Where is the factory?"

This is very important. After all, this is the first large-scale joint company in Europe and the United States. The distribution of workers and the distribution of profits are all very concerned.

Weim Kotter said: "In Europe, Rotterdam in the Netherlands is the largest factory in the world, supplying Western and Southern Europe and North America, Stockholm in Sweden mainly manufactures and supplies Northern Europe, including the Tsarist Empire and Prussia and other Central Europe, and we established a factory in Sydney in the Far East. The largest manufacturer, the supplier to the Far East, South America, has built a large manufacturing plant in Suriname, the Dutch territory.”

William IV "Employed Population?"

Industry Minister Wem Cotter said: "Sweden has 3,000 people, and we have more than 7,000 people, of which the Sydney factory in the Far East occupies 4,000 people, mainly because the ancient power has a high utilization rate."

William IV nodded and looked at the report in his hand with joy and sorrow.

On the one hand, the motherland of my previous life was uncomfortable when countries began to use advanced products to slowly capture their traditional handicraft workshop industry.

On the one hand, he is also pleased with the strong position of the Netherlands in the economic field under his leadership. He has become one of the leading powers in the eyes of his previous life.

But then relieved.

Even if the Netherlands does not do it, there are other countries that will do it, and the import of this match is also a matter of benefiting the country and the people. After all, if it is not easy to use and the price is low, then there will not be so many imports. The fittest survives. That's what it says.

Industry Minister Wem Cotter said again with an excited tone:

"Our other biggest sales item in the Far East is needles. For that country, it is a must-have for every household. The old-fashioned way of making soil needles is that they need to grind and file the iron wire, and then give it to a This kind of soil needle has a thick needle shaft, a blunt needle tip, and is soft and easy to bend, and is not resistant to wear.

The machine-made foreign needles imported from Europe and the United States are thin, smooth and hard, and the needles are sharp and sharp.

Although the initial price of needles on our side was higher than that of domestic needles, after the ancient country opened its doors in 1860, the price of needles in the West plummeted. Every hundred needles imported from the West only sold for 2 cents and 5 cents, which is more than theirs. Soil needles are much cheaper. In 1861, the number of imported needles in the West was 207 million. In the following years, the speed doubled. In 1865, the import was 8.57 pieces, and even in 1867 this year, it reached 1.958 billion pieces, which completely defeated the manufacture of soil needles. "

The people who were doing it all looked at him in shock when they heard these data.

More than 1.9 billion and nearly 2 billion?

What a horrible statistic.

The Netherlands has so many large-scale workshops in the Far East. It is so exciting to see the Minister of Industry Wem Cotter. Needless to say, he, they also know that the Netherlands has an absolutely small share of the imported needles imported from the West by this big country in the Far East. No.

Even William IV was fooled by this figure of 2 billion.

As far as he knows, the population of that ancient big country is less than one-fifth of that figure, and they have 4 needles in their hands.

Industry Minister Wem Cotter said happily: "Our Netherlands has more than 60% of the supply factory in Melbourne, which means that more than 1.2 billion pieces belong to us."

He seemed to be influenced by William IV. He knew that His Majesty attached great importance to employment, so he followed up: "There are nearly 5,000 employees."

A large needle manufacturing factory with 5,000 people?

William IV would not have thought that this factory was dedicated to supplying that country. After all, what about the surrounding areas?

South America is a huge market.

"In the construction of the plastic factory, among which the Dutch East India Rubber is the largest production base in the world, so in Jakarta and Nambang in Sumatra, we are building the world's largest plastic factory group, where the plastic supply There are more than 200,000 workers in the chain and finished products factories, and the planting of rubber trees has been completed all the way to rubber products. The products here supply global demand, and it is an industry that is difficult for us to be shaken by other powerful countries in the world.”

That is, it has a monopoly on the global plastics industry.

In this era, plastic technology is one of the most advanced technologies. There is no idea of ​​environmental protection, and there is no pollution.

Therefore, production in the Netherlands is more fully driven by large-scale production, and the needs of traditional industrial powers such as Britain and France. The plastics industry in the Netherlands is diverse, and under the guidance of William IV, prices are kept low, which is very important for For other countries, if they want to enter the ranks rashly, they must invest a lot of money in research and development of technology, buy machines employ a large number of workers, etc. After a series of jobs, ordinary enterprises cannot bear it. Come on, not to mention that the Netherlands has shamelessly kept prices low.

This is also the reason that although the governments of Britain, France and other countries intend to reduce their dependence on the Dutch plastic products, but there is no reason for large domestic enterprises to enter the industry, they can only hope that the Netherlands will be sighed.

"With 200,000 jobs, there are only more than 8 million people in East India. This supply chain alone has created 200,000 jobs, 4% of the population. Therefore, in terms of management, we must strictly control, otherwise it will lead to a crisis in governance management. , just like the general strikes in Europe and the United States some time ago, we need to take precautions.”

Naturally, those present will not object to William IV's reminder.

Because the anti-monopoly movement initiated by the Netherlands finally turned into a general strike in various places, and it was a transnational kind, with an unprecedented scale, so that governments of all countries were reluctantly responding, which made all countries have no time to care about it, and the French Empire was more because of this. The suspension of military operations in the Far East was a surprise.

However, this also proves that now the industry has entered a period of great development. Let’s see how small workshops have such great influence in the past, which makes governments all over the world panic, and the population of big cities is gradually increasing. This has already shown that, In the future, urbanization and industrialization will be the main directions of the country's future development.