Although Napoleon was outraged by the situation in the Battle of the North Sea Channel, Scientific Pravda devoted a large article to the "decisive and brilliant victory" of the French navy. Of course, in this report, the focus is on the strategic significance of this battle from a strategic point of view, that is, after this war, the British Navy as a strategic force no longer exists.

"And since the time of the pirate leader Drake, England's hegemony on the seas can be said to have sounded the death knell."

In England, the king of England went mad, so the crown prince had to take the throne. Although the final decision has not yet come out, the British media has already started to work in terms of publicity. All the newspapers publicized the decisive victory of the British royal navy and described their victories. But one thing that is very interesting is that the British, like the French, in their propaganda about this battle, are not small, and there are many introductions to heroes, but they are very secretive about the specific process and outcome of the battle.

In the reports of the French, you can only know that the British lost those warships; In the reports of the British, you can only know that the French lost those warships, put together, well, the British found out, the French did not seem to know that the "Cressy" had sunk. And she was a heavy hit.

After careful deliberation with the ministers, the crown prince finally made a final decision, that is: to protect the decent people, not the British.

"Now that the French do not know that our 'Cressie' has sunk, and that the French have suffered quite heavy losses, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, I suggest that we take this opportunity to make peace with the French as soon as possible."

"What kind of peace, isn't this surrender?" The crown prince was still a little unwilling.

So everyone looked at the Earl of Liverpool together.

The Earl of Liverpool looked at everyone looking at him, a little uncomfortable, but he still stood up and said, "Your Highness the Crown Prince, there are some situations that you may need to know. Well, here's some of the information that our intelligence services put together. ”

As he spoke, the Earl of Liverpool handed a large document bag to the crown prince.

The crown prince glanced at the prime minister suspiciously, then took the file bag, opened it and looked at it. Looking at his hands, he trembled, as if he couldn't suppress his anger, and finally his whole body trembled, so that some ministers were worried that the crown prince should not inherit his father's disease, right? When he finally lifted his face, they saw not a cloudy, angry face, but a pale, distorted face of fear.

"How could it be, how could it be ......like this," the crown prince's voice could even hear the "clucking" sound of the upper and lower teeth hitting each other, "Are you lying to me, are you saying that the streets of our Great Britain are full of mobs ready to rebel at any time, and the kingdom's army, especially the army, is also very unreliable, many dangerous elements have mixed into the army, and dangerous ideas are spreading everywhere in the army...... At the slightest hint of wind and grass, they will rebel like the French and send us all to the guillotine? How could our army, our police, and our special services allow things to come to such a point? ”

"My esteemed Highness, there is really no way to do this, because, because the army, the police, and even the people of the special departments cannot get the money, at least not the full amount of money, the naval blockade is too great a blow to us. Your Highness, since the beginning of the war, the domestic economy has been sluggish, but the government and the army have been spending more and more. Our normal earnings simply cannot support such a large expenditure, Your Highness, to build a fleet, to prepare a counter-landing, to prepare an army sufficient to fight with the French Army on the island of Great Britain, it will take many, many dollars.

In the face of such a deficit, the government has no other way but to solve the problem by over-issuing money. Over the years, our money printing machines have never stopped, printing a lot of money. Most of our government's spending today is not sustained by taxes, but by over-issuance of money.

Your Highness, you know that if there is no collateral behind the issued banknotes, such as gold, then such banknotes are waste paper. And the issuance of such banknotes and forcing the people to use them is actually the plundering of the people by the state. This is what Robespierre did in '93. So, the same situation is happening in England as it was then.

In recent months, we have taken back some of the banknotes in the name of 'special government bonds', which is really just another kind of waste paper to exchange for more waste paper. Perhaps you have already heard the joke that a man carries a basket of pounds to the market, and because something happens, he leaves the basket of pounds on the side of the road and walks away. After a while, when he returned, he found that the pound had fallen to the ground in a penny, and the basket was missing. Now, the pound is completely wasted paper. As for the 'special national debt', it is because the people are still pinning their hopes on our navy to break the blockade. And once that hope is dashed, I dare say it's not even worth as much as the same weight of white paper, without patterns and words on it—white paper is at least somewhat useful.

My Honourable Highness, most of the employees of our army, police, and powerful departments are now paid with such waste paper. So they were also resentful of the government, of the kingdom. If it weren't for the hope of breaking the blockade, they might have rebelled long ago. Now, if we don't prepare early, when they learn the truth, we'll be all done, and Britain will be a fatherless republic.

I may say that if we cannot take steps to change all this, there is more than one Bonaparte hidden in every barracks of our army; Behind every window of our police and special services are hidden a Robespierre and Saint-Just in the back. At our interroads and in every square, there were people trying to figure out where to erect the guillotine. ”

"So, Prime Minister, what do we do now? Are you ready to flee abroad? The crown prince asked hurriedly. The king of England knew more about civil strife and then cutting off the king's head than Louis XVI. After all, in Europe, the first king to have his head cut off was the King of England.

"Of course, it's something to prepare, but it's not the best thing to do right now. The most important thing to do now is to stabilize the situation as much as possible, and it is not yet time for complete despair, my Highness. ”

"So, what are we going to do now?"

"Peace, we need to call for peace, we need to negotiate peace with the French." Earl Road, Liverpool.

"Count, I've heard that we've been in contact with the French all along, and we've always been talking to them about peace, haven't we?" The crown prince asked.

"Yes, Your Highness, Your Majesty also approved of this matter." The Earl of Liverpool hurriedly said.

"I'm not talking about this, I'm saying, what kind of conditions do they have? Can we make peace? After peace, will we be able to maintain the kingdom's institutions? The crown prince asked.

"Your Highness, it was indeed difficult for us to agree to the conditions they put forward at that time." The Earl of Liverpool replied.

"What conditions did they offer?" The crown prince asked.

The Earl of Liverpool waved his hand, and a servant in a wig came with a silver platter, on which lay a memorandum, a record of the negotiations between the English and the French in the "Sycamore Tree Work".

The crown prince picked up the document and looked at it, and when he saw the "Twenty-one Articles of the Destruction of England", he frowned slightly, but then, he put down the document and said to the Earl of Liverpool: "Earl, do you think they will be willing to make peace with us on the basis of this request?" ”

"Your Highness......," said the Earl of Liverpool, with a wry smile, "you know that our fleet was still ...... when the French made this request And the French have always been greedy......"

So everyone fell silent. After a while, the crown prince said, "Resume negotiations with the French as soon as possible." Some concessions can be made if necessary, you know, what difference is there between a Britain without a king and a nobility for all of us and without England? Keeping the kingdom system is our bottom line, and the rest, let's see if we can satisfy the French with all our England strength. ”

Generally speaking, when you have to face internal and external enemies at the same time, that is, when there are people rebelling inside and friends invading outside, most of the guys in the top positions will naturally choose the national policy of "preferring to give friends to domestic slaves". Even I, who is known as "the Son of Heaven guards the country, and the king dies in the community", finally became "pirates guard the country, and the rogue dies in the community". And most of the original Da Meng official army have changed and become Qing Dynasty officials, and those high-ranking officials and nobles of my Da Meng, after solving the problem of itchy scalp, are still people. Another example is my instigation that started from the usurpation, that is, I would rather "report the fourth prince in the night of the juniper, and the ministers will worship from now on", and also eliminate the possibility of any internal slaves usurping the throne. When he arrived in the Republic of China, he even came up with the story of the puppet army taking double pay to "save the country by curve". It is only the Minister of Military Aircraft who is resolute and sincere, and honestly says this sentence.

Having received the Crown Prince's approval, the Earl of Liverpool, the Prime Minister, spite himself quickly, contacted the French again through a special route in neutral countries, and expressed England's willingness to pursue peace between the two countries "with greater sincerity".

Of course, the news reached Napoleon quickly, and Napoleon, who had just been sullen by the award of Admiral Brueus and the promotion of him to the rank of marshal, finally smiled. Just now, when the Marshal Scepter was awarded to Marshal Bruyers, when Napoleon walked over with his eyes wide open and the Scepter in his hand, Marshal Bruyers even involuntarily took half a step back, and at the same time shrunk his neck, as if he was a little worried that Napoleon would directly paste the scepter on his celestial spirit cover.

According to Alexandre Dumas in his book, Napoleon later said to Joseph: "I really wanted a rod on the door of his head." Joseph replied, "I can fully understand your feelings, and I know how much willpower it took you to restrain this impulse." Because every time you submit a math paper that I don't know if Laplace or Fourier wrote for you, I also want to find a stick and stick it on your head. ”

So Napoleon summoned both Joseph and Lucien to discuss peace talks.

"Britain, of course, it's better not to be revolutionary." As soon as he opened his mouth, Joseph exposed the true nature of the counter-revolution.

'That's our consensus and the question now is what we need from the UK. Under the original conditions, there is no need to go further. Napoleon said.

Joseph shook his head and said, "This foundation is already sufficient, and if it goes any further, the British government may not be able to stand." If there is a full-scale revolt that leads to the British government signing an agreement with us on the front foot, and the people of London on the back foot are revolutionary, then are we not doing it in vain? Do you want us to help them suppress the revolution? ”

"How is that possible?" Napoleon's eyes widened, and his forehead sparkled, "Then we will be completely bankrupt in terms of credibility!" Our progressive image is very valuable! Only those foolish businessmen who will go bankrupt as soon as they do business will not take this golden sign seriously. For the sake of a small immediate benefit, it destroys the image of the country that has accumulated over many years. And in a country like Britain, once there is a full-scale revolution and we go to suppress them, how much will it cost? Can the cost be recovered? How is this possible? ”

"So, we want to make sure that the UK government has a foothold after the agreement is signed. So, this agreement, in some places, we even have to go back a little bit. Some clauses, to put it another way, at least seem to be equal and just; Some terms are to be kept confidential; There are some provisions that need to be amended...... Ah, yes, we should indeed add a clause that the war between us and England is not because we have ill will towards the British people. Therefore, we are willing to contribute to the post-war reconstruction of Britain, and we are willing to provide the British government with loans for the rehabilitation of the aftermath in a relatively preferential manner, and of course, we still have the authority to supervise the use of the loans. And the loan also needs to be collateralized. Well, this loan is called the Napoleonic Aid Program......"

The three brothers then engaged in in-depth discussions on how to make the de facto unequal treaties appear extraordinarily fair in terms of their provisions, and how to provide assistance for the reconstruction of Britain, and finally formed a guiding opinion, which was transmitted to Minister Talleyrand.