While some progress has been made in long-distance power transmission, cross-regional power transmission is still impossible, at least for now. Therefore, the situation of thermal power stations blooming everywhere has not changed, and the only change is probably - there are fewer people stealing cables now.

On the one hand, this is because there is a lot less copper on the same length of wire, and on the other hand, it is also because it is too dangerous to steal high-voltage wires. In Paris, at least, there is more than one provincial—no, things have changed a lot, and there are very few provincials who do this kind of thing, and basically those who do this kind of thing are either highlanders, lowlanders, Poles, or mostly foreigners—and after finding out that the wires are unattended, they stupidly steal them, and as a result, they are directly cremated.

Originally, the death of some foreign thieves was not a big deal, but now after all, it has just entered the nineteenth century, not to mention that the French don't care too much about such a thing, even the embassies and consulates of these thieves don't take it to heart at all. A few inferior people, if they die, they die, what's the big deal. Even in their view, the death of these people is a factor that reduces social unrest, and a few more deaths are even worth celebrating.

But although these people "die not to be regretted", their death, the side effect of which is very bad, that is, their actions, each time can cause a large area of power outages, although the impact is generally not the most important, the power outage will bring huge economic losses to the factory or the various bars and nightclubs on the heights of Montmartre, but it is always a big trouble. Therefore, "Science Pravda" even had to publish a special serial to popularize the safety knowledge of high-voltage electricity to everyone: don't see the bird landing on it, it's okay, just think it's okay if you stretch out your hand!

But these are all minor problems, and Napoleon is now troubled by the fact that it seems that arms have not been sold well lately.

Austria would have been a good buyer. Every time the French come up with something good, Austria grits its its teeth and buys it. Especially when the Prussian side discovered the copper ore and made a fortune from the copper mine, the Austrians followed the exploration and found that the veins of the copper ore extended to the Austrian-controlled area, so the Austrians immediately took action and began to open copper mines. Moreover, the Austrians did not open mines like Prussia, and they shy back when they used workers. The Austrians directly discussed with the Polish nobles, paid some money, and then directly dragged those Polish serfs to mine.

And what about Prussia, which really doesn't dare to do that now. Because the Poles already make up half of the population of Prussia today. As a result, because of the cost advantage, the Austrians robbed the Prussians of a lot of business. It stands to reason that the Austrians had more money in their hands and should have been able to buy more French weapons.

However, the Austrians felt that they could not beat the French anyway, and now that the French have so much business with their own, they should not beat themselves, and as for beating others, it seems that there is nothing to fight for the time being. Moreover, France updated its weapons so quickly, bought new ones, and it didn't take long for them to fall behind again, and Austria, unlike England and Spain, could sell old-fashioned things to the colonies.

As a result, the Austrians simply decided to save the money for the purchase of weapons first, or use it to do some business. In this way, you can make a little more money, when is there really a war, and then buy the latest style from the French, isn't it fragrant?

Naturally, the arms order from Austria shrank rapidly.

In order to stimulate the Austrians' desire to consume, Napoleon was eager to hold a joint military exercise with Prussia, or secretly sell some small things to the Poles. Let them get into some trouble, so that the Austrians will realize the need to spend money quickly.

But both proposals were opposed by Joseph and Lucien. Joseph strongly opposed the plans of the armed Poles: "If the Poles make a fuss, the operation of the copper mines will definitely be affected, and if the production of copper mines in Austria is reduced, the price of copper in Europe will definitely rise again." The little money you spend on weapons may not be able to fill this hole! ”

Lucien, on the other hand, opposed joint military exercises with Prussia. He believed that this was not conducive to the creation of the image of France as a peace-loving and good friend of the people of all Europe.

"I have no objection to threatening Austria and making him do business honestly, but, Napoleon, are your methods simple and crude! It's not artistic at all. ”

So Napoleon got angry, and immediately threw out the trick of "you say I can't do it, you can do it": "You say it's simple, you say, what can you do?" ”

Then Lucien immediately said: "This matter is not my business, I am not an expert in this area, you should not shirk the responsibility." ”

And Joseph proposed: "Why don't we sell something to the Russians?" ”

"Russians? What can the Russians afford? Napoleon said, "The Russians are being stingy." ”

The economic situation in Russia is not good, especially in the past two years, because of the continuous bumper grain harvest in France, the price of grain on the international market has not been high. This is definitely a big blow to the Russians, whose main source of foreign exchange is the export of grain. So the Russians really don't have much money.

"We can give them a loan." Lucien hurriedly interjected, "You see, we give loans to the Russians, and the Russians use the loans to buy our things, and then use the money we lend to them to pay for it, and then slowly repay the interest on our loans, and then ...... Isn't that great? ”

"Why should the Russians lend money to us? It doesn't seem to be under any threat for the time being. Napoleon said.

"We can spread the word that Turkey wants to buy a large number of weapons from us." Lucien said.

"It's not enough, Lucien, it's not enough." Joseph suddenly spoke, "We want to spread the word that Turkey has made a deal with us, according to which we will export a gun factory to Turkey." ”

"In that case, what if the Russians ask us to buy an arsenal?" Napoleon asked.

"Sell it to him, and even include technology transfer." Joseph said indifferently.

"How's that going to work?" Napoleon said.

"Why not? Even if they have factories in their hands, will they still be able to produce enough products to compete with us in the market? Can they not rely on our support? Moreover, as you said, the money in the hands of the Russians is actually quite limited. If they grit their teeth and buy our factory, they will have to get the money out somewhere else, how can they get it out?

Either by saving, what can they save? By buying factories and technology from us, they can save money on scientific research. Well, we can persuade them, 'stop reinventing the wheel', anyway, what they have developed themselves is not as technical as what they bought from us, and it is more expensive. In that case, why not cut the research fee?

It's like if someone wants to eat meat, he can go to the market and buy it, or he can raise his own pigs. But if they raise their own pigs, because they have no experience and no technology, in the end they raise their own pigs, the cost is high, and the taste is not good. You say, can this pig still be raised? Then you might as well go outside – buy pork from us, to be exact.

In this way, he will no longer spend money on his own pigs, in fact, as long as he is willing to spend money on this, and slowly cultivate his own team, the pork they develop by themselves will always become fragrant and cheaper one day in the future. But by selling factories and technologies at the right time, we can interrupt the pace of accumulation of scientific and technical talent among the Russians. On the one hand, we can continue to sell them a certain technology at the most appropriate time to make their scientific researchers 'heroes useless', and on the other hand, we can also take the opportunity to poach these 'heroes useless' scientific researchers to us. Napoleon, don't you say it's not a very good thing? ”

"And what if the Austrians and the British make similar demands?" Napoleon asked again.

"Is the specific problem a specific analysis? Well, Austria is nothing, and Britain still has to put certain restrictions. However, this restriction should also be measured, and it is better that the restriction is not made directly by us, but by a committee. For example, aren't we very different from the British, Austrians, and Russians in terms of system? We're a republic, aren't we? We could have organized the democracies of Europe, we, the Federal Republic of Northern Italy, and the Federal Republic of the Rhine, which had a republican system, to form a special authority for the export of technology. It is called the 'Export Control Coordinating Committee', which is based in Paris and is responsible for auditing the export of technology from any non-republican country. Technology and equipment and commodities of all kinds that have not been approved by this committee may not be exported. Joseph said.

"Yes, Napoleon, I think we can sell the factory to Turkey first; then sell the plant to Russia; Then we provoke something to happen inside Turkey or inside Russia; And then they will naturally suppress; Then we can get some of the 'opposition' media, and other republicans, to accuse us of handing the tyrant a butcher's knife to the people for money, and then we can justifiably set up this committee. "By the way, we can use this to plant a lot of nails on the side of the real opposition." ”