Next, technicians were dispatched to the two countries for basic inspections and factory selection. Of course, this is not a matter of a short period of time, whether it is Dongluo or Pothos, the administrative efficiency is not high, especially the sick man in West Asia, the administrative efficiency is definitely so low that the sloth can die in a hurry.

But these two contracts are a signal, a signal of a Europe-wide upgrade of armaments. Just after the news broke that the "Bonaparte Arsenal" had signed an agreement with Russia and Turkey to transfer some of its technology and help them build a completely new arsenal, the whole of Europe was in motion.

Joseph and Napoleon originally thought that it would definitely be Austria that would be the first to sit still and move, because in the Balkans, the contradictions between Shinra, Dongluo, and Pothos were so great that it was logically impossible for Austria to see those two guys upset the balance of power.

However, to their surprise, the first to come to their door turned out to be the Americans.

In fact, the Americans came to the door not to talk about the factory, but to talk about the "special interests" of the United States in "New Orleans."

The representative sent by the Americans was their Foreign Minister, Robert Leviton, who was also the first foreign minister of the United States. From this candidate, it can be seen that the Americans attach great importance to his mission.

New Orleans is located at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River is the third largest river in the world, and many U.S. territories and territories are located next to the river or its tributaries.

The Mississippi River flows through an area with fertile soils that are good for agriculture. At this time, the United States had not yet started much industry, and its economy was still mainly an agricultural country. The Mississippi River Basin is the most important agricultural region in the United States.

The agriculture of the United States is different from that of a large eastern country. The agriculture of a large eastern country has always been for the purpose of feeding itself, but the agriculture of the United States has been aimed at making money from the very beginning. The fertile and vast land allows the United States to produce far more food than it needs, and the most important use of this food is to export it for money.

In this era before trains, there were only two ways to transport goods from the mainland, one was to rely on inland waterway shipping, and the other was to rely on heavy-duty carriages. It's just that the latter is basically only suitable for things that are smaller in quantity and have a higher unit price. And for the transportation of grain, basically we can only rely on inland waterway shipping.

The Mississippi River is a very navigable river, with its main stream navigating 3,400 kilometers from its mouth to Minneapolis. In addition to the main stream, there are about 50 more tributaries that are navigable. Among them, the length of the channel with a water depth of more than 2.7 meters is 9,700 kilometers. Using the Mississippi River system, it was theoretically possible to transport agricultural products to the seashore very easily and cheaply, load them onto sea ships, and sell them to Europe for money.

However, the Mississippi River was not completely in the hands of the Americans, and a considerable stretch of the river, as well as the most critical estuary, was in Louisiana. As for the estuary, it's New Orleans.

During the Spanish rule of Louisiana, the Americans took advantage of Spain's decline and signed the Treaty of Pinckney with the Spaniards, which granted them the right to sail throughout the main stream of the Mississippi River and to use the port facilities of New Orleans.

To be honest, the Pinckney Treaty was not very fair to Spain, because the tolls given by the Americans were entirely symbolic and almost free of charge.

But now that the Pinckney Treaty is about to expire and Louisiana has been replaced by France, the situation is different. The French were much more powerful than the Spaniards, and like the Mississippi waterways, New Orleans was in the hands of the French, and to the United States, it was as if some part had been grasped in their hands.

In the beginning, the Americans hoped to deprive the French of a key fulcrum in the Americas by instigating and supporting the independence of Santo Domingo, and then find a way to solve the problem.

In its original history, Robert Levitton came to France after the decisive defeat of Napoleon's expeditionary force at Santo Domingo and proposed to the French to buy New Orleans. After losing the fulcrum of Santo Domingo, coupled with the tense situation in Europe, a major war could occur at any time, Napoleon had to accept the advice of the Americans, and even simply sold the whole of Louisiana to the Americans at a low price. (In fact, if New Orleans is sold, Louisiana, which has lost its access to the sea, will not be able to sustain itself at all.) ）

But now, the French have largely settled the problem through negotiations with Toussaint Louverdur, and the USS Free Trade has shown remarkable combat effectiveness in the battles during this period, wiping out a third of the US Navy in two battles. Therefore, the Americans naturally did not mention such a suggestion to buy New Orleans, and now the Americans are really only here to talk about how to continue to let the Americans use the waterway of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

Although France has begun to operate immigration to North America and has sent some Europeans to North America, it is far from the time to turn against the Americans. North America is an important market for European industrial products, especially French industrial products.

On the other hand, in fact, the Americans do not want to turn against the French, on the one hand, because of British pressure, and on the other hand, because of the offended France, it is difficult for American agricultural products to enter the European market.

Therefore, whether in the original history or in this time and space, although the U.S. Navy and the French Navy have played out their dog's brains in the Caribbean Sea, the two sides have never declared war, and the merchant ships of both sides can still peacefully go to each other's ports to do business, and even watch the two navies fight.

In this time and space, even if the "Free Trade" destroyed the "America" super cruiser in the waters near New Orleans, the people in the city of New Orleans, whether they were French, Spanish, or Americans, witnessed all this, and then, and then everyone continued to do what they should do, and the American merchant ships still came and went in and out of New Orleans.

So, it was not difficult for the Americans to continue to gain access to the waterways and ports, but it would be difficult to achieve almost unrestricted access as they did during the Spanish rule. But since the plot in Santo Domingo has failed, at least temporarily, and the outcome at sea is not favorable to the United States. Although the USS Free Trade has left the Americas, the huge shadow she left on the young US Navy is not so easy to dissipate. So you can only talk about the deal honestly.

In addition to the right of navigation on the Mississippi River, as well as the right to use the port of New Orleans, Robert Levitton had another mission, which was to purchase steel artillery from France.

When the French held the Pakistan Fair, the Americans also saw the steel front-loading rifled guns on display by the French. However, because that thing was too expensive, and the United States itself had its own artillery production enterprises, if a large number of such artillery was purchased, it would damage the interests of domestic manufacturers, so the Americans did not buy this kind of cannon in large quantities at that time, but like the British, only purchased a few in small quantities, and then shipped them back for testing, and let their arsenal try to see if they could copy it.

However, the most difficult thing in the world to reverse develop is generally always these two things, the same is the process and the same is the material. The British, in the process of copying the steel cannons of the French, mainly encountered the second problem, the first problem, for the British, was not particularly big. However, the technical level of the Americans cannot be compared with that of the British, so the Americans have encountered both of these problems, and there is no solution to them at present.

Fortunately, before that, there were no steel cannons in North America, and everyone didn't have anything good in their hands, so the Americans didn't feel too much pressure to quickly replace the bronze cannons in their hands with steel cannons. Although various tests have proved that the steel cannon far surpasses the bronze cannon in terms of performance, both accuracy and power.

But this soon changed, first of all, the "Free Trade" hung the "America" and the "Congress" from a safe distance with steel cannons. One of the conclusions that the Americans came to about this battle was that without steel artillery, in future naval battles would be similar to without artillery.

Then the French army in Louisiana also began to be equipped with steel cannons, of course, this is not the most damn situation, the most damn situation is that even the Canadians began to equip steel cannons, and even some time ago, in a conflict with the Dakota Indians, the Americans also captured a light steel cannon of 1.5-inch caliber that may have been developed by the British (the French have refused to make weapons of this caliber since the invention of the metric unit). This cannon can even be pulled by two people, and two horses, it can be pulled and flown away, but the range and power of the shells it fires far exceed the 6-pounder and 8-pounder guns of the Americans.

So Robert Leviton also came to France for the purpose of ordering more steel artillery from France - although the domestic arsenals were very dissatisfied with this, but the situation was pressing.

However, as soon as he arrived in the United States, Robert Leviton discovered that the French were willing to sell enterprises that could produce such artillery. That's really ...... Robert Levitton calculated that there are two major problems, the problem of materials is still unsolved, but at least the process problem is not a problem!

Of course, this is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that with the introduction of such technology, the domestic arsenal will continue to be able to live, and he will be able to get more support.