Strictly speaking, in the face of fortifications full of anti-artillery holes, barbed wire, and trenches, artillery alone cannot completely solve the problem. Moreover, in the era when there was no synthetic ammonia, both propellants and explosives came from saltpeter or nitrate. The production of these things is quite limited. Even after the opening of the Panama Railway, the French were able to import large quantities of saltpeter from Chile. But the consumption of these saltpeters is also very large, and it is not mainly consumed in the military, but in agriculture.

Yes, the main use of these saltpeter mines is as fertilizer to increase agricultural yields. In France, Napoleon's staunchest and most stable supporters were the peasants in the French countryside. It is interesting to say that in France today, peasants are significantly more active in politics than city dwellers.

During the era of the Revolution, French city dwellers were significantly more motivated to participate in politics. However, in the Napoleonic period, the peasants became more and more organized because of the land granted to veterans and the organization of veterans' associations. Today's veterans' associations have become economically completely monopolistic syndicates (a kind of enterprise alliance in which enterprises cannot independently sell goods and purchase raw materials, but must be handled by the head office, so as to compete fiercely for the share of product sales and raw material distribution). While they remain socially and legally independent, they lose their commercial independence. ）。

Nowadays, almost all kinds of raw materials and goods exported in the French countryside are carried out through veterans' associations. This makes this organization have very great economic and political influence. At the sound of the association's order, the entire French countryside would stand up in support of Napoleon.

Of course, any support will not be priceless. All the gifts given by fate are secretly marked with a price. The Veterans Association supported Napoleon not only because many of their members were old Napoleon's subordinates – a factor, but not a decisive factor. The most decisive factor was that Napoleon's various policies represented and defended their interests.

Napoleon did not collect agricultural taxes, which, in theory, still existed, but in practice, because of a series of relief conditions, in fact, they were almost non-taxed. (Of course, if you change individuals, it is difficult to say whether the agricultural tax will be collected or not.) And Napoleon's way of opening up foreign markets by unifying electricity irrigated brought them a lot of benefits. Therefore, the whole countryside has always been very supportive of Napoleon.

The situation is different in cities. Nowadays, the population in the city is relatively mobile, and many people in the city are still so-called "honorary French" or "pre-French". As Mencius said, a person must have a reliable industry to have a reliable political attitude. Therefore, the support of those in the cities for Napoleon was actually weaker than in the countryside.

One of the tricks in politics is not to betray the fundamentals. In many cases, the part of the power that is shaken is particularly crucial, so that politicians are easy to have a delusion, or for the sake of so-called electoral interests, they feel that the basic plate will always be on my side, as the so-called "I abuse the basic plate thousands of times, and basically treat me like my first love". Then sacrifice the basic plate to curry favor with the so-called "centrists". It's all a brain problem, thinking too beautifully, really thinking about eating at the east house and sleeping at the west house? Even the king knows that he can't do this.

However, there are always many such fools in history. For example, the roasted (K) steamed buns (M) and heads (T) in later generations have all rolled to the ghost island, and they still always make this kind of mistake, always thinking of being the "president of the whole people". Then the centrists found that they must not become the basic plate of roasted steamed buns, otherwise they would be roasted; And the basic plate also found that he was treated as a steamed bun by roasted steamed buns. So not only did the centrist not hold back, but the basic plate also ran away, and finally became what it is like now.

Napoleon was not a fool, and neither were Joseph and Lucien. Therefore, Napoleon often openly said: "No matter how poor you are, you can't be poor in agriculture, and no matter how hard you are, you can't be poor in peasantry." ”

And he not only said it, but he did it. For example, most of the saltpeter that was hauled back from South America by boatload was made into ammonium nitrate explosives, ah, no, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which was scattered into the wheat fields by farmers. Therefore, the wheat yield in France is high, the cost is low, and it is popular in the market, so that Ukraine, which has the most fertile black soil in Europe, will have another famine. Of course, this is a matter for the free market, and it is also a matter for the Russian government, in any case, it is by no means the responsibility of France.

As for the signs of famine in Ukraine again, the main reason is that some Russians are too eager for quick success. After tensions between France and the British, the British naturally sent diplomats to try to form an alliance with Russia against France, as was traditional. The Russians, however, believed that Russia and England alone were not enough to oppose France and his large number of client states in Europe. Unless the British were able to bring Austria, Prussia, and Spain in, Russia would not have joined such an alliance.

The Russians did not have the idea of forming an alliance with the British and taking advantage of the British, but this does not mean that the Russians did not have other ideas. If the actions of the French against Britain triggered a frenzy to carve up Britain, then it seems that the Russians, who are far away, have a hard time getting a piece of the pie. However, if the French and other European countries are attracted to the British, then it seems to be a good choice to take the opportunity to bully Turkey to the south.

However, although the Turks are not as strong as they used to be, it will take a lot of effort to defeat them. As the saying goes, an emaciated camel is bigger than a horse. It's a huge empire after all.

And over the years, the Turks trained the new army, bought all kinds of weapons, especially those that the French decommissioned, many of which were picked up by the Turks.

Therefore, the Russians also have to strengthen their armaments and buy weapons and materials. And they even have some more expenses, such as they want to develop their own industry, so they have to buy machines; They had to maintain their own purchased machines, so they had to hire French engineers; They want to train their own engineers, so they spend money to study in France; They're going to build their own university, so they're going to ...... In short, you need money to do these things, but where does the money come from? Russian industry has made considerable progress over the years, but it is not worth mentioning compared to France. Civilian goods and the like are completely uncompetitive, that is, military supplies, in fact, the cost is calculated, and then look at the price of second-hand goods in France, it is really better to buy it.

Since industry cannot make money, it can only rely on agriculture. That is, by exporting grain. But the problem is that today's international markets are full of French grain.

Over the years, there has been a strange phenomenon in the international market, that is, the price of what the French buy, the price of what they buy; The French sell whatever they sell, and the price drops. Now the French themselves are preparing for war, and one consequence of this is that the price of war-related things is rising. In order to buy these vital things, the Russians had to export more grain, but fortunately this year the weather was good and Ukraine had a bumper harvest. However, the French also had a bumper harvest this year...... And then in order to scrape together enough money, the Ukrainians starved......

However, although the Ukrainians starved, the Russians finally completed the corresponding preparations, so immediately after France declared war on Britain, the Russians began military exercises on the Russian-Turkish border. After a day of exercises, the Russians approached the Turks and told them: "One of our soldiers has disappeared during the exercise, and we suspect that he has been kidnapped by your men." That's why we ask to be searched inside your barracks! ”

Such an unreasonable, completely shameless demand, of course, was rejected by the Turks without hesitation, and then the Russians shelled the Turkish barracks, and then ...... The war between the Russians and the Turks broke out again.

In this regard, France expressed the hope that both sides will exercise restraint and not undermine the stability and unity that is rare in Europe. But now the French are also busy fighting with the British, and they don't have time to care about them for the time being. Of course, if there is no empty management, there is no empty management, and it is still necessary to do business and trade. Because the price of weapons and ammunition is high now.

As a result, although the French "land battleships" had a lot of artillery, they were equipped with quite limited shells, and there was no way, anyway, the Irish were cheaper than shells.

However, a hard attack was still not the first choice of the French, and the morale of the British in the city had to be damaged first.

Generally speaking, the morale of the enemy army in a besieged city is not easy to maintain. But if there is a back road, it is different.

So the best thing to do to lower the morale of the defenders in the city is to threaten their rear first.

The 280 mm gun uses 40 times the caliber, uses a fire wool propellant, and has an exaggerated maximum elevation angle of 45 degrees, so the firing range is quite long, and from the predetermined artillery position, it can directly hit the port of Dublin. So, the plan of the French was to strike at the port berths with a couple of shells first. Although with just one cannon, it is simply impossible to blockade the port. However, a strike at the port would greatly demoralize the defenders, and it would be even better if one or two ships could be sunk by chance.

So early in the morning, the sky was bright, and the French army was busy on the ground.

The first is to observe the weather, especially the direction of the wind. The weather was good, the sky was clear, the sky was cloudless, the wind was not strong, there were only one or two winds near the surface, and higher places, the wind might be a little stronger, but it was still a good weather for the balloon to be released.

A huge hot air balloon rose from the French position. Then the barrel of the 280-mm gun was also slowly raised, pointing towards the sky.

"First shot, test shot!" As soon as the commander Colonel Hill gave the order, a 280 shell flew out of the long barrel. The shell drew a parabola and fell in the direction of the harbor.

The cannonballs, with their rumbling and whistling sounds, like a train with a whistle, swept over Dublin and plunged headlong into Dublin's harbor.

Because of the fear of accidentally hitting the city and causing casualties to the Irish, this artillery shot was a little more remote. To be honest, the French don't really care about the lives of the Irish. Otherwise, they would not have sold shells to the Russians and Turks in order to make money, so that there would not have been enough shells.

However, it is one thing not to care how many Irishmen were killed by the British, the French themselves could not kill the Irish, not to kill the Irish.

The shells fell into the sea, about four or five hundred meters away from the pier. The person on the balloon uses the flag to transmit the information about the landing point back to the ground. By this time, the artillery on the ground had lowered its barrels and was ready to reload the shells.

The 280mm gun was reloaded at a fixed angle, so the barrel had to be rolled back to a fixed reload angle after each shot. This, of course, has greatly reduced the reload speed. But Joseph and the others came up with this cannon to install a big-tailed wolf, so in order to save money, they even adopted the mode of retreat, so that the rate of fire of this cannon was naturally outrageously low.

It took a full ten minutes for the cannon to fire a second shell at the Dublin harbor area. This time, the shells landed directly into the harbor, and in the middle of the two cargo ships at anchor.

The shells exploded in the water, and the tremendous water pressure suddenly tore a large hole in the sides of the two merchant ships, which were not very strong, and then because the merchant ships did not have the personnel to deal with the situation, the two ships sank quickly and normally. A single shell sank two ships, both of which were not very large, but it certainly put a lot of pressure on the defenders.

However, the subsequent shelling, the luck was not so good. After that, the 280-mm guns fired ten more shells, but these shells never achieved such a great result, and only one shell hit the trestle, breaking it in two. Most of the other shells failed to hit any important targets.

However, just as the French expected, the port was shelled, and although the damage was not particularly large, it still had a great impact on the psychology of the British soldiers. Many people, especially the wealthy who are still in Dublin, are worried about their safety. So they left Dublin and returned to England. The Governor of Norfolk knew that if these men left, it would make the soldiers wonder if the British really intended to hold it. As a result, their morale naturally dropped a lot.