Truth be told, after the peace agreement was reached, Britain began to carry out a comprehensive reform of the domestic political economy at the request of the French. First of all, it is necessary to rectify the chaotic financial order in the country.

Obviously, today's sterling banknotes have completely lost their credibility, they cannot be exchanged for gold, and in this era of the gold standard, if a currency cannot be exchanged for gold, it is useless waste paper.

Therefore, the first major thing in the rectification of the financial order in Britain is to rectify the pound. Convert pounds to pounds one by one according to the value of pound sterling? How is that possible? Not to mention that the British don't have so much gold, even the French, and even the whole of Europe don't have that much gold, and if they really want to exchange it like this, then who is the victorious country?

So the French came up with such a plan. Under this plan, the British government deposited all its gold reserves with the Bank of Rome and commissioned the Bank of Rome to issue new pounds. The new pound will be exchanged for pound sterling notes at a ratio of 1:100,000. At the same time, the old pound sterling, including the old pound gold coins, will be phased out of circulation.

In order to ensure the value of the new pound, the new pound will be and will be tied to the franc, not to gold. The new pound sterling cannot be exchanged for gold directly, but it can be exchanged for francs at a fixed rate, (of course, there is a commission) and then they can take the francs and exchange them for the corresponding gold to the Bank of Rome.

Why not exchange the new pound directly for gold, but make a turn through the franc? This is, of course, to avoid a massive run on gold.

First of all, you must know that the Bank of Rome is different from ordinary banks, its main customers are not ordinary people, or even ordinary enterprises, but important commercial banks in various countries.

As a result, the Bank of Rome has very few branches in various countries. In addition, the number of outlets is limited, so it is necessary to make a reservation in advance and queue up to exchange francs for gold. In this way, the amount of exchange is not too large.

On the other hand, the franc cannot be used directly in the UK, (of course, in fact, many British companies are willing to accept franc banknotes directly) Although the franc is highly creditworthy, it is still not very convenient to use. And there is a fee for the exchange, and it is not low. (Of course, if you go to France to redeem it yourself, there is no handling fee, but isn't that also a travel expense?) Since it can be exchanged at any time, and it is all bank-to-paper money, the willingness of ordinary people to exchange will also decrease.

And the new pound is tied to the franc, which can also improve the confidence of the British people in the new pound.

Of course, the Bank of Rome is not charitable, and the stakes in obtaining the right to issue the new pound are not small. And the fact that Britain's gold reserves are deposited in his vault is even more beneficial. Although Britain's gold reserves were running out after the war, the credit benefits gained from this alone were not small.

With the issuance of the new pound, the financial order in Britain began to be restored. And the situation of the British has changed strangely.

First of all, because of the complete opening of capital and the market, British enterprises have generally been greatly impacted. In particular, some small and medium-sized enterprises, which were already difficult to operate during the war, faced a direct impact on European industry after the war, so a large number of enterprises began to go bankrupt.

Compared with small and medium-sized enterprises, large enterprises are also a little more resistant to shocks, but large enterprises are also the focus of the French priority attack, especially those heavy industry enterprises, often have close ties with the British army, and now the British army is downsized, their future is also difficult, fortunately, most of these enterprises still have the value of being harvested, so they can also be reborn through capital reorganization. Of course, the result of recapitalization is often that although the company is still called by that old name, the boss may have changed to French. Or the company is still called that name, and the boss who manages the company is still the boss, but the majority shareholder of the company has become French, and the boss on the surface may only have a few percent of the company's share. This is just like the aftermath of the Southeast Asian financial crisis in the later generations, when the lighthouse countries used the IMF, the World Bank and the like to harvest the big business of the universe countries.

According to the general logic, such an impact will definitely starve the workers at the bottom of Britain - because the factories will go bankrupt or not, and the business will be closed for rectification. In economic life, the risks taken by workers and capitalists are not the same, and if the economic situation is bad, the workers take the risk of starvation; As for the capitalists, the danger they have to take is to lose their money, and the more capitalized the capitalist, the smaller the loss will actually be. It may even make a lot of money instead of losing money, which is what Morgan said "When the crisis comes, the real value of the stock will return to its true owner".

Of course, in contrast, the capitalists take more risks, because the workers lose only their lives, while the capitalists lose their money.

But in Britain, the situation has changed, because British workers have found another way to make money, and that is to go out and work for the French.

Today, between Britain and France, there is a free movement of capital and people. So British workers could go to work in France at all. Compared to the Germans, British workers were more trained, more efficient, and less demanding wages. So the French were happy to hire these British workers as well. Even the French, but also the rest of Europe, business owners, are generally fond of British workers. As a result of market optimization, those companies in the UK that are still struggling to support suddenly find that there is a labor shortage in the UK, and they can't recruit enough workers.

The situation was almost devastating for British industry. In fact, this is true for the whole of Europe, where the workers are attracted by the more industrialized France, and the money, regardless of the country, actually flows to France automatically. As a result, the two pillars of industrialization, labor and capital, began to move away from Britain.

In England, where the old medieval life seems to be reviving again, the noise of capital and industry is beginning to move away from them, and the cities and countryside are once again simple and quiet, perhaps the poets of the Lakeside School would have preferred this England.

The only fly in the ointment is that there are fewer young people in the UK, especially in those villages, where you hardly see a young person. There are only elderly people and sometimes underage children, but neither of the parents of these children is there. For these children, their parents are like Santa Claus, who only pop up in front of them around Christmas and bring them all kinds of small gifts. Then, as soon as Christmas is over, they disappear with them.

Of course, maybe one day, their parents will suddenly appear in front of them and tell them, "We're moving, moving to a faraway place to live a good life." Then the family would leave the village, get on a boat, and leave Europe.

Most of the places that the British go to are not North America. The French did not want to send more British to North America. Over the years, Napoleon adopted a policy of encouraging fertility in his homeland, an important purpose of which was to ensure that there were more French-speaking French people in Louisiana than German-speaking French.

So most of the British immigrants took India or Africa and South America.

"India is a great place. Especially the culture there is exceptional. Speaking of India, Joseph said.

"Really?" Napoleon didn't know much about Indian culture.

"What a fart! What will Joseph's mouth say, you don't know yet? Lucien said that Napoleon was too young and naïve.

"The culture of India naturally divides people into many classes, and they have used a miraculous invention to explain all the inequalities in this world." Joseph continued, "Napoleon, what did Catholicism do in the face of the inequality of the world? ”

Napoleon thought for a moment and replied: "First of all, all men are equal in soul, and if they believe in piety, they can go to heaven to appease people; Then he said that man has original sin, so suffering is deserved; Then he said that life on earth is not the purpose of life, but that going to heaven is, so that people will no longer pay attention to the suffering of reality; Finally, to glorify suffering, to give the argument that it is easier for a poor person to go to heaven as long as they endure it religiously. I think the reason why Catholicism can replace Roman polytheism is because Roman polytheism is too focused on the real gains and losses – which is not good for those in power. ”

"On this issue, the Indians are one step closer." Joseph laughed, "The Indians replaced heaven and original sin with reincarnation. They believe that when a person dies, the soul is reincarnated into a newborn child or a newborn animal. And what you will do in your new life cycle depends on what you have done in previous cycles. Well, that's a great invention. In this way, if someone complains, why do I work so hard from morning till night that I can't even get enough to eat? And those who do nothing, but can live a life of luxury and luxury?

Napoleon, you know, if it were in France, when someone asked such a question, the revolution was close at hand. But in India it's different. If an Indian asks such a question, others will tell him that it is because you did too many bad things in your previous life, so you have to pay for the sins of your previous life in this life. Therefore, it is impossible to verify or falsify what happened in the previous life, but with such a set of statements, it can be used to justify all the inequalities in the world, and even all the evils.

Indians have embraced this idea, and they have been able to endure all kinds of oppression and bullying that seem inconceivable and intolerable to us. So I said, Indian culture, for those who are on top, is really good.

But this culture also brings a small problem, which is that it is easy to make people unmotivated. Because in their opinion, no matter what kind of state it is, it is determined by the good or bad things done in the previous life, so people in lower positions do not want to resist, and naturally have no intention of being aggressive. And what about the people in the top position, well, anyway, life is better than there is no threat, naturally it is as lazy as possible. So India is always easy to conquer. ”

"You said India so well, I want to be the king of India." Napoleon was not without irony.

"If there is no other country in the world, it is really a very good thing to be the king of India." Lucien said half-seriously.

"India is a place where people are wasted. So even though we can scavenge India now, I don't want the French to emigrate there in large numbers, and that will make a lot of waste. Joseph said.

"So you think you can send all the Britons over there, and you don't have to worry about them coming up with a new Britain over there?" Napoleon said.

"In North America, if we don't intervene, the United States could really become a new Britain. But in India, they will soon find the benefits of India, and then all turn into new Kshatriyas. ”

"So let the British go to India and end up being rubbish?"

"yes, anyway, when they're ready to emigrate, they're not going to be employees for us anymore." Joseph replied, "But we still have to intervene in India, and we urge all countries to respect the traditions of India, especially the traditions of the princely states, and to avoid monolithic them, so that they do not turn from a geographical concept or a cultural concept into a nation-state in the end." ”

"Well, then the British will have no threat to us at all." Napoleon said, "Now that the whole of Europe has no strength to challenge France." We can finally say that France is invincible! Moreover, the lands now under the control of France spread over the whole earth, and when the sun sets from one of our spheres of influence, it rises at the same time in another. A new, invincible, thousand-year-old empire on which the sun never sets has appeared on the horizon......"

Napoleon was sighing, but suddenly he saw Joseph and couldn't help but smile.

"What's the matter, Joseph? Did I say something wrong? Napoleon asked.

"Ah, Napoleon, I want to ask, what does the horizon mean?" Joseph replied with a stifled smile.

You don't even know what that word means? The horizon is a line that you will never be able to walk no matter how you go. Lucien laughed too.