The words of a friend made President Hidalgo relax a little. Indeed, the cost of the French on him is not low, and if they are really suppressed by the Spaniards, then all those investments of the French will be wasted.

But in a flash, President Hidalgo was reminded of another serious problem.

"My friend, but if we are owed too much, then after our independence, although there are no Spaniards to exploit us, but we have to keep giving money to the French every year because of this debt, isn't it that we have just overthrown the Spaniards who oppressed us, but replaced them with the French to oppress us? The old bad guys are gone, the new ones are coming again, one generation is darker than the next, and we Mexicans are still harvested wheat......"

"President, independence always comes at a price, everything has a price. You think, if we had fought better and quickly crushed the Spanish invasion army, we would have less debt. On the other hand, at least there was a chance that these debts would be paid off, and Spanish rule would never end. ”

"My friend, have you really seen anyone pay off a loan shark?"

"Hmm...... I've really seen this, Mr. President," said Péria, a Portuguese businessman who is Hidalgo's friend, "and I have a friend named Mendoza, who was ridiculous when he was younger, and borrowed a lot of loan sharks, but in the end he paid it off. ”

"This friend of yours must have a lot of money at home, right? Or was it once rich? President Hidalgo asked.

"Well, Mr. Mendoza's family was indeed very rich, so after his father died and he inherited his father's estate, he sold one of the family estates and paid off the loan sharks." Peria replied.

"You see, my friend, people are not the same. Your friends are rich people, and we in Mexico are poor countries. Hidalgo shook his head.

"No, Mexico is a rich country, it's just that its richness has not yet been exploited." Peria replied, "The Spaniards are bent on grabbing quick money in the simplest and crudest way, and it is up to us to live or die. They even fear that if Mexico becomes richer, it will create a centrifugal force to break away from Spain. So you see, the Spaniards have made all kinds of restrictions on the development of Mexico. And the French will not worry about this, and they will not object to our own prosperity, because only when we are rich will they earn more from their investments.

In addition, Mexico has a large territory, but the territories to the north of Mexico are vast and sparsely populated, and they are of limited significance to Mexico, but the French are now constantly immigrating to the Americas. They need land. And they have railway technology, and in the future they may be able to use these lands. Therefore, they will definitely be willing to spend money for the land. So if we can make up our minds, we can use these lands as collateral, borrow a large sum of money from the French in one go, and then directly get a large army and quickly kill the Spaniards, so that perhaps we will pay the least price. ”

"Peria, aren't you teaching me how to betray the country?"

"Mr. President, this is America, not Europe. Buying and selling territory is all too common here. How can this be considered a traitor? Besides, our northern border is already blurred. Also, Mr. President, you know, the dealings between countries are essentially transactions — transactions of national interests. Trading is buying and selling, so if you sell the country too cheaply, as long as you don't embezzle the price you bought yourself, how can you call it a traitor? ”

"Peria, you're always good at making good excuses for yourself." President Hidalgo shook his head, "But ......"

The New World was so far away from Europe that the impact of the revolution on the New World was rather limited, and although the Spaniards sent an expeditionary force of up to 30,000 men to the New World, even Spain's own media were not particularly concerned about it, and everyone's attention was focused on London, because something was wrong in London.

The incident was sparked by the Textile Workers' Mutual Aid in London.

By the end of April, some business owners began to notice that the workers in their factories seemed to be part of an organization. In the beginning, the factory owners didn't worry too much about this, and it was very common for workers to organize gangs and so on. This doesn't seem like much to worry about. Until one day, a man claiming to be a representative of the London Textile Workers' Mutual Aid knocked on the door of Wren, the owner of the textile factory.

Mr. Wren was the owner of the largest Wren textile mill in London, and his factory, employing more than 3,000 workers and running 24 hours a day, brought Mr. Wren a considerable income every year, enabling him to buy a manor house from some declining nobleman, and by the way to marry a lady who, although the family did not have much money, but had a noble surname, and was much younger than him, could be his daughter-in-law.

Mr. Wren doesn't usually spend much time in the manor. It's a comfortable place, but it's still a bit far from the business center. So more often than not, he still lives in a building next to Hyde Park with his young wife, as well as twenty servants, and more than a dozen bodyguards.

While the butler told him that the representative of the London Textile Workers' Mutual Aid had asked to see him, Mr. Wren was in his little drawing-room listening to his wife read Shakespeare's King Lear to him.

"Ah, how stupid that old man is, how can he do that? You must know that in a person's life, the most reliable thing is his wealth and his money. Those daughters of his, oh my God, isn't the reason why they call him Kiss Daddy because he is rich? Ah, wait and see, and when he signs it, his daughters will sweep him out of the house at once......" Wren was feeling this when he saw his butler Phyllis standing cautiously at the door of the small parlour.

"Oh, what's the matter?" Wren asked Phyllis, the butler, from his rocking chair.

"Yes, sir." Phyllis said with a look of embarrassment, "There are a few inferior people who claim to be representatives of the 'London Textile Workers' Mutual Aid,' clamoring to see you. ”

"'London Textile Workers' Mutual Aid'? What kind of bullshit is this? Wren said with a disdainful look, "Phyllis, you're really disappointing me, you can't even get rid of this kind of inferior goods?" ”

Wren's voice was not loud, but to Phyllis, it sounded like a thunderbolt had fallen on his head. His face was pale, and he replied in a trembling voice: "Master, I have sent those people away, but they left you a petition against your decision to reduce your salary, which is full of wild words, but after all, it is addressed to you, Master, and I dare not deal with it privately......"

Hearing this answer, Wren was a little satisfied. Although this butler is a little timid and stupid, he still knows how to measure. And as a housekeeper, being timid and a little stupid is actually not a problem.

"Bring me the letter." Wren said.

So the butler cautiously walked over and handed a letter to Wren.

Wren took the letter and read it, and after reading it for a moment, his eyebrows rose up.

"Hehe, that's good!" Wren smiled, "A group of poor bastards, a group of scum of the society who rely on me to eat, actually want to negotiate terms with me?" With such a good thing, I can make people whistle on the street and find thousands of such bastards! ”

As he spoke, Mr. Wren stood up: "Melissa, you help me bring my coat, I'm going to the company." ”

So his wife went and took his coat. Wren put on his coat and said to the butler, "Phyllis, you take my business card, go to the police station, find Chief Clark, and ask him to come to my house at night." ”

The butler answered, and ran down to prepare the carriage for Wren.

Wren got into the carriage and hurried to the office, called several of the company's managers over for a meeting, and then went home and talked with Director Clark, who had come to visit, for another night......

The next morning, the workers went to work in the factory as usual, but when they arrived at the factory gate, they found a team of policemen with loaded guns and ammunition, and the factory guards, who were also guarding the door, and they shouted to the workers and told them that all the workers who had put their fingerprints on the petition to Mr. Wren had been fired! Their work card will be withdrawn.

On that petition there were 1,200 handprints pressed by the workers. In other words, Wren fired 1,200 workers at once. That's almost a third of all workers. But Wren felt that this was not a problem at all, because the market was full of unemployed people, and the workers in the textile mills did not need too many skills, and they could recruit a new batch at any time.

According to a famous economist of later generations, in one of his masterpieces, which I don't know whether it is economics or more ideological propaganda, we must be wary of any intervention in the free market, because if the market is not free and public ownership is practiced, then the labor power of the workers will have only one buyer, and it can squeeze the workers at will, and the workers will embark on a "road to slavery".

But in a free market, can workers not be enslaved because they have the right to choose freely? Hehe, if that's the case, how could the average life expectancy of workers in British textile mills be lower than that of black slaves? No factory owner would be willing to pay their workers more because that would increase their costs and put them at a competitive disadvantage. In a free market, capital is always scarce, and labor is always superfluous. It's like there is always a scarcity of companies that can make Marvel movies, and there are always many gunmen who can draw comics and write stories for Marvel without any rights. The workers who were dismissed could not have found a more benevolent capitalist elsewhere. Because if there really was a more benevolent capitalist in this world, he would have gone bankrupt in the competition because of the cost.

So a workers' representative stood up and called on all the workers to go on strike. This time, the London Textile Workers' Mutual played a key role, with almost all the workers staying outside the factory.