Podol is in a mess right now. Earlier this year, a force originating from the Prince of Condé captured the largest city in south-central France, demanding that Mazarin release the Prince of Condé from prison. Mazarin, the prime minister who held the central power in France, naturally refused, how could he release Prince Condé, who had great prestige among the people and the army, and who was still intent on competing with him for power?

Not only the Prince of Condé, but also his brother Prince Conti, as well as the Duke of Languville, and other die-hard opponents of Mazarin, were taken into custody by him and imprisoned in Vincennes prison. After the rebellious nobles rekindled their faith in the king, and the Spanish army was expelled from France from both north and south, Mazarin began to feel very good about himself and grew in power. The Prince of Condor, who had made great contributions to quelling the rebellion of the nobility, also believed that he should replace Mazarin and take control of France, which caused irreconcilable contradictions between the two, which developed into a sharp political struggle.

The result of the struggle is clear - or in the short term - the Prince of Condé is defeated! Mazarin took him and some other unpleasant creatures into it, and the French court became his word from then on. In this way, the situation in France also changed dramatically, and the French generals (led by Tyrrenne) who had just led the French army to defeat the Spanish invasion army fled to Spanish territory (Artois, South Netherlands, etc.), and then colluded with them to attack France in turn.

It turned out that they were never pure patriots, and they would attack Spain from time to time because of their own interests. At times, he acted as a lackey of Spain to attack France. They reneged on their previous oath of loyalty to the king. After finding that he could not monopolize power, he quickly sided with the foreign invaders.

And in order to counter this threat. French Prime Minister Mazarin personally led an army loyal to the king into the South Netherlands, fought against the army led by Tyrrene, and eventually won. However, the battle in the north was victorious, but the south was not very optimistic: not only did the Spanish army enter south-France again, but some French troops loyal to the Prince of Condé also occupied Bordeaux and used it as a base against Mazarin's rule, and the French Civil War broke out again!

The full-scale outbreak of the French Civil War (or the Second Fronde Movement) was a mixed blessing for the East Coasters. The first was with the capture of Bordeaux by the rebels. The whole city was thrown into chaos, and the normal business order was completely disrupted. Don't overestimate the discipline of these rebels, as the French rebels (mostly Parisians) looted the city and killed thousands of innocent citizens in Paris last year. This time in Bordeaux, they still began to loot with impunity, and the slightest resistance of the looted could lead to death.

The trading post of the people on the east coast was no exception, and a group of French rebels surrounded the area, and then emptied a lot of unsalable cotton cloth in the zài warehouse, with a total value of more than 100,000 yuan. Fortunately, the East Coast people have just settled the payment in the first half of the year at the commercial station in Bordeaux. Most of the money has been shipped back to the mainland, and the little money left in the mall has been transferred to Istanbul via Guò Marseille. to support Mo San's series of actions over there. Therefore, the losses of the people on the east coast in this catastrophe in Bordeaux are still within the controllable range, and they are nothing more than tens of thousands of cotton cloths! If we really want to talk about losses, I am afraid that the losses caused by the collapse of normal business order are even greater.

However, the normal business order collapsed and was paralyzed, and some "abnormal" business practices gradually flourished. Some captains or merchants instigated by the Holland, the Hanseatic territories, and Sweden laden loads the goods of the East Coast with cheap and good goods, and then sells them to war-torn regions where the local ruling class has been greatly weakened.

The King's Army and the rebels fought in these areas, but the normal life of the people had to go on. But now many places are in the midst of war, the order of production has been greatly damaged, many merchants who have been operating various businesses all year round have found themselves unable to buy goods overnight, and most of the handicraft guilds that had monopolized the market from raw materials to terminal sales have also fallen into chaos, and local nobles and officials have begun to stand in line and attack each other, and no one cares how the country should operate, which undoubtedly gives the East Coast some opportunities for smuggling goods.

You must know that it was impossible for goods from the east coast of these areas to enter in the short term, but the war destroyed the original order, and even destroyed a considerable part of France's industrial capacity, forcing them to increase the import of foreign goods, which gave opportunities for cheap and high-quality goods to be smuggled on the east coast. Of course, in the current situation, it seems that the Dutch, German and British merchants have taken advantage of the big advantage, and the East Coast people are still too shallow, and their network in France is still not rich enough, so they can only watch the merchants of these countries feast, while the East Coast people can only follow behind and eat some scraps. However, for more than half a year, it was also through the guò smuggling trade that made a profit of more than 200,000 yuan, which not only made up for the loss of the robbery of the trading station, but also had a lot of surplus, which made Mo who was far away in Istanbul extremely satisfied. To this end, he gave greater authority to Contin, the head of the Bordeaux trading station, and temporarily transferred the inventory in the trading station in Florence to him in order to make more profits.

In fact, speaking of which, the people of the East Coast also have to admire those British merchants. With Cromwell's full rise to power in Britain, the emerging bourgeoisie began to shed the feudal shackles, although they were still heavily apportioned and blackmailed by the republican government, and although the business environment was still bad, they finally got rid of the legal obstacles, and their social status was significantly improved, so England's business still stumbled and developed tenaciously.

In particular, the woolen textile industry, which had been battered by the civil war, had been in a period of recovery since 1649, and this year it was even more profitable to gradually squeeze Dutch woolen wool out of their traditional market. In addition to woollen wool, the shipbuilding industry, iron smelting industry, fishing industry, gunsmithing industry and other industries also developed quite rapidly, which further strengthened the discourse power of the British bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, as a new class, began to gradually enter the political and economic arena, and it seems that this is an irreversible trend.

And the rise of capitalists may correspond to the decline of the feudal aristocracy. In particular, the fate of those royal nobles was even more miserable. Cromwell's government had to order the confiscation of the property of the royal aristocracy in order to cope with the huge government and military expenditures, which reduced many people to abject poverty overnight. And even those who did not have their property confiscated had to pay a proportional fine enough to break their bones, so that they could avoid becoming a proletarian.

However, this situation unexpectedly promoted the development of the British American colonies. A large number of former members of the Royal Party, who had been ostracized, suppressed, and persecuted in England, were forced to leave their homeland and develop in the colonies of the North American continent. Some of these members of the aristocracy seized the opportunity when they arrived in North America, and eventually became prominent families in British North America and later in the United States, and their surnames are familiar even today: Washington, Randolph, Madison, and so on.

Perhaps, the Netherlands, a country with the supreme power of the capitalists, is the last to see Britain rise. Their merchants were not fools, and the rise of British industrial capital would seriously threaten the interests of Dutch merchants. For example, most of the herring fishing in the Netherlands is now carried out in the waters around the UK, and many of the herring caught are salted and dumped on the British market, which is a great resentment among the British. Coupled with the fact that Dutch fishing vessels (generally with a large tonnage) often bully and collide with British herring fishing vessels with a tonnage of only 6-12 tons, the conflict between the two sides in the fishing industry has almost reached a fever pitch.

For example, the British refused to sell their wool or tweed to the Dutch (who were usually reprocessed and sold for a good profit) and instead began to produce their own goods, and began to regain little by little the traditional markets they had lost due to the civil war, such as the Ottoman and Baltic markets, to the detriment of the Dutch merchants.

Even more strictly, the British were considering whether to export grain separately to Spain and Italy, which had always been short of grain, instead of transporting it to the Amsterdam distribution market to sell. If this policy is put into practice, there is no doubt that it will be a policy that will provoke Dutch merchants to monopolize the European grain market and indirectly influence the direction of many countries through grain weapons. Maybe it's a full-scale economic blockade, maybe it's a war, but it won't be easy, it depends on whether the British have the determination to break the boat.

The people on the east coast are also very concerned about the trade dispute between Britain and the Netherlands, and at present, the Bordeaux trading station is also sending all kinds of information collected to the Mo San in Istanbul at any time to summarize and analyze. Moreover, after having spent so many years in Europe and carefully studying the economic, policy, and diplomatic trends of Britain and the Netherlands, he found that unless the British were willing to degenerate and continue to allow the Dutch capitalists to suck the blood and exploit them, a war would break out between the two countries sooner or later. And if one war does not solve the problem - that is, the English capitalists are not satisfied, and the Dutch capitalists are unwilling to give up their vested interests, then there will certainly be a second and third war until one of them submits......

Although the people on the east coast are not yet able to directly intervene in this possible war due to their weak national strength, if they are prepared in advance, they will not be unable to obtain some benefits, and it depends on how to operate it. (To be continued......)