The international environment in the American South began to become sinister.

They had already established relatively good relations with Britain and France, and although they did not get the two countries to publicly recognize the Union of the South, informal diplomacy was going on, and French companies were still financing the South. The industrial blocs of the two countries have already begun to lobby parliaments for their recognition of the Southern Union.

In order to put pressure on Britain and France, the South even took the initiative to cut off the cotton trade, at this time the North was not able to blockade the South, and the South itself banned cotton exports, after all, compared to the short-term funds obtained in exchange for exports, it was a drop in the bucket for the war. On the contrary, a ban on cotton trade can put enormous pressure on Britain and France.

The textile industry is an important pillar of the UK economy, with more than 80 percent of cotton imports coming from the southern United States. They pressured Britain with a cotton embargo, causing the price of cotton to rise from $6 to $27 per pound. Britain's cotton imports from the southern United States plummeted from 2.6 million bales to 70,000 bales. The British textile industry had grown to the age of giants, with the King of Lancashire Cotton Mill employing 300,000 workers in a single factory. Now there is no supply of cotton, and the workers have nothing to do. Half of the workers had to be laid off, and 14 percent of Lancashire's population was left in a state of destitute awaiting relief, which they called the "cotton famine".

This man-made industrial famine not only led to unemployment, famine and riots in the north of England, but it was beneficial for the southern United States in the short term, as cotton was in their warehouses and the price of cotton in Europe soared. They used the cotton in their warehouses as collateral to issue cotton bonds, but because of the increase in cotton prices, the value of the bonds increased. Despite the South's initial defeats, the price of cotton bonds doubled.

For Britain, it's not bad, because the British colonies, especially the Indian colonies, have a huge scale of cotton production, but because of their proximity to China, they mainly export to China, and the United Kingdom has a more price advantage in using American cotton, and now it has lost the United States, a raw material supplier, and under the sharp rise in cotton prices, Indian cotton is a good alternative. Britain quickly raised the price of cotton exports in British India, and Indian cotton began to be exported not to China, but to Britain. Because exports to the UK are domestic, they can make up for the high export duties.

Britain's move led to a halving of cotton prices in the Chinese market, recreating the situation during the Sino-British and American wars, when cotton prices in China skyrocketed and workers lost their jobs. However, because of the last war, China also planted a large amount of cotton in its own colonies, and China's cotton cultivation in the Indian colonies was larger than that of British India, and the cotton fields in Assam, Bengal and the Indus Valley benefited greatly this time. And China also has a huge cotton production in Africa. Cotton production requires good sunshine, abundant water, and labor. So the American South, as well as slavery was relatively unemployed in cotton production.

Not to mention the Kingdom of South Africa, that is, the Congo River and Niger River basin areas directly under the African company, there is no shortage of water, sunshine, or labor, but only to let the local tribal blacks who are accustomed to hunting for a living learn agricultural production, so that their lazy lifestyle can be transformed into a settled regular living habit. It took Africa companies five decades to cultivate the black tribe way of life. It has also created a large cotton producing area, second only to the Indian Territory, and the second largest supplier of cotton to China.

There are Indian territories, African territories, and even the Kingdom of South Africa and Egypt are also supplying cotton to China, so that China's cotton textile industry will not be so short of raw materials that it will have to shut down, but the price of raw materials will rise sharply, resulting in a decline in profit margins and shrinking production.

Both China and Britain can find alternative raw materials, France is not so lucky, France itself cannot provide enough cotton, the French colonies are not suitable for the production of cotton, French North Africa desert terrain is the majority, so it is always facing the problem of water shortage, so it is okay to grow food, but it is not suitable to grow cotton. As a result, the most affected was the fragile cotton textile industry in France, which was already small and could not compete with British goods at all, coupled with the influence of raw materials and the impact of British goods, which led to the bankruptcy of a large number of French cotton textile industries.

France was immediately surpassed by Germany from the second largest cotton textile industry in Europe, and the Germans got Alsace and Lorraine before they had a large-scale cotton textile industry, followed by Mexico, and their rule in Mexico in recent years allowed Mexico to establish a closer relationship with Germany, and consciously promoted cotton planting, not only a large number of Junkers capital operated cotton plantations in Mexico, black slaves could not be used, Indians were not easy to use, they could also hire a large number of Poles, before the outbreak of the American Civil War, Due to the tension between the United States and Germany, Germany has shifted the cotton import from the United States to Mexico, before because of the high price of Mexican cotton, Germany's textile competitiveness is not enough, now the United States has banned cotton exports, but the competitive advantage of Mexican cotton has been greatly improved, the competitiveness of the German cotton textile industry, at least in its own country has surpassed the British goods, and in Europe has surpassed the French goods. The most important thing is that they have gotten rid of their dependence on U.S. cotton before, so that they have basically not been impacted, and have been producing steadily, not only resisting the dumping of British goods, but also competing with British goods for the European market.

So after the outbreak of the Civil War, Britain was of course under great pressure, but the pressure on France was even greater, and France hoped that the South would lift the embargo as soon as possible. Britain and France have begun to discuss whether to formally recognize the Southern Union, the textile industry group is actively promoting, the government is also responding positively, and Britain and France are infinitely close to recognizing the South.

There was even a time when a diplomatic mission sent by the South to Europe on a British merchant ship was intercepted and seized by the Northern Navy, and the British issued a sternly worded recall, and Lincoln immediately apologized, paid reparations, and released the British merchant ship, with the aim of not giving the British any reason to interfere.

The American South was confident that by virtue of its cotton hegemony, they could bring the European powers to their knees, just as their leaders thought that with the help of the American market, or the high-tech blockade of the United States, they could bring China to its knees.

But suddenly China spoke out and began to criticize slavery in the southern United States, hoping that the southern part would abolish slavery, and the Kingdom of South Africa, which happened to be heavily influenced by China, announced the abolition of slavery, which put the southern United States into an unfavorable international environment.

The public opinion of Britain and France supporting the South is too risky, and this risk is not entirely a moral risk, morally, supporting the South, of course, is suspected of supporting slavery, but in history, Britain can go to war with China for the opium trade, and it is a big deal to find a mask of trade freedom like the opium war. And they found a mask, under the right to speak, will make many people believe the truth, some later Chinese historians insisted that the British were for trade, not purely for opium, who did not know that the opium trade caused the war, in the Western world is the mainstream public opinion.

After China's involvement, Britain and France will not only have to risk public opinion if they want to support the Southern Alliance, but also have a major political risk, because if they support the South, China will support the North, and even if they send troops to join the war, they will not be able to win.

This was tantamount to completely depriving the South of the possibility of international recognition, and also ruled out the possibility of British and French intervention in the Civil War.

At present, this kind of operation can be said to be the operation of the crown prince's family, and if it is the emperor's operation, it will never be so.

If Huang Qiuwu of the emperor's faction was allowed to operate, he would definitely win over Britain and France, jointly put pressure on the south, get the south to promise to abolish slavery as soon as possible, and then mediate the American Civil War and let the United States divide the two cities. The emperor's use of South Africa as an example is only to find a model for mediation, and he is by no means intending to interfere alone. But under the operation of the crown prince's group, Britain and France were directly excluded, and this is where the latter generation is more aggressive than the previous one.

The South's own embargo on cotton was a political action, one that was clearly bankrupt. So they immediately opened up the cotton trade, only to find out that it was too late. Because now the US Northern Navy is already capable of blockading the South.

Since the beginning of the war, the initial gap in naval strength between the North and the South has not been too obvious, but the North has an industrial system, and they can build their own ironclad ships. Unlike the Army, the Navy does not have a high demand for manpower, but a higher demand for resources and productivity. Therefore, with the decommissioning of time, more and more ironclad ships were built in the north.

The naval battles between the north and the south have been continuous, and all countries have sent observers to watch the battle, hoping to discover the shortcomings of the ironclad and the future technical direction of the ironclad through the largest confrontation in the era of ironclads.

At the beginning, the naval battle was scattered between the ironclad ships of the north and the south, and both sides found that the ironclad ships were difficult to sink, and the large number of Karen cannons they were equipped with were devastating against the wooden sailing ships, but against the ironclad ships, there was basically no damage, and they often bombarded each other for a whole day, and they could not cause substantial damage to the ironclads.

The ironclad ships of the United States, like other countries, do not have a unified standard, and there are all kinds of them, there are artillery room ironclad ships, and there are ship ironclad ships. The mainstream is the same as in the era of sail warships, with gun doors on both sides and a large number of gunwales, but the gunwales are insufficient in terms of caliber and firepower.

Gradually, the Americans discovered that although the number of cannons was small, the caliber was large and the firepower was fierce, and the damage to the ironclad ship was greater. So the United States began to produce this kind of ironclad ship, and installed the Dahlgren cannon with greater firepower, although it was only a smoothbore gun, but it fired solid bullets, which could successfully penetrate the armor of the ironclad ship.

Gradually, the U.S. Northern Navy gained the upper hand, and after sinking more than a dozen Southern ironclad ships, it controlled the sea supremacy, and entered the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean to blockade New Orleans.

Although the Southern Navy also seems to adopt new technologies, they are backward in industry, and the ironclad ships commissioned by the British will not be able to serve for a while, and the old ships that have been renovated are no longer suitable for the new naval era.

The North of the United States, with industrial and financial support, began to build large battery ironclads in batches, finding the direction of future ironclad development ahead of all countries.