The high-profile and pompous reception of the French made many people uncomfortable. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Especially those French merchants, it seems that after the end of the aristocratic era, the French became extraordinarily flashy and unruly, and of course they were also flashy in the aristocratic era.

Glitz is the characteristic of the culture of the peak era of Europe, which is quite nouveau riche temperament.

Behind the glitz and glamour there is an excessive enthusiasm, which is not because they are hospitable, they smell money.

But they were doomed to disappointment, and even if the Bordeaux wine merchants' association came up with their best wines, they would not be able to impress the Chinese customers, who no one liked this bitter red wine.

When the fleet arrived in Calais, no one cared about the French welcome, they couldn't wait to get ashore, and most of them really didn't want to see the water.

The navy soldiers couldn't stand it anymore, let alone the officials, merchants and landlords.

In addition to the necessary officials, Zhu Jinglun gave the others a three-day holiday, so that they could have a good experience in the port of Calais, which is an ancient European port that existed during the Age of Discovery, compared with the ancient ports of China, it obviously has the smell of dirty sailors, the smoky tavern, the full woman with heavy makeup, the ugly but real port.

In the eyes of many Ming officials, the French seem to have suddenly become enthusiastic about the Ming Dynasty.

They simply don't know why.

When Xu Rongcun visited Europe, he established diplomatic relations with many countries, but the French were the only ones, mainly because Xu Rongcun was the first to go to England and then to Russia, which made French public opinion very dissatisfied and thought that France was despised. Even if Xu Rongcun went to the UK for the first time and turned around to France, the French might only say sourly and almost complain, and finally establish diplomatic relations, after all, where is the national strength of the United Kingdom.

But the ranking of France after Russia makes the French, and even the French emperor, unacceptable, don't they know that ten years ago, France beat Russia down with Britain, don't they think that the French Empire is the first land power in Europe?

The French were unhappy to make things difficult everywhere, and Xu Rongcun was impatient, so he couldn't do it.

Because of the lack of diplomatic relations, France's relations with the Ming Dynasty in the East have been severely affected everywhere, especially in trade conflicts, which are difficult to deal with.

After the French occupied the four provinces of South Vietnam, they found that there were more and more Chinese trading here, and they needed the same product here - grain, and there was an unlimited demand for Vietnamese rice.

The French colonial government believed that the development potential of the Mekong Delta was very large, and if it could be developed, it would be able to export rice to China in a steady stream, as long as the Chinese were willing to import grain from here without restrictions, they would be able to obtain a steady stream of money and find a commodity that the Chinese were desperately lacking, which was something that Europeans had struggled with for hundreds of years.

The French believe that once France and Daming can establish such a long-term trade relationship, it is tantamount to Britain finding the magic weapon of opium, which means that they do not have to spend real money to purchase large trade goods such as tea and raw silk from the Chinese, and France will also be able to occupy a favorable position in trade with the Chinese.

Another important reason is that the French found that the raw silk production of the Ming Kingdom has expanded rapidly in the past two years, and has become the largest producer of raw silk in Asia, mainly because they introduced the steam reeling industry, as well as the opening of trade routes, and the tax rebate on exports, which greatly encouraged the trade of raw silk, especially this tax rebate, so that a large part of the products originally consumed in the country also turned to export.

France is the world's largest importer of raw silk and the largest producer of silk, at least as they themselves think, and they have never counted the huge artisanal production in China.

However, France has suffered from the silkworm microparticle disease that is prevalent in Europe in recent years, and the scale of its own silkworm has not been able to expand, and even suffered huge losses every year, and the shortage of raw materials has seriously threatened the development of the French silk industry, and the status of the silk industry in France is equivalent to the status of the cotton textile industry in Britain, which is the first advantageous industrial industry.

Therefore, the French were eager to continue to expand the export of raw silk from the Ming Dynasty to France, especially since they hoped that the Ming would export directly to France instead of reselling it through British merchants. At present, the vast majority of raw silk imported by France still has to run from London, and France itself is a silkworm producer, and Britain is not, which is really embarrassing for France, not to mention, trade interests are controlled by British merchants, and it is also a huge loss for France.

It has not been a year or two since the French promoted China to export raw silk directly to France, and the opening of a branch of the Bank of France in Shanghai can be said to be aimed at the high-quality raw silk in the south of the Yangtze River, but it is a pity that the French businessmen still preferred to buy raw silk from London, resulting in the French branch directly from the White Silk Bank to the Black Earth Bank, and turned to the opium chip business.

In the past two years, Daming's raw silk exports have surpassed Jiangnan and become the largest raw silk production area in China, which makes the French people extremely happy, under the impetus of various forces, the French government began to change its attitude, and finally decided to rely on this trade fair as an opportunity to show the Chinese the achievements of their industrial civilization, and at the same time improve the relationship between the two countries, so they specially invited Zhu Jinglun to visit.

The most specific reason, in fact, Zhu Jinglun himself is not very clear, but he can guess that it is nothing more than interests, as for which part of the interests, he is not very clear, after all, there is no ambassador in France, there is no way to collect French intelligence, and he does not know what the French think.

They didn't say what the French thought themselves, and Zhu Jinglun wouldn't ask, so he made a casual visit to Calais according to various arrangements, and went to Paris as soon as the time came.

The biggest impression left by this Paris World Expo is the Eiffel Tower, but Zhu Jinglun is more concerned about the World Expo itself, the dazzling array of goods, the recent industrial achievements, all kinds of machinery and equipment, he needs to understand, and he hopes to let businessmen understand, if anyone finds a business opportunity, can introduce a set of equipment, to create a new industry, that is the best.

In this era, the World Expo has no interests at all, and there are some roles in promoting goods, but as the organizer often loses money, so it is often a nation's and a country's money-burning behavior to demonstrate national strength.

Therefore, after the French Foreign Minister met with Zhu Jinglun, he arranged for Zhu Jinglun to visit the World Expo the next day, and the French government specially sent someone to guide and explain, as for the French emperor, he would not arrange a meeting until after the World Expo.

Of course, there are various exhibition halls to see, but the first stop must be the exhibition hall in your home country.

Daming Bao a huge area, beautifully decorated, during the period of a lot of money invited Paris designers to help, but the decorations are all in Chinese style, red, yellow is the main color, dragon and phoenix patterns as the basic elements, supplemented by white lotus, jasmine, moire and other patterns of various colored silk fluttering everywhere.

There are hundreds of product contents, occupying a space of hundreds of square meters and attracting a large number of audiences.

Of course, there are not many industrial products, and raw silk is almost the only industrial product, but there are many exquisite handicrafts.

The level of these crafts is absolutely world-class, don't forget the craftsmen that Zhu Jinglun invited from Tianjing, but more importantly, after the capture of Beijing, he almost emptied the collection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and a large part of the crafts were sent here for exhibition.

Zhu Jinglun is not just as simple as emptying the Ministry of Internal Affairs, all kinds of royal workshops under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he is also half empty, and those craftsmen are half invited and half forced to the territory of Daming, arrange new workshops for them, and the official propaganda for them, telling the people that these people used to be craftsmen who made supplies for Daoguang and Xianfeng, and their products would not be sold, and their craftsmanship would not be worried about food and clothing.

Therefore, there are a large number of new crafts, many of which are redesigned in combination with the local customs of Guangdong, and who says that craftsmen will only adhere to tradition? They obviously know how to innovate, the key is to give them opportunities and give them a market and space to play freely.

The work of the Westernization Department is very meticulous, but they obviously did not take into account the cultural habits of the West, these handicrafts are indeed exquisite, many of them are treasured by the Manchu royal family, but those beautifully carved jade, agate, snuff bottles, and large smoking guns are obviously impossible to be appreciated by Europeans.

The only ones that may be accepted by Europeans on a large scale are probably fabrics such as Yun brocade and Song brocade, as well as fine porcelain.

Song Jin fabric was frequently inquired about by some Parisian ladies, because they heard that Queen Victoria's clothes were made of this fabric.

Zhu Jinglun's arrival ignited the atmosphere of the booth, not only the staff of the foreign affairs department on the booth were very happy, but the French were also very enthusiastic when they saw an emperor from China, but they were isolated by the guards and they couldn't speak, but they dared to say hello, Zhu Jinglun nodded frequently in response.

Even Zhu Jinglun personally asked some of the lavishly dressed audience if they liked Chinese products.

A guy who obviously has the temperament of a nouveau riche, a fat man with a lot of jewels and jewelry, heard Zhu Jinglun ask him, he was obviously a rich man, but he was stunned by the nobles, and told Zhu Jinglun that he liked one of the porcelains very much, saying that when he was a child, he had seen the same one in his grandfather's castle.

Zhu Jinglun looked at it, it was a large plum bottle snatched from the Qing Palace, and the official of the Foreign Affairs Department next to him said that it was a unique product.

Don't debunk the hypocritical aristocratic plot of the French, just tell the French that if you like it, you can customize it, according to the same sample, Daming's workshop will make him an equally exquisite one, but the time may be slower, and the price is expensive, the French immediately said that they don't care about money.

Zhu Jinglun is very satisfied, Daming's industrial products are not yet able to open the European market, but handicrafts definitely have a chance.

Compared with human history, for the vast majority of time, handicrafts from China are the world's top. Chinese craftsmen are second to none in the world in terms of quantity and craftsmanship, and it is a pity that later generations of China actually had to learn the spirit of craftsmen from Germany and Japan, and the Japanese aristocracy at that time even wanted to buy a mat from China made of Wulin (the old name of Hangzhou).

After visiting his own exhibition area for an hour, Zhu Jinglun turned to other exhibition areas, and of course the French immediately brought Zhu Jinglun to the French exhibition area.

The French exhibition area is also a large number of handicrafts, but the French prefer to let Zhu Jinglun see their industrial achievements, such as Schneider's machine forging hammer, practical forging hammer was invented by this company, and later Krupp felt the pressure, began to continue to compete in the field of forging hammer, constantly increasing the power of forging hammers, from more than 20 tons to hundreds of tons, this kind of healthy competition, but also the key factor for Europe to catch up with Britain in the field of technology.

Schneider's forging hammer Daming is also equipped, and in order to build the Guangdong ironclad ship, a 25-ton forging hammer was purchased.

France's heavy equipment industry is not developed, so it is more of a variety of light spinning, and what can really be done is mainly some machines in the silk industry, not to mention the silk reeling machine, what interests Zhu Jinglun is their silk loom. More than 60 years ago, the French Jacquard has developed a jacquard opening mechanism with paper plate control needles, compared with China's Yunjin and other processes, still using traditional handmade jacquard, although in some quality, the machine is not up to hand, but in terms of output, the two can not be compared.

If you want to make silk an industry, you have to use machines.

Among the officials who accompanied Zhu Jinglun on his visit, the Ministry of Industry was a relatively large department, and Chen Qiyuan, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, personally led the team, so Zhu Jinglun directly instructed him that it was of great significance to promote steam silk weaving, so that he should not only use a machine to reel silk, but also weave silk into silk.

Chen Qiyuan agreed, but there was a sad look on his face, which made people very puzzled.

Zhu Jinglun was about to ask, when suddenly a group of people nodded and turned around, also a group of visitors, led by the French, to the French exhibition area.

They wore wooden slippers, a strange bun on their heads, and wide robes with large sleeves.

When he met the Japanese at the Paris World Expo, in this era, Zhu Jinglun suddenly had a feeling of time and space confusion.

But in fact, in the history of the Expo, the Japanese were regulars. They attend exhibitions more often than in China.

It is said that the Japanese went to the first exposition, but there is no official record like China, and what really has a record is the second world's fair, or the World Expo held in London, at that World Expo, the Japanese Fukuzawa Yukichi opened his eyes and was deeply touched by his thoughts, and after returning to China, he sorted out and published the emperor's masterpiece "The First Compilation of Western Affairs" that influenced the course of Japan, and published more than 200,000 copies in Japan, while Wei Yuan's Haiguo Atlas, which was earlier than him, was almost ignored in China.

Only after asking the French did I learn that this time it was the Japanese themselves who had sent a delegation.

Zhu Jinglun was silent on the surface, but his heart had become heavy, and he forgot to ask about Chen Qiyuan just now. (To be continued.) )