Napoleon's affairs have not yet been resolved, and the European countries have been arguing and clamoring for no result, and there are different opinions on how to divide Napoleon's empire.

The Netherlands had already been annexed by Napoleon, first to make his younger brother king, and then directly to the French Empire.

The question of what to do with the Netherlands was not clearly discussed, Britain and Austria united, Russia and Prussia united, and the two sides almost went to war, and then with the restoration of Napoleon, their contradictions were quickly demarcated, but then China suddenly collapsed Russia, making the situation in Europe more uncertain.

In short, after defeating Russia, the British had completely recognized China's strength, and the Russians could use the vast territory to defeat Napoleon's expeditionary force, but they were helpless against the Chinese army, but the Chinese seized on the weakness of their serfdom and turned the domestic situation upside down.

The ever-expanding fleet of the Chinese also made Britain uneasy, and Britain did not want to directly clash with China.

In order to avoid possible conflicts in the future, the British government decided to demarcate their respective spheres of influence with China as soon as possible.

Diplomatically, they have recognized China's occupation of western North America and accepted China's presence in the Río Plata River basin, but they have asked China to open up where it is, and China has agreed to use Port Elizabeth as a boundary between the two sides in South Africa.

In India, both sides maintained a Punjab presence as a buffer, and no one was allowed to move against Punjab, with Britain occupying the east and China occupying the west.

But Britain wanted China to withdraw from Australia and establish a sphere of influence with Britain in the South Seas.

On the issue of Australia, China resolutely refused to budge and continued to adhere to the purchase plan. The Nanyang issue can be discussed.

The British occupied the entire Dutch colony, China has been insisting on the withdrawal of the British, China has developed in Borneo, Chinese immigrants have also begun to appear on the island of Sumatra, China insists that Chinese are the local aborigines, they went earlier than Westerners, and have a natural right to move freely, and no country can limit this natural law.

Britain was willing to recognize Borneo as China's sphere of influence, but hoped that China would refrain from colonial expansion into other islands, including Sumatra. Although there is no evidence that the Chinese government is behind the Chinese companies that have failed to compete in Borneo and moved to Sumatra, the British wanted to limit the migration of Chinese.

The Chinese government's insistence on natural rights, combined with their enormous human resources, amounted to the inclusion of the South Seas in their sphere of influence, which was unacceptable to the British.

Due to the emergence of China, a new competitor, although Britain is still a country that focuses on commercial interests, but the struggle for world hegemony is a temptation that no politician can give up, so the British saw the limitations of their own country, they began to directly intervene in India, and began to negotiate with the East India Company, and the British government directly managed India, so as to make greater use of India's human resources, with India's human resources as support, Britain could directly compete with China.

Of course, competition is one thing, cooperation is another, and China's huge market is the envy of the British.

The British themselves know more than anyone else about a unified big market.

The unification of the British market was almost done in this generation, and they felt it deeply. They created a national market through a network of canals, which connected various waterways with the central city and greatly promoted the development of waterway transportation; Before 1759, Britain did not have a single canal or artificial waterway, and the canal from Wall to Manchester was completed in 1761, the first major canal in Britain, and his completion halved the price of coal in Manchester. Since then, Britain has dug many canals, forming a relatively developed water transportation network. By the end of the 18th century, the British proudly lamented that "the domestic market, which had always been so narrow and fragmented, was finally connected to each other without hindrance." ”

The British established a unified market that allowed them to get ahead of the commercial competition with the Dutch, but the Chinese market was much larger.

The Chinese built the Grand Canal a thousand years ago, and although shipping has begun to flourish, the Grand Canal has not been abolished, but continues to play a stronger role, and before there was no railway, the canal was still the most convenient and cheap means of transportation.

The Grand Canal connects the inland areas of the southern part of the Yangtze River and the northern coastal provinces, but the market size on both sides of the canal is larger than that of the entire British country, because the number of people covered is calculated in the tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions. And the population of Britain as a whole is only about 10 million, which is more than half of France.

China also has a dense network of natural rivers, and the rivers of the Pearl River Delta are world-class water transport conditions, and almost all prefectures and counties in the Pearl River Delta can communicate through waterways, and even the Pearl River can be directly navigated to the interior of Guangxi. In this way, it is a river transport channel that is thousands of kilometers long.

More advantageous than the Pearl River Delta, in the center of China's land, there is a Yangtze River leading to the depths of the interior, this Yangtze River will connect the inland Sichuan, the Chinese government hired the French to build many steam-powered roller shutters in Sichuan, replacing the past slender man, greatly improving the navigation conditions, and blowing up the reef, now 500 tons of cargo ships can directly enter Sichuan to dock.

Sail into almost any major river and you'll find that the market here is bigger than the whole of the UK.

With the help of these cheap natural and artificial waterways, after the abolition of various checkpoints, the Chinese market expanded very rapidly, and their tax revenue had already surpassed that of Britain during the war, and now it is almost twice that of Britain, which is the result of the so-called benevolent policy of what they call light taxation, and if they implement the same tax rate as Britain, it is really impossible to imagine how terrifying their finances will be, and how large their fleet will be, such a country is suffocating.

Also with the help of the gradual opening of the huge market, China's industrial development is very rapid, the scale of the cotton textile industry has always been larger than the United Kingdom, in recent years is still expanding rapidly, they already have a jealous domestic market, but in the world more British competition for the market, really people are very angry.

However, the Chinese market is becoming one of the largest markets in the United Kingdom, which makes the British eager to quickly seize the Chinese market while the Chinese wool textile industry has not yet developed, which has been discussed several times in the House of Commons, but the tight finances of the United Kingdom have made parliamentarians hesitate to subsidize exports, and even the windows are taxed, how can they still reduce taxes on the woolen industry, which will provoke protests from other industries.

Fortunately, India's cotton production is getting bigger and bigger, and under the policy of compulsory promotion of cotton cultivation, Bangladesh has now surpassed the United States to become the world's largest cotton producer, and Bangladesh has also changed from a grain planting base to a region dependent on food imports.

Part of the cotton from Bengal was sent to Britain to replace the shortage of cotton imported from the United States during the war, and the other part was mainly supplied to the Chinese market, thanks to the balance of Indian cotton, so that Britain would not exchange precious metals for commodities from China.

However, to expand trade with China, you can't just rely on cotton as a raw material, and the British consul has repeatedly discussed with the Ministry of Commerce (Home Office) directly managed by the Chinese emperor to find a way to expand trade between the two countries, and the Chinese proposed a way to let Britain export machinery.

He also gave a low evaluation to Britain's restrictions on the export of machinery as low as France's continental blockade policy, telling the British that even if Britain banned the export of machinery, China still got the steam engine, and now it is producing it in large quantities, but the quantity is far from meeting domestic demand, and if Britain liberalizes the export of machinery, it will have a lot to do in the Chinese market.

Due to the British ban on the export of machines, it was the United States that exported quite a lot of machines to China.

Moreover, China judged that once the war between Britain and the United States ended, American cotton would reoccupy the world market, and the cotton purchased from the British colonies would be greatly impacted, after all, China's machine textile technology was mainly imported from the United States, and American machines were more suitable for spinning American long-staple cotton than Indian short-staple cotton.

The British consul was very sympathetic to these claims, but he could not change the stubborn British Parliament.

Inadvertently, China made Britain face up to China as an adversary through a decisive land battle with Russia.

They are even willing to share their interests with China on an equal footing on the oceans, something the British would never have considered before.

After Spain and Portugal, there was always only one hegemon on the sea, and the Dutch were the strongest when they were the Dutch, and the Dutch fell behind Britain to replace them, and now they are finally going to return to the era of the two powers?

It's a big change.

Everything is ripe with the rapid rise of China and the ripening of this feast of Napoleonic wars.

To this end, Zhou Lang has worked hard for more than 20 years.

But the British have begun to recognize China's ability to compete with Britain on the sea, but Zhou Lang is not satisfied with China's current situation.

Because there are so many things that need to be reformed, and they have begun to enter the deep waters, the power struggle between him and Wang Fuqian, or the entire bureaucracy represented by Wang Fuqian, is beginning to come to the fore.

This is a strange phenomenon, Zhou Lang is not a person who is keen on power, and Wang Fuqian is not a person who is obsessed with power, but both of them found that they have no way to retreat, and they must stand up and fight for the forces they represent.

Both tried to persuade each other, both tried to make the other accept their views, but found that the more they communicated, the greater the differences, and in the end both of them lost interest in communicating with each other and began to enter the Cold War.

People in the rivers and lakes can't help themselves, and people in officialdom can't help themselves!