The talks are just a symbol, they are meant to be seen by the outside world, and in fact it is impossible to achieve anything.

There is only one reason why France terminated the Sino-French alliance, that is, it acquiesced in the decline of France, and in order to get the support of Britain, let Britain suppress Prussia, and strive for a more equal ending for France, France had to rely on Britain. Then it would be impossible to continue the confrontation with Britain, and could only give up the Sino-French alliance as a condition in exchange for Britain to oppress Prussia and give France a more lenient peace agreement.

With Prussia occupying nearly half of French territory and an uprising already taking place in Paris, the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia was already a loose agreement.

The Emperor's meeting with the French ambassador was not military, but economic.

The Emperor expressed his understanding of the French abolition of the alliance and his willingness to continue to maintain close economic relations with France. The French ambassador said that France will not formulate economic policies against China. Willing to continue to strengthen economic ties between the two countries, the result was finally reached, both sides significantly reduced tariffs on each other's products, in principle, the average tariffs of the two countries were not higher than 15 percent, but each country was allowed to impose a certain degree of protective tariffs on 30 kinds of goods, but the protective tariffs could not exceed 100 percent.

Basically, the economic confrontation situation in the era of the crown prince was solved, and the purpose was to allow the French economy to recover quickly, and if the French economy did not recover, France's strength could not be restored. The French also took this into account, and at the same time, although they ended their alliance with China, they still hoped that China would support France politically, or at least not oppose France, which could no longer afford to offend anyone. The form of diplomacy was the worst time after the Napoleonic Wars.

In addition, the purpose of the trade war between France and China was only to protect its own industry, but after the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, France's industry has not competed with China much. The Lorraine region, bounded by the Moselle River, has important coal fields in the east of the river and huge iron ore in the west of the river, accounting for more than 9/10 of the country's output. Around the coal and iron resources of Lorraine, France developed important industries such as metallurgy and machinery, and now all of them have been lost. Originally, France had to import coal, pig iron and steel production was not self-sufficient, and machinery was imported from Prussia, and now it is even less protected. It doesn't matter if it is imported from Prussia and Great Britain and Belgium, it does not matter if it is imported from China.

In light industry, Alsace and Lorraine, one of the three major cotton textile industries, have been lost, and only the cotton textile industries of Lille and Rouen in the north remain, and France now has no mention of export competition, and even needs to import. The only Lyon silk weaving industry with large-scale export capacity cannot be impacted by Chinese products.

Therefore, the industries of France and China are relatively complementary, and there is no longer much competitive pressure, so there is naturally no need for the trade war to continue.

China's exports to France are no longer commodities, but financial products based on capital. The European bank set up by European companies remains the largest bank in France outside of the Banque de France, and has opened operations not only in France, but also in European countries. In terms of strength, European banks have more gold reserves than central banks, so they have stronger credit, and even in the settlement of European governments, as long as the government does not interfere with it, everyone trusts European banks more. The banks of European companies are really moving towards the status of the European Central Bank.

Even the Banque de France, despite its large operations in France due to the support of the government, has long borrowed funds from European banks and is the largest debtor of European banks.

This time, the Bank of France issued 10 billion franc bonds, and the European banks subscribed as high as 3 billion francs, and helped sell 2 billion francs, so it can be said that the European banks helped solve half of the bonds, otherwise France would not have been able to pay the reparations so quickly and let Prussia withdraw its troops.

Although the French financial industry is developed, 10 billion francs are siphoned off the French economic system and delivered to Germany in the situation of reparations, which will certainly cause big trouble. Sure enough, as soon as the Paris Commune was settled and the state order was restored, France began to fall into severe deflation. And Germany began a long period of inflation, precisely because of the sudden influx of 10 billion hard currencies into Germany and the withdrawal from France.

The French were in dire need of money to solve the problem, and the European banks once again played a role beyond the Banque de France, which issued an equal amount of banknotes against French government bonds and put them into the French market. This was authorized by the French Congress as a condition for European banks to finance them. Now it has quickly balanced the French economy, and even borrowed a large amount of money from the Banque de France to help the Banque de France stabilize the French economy.

After so many years of development, the Banque de France and the European banks gradually began to have a division of labor, in France, the two banks cooperate with each other, but mainly in the field of the Banque de France, the European banks have basically withdrawn from the French internal market, specializing in import and export business, while the Banque de France has withdrawn from the field of foreign trade, specializing in the French domestic market.

With the support of European banks, French exports recovered rapidly, and in the case of deflation, French products had a strong price advantage, and French silk fabrics were not only monopolized in North Africa, but also began to enter the southern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. China exports a large number of machinery and equipment to France, and the transformation of China's machinery industry after the economic crisis not only fully meets the domestic market, but also has begun to have the ability to export a large number of foreign countries. High-quality steel smelted from Australian iron ore began to sweep the French market, both in terms of price and quality, far better than German and British steel at this time.

The defeat in the Franco-Prussian War completely aroused the national sentiment in the hearts of the French, "if France is not great, it will not be France", and under the stimulation of this emotion, the French felt a strong humiliation, which was much stronger than the defeat to Britain and Russia, because they lost to a small country, Prussia, a small country that had been abused by France for hundreds of years.

As a result, although the French Third Republic still maintained a serious internal struggle, on the issue of military reform, there was a rare unanimity, "revenge is the law of the vanquished", and the French Third Republic is revenge, these concepts are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

The political power in France developed a balance of conservatism in the economy and revanchism in politics, while suppressing both the monarchists and the revolutionaries. Economic conservatism, insisting on less intervention, maintaining economic easing, and political revanchism, galvanizing national sentiments, thus suppressing popular obsession with revolution and imperial power. This complex structure, despite the many conflicts, is largely balanced, so that the Third Republic has rarely been in power for a long time.

Stimulated by the two ideas of economic development and revenge against Germany, the French government soon withdrew from the ambitious railway construction plan, and wanted to improve the French railway network, on the one hand, for the sake of the economy, and on the other hand, to see the strong mobilization capacity of the German railways, which were too inefficient in comparison.

As soon as the war began, the Germans were mobilized, everything was in order, every train was filled, there was plenty of food at every station, so the trains arrived on time. More than 500,000 troops and equipment were transported to designated positions on the front line in a week's time, and the Bavarian Railway was working just as effectively, and the Prussian army was so confident that it called its train the Paris Express.

The French government's decision to rebuild the railway network and even nationalize the main lines will require huge sums of money. These funds are also offered by European companies to help finance France. This is extremely important for France, which is currently in financial difficulties.

Why did China help France, is it really just friendship?

In fact, Zhou Lang has only one purpose, that is, to put pressure on Germany.

The centuries-old struggle for hegemony has completely deprived France of the possibility of competing for hegemony in Europe, and it is impossible for France to play the role of a European saboteur. Only in the short term, when passion burns and the energy of the nation and the country is completely exploded, can Germany have this momentum.

Therefore, as long as France quickly recovers its national strength and is motivated by the mood of revenge against Germany, the Germans will not dare to be too conservative, and they must go to the black on the road of hegemony.

As for Bismarck, who opposed Germany's struggle for hegemony, he could only make concessions or be replaced in the face of the general situation.

The stronger France became, the stronger Germany must be, and it is no wonder that both sides will massively expand their armaments and win over their allies, and finally there will be no major war in Europe.

The question is whether the scale of this great war will be enough to destroy European civilization and whether it will be enough for China to become the savior of Europe and come to Europe as a savior, and there are many problems that need to be solved.

First, Europe's equilibrium needs to be further broken. France was used to put pressure on Germany, but France could not be Germany's opponent. France itself knows its own pounds, so France will certainly look for allies, as it has done historically. Since they are willing to give up their alliance with China, they understand that in a European war, China is too far away to help them. They would certainly seek an alliance with Russia.

Germany would ally with Austria-Hungary, and Germany and Austria would still be evenly matched against France and Russia, if the two military blocs fought as they had done historically. Whether or not there will be a revolution in Russia is very unclear as it stands. It is also premature whether the United States will enter the war. What is the attitude of the United Kingdom, these are huge variables.

Among them, the United States will not become an influential country in the next 50 years, until they resolve their internal North-South differences, and Britain's attitude cannot be influenced, and the only thing that can be controlled is the changes in Russia.

The Russian problem gave Zhou Lang a great headache, because since the female tsar ascended the throne, the political process in Russia has been detached from Zhou Lang's design.