In the past few years, there has always been all kinds of intelligence that shows that Britain is about to run out.

Napoleon was always reported by reports that the London Stock Exchange was in a panic, warehouses were full of goods that had nowhere to be sold, that the price of British textiles had fallen by 40 per cent, that factories were closing down one after another, that the country's reserve fund had fallen by .......

Napoleon was convinced that the situation in England was already very bad, and that there would be "two more years of incessant effort...... Britain would be compelled to sign a peace treaty that would suit the commercial interests of all nations," and Britain would give in to him and sue for peace.

Obviously, Napoleon was wrongly informed, and British production was not declining, but was constantly increasing. The total value of exports rose from £48.2 million in 1805, before the blockade, to £61 million in 1810, after the Russians indirectly opened up trade.

The main reason for the contrarian growth of British export trade, in addition to smuggling, is that Britain has made efforts to open up overseas markets, and in this process, in fact, Napoleon has helped a lot. For example, Brazil's trade with La Plata, which used to be mainly with their overlords, Portugal and Spain, was now occupied by Napoleon, and the large markets of these two colonies fell into British hands.

Colonies and independent countries that had traded with the rest of Europe were also squeezed out of the market by the British. For example, in the past, China mainly imported watches and clocks from France, but now it is imported from the United Kingdom. The United States used to import goods from all European countries, but now it can only import goods from the United Kingdom.

Even the French colonies had to import goods from Britain. Because Britain had strong naval power and firmly controlled the initiative at sea, France imposed a continental blockade on Britain, and Britain blocked French ports, seized French colonies overseas, and traded with these French colonies.

On the contrary, the European continent, and even France itself, were dying from the blockade.

After the signing of the Franco-Russian Treaty of Tilsit, British customs statistics show that in the third quarter of 1807, the total value of British exports was £9,481,000, a decrease of £1,258,000 compared with the same period in 1806 before Russia entered the blockade. The situation deteriorated in the fourth quarter, with total merchandise exports valued at only £5,566,000, a decrease of £2,062,000 compared to the same period in 1806. The total value of merchandise exports in the first quarter of 1808 was £7,244,000, a decrease of £1,819,000 compared to the same period in 1807, before Russia entered the blockade. The total value of merchandise exports in the second quarter of 1808 was £7,668,000, a decrease of £2,790,000 compared to the same period in 1807.

But the blow was even greater to Russia, whose Baltic trade accounted for two-thirds of the country's total foreign trade. Britain is its main trading partner. After participating in the blockade, Russian trade declined in serious decline. The average number of ships entering and leaving Russia's Baltic ports fell from 6,083 before the blockade to 743 in 1808, an eightfold reduction. The annual volume of import and export trade fell from 59,200,000 silver rubles to 10,600,000 silver rubles in 1808, a decrease of 5.5 times.

In 1811 Russian wheat fell from 8 silver rubles to 5 silver rubles per Russian stone compared to before the blockade; Linen fell from 5.76 silver rubles to 2.95 silver rubles per pod, and marijuana fell from 3.44 silver rubles to 2.33 silver rubles per pood. Others, such as oils and fats, fell by almost half, timber to one-seventh of the pre-lockdown price, and pig iron to one-third. Contrary to the decline in the prices of exported goods, the embargo has increased the prices of imported goods. In 1809, the price of sugar imported from Russia increased by 71.4 percent, wine by 150 percent, tweed by 92.6 percent, and magenta by 147.1 percent. The rise and fall in the prices of imported and exported commodities has made Russia's foreign trade even more at a loss.

The blockade had a severe effect on the Russian aristocracy, whose sale of grain and timber from their hereditary domains to the British, their most reliable income, had now been cut off from diplomatic relations with the British, cutting off their financial resources. So they desperately encouraged the tsar to liberalize trade, or to replace regular trade with the encouragement of smuggling.

The blow to the Russian state finances was even more severe. From 1808 to 1811, the annual deficit was more than 100 million rubles. The only recourse available to the tsarist government to make up for the financial deficit was to issue a large number of paper money, which resulted in a severe fall in the value of the currency and an increase in the value of silver, from 77 silver kopecks in 1805 to 20 silver kopecks in 1810.

If the blockade continues, will Britain collapse, the Tsar does not know, the Russian monetary system will definitely collapse, once the monetary system collapses, the entire Russian economy will be finished! Therefore, starting in the second half of 1807, after two years of serious implementation, Russia began to encourage smuggling in disguise in an attempt to save their economy.

This is true even for France.

At the beginning of the blockade, French merchants were rejoicing. Because the whole of Europe suddenly became the preserve of French goods, Napoleon also believed that with a blockade of Britain, French industrial production would definitely increase. He also instituted many policies to replace British goods, such as the development of sugar beet sugar to replace British sugar imports from the colonies. In the first two years of the lockdown, French goods did quickly replace British goods, and French industries and handicrafts grew extremely fast.

The output of smelting and manufacturing industry, cotton textile industry, and pig iron doubled compared with before the Revolution, and the output of yarn rose from 2 million kilograms in 1806 to 10 million kilograms in 1812, which also led to the development of new industries, the level of sugar refining increased substantially, and foreign trade changed from a deficit of 83 million francs in 1803 to a surplus of 43 million francs in 1809.

But the good times were short-lived, and British smuggled goods continued to pour into the continent through the Netherlands, Italy, and Russia, especially Russia. The Industrial Revolution in France was just beginning, and the continental blockade hindered the introduction of advanced technology and equipment from Britain, leaving French industry stagnant, with high costs and poor quality products, and European consumers preferred to buy British contraband rather than French goods.

High-quality and low-cost British contraband began to destroy French industry, and the French economy deteriorated year after year, with prices soaring and factories closing. The British naval blockade shrank the industry that depended on imported raw materials, and the cotton textile industry turned from rapid expansion to rapid decline, and by 1811 only more than 300 of France's 1,700 textile enterprises were still operating.

Napoleon blamed all this on the smuggling of the Russians, became increasingly unacceptable to the Tsar's behavior, and was confident that it would only take two years for the British to sue for peace, so he became more and more inclined to blockade the coast with French bayonets.

The reason why Napoleon was so paranoid about the British would compromise was that he kept receiving all kinds of misleading information that told him that the British were almost finished.

This was clearly a lie concocted by some vested interests, and it was these people who instigated Napoleon to attack Russia. But the problem is that it is not what these people say, but what Napoleon wants to believe.

Isn't there a single person in a huge France who knows the truth and then tells Napoleon? In fact, there were, and Lindy told Napoleon many times that the blockade was useless. But Napoleon refused to believe these claims, he was willing to believe that his continental blockade must have dealt a heavy blow to Britain.

This is a typical stubborn and self-serving character, and many powerful monarchs have this shortcoming. Napoleon was also a strong man, but he was also a very capable man. He was not a pure military strategist or a soldier, but also a wise monarch. He compiled the Napoleonic Code, introduced the rule of law, encouraged industry, and dismantled feudal privileges, all of which were progressive.

The only drawback is that he never doubts himself, to put it bluntly, he has no spirit of self-reflection, thinking that what he does must be right, and what is wrong is the fault of others.

This character, coupled with the great power he possessed, naturally made many sycophants win his favor, and these people did not care what the truth was or not, and they said whatever the emperor liked to hear, and they said what they liked to hear, and the emperor liked to listen, which in turn strengthened Napoleon's superstition about his own policy.

So Napoleon received many reports just to please him, which made Napoleon believe that his continental blockade policy had dealt a fatal blow to Britain. Only Russia is a gap, and he must bet on it. The reason for this urgency is that the French economy is also running out of steam. Only by closing this gap can French products once again replace British products, and the French economy can recover.

But he ignores the implications for other countries.

Like Russia, at this time, Prussia and other countries were also agricultural countries, relying on the export of their own grain to Britain in exchange for industrial products, after the continental blockade, France could not replace Britain to digest the agricultural products of these countries, and had no interest in importing the agricultural products of the allies at all, because France itself was also a country with developed agricultural production, Napoleon even raised the tariffs on imported grain from various countries, but forced countries to reduce the tariffs on French industrial products.

This policy of self-interest and non-interest has made the rest of Europe hate France to death. This is why there are irrepressible uprisings in Spain and Portugal, not only because of the strong sense of nationality among the common people of both countries, but also because they used to make a living mainly by exporting fine wool and wine to England, and the blockade has affected the survival of everyone, how can they not resist.

Even a big country like Russia can't support it, let alone a small country like Prussia and the Rhine League. Even Napoleon's own brother, who was king in the Netherlands, told Napoleon that he could not destroy his enemies by harming his allies.

He told Napoleon, "If you wish to consolidate the status quo in France, to make peace at sea, or to succeed in an attack on England, you will not be able to achieve these goals by means of a blockade or the like." Nor will it be achieved by destroying the kingdom you have created with your own hands, weakening your allies, and flouting the most sacred rights of nations and the first principles of public international law. On the contrary, you should make them friends of France, and strengthen and strengthen your allies until you can rely on them as brothers. Far from attacking England, the destruction of the Netherlands would have strengthened its power by the flight of industry and wealth to Britain. ”

But Napoleon did not even listen to his brother's advice, but instead sent troops into the Netherlands to supervise the implementation of the blockade system, Louis Bonaparte believed that if he could not keep the Dutch business, his position in the Netherlands could not be guaranteed, so he chose to resign, and Napoleon directly annexed the Netherlands to the French Empire.

Napoleon, who was bent on his own way, rushed towards the bottomless abyss, his younger brother couldn't hold him, and Zhou Lang couldn't hold him even more, and as a result, China was still dragged into the quagmire of the Napoleonic Wars.