In terms of the balance of forces between the North and the South, the North has an overwhelming advantage. The Northern Union has 23 states www.biquge.info a population of 23 million, and almost all of the heavy, arms and light industries are concentrated in the North.

The Southern Union had only 11 states, and 4 million of its 9 million people were black slaves. Most of the South's economy was run on agriculture, with only a few small arsenals.

However, the South had long been prepared for war, and had secretly trained a small but well-equipped and well-trained army.

So they were able to march on Washington at the very beginning.

On the first day of the war, Lincoln gave a speech in which he called on the loyal states to provide 75,000 soldiers within three months so that the federal government could suppress the rebellion. In towns and villages, people from all walks of life collected money to recruit and equip the army, and almost every village and town had joined the army, and they solemnly swore to crush the rebellion by mid-July.

No one thought that this was a long-term war, and both the North and the South of the United States believed that it was a short-term war, and Wu Chongyao was less and less optimistic about Zhu Jinglun's judgment, and when he was worried that the weapons would not be able to be sold, he sold a batch of 100,000 rifles that had already been delivered to the Americans at a price of 5 taels of silver.

Then he decided not to speculate on weapons anymore and threw himself into cotton futures.

But Zhu Jinglun ordered 500,000 rifles, he did not have the right to decide, and he did not dare to make a decision for Zhu Jinglun, these rifles were constantly delivered by the British, and then sent to the warehouse.

Wu Chongyao didn't know that his decision made him inadvertently jump out of a rat barn, and in the end, Zhu Jinglun suffered a lot of losses in weapons, and a large number of weapons were smashed into his hands.

In addition, the price of grain has also increased, but it has only risen by half, and the bankers in London are not optimistic about the price of grain, because even if the Americans themselves beat themselves up, the grain that the British Empire wants can be transported, and no one dares to stop the fleet of the British Empire, besides, the Americans do not sell grain, and there are Russians, and Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter in this era.

After listening to the persuasion of people to eat enough, Wu Chongyao threw away the hoarded grain a month after arriving in the UK, and made a small profit.

Now he has at least a million taels of silver in cash, and he has begun to actively invest in cotton futures, and American cotton is still supplying the British market, because the American fleet is not yet capable of blockading the south at this time, whether it is the British merchant ships, or the south's own merchant ships, the cotton from the south is still intact from New York to Britain, and New York is a city in the north.

Therefore, although the price of cotton has skyrocketed, the increase is not outrageous, and the newspapers even say that this price increase is entirely due to panic, and the British government has begun to sell cotton reserves to fight prices, so as not to cause a full-scale inflation.

In this era, Britain has basically completed industrialization, but the industrial revolution on the European continent is still in the ascendant, and the cotton textile industry is the core sector of the industrial revolution in all countries.

Cotton is the best material to solve the problem of clothing, woolen cloth is uncomfortable, the yield is not enough, linen is too coarse, it is the choice of the poor, silk is a luxury, so cotton cloth has almost become the only choice, and the result is that the whole world needs cotton.

In 1830, Europe imported 720,000 bales of cotton from the United States, which soared to 2.85 million bales in 1850, and 5 million bales in 1860 last year.

Among them, 77% of the cotton in the British textile industry comes from the United States, France is 90%, Germany is 60%, and even Russia, which has the same vast land, also imports 92% of the amount of cotton it needs from the southern United States.

The South of the United States thinks that they control Europe, and the Europeans are not fools, playing business and finance, and the financiers in London are still the teachers of the financiers in New York, so countries have withdrawn from the cotton reserve policy, and Britain is the most perfect, and their annual cotton reserves and consumption ratio is 1 to 5, that is to say, they have one-fifth of the demand reserves, such huge reserves, almost let them control the price of cotton, which is like the later generations of oil-producing countries want to control oil prices, and always can't fight the capitalists.

That is, as long as the amount of cotton on the market is reduced by no more than one-fifth, the British government will be able to control the price of cotton, and as long as the war in the United States is over within a year, then the market will not be affected, because the supply of cotton in the United States will be normal next year.

Mr. Wu's agent in London, a broker at the Bank of Bahrain, explained to Mr. Wu that he was gambling that the war in the United States would end within a year or for many years.

At this time, Wu Chongyao remembered Zhu Jinglun's assertion, at least three years, he was sure of it, in history, when the north and the south were unified, it was not a fight to the death, where could it be in a year?

So Wu Chongyao did not hesitate to put his funds on cotton, and let the agent help him eat at a low price, as much as he ate, at this time, as long as the market price fell, Wu Chongyao's funds would go in, as if in the market, and the British government was suppressing cotton prices, which led to rumors that Wu Chongyao was gambling with the British government, and few of them thought that this would be a war that lasted more than a year, because they didn't look down on the combat effectiveness of the Americans and the size of the American army. Therefore, many people rumored that Chinese wealthy businessmen were challenging the British government, and for a while they began to wait and see, and those who originally wanted to enter the market to hype up actually planned to take a look.

The strange result happened, Wu Chongyao smashed two million taels of huge money into it, and the market did not have any major fluctuations, and he actually let him purchase two million taels of cotton futures at an average price of 10 cents, compared with the huge reserves of one-fifth of the British government, he really couldn't afford to lose a lot of money.

After that, Wu Chongyao couldn't stay in Europe, he had already arrived in Paris.

The French were also unusually concerned about the American war, everyone was talking about the war, of course, businessmen, and other upper echelons would only care about what was going on at the ball, and the strange news that the emperor had invited a group of Chinese.

Who would have thought that their emperor would invite these people to come, the newspaper has already scolded the emperor for scolding a bloody head.

The reason is very simple, the newspapers broke the news that they had inquired about it in England, and that this was not a regular diplomatic mission at all, but only a mission sent by the local government of China, and the British women did not receive them, and our emperor actually warmly invited them, is this to show the British on the other side of the channel that the French are inferior? No, this only shows that His Excellency Napoleon thought that he was inferior to the Queen of England.

The atmosphere in the newspapers was the reason why Napoleon invited the Cantonese Mission, because his opponents were growing more and more.

After Napoleon became emperor, like his uncle, he began to have opponents, but he did not have his uncle's super ability and outstanding achievements, so the power-hungry middle class became more and more opposed to the rule of Napoleon III.

Including the Anglo-French attack on Beiping this time, all the newspapers before the war were clamoring for war, and they won the war but did not sing the praises of Napoleon, but began to provoke the thorns again, after Napoleon sent the general Montoban to lead the army returned home, Napoleon got him a parliamentarian, gave him some annuity, sealed the earl, let the newspaper scold, and made the Montoban directly Napoleon give him a letter to the public, saying that he was not greedy and openly refused the annuity, but after the Franco-Prussian War, the people found out after Napoleon stepped down, their emperor still fulfilled his promise and quietly gave the money to Mengtoban from the Chinese indemnity.

This is the situation of Napoleon in this era, there is no absolute prestige, and at the same time, the newspapers have long been accustomed to freedom of speech, they will scold you if you lose, and they will still scold you if you win, as a royal power, this government has no credibility, just like China in later generations, the common people do not believe in the government, and there are always people who stand up and suspect that what the government says is a conspiracy.

Therefore, when the Cantonese mission arrived in England, Napoleon also came to the United States with a special country's mission to help his rule, just as the Chinese emperor always liked to receive the envoys of Fanbang and then give a lot of rewards, which was a good time to show his authority.

But I didn't expect it to be scolded, if Napoleon didn't take Chen Zhiting lightly to come to France, it is estimated that he would still be scolded, and then it would be said that under the rule of His Excellency Napoleon, even a declining country like China did not take France seriously, and people went to England, but they didn't come to France.

The emperor is really not as good as this.

It is not a good thing that the people are also irrational to this extent, they do not know that the later Franco-Prussian War was forced by Napoleon by them, and then suppressed by Germany for more than half a century, and was completely destroyed in World War II.

With a bad emperor, an irrational people, and a contradictory ruling system, France's decline was already doomed.

It's just that no one can see this at this time, and even if the French elite is dissatisfied with Napoleon's rule, they will admit that France is a great country now, or that France has always been great, and this has nothing to do with the Napoleonic family, even if there is no Napoleon, they still have Louis XIV.

Half a century later, I don't know if the defeated French miss the scenery when Napoleon led them across Europe?

In the midst of this contradiction, Chen Zhiting unconsciously broke into the court of the Second French Empire. (To be continued.) )