Paris, France. Santa Cloud Palace.

In the hands of Emperor Louis Napoleon Bonaparte were several telegrams from various places, the first two of which were yesterday, urgent reports from the local consuls of the Second French Empire from Constantinople and Cairo.

Putting down the telegram again, Louis looked gloomy and looked at the few henchmen sitting around him: Alexander Valewski, Minister of State, Baron Haussmann, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Duke Persini, Minister of War, Count Prospe, de Chaslu-Roba, Minister of the Admiralty, and Sir Morney, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

State Minister Valewski knew his cousin best, and immediately spoke: "Your Majesty, this series of news is really shocking! Behind these messages, I see a few points:

One, this empire in the East has risen completely. They were able to defeat the British expeditionary force head-on in a short period of time, and it has to be said that their navy and land are very strong, especially the army. And the strength of military strength is inseparable from weapons and equipment, although their weapons, warships and other equipment, although they have purchased a lot from Europe, but they can never defeat the British expeditionary force, which means that they must have produced a lot of weapons independently, even more advanced than the weapons sold to them by us and Prussia, that is, their industry has a certain foundation, and in some respects it is even stronger than us than Europe.

Second, we should try not to be the enemy of this eastern country, but continue to adopt a win-win approach through cooperation and trade. The core interests of our France have always been in Europe, in the Mediterranean, and the interests of the Chinese Empire on the other side are only in the Eastern world, at most in the Americas, and it is completely possible not to become competitors, but to help each other and use strategic allies to carve up the Eastern and Western worlds together.

Third, the crushing defeat of Britain and Russia is a great thing for our French Empire! Britain will certainly draw our French Empire together against the Chinese Empire, and in this way, the position of our French Empire will be highlighted. The same is true of the Russians, who twice took advantage of the fire and plundered, but were defeated by the eastern army, and this time they returned with a crushing defeat, abandoning the whole of Siberia and fleeing back to Orenburg. In addition, it has not yet recovered from the defeat in the Crimean War, and the domestic serf uprisings have occurred one after another, and its national strength has greatly declined, and it has changed from an army power on the European continent to a second-rate country. And we, the French Empire, are just about to seize this opportunity to strengthen the Empire's position as a core power in France and dominate Europe! ”

Despite the internal deliberations, they were all the confidants of Emperor Louis, but Valewski's naked words still made everyone's faces change. Louie, however, looked a little better, smiled and nodded, as if approving with Valewski's words.

The Foreign Minister, Baron Osman, who had always been very close to Valewski, immediately agreed, and chimed in: "Your Majesty, I also feel the same way! The Chinese Empire has risen strongly, and we in France must not be hostile to it, but will continue to maintain friendly and cooperative relations, but we can maintain competition in appropriate places, unite with some other Western European countries, obstruct the Chinese Empire's forces from entering Europe, and take advantage of the great decline of Britain and Tsarist Russia to directly dominate Europe and strengthen our position as the first power in Europe! ”

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Molney, also nodded and said, "Not bad! Your Majesty, I also agree with the opinion of Duke Valewski, this Chinese empire is really rising too fast, its national fortunes are unstoppable, to put it mildly, even our French Empire cannot suppress them. It is better to push the boat down the river and continue to make friends with them and seek benefits for France.

Your Majesty, since Britain declared war on the Chinese Empire, in order to cooperate with Britain, although we in France have not openly canceled trade with China, we have actually slowly reduced a lot of trade with China, causing a lot of losses. On the contrary, it cheapened the European countries of Prussia, the Ottoman Empire, Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Now that Britain has been defeated, we no longer have to care about their feelings, as they used to be, but they demand us, so we can seize the business of the British, and expand our sphere of influence.

Your Majesty, and you, you may not know, but I have just received news from the Afro-Asian Company on the side of the Kingdom of Najd in West Asia that this oil extraction and refining company, which we established with the Chinese Empire two years ago with a joint investment of 100 million francs, has now grown into a large company with a book value of 400 million francs and an actual value of at least 1 billion francs. Asia and Africa are still only developing the Garhwal oil field in the Kingdom of Najd, which can extract 30 million francs worth of oil every year, and it is growing significantly year by year.

Therefore, I suggest that the French Empire continue to cooperate with the Chinese Empire, instead of turning its face or even going to war in order to compete for the number one power in the world.

Louis still didn't speak, but his face changed color a little unnaturally, obviously, his ministers praised the Eastern Empire one by one, and even a little afraid of the Eastern country, and advised him in unison not to have disputes with the other party, which made him, the emperor of the French Empire, naturally feel uncomfortable.

He looked at the Duke of Persiny, the Minister of War, and the Count Prospe, de Shaslu-Roba, the Minister of the Admiralty, hoping to get some advice from the two henchmen in charge of the Empire's land and sea forces.

The Minister of the Navy, Count Shaslu-Roba, understood what the Emperor meant, and directly shook his head and replied, "Now that the Chinese Empire has fully developed and grown. Judging from the naval battle of the Bay of Bengal, their naval strength has ranked third in the world, oh yes, if you don't count Britain after the fiasco, they should be ranked second!

After the great loss of the naval strength of the British army, the naval strength of our French Empire can already be regarded as the first in the world. But if the French Imperial Navy formed an expeditionary fleet and went to the Far East to attack the Chinese Empire, our French Imperial Navy's naval fleet should also suffer the same fate as the British Expeditionary Fleet.

And, most importantly, the other party's development momentum is too fast! It is estimated that in two years, or even a year, the naval strength of the Chinese Empire will completely surpass that of our French Imperial Navy. In particular, the Krupp artillery produced by the other side on a large scale is a sharp weapon in naval warfare. Now, through the drawings provided by the other party, we have been copying it for almost a year and a half, and we are finally able to mass-produce this Krupp gun. It's amazing! ”

The Minister of War Percini also said directly: "Your Majesty, in terms of the army, our French Empire has no way to defeat this eastern country. Of course, this is talking about the situation in which our army attacks their territory in the Far East. If they invade Europe, our French Empire's army will be able to defeat their invasion as well.

But in terms of overall strength, the strength of the Chinese Empire's army has surpassed that of our French Empire. Unless we are willing to spend on military expenses and expand our army on a large scale, the other side will have twice as many regular field troops as our French Empire, and although their military training is not as good as that of our French soldiers, their muskets seem to be far more advanced than our rifles. The Orientals are still very cunning, and the advanced rifles they supplied us last year, and although our War Department has successfully organized craftsmen to imitate them, from the intelligence that they have defeated the British in Calcutta this time, they are now equipped with rifles that are more advanced than the ones provided to us, and have better range and accuracy.

Moreover, it is reported that this time the Chinese Empire was able to quickly defeat the British army, focusing on the performance and power of artillery shells, to be exact, gunpowder. It seems that the gunpowder in the shells of the Chinese Empire is not ordinary black powder, but a strengthened version of special explosives, which are many times more powerful than black powder.

If this factor is added, the army units of our French Empire will not be able to defeat the army of the Chinese Empire. ”