Chapter 943: Foresight

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Joseph had always wanted to open the box to see the "Mystery of the Century" stored inside, but the box had a special mechanism that required him to crack the code hidden on the lid.

Joseph asks his father and mother for help, and both tell him that only his grandfather knows the code. He once made this request to his grandfather, Napoleon III, when he visited him, but he told him lovingly that it was not the time to open the box and tell him the secret.

"When you become a great king, you will be able to understand this secret." Grandpa said so.

Although Joseph gave up on the surface, he always had the desire to open this box in his heart.

And this time, the arrival of the special envoy of Qianguo gave him hope in his heart.

Joseph tried his best to calm himself down, and together with the other noble children, waited for Lin Yiqing's arrival.

Lin Yiqing did not expect that the French Emperor Napoleon IV would hold a ceremony to welcome him in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles.

Located in Versailles, the capital of the Yvelines department on the southwestern outskirts of Paris, the Palace of Versailles is one of the most famous palaces in Paris, located in an area that was originally a forest and swampy wasteland. King Louis XIII of France bought 117 acres of wasteland for 10,000 livres and built a two-story red brick house here to serve as a hunting house. At that time, the palace had 26 rooms, and after continuous expansion, today it has 2,300 rooms, 67 staircases and 5,210 pieces of furniture. It has been the royal palace of France for more than 100 years.

When the French Revolution broke out, Louis XVI was taken to Paris by the people, and the history of Versailles as a royal palace came to an end. During the horrors of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was looted many times, the furniture, frescoes, tapestries, chandeliers and furnishings were looted, and the doors and windows of the palace were smashed and demolished. All the remaining works of art and furniture were transported to the Louvre, and Versailles fell into ruins for 40 years, until Louis of Orleans? King Philip ordered the restoration of the Palace of Versailles, turning it into a historical museum. In the era of the Second Empire, because of the completion of the Industrial Revolution, the French economy and the people's prosperity, Napoleon III built a large number of buildings and rebuilt the Palace of Versailles, so that it was restored to the status of the Imperial Palace.

The Hall of Mirrors is the most famous hall of the Château de Versailles, which is 76 meters long, 10.5 meters wide and 13 meters high, with 17 huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows facing the garden on one side and a huge mirror surface of 483 small lenses on the other. The mirror reflects the beautiful view of the garden outside the window, which suddenly increases the space and gives a sense of bewildering dream, which is the embodiment of the typical Italian Baroque style. The floor is carved in fine wood, the walls are decorated with lilac and white marble veneer, and the pillars are in green marble. The capital, base and parapet are all gilded in brass, and the motif depicts the sun with its wings outstretched, in homage to Louis XIV, the "Sun King". The ceiling is covered with 24 huge Bohemian crystal chandeliers, and the vault is covered with magnificent paintings extolling the merits of the Sun King, depicting Louis XIV's victories in Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. Beauhen's work. In the center of the east side of the hall are the four gates leading to the King's Quarters. In the time of Louis XIV, the furniture in the Hall of Mirrors and the decoration of flowers and bonsai were also made of sterling silver. On the ceiling, in Charles lebrun's The Reign of the King Himself, Louis XIV faces the European powers, without regard for entertainment and palace playthings, and immerses himself in the appreciation of the immortal empire, the blueprints of which are described for him by the gods of war and Mars, and the goddess of honor shows him the way.

In the days of the Hall of Mirrors, Louis XIV often had a carnival at this night banquet, singing and dancing, and did not know what day it was. The dazzling light of hundreds of candles and three rows of crystal chandeliers dances in the mirror, glitters in the eyes of the people, and flows on the gold and silver utensils, showing the luxury and extravagance of the land of sound.

In Lin Yiqing's original historical time and space, the Mirror Gallery is a witness to a series of major historical events. And now, the history of France has been greatly changed by his predecessor, Yoshizhe Hayashi, who has taken a different path.

France was not defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, but ended in a draw with Prussia, but it was not able to prevent Prussia from unifying Germany. Of course, Wilhelm I became emperor of the German Empire, but he was not crowned in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles, as he had done in his original history. When he came to France to visit, the Gallery of Mirrors became the place where the French Emperor Napoleon IV greeted him.

Napoleon IV greeted himself in the Hall of Mirrors, and it should be said that he fully expressed the importance he attached to the Eastern allies, the Great Qian Empire.

The welcome ceremony was grand and grand, and the banquet was also extremely pompous and lavant, showing the wealth of the French Empire. This reminds Lin Yiqing of the previous history of the Palace of Versailles: initially, in order to eliminate the danger of secession and rebellion of the powerful local nobles of France (such as the family of Prince Condé), Louis XIV concentrated the main nobles of the country in Versailles immediately after the completion of the Palace of Versailles. After that, French political and foreign policy decisions were decided at the Palace of Versailles, and Versailles became the de facto capital of France. In order to show the majesty of royal power, Louis XIV and Louis XV often held grand ceremonies, galas, balls, hunts and other entertainment in the palace. For example, Louis XV celebrated the birth of his eldest grandson, the Duke of Burgundy, and the fireworks used 660,000 livres of fireworks, and the wedding of the crown prince cost 9 million livres. At its peak, late Louis XV and early Louis XVI, the maintenance of the court of Versailles accounted for a quarter of French revenues. But these activities were very successful: the powerful, disgruntled, and rebellious French nobles who had been powerful, disgruntled, and rebellious before Louis XIV's accession to the throne had been corrupted by the extravagant court life, and even took pride in being invited to live in the palace, and rushed to imitate the king and his manners and dress, fearing that he would lose the king's favor.

Napoleon IV held a welcoming ceremony at the Palace of Versailles, in addition to expressing the importance of attaching importance to the traditional friendship with the Great Qian Empire, but also to show himself the national strength of the French Empire.

After Napoleon III established the Second Empire, he always attached great importance to economic development, the empire implemented an economic policy to promote the development of capitalist industry and commerce, established large industries, machine production generally replaced manual labor in heavy industry, production continued to concentrate, and the transportation industry developed rapidly. It was under the Second Empire that France completed the Industrial Revolution. The development of French financial capital is particularly prominent, and Paris has become one of the world's financial centers. It was the economic development that gave Napoleon and his son the strength to carry out large-scale urban construction of Paris, making Paris the most prosperous metropolis on the European continent.

Lin Yiqing understands that before the reunification of Germany, France has always been the natural hegemon of the European continent, and the current Second Empire has a faint atmosphere of reviving the heyday of the First Empire in the Napoleonic era. Bismarck's fear that France would be detrimental to Germany was not unfounded. And it was not unreasonable for Lin Yizhe to choose France as the European aid of the Great Qian Empire.

And this time I came to France, in addition to the purchase of warships on the surface, there is also an important purpose, that is, to further stir up the situation in Europe, make the European powers more hostile, and at the same time, there is no time to look eastward!

In Germany, he secretly tried to promote the formation of a German-Austro-Russian alliance, while in France, he tried his best to promote the formation of an alliance between Britain and France.

The sooner the two hostile camps in Europe are formed, the deeper they will fall into the whirlpool of mutual struggle, and in this case, their attention will only be concentrated on the West, and the Great Dry Empire in the East will not only have more time for development, but also have room to take advantage of the contradictions between the European powers to strive for the greatest interests for themselves.

According to Yoko Shimazu's inference, after the formation of the two major hostile camps in Europe, the second-class powers in the neighboring countries and the Great Qiandi Empire in the East will become the targets of the two camps' efforts to win over them, and in this way, there will be a good environment for the reform and development of the Qianguo country.

Yoko Shimazu had long understood that the situation in Qianguo was different from that of Japan, that reform and development faced greater resistance, and that at the same time it was facing the danger of invasion by Western powers, and that it would take more time.

Lin Yiqing, who was in the Palace of Versailles at this time, was full of admiration and longing for Yoko Shimazu.

After the welcome ceremony, Napoleon IV held a state banquet at the Palace of Versailles to entertain Lin Yiqing and his party.

Koukou

Koukou )

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