The expedition of the Franco-Spanish forces was unimpeded. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

As if they had given up defending their homeland, all the Indian tribes along the way disappeared, and the 30,000 Franco-Spanish troops made their way north along the Colorado River to their first mining area without any fighting, and then the accompanying Mississippi miners quickly mined their first ounce of gold in the arid semi-desertified grasslands.

Half a month later, the news appeared in the latest issue of the People's Daily.

The whole of France was boiling.

Mississippi shares climbed straight to the jaw-dropping price of 18,000 livres.

At this time, after repeated additional issuances, the total number of shares issued by the Mississippi Company has reached 600,000 shares, and if these shares are at this price, then these stocks can buy half of the gold in the palace warehouse of the Ming Imperial Bank, just as the houses in Beijing can buy the United States after the discount in later generations......

It's not that he doesn't want to print more, it's that the printing house can't be busy.

Of course, no one cares.

Everyone was pushed to the pinnacle of high chao by the news that the Mississippi Company began to produce gold, and no one even noticed that at this time, all the Ming merchants who held the shares of the Mississippi Company quietly got rid of their stocks in various ways, and then took the Livre notes obtained from the sale of the stocks in their hands, and began to exchange gold and silver coins in small batches at the Bank of France, or use these notes to start buying jewelry and other goods, in short, in various ways into physical goods, even including the purchase of grain in France.

They did it very secretly.

Philip V and his ministers, who lacked such an institution as Jinyiwei, did not notice this, and in fact they did not care about it, and the news that the Mississippi Company began to produce gold also put Philip V in a state of ecstasy, and he was in no mood to pay attention to such a trivial matter now, including the exchange of metal currency by the Bank of France.

As for the French folk......

No one cares about this, and now someone sells stocks, and in their opinion, it's all about giving them money.

But they didn't know that immediately after the news of the Mississippi company's gold output, there was another news coming, but this news was selectively forgotten by the People's Daily, so it was difficult for the French people to see it for at least two months, and it would take at least two months for the news to be sent from San Diego to Mexico City, and then to France across the Atlantic by merchant ships.

And the content of this message is......

"Red Ghost!"

On the Colorado River, with a series of screams, French soldiers on small river flats raised their guns as fast as they could, knelt on the deck and aimed at the shore.

It was a fleet of ships transporting food for the garrisons and workers in the gold mining area, and forty small boats carrying tens of tons lined up in a long line on the river channel that was only a little more than 100 meters wide, because the Colorado River had only a small amount of water, and these small boats were the boats of life for tens of thousands of people hundreds of kilometers away. The Mississippi company had just started panning for gold in the area of Las Vegas, where there was no food to be found, and although the plan was to divert water from the Colorado River and cultivate farmland there, at least not in the short term.

But at this time, these boats of life are ushering in the first batch of enemies.

On the empty wasteland on the bank of the river, hundreds of Indian cavalry with feathers on their heads, riding relatively short Mongolian horses, swarmed with dust in the sky, and just entered the range of rifled guns, they raised their guns one after another, aimed at the boat, and the French pulled the trigger, and at the same time, the French returned fire, and the two sides using the same weapon soon suffered casualties.

"These bastards!"

French Major Guy said indignantly.

Obviously, he had already understood why the Indians had disappeared before, and it turned out that these red ghosts were holding back this poisonous plan! Let them go, then cut off their food supply and let them starve to death in the wasteland.

"Hold on, reinforcements will be here soon!"

He shouted as he loaded his bullets, and at the same time, one of the ships fired a rocket into the sky, the commander of the Franco-Spanish army was not stupid, they had a military station every other distance along the Colorado River, the purpose was to prevent the Indians from attacking the transportation line, and then they had to continue their march to the upper Colorado River, especially in the north, there was also the super giant mine, which was inevitable, so the safety of this transportation line was extremely important, In fact, more than a third of the Franco-Spanish forces were stationed in these stations.

In all the small boats, the French soldiers were calmly firing at the Indians, constantly knocking the Indians off their horses and falling on the deck.

At this time, the French army was tempered, the war for the Spanish throne and the subsequent war with the Ottoman Empire, so that they underwent nearly 20 years of baptism of war, they can be shot in line within dozens of meters with smoothbore guns on the battlefield, of course, they will not be afraid of such a shooting, although the Indians are cavalry, but they do not have to worry about the impact of the war horse on the ship, under the accurate shooting of these French soldiers, the Indian cavalry fell to the ground and died.

"Go ahead and send these red ghosts to hell!"

Major Guy shouted calmly.

The next moment, however, he was no longer composed.

The Indians, who had already rushed to the bank of the river, suddenly split to the sides, and at the same time the Indians behind them stepped forward, but instead of muskets, they had horned bows in their hands, and on these bows were sharp arrows ready to fire, and the arrows were wrapped in strips of cloth soaked in kerosene, and the light of the burning fire was so shocking.

"Quick, stop them!"

Major Guy cried out in horror.

Just as the French soldiers were frantically reloading their bullets, the rockets flew out of the hands of the Indians one by one, and then fell from the sky in an arc, and continued to stick to the sails of those small boats, and the canvas was ignited in an instant, and soon turned into a raging flame, falling like a rain of fire, and the French soldiers on those decks screamed in horror and jumped into the river, and behind them, the burning canvas ignited the food packs in the cabin, and the wooden boats became fire ships.

Then, as when they came, all the Indians disappeared in a gust of wind, leaving only a few dozen corpses, plus Major Guy and the French soldiers, who were soaked in water and wept without tears.

Half an hour later, the French cavalry from the nearby military station arrived, and seeing that there were less than twenty transport ships left on the river, the captain who led the team did not hesitate to order the pursuit, and more than a hundred French cavalry chased down like the wind in the direction of the Indians' retreat, and then ......

Wood has then.

This French army disappeared forever into the arid wasteland like the world evaporated.

The hapless Major Guy could only lead his remaining eighteen ships forward, but the next night they were attacked by another group of Indian cavalry, and although they were well defended, they still lost eight transports in the attack, and three days later they were attacked a third time, and poor Major Guy finally arrived at his destination with only one ship left, and the commander of the expeditionary force sighed melancholy at the precious food unloaded on the ships, and then ordered the ration of all men to be reduced by a third.

However, this is only the beginning.

In the following time, the cavalry of the Indians roamed like ghosts on the banks of hundreds of kilometers of long rivers, constantly attacking all French transports heading north.

They are familiar with the environment, they don't need to carry supplies to survive in the area for a long time, and they know better how many places they can hide in the vicinity, they come and leave as if they appear out of thin air, and each appearance will cause heavy losses to the Franco-Spanish army, while the Franco-Spanish army organizes the clearance team is almost useless, on the contrary, they are often ambushed by the Indians because they are not familiar with the terrain.

The difficulties in transporting supplies made the former French army and the gold diggers miserable, and almost no one had enough to eat, and many of them could not even take care of the gold panning, and turned to hunting to make ends meet.

But that doesn't work.

The Indians were also haunted around the gold mines, and hunting parties that went out hunting were constantly shot at by cold shots.

In the midst of hunger and panic, the morale of the Franco-Spanish army and the gold miners quickly slipped to the bottom, and no one thought about any more to continue the expedition, and no one thought about any gold and silver, although they did have gold and silver all over their feet, but gold and silver could not be eaten, and the entire expeditionary force had actually completely abandoned its mission, all of them were fighting against hunger, and even began to have a large number of deserters.

Unbeknownst to the Parisian investors, however, the Mississippi workers were mining more gold for them under the protection of a powerful expeditionary force! Although the expeditionary force had repeatedly reported to Philip V, asking for reinforcements or simply withdrawing troops, the distance of 13,000 kilometers and the vast Atlantic Ocean made it impossible for these reports to reach Philip V in time, and even Philip V did not know about it, let alone the ordinary people of France.

Mississippi shares are still on sale, the banknotes of the Bank of France are still being printed, French investors are still taking out the gold and silver they have accumulated for generations to buy stocks, those Ming merchants are still through those agents in small batches, but they are constantly exchanging gold and silver from the Bank of France, and then quietly shipping out of France through their own channels, even the banknotes that have not had time to be exchanged are in the shortest possible time from France, and Spain, which can also use these banknotes, Purchasing a variety of materials, mainly jewelry and food.

French gold and silver are being hollowed out, and the necessities of life in France are also being hollowed out, but there are more and more banknotes on the French market, and prices are beginning to rise quietly.

The foundations of this ornate edifice were hollowed out in this way, and all that remained was a final push.

On the fiftieth day after the news of the first batch of gold production by the Mississippi Company reached Paris, on a sunny and sunny morning, a motorcade of carriages drove out of the gates of the Société Générale de Paris, with the luxurious carriage of the governor Han Guang, already familiar to the people of Paris, and behind it were two four-wheeled carriages with four horses, on which in a very striking way bundles of banknotes were piled up, all brand new Livre. And on each of the two moving piles of bills is a very eye-catching sign.

One hundred million livres.

Well, that's two hundred million livres.

If the currency value set by the Bank of France is equivalent to sixty tons of gold, one livre is basically equivalent to one franc in the gold standard, a little difference but not much, that is, 0.3 grams of gold is a little bit of gold.

And behind these three carriages, there were forty empty wagons, winding like a long dragon.

The forty-three carriages, escorted by dozens of security guards on horseback, drove slowly through the streets of Paris in a very swaggering manner, and then the French onlookers gathered more and more, and it was said that such a scene was not easy to see, and 200 million livres was an astronomical sum. For the French, if they can have a few hundred livres, they can be considered relatively rich, if there are a few thousand livres, they can be called rich, and 200 million livres can be described as rich, and it is said that the Count of Monte Cristo in Paris is invincible in Paris, and he is only less than 200 million.

Thus the two moving mountains of gold swaggered through Paris with no less effect than Philip V in his trousers, and the idlers of Paris were drawn to look at the carriage with all sorts of complicated eyes, and then followed it onward, and the carriage traveled slowly for half an hour at a pace about the same as on foot, before finally coming to a stop at a destination which was not so far away.

It is a very luxurious building, with a four-storey marble façade carved and a towering gate that shows a noble temperament, and a sign next to the gate with a prominent name......

SG Bank.

Or rather, the Bank of France.

Then, in the eyes of tens of thousands of onlookers, the door of Han Guang's luxury carriage opened, and the financial tycoon, who was famous in Paris, walked out with a reserved smile, and at the same time, John Law, the president and French finance minister and chairman of the Mississippi company, who was handling matters here, also walked out with a smile on his face.

"Your Excellency, what are you?"

He asked Han Guang in a slightly unnatural tone.

"It's nothing, I recently lost a sum of money in the foreign trade business, and I urgently need gold and silver coins to maintain it, so I want to find your bank to exchange some gold and silver coins, of course, it is best to have gold coins, there are too many silver coins, and my car will definitely not be able to fit."

Han Guang said casually pointing behind him.

"All, all exchange?"

John Law's lips were already starting to tremble.

"Of course, all the exchanges, in fact, there are not much, a total of 200 million livres, according to the current twenty-four livres one gold louis, then you need to pay me should be 8,333,333 gold louis, and I don't want the remaining 0.3 livres, even if I invite you to drink."

Han Guang said generously.