Of course, Li Yongji was very unhappy with the slippery heads of the British and the French, but he also knew that from the standpoint of the British and the French, although they hoped that the United States would be completely split into two countries and stifle the development of the United States as soon as possible, they had to be cautious and cautious in the face of this Civil War, which was much larger than the Crimean War and had more heavy casualties.

In fact, whether it is the original history or the history of this time and space, the British and French sites are secretly supporting the Confederate States, and the time of attack is earlier than Li Yongji, according to reliable sources, the British began to fully support the South at least in 1859, and France began to silently support the resistance forces in the South at about that time.

In other words, the British and French are actually more urgent than Li Yongji for the idea of dividing the United States, after all, they are closer to the United States and more intuitive about the development of the United States and its competitiveness.

Therefore, whether it is for the future, or for the present, or simply for the sake of competing for the world market and colonies, neither the British nor the French will be happy to see a strong America emerge.

If possible, the British and the French would have sent troops directly a long time ago, and sending troops to North America is nothing new to these two countries, they have done it many times before.

The biggest problem restricting the intervention of these two countries is the economic problem, or the supply problem, because Britain and France are not the strongest at this time, they still have a lot of things to worry about in their own countries, and they have just finished the Crimean War, the previous debts have not been paid off, and they have to focus on Prussia and Russia in Europe, so it is really impossible to invest too much force in the American civil war.

If it was still the eighteenth century, the British would have decisively sent troops a long time ago, because the size of the army at that time was not large, and the British sent twenty or thirty thousand. It's basically a sweep of the United States.

But now the times are different, with the progress of science and technology, the scale of the war has become larger and larger, before the Crimean War, and then there is this toothache Civil War, all of which made the British and French rulers hesitate.

In particular, in Britain and France today, those in power are sober-minded people who know how to weigh the pros and cons, so they consider it comprehensively. Especially seeing the scale of the battle between the north and the south at every turn, they didn't want to wade into this troubled water for a long time.

It can be said that if the Chinese had not taken the initiative to participate in the war, took the initiative to wade into troubled waters, and created a 926 incident that Britain and France had to join, the British and French would probably continue to watch from the sidelines, at most to strengthen material support for the south.

However, when the Chinese actually sent troops and defeated the Tennessee Army and the Camberon River Army of the United States in succession. and directly arrived in Memphis City, controlled the entire lower Mississippi River, and then helped the Confederate States stabilize the western front, Britain and France began to move.

Because. They already see a glimpse of the future, that is, the United States of the North will not be able to defeat the Confederate States in the short term, and the possibility of the United States splitting into two countries has greatly increased.

Originally, Britain and France at this time. It is hoped that it will further strengthen ties with the allied countries, increase economic penetration into the allied countries, and strive to take advantage of this opportunity. Thoroughly grasp the economic lifeblood of the Union State.

In other words, the British and the French did not want to enter the war in earnest, but only wanted to maintain the sea lines of communication of the Allied States and increase the input of supplies to the Allied States, especially arms and materials.

As for the French, they intended to lend money to the Union and squeeze profits from the Union Powers, in other words, the French had little interest in the United States, their greatest interest was Mexico, and they were eager to support puppets in Mexico and establish their own colonies.

However, after the Chinese intervened, their ideas became more and more unattainable, because the Chinese not only ended up in the war, but they actually had the ability to transfuse blood to the Allied countries, and with a large number of cheap and high-quality Chinese products, plus more favorable Chinese loans, the British and French plots to make war money through the American Civil War were crushed!

Speaking of which, it is necessary to first talk about the economic system of the Union State.

The Confederate States, that is, the original American South, were mainly plantation economies, and these large and small plantations, the owners were all white, but the workers were all blacks, which was the so-called slavery.

The slavery system was, of course, backward, against the trend of history, and a system that both Britain and France hated.

Because of slavery, the legitimacy of the independence of the South was greatly questioned, while the Northern Federation was sympathetic and supported by Western countries because it opposed slavery and advocated the declaration of emancipation of slaves.

Therefore, if the Civil War is made of justice and injustice, then there is no doubt that the North that advocates the emancipation of slaves is the just side, and the South that continues to keep slaves is undoubtedly the evil side.

It is precisely because of this slave system that even when Li Yongji wanted to intervene to help the South, he did not dare to directly support the South against the North, but engaged in another independent incident, directly through the Guò926 incident, and came up with a trick of declaring war on the United States of America alone.

In other words, China's declaration of war on the United States of America, on the surface, is not to help the Allied States, but to seek justice for itself, but after it really fights with the United States of America, the enemies of the enemy are friends, so it is natural to cooperate with the Allied States for a short time.

Although this trick can't deceive smart people at all, it is at least a fig leaf, and with this fig leaf, it is still very useful to many people who don't know the truth.

Having said that, slavery is indeed unpopular, and it is indeed a backward employment mechanism, and in terms of efficiency, it is definitely not comparable to the north that does not keep slaves, but everything must be looked at from both sides, and if we put aside moral issues such as freedom and democracy, and look at it purely from the perspective of whether the economy and life is rich or not, then the situation is actually completely different.

The warm climate and fertile land in the Confederate States are very suitable for the development of the plantation economy, and the plantation industry is not like a big industry, in fact, it is not too efficient to work, so letting black slaves work in the field is not as others think, it is a strict zhòng hindering economic development, or how miserable black slaves are.

On the contrary, it was precisely because of the large use of hard-working black slaves in the South that the plantation economy developed greatly, and if we simply look at the average income of blacks. Then the income of black slaves in the south is actually much higher than that in the north.

Many people take slavery for granted when they denounce the inhumanity of slavery, including "Uncle Tom's Cabin", which once caused huge repercussions in the middle and upper classes of northern Europe and the United States.

The reason is very simple, in the context of slavery in the South, black slaves actually belonged to white slave owners, and they had to rely on slave owners to survive, which was equivalent to being fixed on the land. became a Chinese tenant farmer or a Russian serf.

In this way, although the slaves have to work, because the slaves themselves are also the property of the slave owners, the slave owners should also treat them carefully, because once the slaves die, it is equivalent to the loss of the slave owners' property, so although the black slaves in the south seem to have no freedom, in fact, in terms of life, at least they can have food and clothing. Don't worry about tomorrow.

On the contrary, in the non-slavery areas of the North, the blacks were nominally slaves, but they were penniless and had no means of production. And in fact, there is no social status, and it is impossible to be on an equal footing with whites, and many of the jobs that whites can do, blacks can't do at all.

Like a restaurant waiter. It was impossible for blacks to find jobs that paid well in this era, such as tavern entertaining, and they had to work as factory workers. And even if they are workers, they are the lowest people who do the most tiring work, and the people who take the least money are the lowest among the exploited.

Thus, after the outbreak of the Civil War, blacks were indifferent to the war because they felt that it had nothing to do with them, even if the reason for the war was the problem of black slaves.

Later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, but it actually had little practical effect on the black people in the North, and the real value of this proclamation was to encourage the black slaves in the South to revolt and make them mess up the economy of the South.

On the contrary, it is the policy that blacks can be soldiers, which makes blacks very excited, because the income of being a soldier is very high, at least much better than being a worker, so they are enthusiastic to join the army, but that is not for the liberation of black compatriots, of course, it is more or less a little, but the most important thing is to run for the salary of being a soldier.

Speaking of the South, after the start of the war, the North has begun to fully mobilize, and the economy has actually been affected, but for the South, to be honest, because it is still a relatively backward plantation economy, and the main people who participate in the war are whites, the black labor force on the plantations has not decreased much, so the impact on the economy is very small.

It was precisely because he saw that the southern blacks were the pillars of the plantation economy that Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation, which was mainly to sketch a beautiful pie and make the southern blacks believe in this beautiful pie, so as to create a rebellion against the southern whites, so as to attack the economic system of the south, but in fact, once the war was armistice, these black slaves would find that after they were liberated, not only could they not reap the benefits, but they became completely destitute, and even eating would be a problem, and they would never return to the original era of drought and flood to ensure income.

Therefore, the emancipation of slaves, like the reform of serfdom in Russia at the same time, was good for the country and good for black slaves in the long run, but in the short term, it was a further exploitation of those slaves.

Whether it is the emancipation of black slaves or the reform of serfdom, in essence, it is a bit like the reform of state-owned enterprises in the later Red Dynasty, which is to completely release the laborers who are dependent on the means of production, so that the controllers of the means of production no longer have to be responsible for these laborers, so that they can reduce costs, increase income in disguise, or competitiveness.

The reform of state-owned enterprises in the Red Dynasty was to release the laborers from the enterprises and let them be self-reliant, and the enterprises no longer cared about their life, old age, sickness and death, while the efforts to emancipate the blacks and the reform of slavery were to liberate these laborers who depended on the land for survival, so that they could fend for themselves, and the landowners no longer had to be responsible for their life, old age, sickness and death.

In the same way, China, or the Chinese Empire, actually engaged in a similar system, such as the emancipation declaration of slaves and maids that Li Yongji made when he first founded the country, which is essentially the same as these things, all of which are to untie the shackles between the land and the laborers and completely liberalize them.

However, the situation in China is a bit special, because although China is a feudal society, most of the landed laborers are tenant farmers who have freedom but no land, and there are very few slaves and maids who are really dependent on the landlords for survival, so the impact is completely different from that of Russia and the United States.

Therefore, since the proportion of slaves and maids in China is very low, the emancipation of slaves and maids in China is declared. It is more about the legal liberation of those few people at the bottom of the law, and the change in the productive forces is actually not much.

In short, the plantation economy of the South was regarded as the absolute main force of the blacks, although they did not have personal freedom, but because they depended on the slave owners to survive, so their lives were relatively stable, although it was unlikely that they would make a fortune, but on the whole they could have food and clothing.

While there were instances of abuse of black slaves, it wasn't mainstream. Compared with the prevalence of black people in the North being abused by whites in various ways, black people in the South are actually better off in life.

In fact, in another time and space, when the Civil War entered its final stage, the South began to recruit blacks as soldiers because of the exhaustion of troops, and many of those black soldiers in the South were much stronger than those in the North.

It seems incredible, but when you think about it, you can see it. The fundamental reason why those southern blacks fought so hard and so fiercely was to defend their lives from being disturbed, because they knew it. Once they were liberated, they lost their land and were to be driven out completely, becoming freedmen with nothing.

This is no joke. Because in the American South, although whites hired a large number of black slaves, in fact, whites and blacks were generally distinct. In addition, the population of the South is small, and it is really vast and sparsely populated, so many whites are not impatient to manage it carefully, but directly distribute the land to the blacks, and they can go and collect the rent themselves when the time comes.

Therefore, the plantation economy in the south is actually no different from China's tenant farming economy, and the reason why the plantation economy in the south has a large amount of surplus products is mainly because the south is vast and sparsely populated, the land is more fertile, the climate is warmer, and a large number of horses are used to plough the land, and the black slaves do not have the tax oppression of the tenant farmers of the Qing Dynasty, and the proportion of rent is relatively low, so they can concentrate more on serving the land, so the output is higher than that of China.

In short, since the beginning of the war, the plantation economy in the South has not really gone bankrupt, at least there has been no loss of labor, and the main headache for these Southern farmers is the blockade of the United States.

You know, the plantation economy in the south is actually an export-oriented economy, they have no industry, they can only sell agricultural products through guò to import industrial goods to the north or Europe, and after the war with the north, they mainly import industrial necessities from Europe, especially England and France.

However, when the war began, the navy of the United Northern States began to blockade the coast of the Union State, and many of the agricultural products of the Union State could not be sold, forming a serious backlog.

Fortunately, the southern plantations were mainly producing cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat and other things that were easy to store, and if there were some things that could not be stored well, it would have been finished long after such a long time, so the blockade of the United States, coupled with the opportunity of Britain and France and other countries to reduce prices, made the farmers of the Union countries miserable.

However, when Li Yongji appeared with the Chinese expeditionary force, the situation was immediately alleviated, especially after opening the Mississippi River and sitting in the transportation city of Memphis, the situation even came directly to a big reversal.

During this period, Li Yongji continued to buy the backlog of goods smashed down by nearby farmers, although the price was not as good as before, but at least it was much higher than the price of the British and French, and most importantly, Li Yongji paid directly in Spanish silver dollars, which was the safest currency in this period, and it was much better than any dollar.

In addition to purchasing their supplies, Li Yongji also provided many industrial products to the Allied Powers, especially the most urgently needed munitions for the Allied Powers.

That is, during Li Yongji's stay in Memphis, a large number of Hua 1 rifles and Hua 1 guns were sold to the Davis government of the Union in a barter way, and these 12-pounder guns, known as the Chinese version of Sharps rifles and the Chinese version, were not only fair in price, but also excellent in performance, and won the praise of the officers and soldiers of the Union countries, so they were very happy to do business with the Chinese.

Now, with the Chinese, the Confederates no longer need the so-called support trade between the British and the French, after all, the support trade between the British and the French sounds very good, but it is actually a kind of plunder, which naturally makes the Union government and the white farmers of the Union very unhappy.

However, in the past, there was no choice but to endure, but now there are Chinese, there is more choice, and the Chinese can provide cheaper and better products, and can also buy their agricultural products with real money and silver, which is the real strength of the spirit of the alliance countries.

Now. The Confederates blocked the attack of the United States on both the eastern and western fronts, and the economy gradually recovered with the help of the Chinese, so the Confederates did not have a good impression of the British and French, who only wanted to benefit from them, but did not want to be responsible, and began to gradually reduce the trade volume with these two countries, and began to cooperate with the Chinese in Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans.

In fact, the British and the French were also very aggrieved, and to be honest, their supportive trade was really a supportive. Because in the course of this trade, they don't actually make much money.

In other words, the fundamental purpose of Britain and France was not to make war money, but to maintain the economic collapse of the Allied Powers, so that they would continue to fight with the United States, at least until the United States admitted defeat and recognized the independence of the Allied States, neither Britain nor France wanted the Allied Powers to be unable to support themselves because of the economic collapse.

Everyone knows that the North and the South are now in a stalemate. The front is generally stable, but on the whole, the south is still at a disadvantage of passive defense, and the northern alliance countries have been losing more than they have won. They suffered even greater losses, but they were still on the side of the initiative, and the fundamental reason for this was that the difference in strength between the north and the south was too great.

The north has a population of 22.34 million. There were only 9.1 million in the South, and more than 3.8 million of them were black slaves, and the real white population was just over 5 million.

There is a developed industry in the north. As for grain, although the south is more suitable for grain production, but because of the development of the plantation economy, most of them are growing cash crops such as tobacco and cotton with higher value, but there is very little grain.

The reason why there are many people in the south who grow grain now, and the grain is not very scarce, is because after the war began, the Northern Federation launched a brutal economic blockade against the Southern Union, and the high-priced cash crops such as tobacco and cotton could not be sold, and the price plummeted, while the price of grain rose sharply because it could not come in.

Therefore, everyone started to grow grain, fundamentally because of economic problems, because it was more cost-effective to grow grain than tobacco and cotton during the war, so they began to grow wheat and corn in large quantities.

In short, the British and the French, at this time, did not want to make war money, they really wanted to support the Confederates, but they also had a lot of problems, and the finances were not extravagant to the point of giving in vain, so they gave a relatively high price to attract their own merchants to take risks.

After all, the blockade of the United States Navy in the early stage was still very effective, and the British and French used Cuba to transfer supplies to the Allied States.

It is precisely because of the high risk and the fact that the British and French governments do not want to completely tear their faces with the United States and really go out to fight them face to face, so they can only continue to use this smuggling method to transfuse blood to the Allied countries.

Therefore, the purchase price given by the British and the French is really a conscience price, if they don't lower it, then they won't make money at all, and if they can't make money, how can they let others sell their lives?

Maybe you want to say that you can subsidize the state, but don't your British government and the French government support the Allied countries for strategic purposes, so why don't you directly subsidize the state?

That's because Britain and France are constitutional monarchies, and the power of the monarch seems to be not small, but in fact it receives many restrictions, especially in terms of financial appropriations and spending.

For example, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom has a lot of power, but if he dares to spend money indiscriminately, Parliament will directly be able to get rid of it.

Another example is Napoleon III of France, who seems to be awesome, but in fact even the Parisians don't like him very much, let alone the whole of France. As a result, Napoleon III seemed to be glamorous, but his power was not comparable to that of his uncle, who was actually sharing the whole of France equally with many financial and military oligarchs.

So, if Napoleon III wanted to spend money to support the League, he would never be able to take out the money, because the people who really controlled the finances would not agree.

In other words, the so-called oppression of the Allied countries by the British and the French was really a misunderstanding, and they were already working hard, but after the war, the coastline of the Allied countries was blocked, and the cost of trade was too high, so they lowered the prices of the products of the Allied countries and raised the prices of their own products, all because of the problem of expensive road expenses.

On the contrary, the Chinese do not have this problem, Li Yongji is cheating with a golden finger, he does not have a high cost of travel at all, at most he buys materials locally, and then throws them directly into modern society, labeling organic agricultural products and selling them for sale.

It is said that Zhang Xinda's organic drinks are more demanding than many organic foods produced in Europe because the indicators are quite perfect, so they are also hot goods in Europe and the United States, and many similar organic food production bases are said to have begun to be a little unbearable.

"Understanding is understanding, but it is not the same as approval. You British and French have been so far away from the water, sitting back and watching us fight to the death with the people of the United States, this is not okay, the coalition army, you have to advance and retreat together. Li Yongji sneered, "That's it, since you have so many concerns, let me find a way to dispel your concerns." Hmph, I'd like to see if one of your capital ships is blown up by the Americans, will you be so calm! (To be continued......)