There is no fixed topic of discussion in the first place.

After discussing the goals of the war for a long time, Prince William finally realized that the topic was too off-topic.

I almost forgot about my mission.

So William directly jumped the topic when his father was thinking silently:

"By the way, Dad, my sister and I came back this time, in fact, we were commissioned by His Royal Highness Prince Dashi.

"I'm here to contact Prussia and Daming to discuss a new round of cooperation."

William III was stunned for a moment, and then inexplicably relieved.

It seems that hearing the question of Daming's invitation to cooperate shows that the Daming War that I was subconsciously worried about was even more distant:

"What new cooperation plan does Daming have? Was it also arranged by His Royal Highness Prince Daishi? ”

Prince William nodded slightly, roughly explaining Zhu Jingyuan's thoughts.

Including the construction of transcontinental railways, free trade zones for various countries, and the idea of a joint trading company of monarchs:

"Da Ming and Lucia's discussion should have begun.

"If we want to establish a railway connection with Daming, we must pass through the territory of Lucia.

"So Da Ming has to talk to Lucia first.

"After they have confirmed their intention to cooperate, His Royal Highness Prince Dashi will send us a relatively formal invitation.

"Then formal negotiations began.

"Now let's be mentally prepared."

When William III spoke to his son, he quickly considered a plan for cooperation.

William III felt similar to the Lucians, and the direction of cooperation seemed very fair.

However, in fact, it should be more beneficial to the Ming Dynasty, but Prussia is not a loss.

After all, in his lifetime, Prussia could not be an enemy of the Ming Dynasty again.

The Prussians, unlike the Lucians, had very little resistance to the Ming.

The distance between the two sides is very far away and there has never been a direct competition before.

In the negotiations after the end of the world war, the Ming also gave Prussia quite favorable conditions.

Therefore, the Prussians' impression of the Ming Dynasty was relatively good.

William III quickly nodded directly:

"Then I'll talk to the ministers tomorrow about what conditions we should ask for in cooperation......"

Soon after, the negotiations between Daming and Lucia had achieved phased results, and the cooperation intention of the two sides was determined.

Then the Daming Honglu Temple sent a formal invitation to Prussia and France for cooperation.

The Prussians were already prepared and were quick to give an official response:

"In principle, there is an intention to join the cooperation agreement, and formal negotiations can start at any time."

After receiving the response, the Daming Honglu Temple also immediately issued a formal invitation, hoping that Prussia would arrange for representatives to go to Xianbei City for talks.

King William III of Prussia arranged for his son, Prince William, to go to Xianbei with Hardenberg to negotiate.

At about the same time, the French side also received an invitation from the Ming Dynasty.

The French court, presided over by Charles, agreed more cheerfully than the Prussians, and arranged for Talleyrand to go to Xianbei City.

After the arrival of the parties, the issue of the railway line and the city's free trade zone was first discussed.

These are actually relatively easy to determine.

In the early planning of the land bridge, the existing railway lines should be used as much as possible, and the cities that want to set up free trade zones can only be selected next to the railway lines.

Due to the same natural environment, the direction of this railway line is also very similar to the land bridge in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life.

Even, Daming also chose two routes.

The northern route takes the Principality of Xianbei in the west, and enters the northern part of the Ming Dynasty from the Mongolian Plateau.

Of course, there are also differences with the first land bridge in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, from Xianbei to the east is the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, it will not bypass the Mongolian plateau to go to Vladivostok, and the railway line will go directly through the Mongolian plateau to the south.

In Xianbei City and Tianjin Port along the way, set aside exclusive areas to set up free trade zones.

A large part of the original railroad was built by the Lucians.

Before the establishment of the Principality of Western Xianbei, the Lucian people built the Eastern Railway along the Kazakh border in order to control the eastern lands.

This section of the railway was originally connected to the Lucia road network.

After the establishment of the Principality of Xixian Bei and the ownership of the Ming Dynasty, the railway line continued to operate for several years.

The main thing is to send "Minghua elements" from Lucia to the Xianbei Principality, and from the Xianbei Principality to Lucia proper.

Of course, this is all an official affair, and civil traffic has completely stopped, but the railway has not been cut off.

At the same time, the eastern end of this railway, after the establishment of the Principality of Xianbei, was naturally connected to the Daming road network.

After the Northern War, Lucia maintained a continuous peace with the Ming for more than a hundred years, and Lucia's industrialization completely copied the Ming plan, and even adopted the same standards on the railways.

In Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, the width of train tracks in all countries in the world was not exactly the same.

However, more than half of the countries use the standard of "four feet eight and a half inches" left by the British, that is, 1435 mm, which is called the "standard gauge".

Exceeding this standard is called "broad gauge", and below this standard is "narrow gauge"

The "standard gauge" of this world was determined by Emperor Shizu of the Ming Dynasty, which is a width of one and a half meters directly selected according to the metric system, that is, an integer of 1500 mm.

After the start of the world war, the British tried to mobilize an anti-Ming alliance to revise the railway gauge.

And then to avoid the use of the railway built by themselves by the Ming people.

However, due to the huge cost of renovation, before preventing the Ming people from using their own railways, they could not use it in the first place.

In addition, the war quickly entered a state of stalemate attrition, and neither side occupied a large area of the other's land, and of course there was no opportunity to use the other's railways on a large scale.

So much so that even the Lucians, who were at the forefront, eventually did not have the energy to modify the railway gauge.

So now the difficulty of connecting the railways of various countries is very low.

In particular, the current Daming and Lucia have de facto completed the road network connection through the land of the Xianbei Principality.

All that needs to be done now is to officially accept and open the road network to the other side.

The other southern route goes through the Kazakh principality, passes through the Hexi Corridor through the Western Regions, and reaches the Jiangnan region from the Central Plains.

In Yili, Xi'an, and Songjiang along the way, a free trade zone was set up in a region.

Most of the railways on this route are the original Daming Railway.

After the Kazakh Khanate officially joined the Ming Dynasty as a vassal state, the Ming Dynasty extended the railway built in eastern Kazakhstan to the west.

And it was connected to the western border of the railway with the Xianbei principality in the Urals region.

In this way, the two lines of north and south, when they reached the territory of Lucia, were merged into one.

Daming has selected a total of five cities and set up five free trade zones, one more than the negotiation requires.

Moreover, the railway line completely runs through the Ming Dynasty, passing through the two countries of Shuntianfu and Yingtianfu in the Ming Dynasty, and extending to the two most important seaports in the north and south.

The Taixi people were allowed to cross the entire Shenou continent by rail, and then take a boat in Songjiang or Tianjin to go around the Taixi mainland.

Although this actual need may be small, it gives people plenty of room for imagination.

This is the Ming Dynasty taking the initiative to show its sincerity to other countries.

Lucia also naturally chose the western half of her original Eastern Railway, the original railway line that was originally connected to the Xianbei Principality Railway.

The railway passed through the Urals to Moscow and extended all the way to Riga on the Baltic coast.

Orenburg at the foot of the Urals, Simbirsk on the Volga, Vladimir next to Moscow, the port of Riga on the Baltic coast were chosen.

The Ming Dynasty did not place the free trade zone in the capital, but in the seaport city next to it.

Lucia also did not choose the capital Moscow, but also chose a city next to Moscow and a seaport.

According to Daming's requirements, it was enough for Lucia to choose three cities to set up a free trade zone.

However, Da Ming took the initiative to add one more, and the Lucia people also added one more.

But a bit of a chicken thief chose Orenburg at the foot of the Urals.

The city has been determined to belong to the border free trade zone of Daming and Lucia.

It's true that I made up a number of trade zones and took one more trade area.

At the same time, Lucia chose Riga, which was further north, and did not choose Minsk and Picsha, which also pushed more land bridge railway lines into Prussia.

Because Riga is very close to Königsberg, the easternmost point of the territory of Prussia.

So Prussia also accepted such a proposal, and the railway line connected directly from Königsberg to Lucia.

It extends southwest to Berlin and eventually to Cologne on the Rhine.

The Prussians were more honest and directly chose the three cities of Königsberg, Potsdam, and Cologne to set up free trade zones.

Potsdam is also next to Berlin, where the Potsdam Proclamation was originally published.

The Prussians also suggested that if the Dutch joined the agreement, they could change the route to Wilhelmshaven further north, replacing Cologne in the interior of the south with Wilhelmshaven, so that the route could pass through the whole of the Netherlands.

The French chose the route more directly, starting from the Prussian border, as a matter of course, to the capital Paris, and then extending to the city of Bordeaux to the southwest.

The French only chose two urban free trade zones, but went straight to Paris, plus a Bordeaux to the south.

According to Zhu Jingyuan's vision, the four parties of Daming, Lucia, Prussia, and France are the basis for this cooperation agreement.

Other countries are latecomers even if they join, and after the railway line connects the main road of the land bridge, it is also considered a branch line.

Therefore, when the four parties formally signed the agreement, they still followed the existing planned routes, and did not consider the situation of other countries for the time being.

At the same time, the planning of the Imperial Joint Trading Company was quickly completed.

The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty is the initiator, and he also accounts for the most shares, owning 40% of the shares.

The other three monarchs each accounted for 20 percent.

After the addition of other monarchs, the shares of the existing Quad monarchs will be reduced by the same proportion.

As long as the Ming Dynasty is in the city, in the eyes of the other three countries, it can be regarded as taking the initiative to make concessions, so it has also accelerated the negotiation process.

The Quartet quickly negotiated all the details and worked out a formal cooperation agreement document.

The representatives of the four countries first signed the contract in Xianbei City, and then sent the text to the capital of the four countries.

The agreement can only take effect after the monarchs of the four countries have personally read the contents of the document and given the approval document with their signature and seal.

There was no problem with the three kingdoms of Daming, Lucia, and Prussia, and they were all decided directly by the emperor and the king after reading it.

There is a little problem here in France.

The documents were sent to Paris as a matter of course and presented to the regent Crown Prince Charles.

After Charles got the agreement documents, he once again traveled to Versailles in his own car to meet his father, Louis XVI, the current king of France.

Louis XVI had now entered de facto retirement.

Just like a retired little old man, he has no distractions to develop his own personal hobbies.

Now in his own special studio, he is concentrating on the latest Ming-style password suitcase.

Seeing his son enter his studio with another document, Louis XVI immediately knew that he was going to sign it again.

Louis XVI immediately complained a little and said:

"Charles, when are you going to succeed to the throne?"

Louis XVI's words, if you simply read the content and let outsiders hear it, may give birth to all kinds of ideas.

But Louis XVI himself was completely sincere, even a little impatient.

Charles also fully understood his father's mentality, so he immediately laughed and said:

"If you really want to retire, wait until the two battleships we're building are in service.

"When the time comes, I want to hold a grand parade."

After Louis XVI actually retired, he didn't care much about the outside world.

Although the construction plan for these two ships, the final budget approval was also signed by Louis XVI himself.

But he didn't read the content at all when he signed it, so he didn't know what Charles was talking about.

At this time, he was a little confused and said:

"Two and two, how many ships are you going to build, don't do it again after these two ships are completed."

Charles smiled a little helplessly and embarrassedly and said:

"That's it, these two are different from the previous ones, they are given complete technical support by the Ming Dynasty, and they can reach the approximate level of the existing warships of the Ming Dynasty."

Louis XVI finally became a little interested, put down the box in his hand and asked:

"And how long will it take for these two ships to enter service?"

Charles placed the papers in his hand on the table beside Louis XVI, and took out the seal letter and pen in the box:

"One year at the least, two years at the most, it won't be too long......"

Louis XVI still didn't read the content of the agreement at all, and directly picked up the pen and asked:

"Then as soon as possible, a little rush...... Where to sign? ”

Charles flipped through the papers, found the place, asked Louis XVI to sign his name, and stamped him with the seal himself.

Charles then prepares to talk to his father for a while, but is thrown out by Louis XVI:

"Hurry up and get busy with you, don't delay my research here......"

Charles smiled helplessly, took his papers and left.

(End of chapter)