Brittania, the westernmost region of France

Port of Saint-Malo

It is a coastal port town with a population of just over 17,000, and it is not conspicuous among the 10 ports in France, but after it was occupied by the German Empire, it became more and more lively and dazzling when it was allocated to the import merchants of the Tang Empire.

From late September 1870

A large number of ships flocked to the waters off the port of Saint-Malo, and they brought strange steam cranes, installed four of them in just one week, and then unloaded the massive amount of cargo.

The whole port of Saint-Malo was in turmoil, because these overseas merchants of the Tang Dynasty brought goods that were in high demand in France.

Hundreds of thousands of barrels of high-quality kerosene, diesel and lubricating oil, all kinds of canned food, toffee, chemicals, this includes plastic bowls, plastic basins, plastic buckets, plastic raincoats, plastic shoes, all kinds of fish, fruits and canned meat, and other popular products.

The French are acutely aware of the huge business opportunities that come with the port of Saint-Malo.

By convenient telegrams, the news spread almost all over the south-central provinces of France at the first time.

Merchants, estate owners, and farmers were the first to take their money bags with their savings and drive their wagons to Saint-Malo to grab these sought-after goods.

As long as you grab it, you earn it.

In less than a week, more than 10,000 wagons were bound for Saint-Malo, where they returned loaded with loads of goods and used up all the money in their pockets.

In the port of Saint-Malo

All of them were maintained by strong, armed Chinese patrols, numbering more than 640 men, with the Germans stationing only two companies of soldiers here and 13 government officials as customs.

They are responsible for checking the number and type of goods landed and collecting taxes accordingly.

Of course, compared with the 200% tariff levied by the French on kerosene, the 30%~45% tariff implemented by grain and various foodstuffs, the maximum tariff levied by the Germans is not more than 18%, and it is lower than 5%, such as grain or food are subject to a 5% tax rate.

Even so, it is two and a half times higher than the 2% of customs revenue liberalized after the implementation of the Corn Laws in the United Kingdom, and twice as high as the 9% kerosene tariff imposed by the United Kingdom.

Merchants of the Tang Empire dumped products in large quantities at almost half the price, and the trade barriers originally erected by France collapsed in an instant.

The staggering purchasing power of the French, who have exploded into buying enthusiasm, can be seen from a set of data;

According to the German Working Group in Saint-Malo;

Beginning in October 1870, the total amount of kerosene imported in that month was 337,000 barrels, which rose sharply to 859,000 barrels in November, and in December it exceeded the million barrel mark to 1,186,000 barrels, and the rest rose month by month in 1871, reaching a staggering 2,070,000 barrels by May.

Based on the average price of a barrel of kerosene at 21.5 Tang Yuan, the amount of kerosene alone is as high as 44.5 million Tang Yuan, which is an unprecedented peak sales figure.

According to the 18% tax rate of the Germans, the monthly income of this alone has reached more than 8 million Tang Yuan, which can be described as a fortune.

Of course, the merchants of Datang make more.

Does France really need so much kerosene?

Never underestimate the wisdom of a people, and when the first revelry had passed, many French nobles, haciendas, and usurers quickly realized a problem;

How long will the turmoil continue?

Will wealth depreciate?

When the situation stabilizes, is it possible to double your wealth?

And so

They invariably turned their attention to kerosene, which is a hardcore demand of society and is needed at any time.

Compared with traditional products such as rapeseed oil and olive oil, kerosene has the characteristics of low price, good lighting brightness, long duration, stable light and no peculiar smell.

The key problem is that almost all of Europe does not produce kerosene, and it must be imported from the Tang Empire or Tsarist Russia.

However, Tsarist Russia's backward refining capacity led to low production, unusually high kerosene prices, and no market competitiveness at all.

A large barrel of kerosene weighed 306 pounds and cost only 21.5 won, which was equivalent to 86 francs.

Compared with the wholesale price of 145 francs (about 36 Tang Yuan) per barrel before the war, it is almost 60% cheaper, and there is a huge profit margin.

You must know that after a lot of hands, it costs one franc to buy a pound of kerosene in a township grocery store in France, and the retail price is about 300 francs for a barrel of kerosene.

With such a huge space, the profits are moving!

At first, the vast number of grocers in the south-central provinces of France were frantically hoarding goods, from kerosene, lubricants, toffee, cocoa, all kinds of canned goods to plastic chemicals, all in large quantities, and even borrowed money.

They moved from the port of Saint-Malo like ants, a wagon after cart full of goods, and many of the products returned to the local towns and villages and quickly sold, triggering a buying boom among the local people.

This has led to grocery store owners traveling more to and from Porto Saint-Malo, becoming part of a large and busy chain of smuggled goods.

The turmoil in Paris did not affect the grocers' plans in the slightest.

Shortly thereafter

The French provincial aristocracy, capitalists, and usurers with rich capital who reacted quickly joined this smuggling army, and their capital strength was stronger and their money was greater.

Each time it came to Puerto Saint-Malo with a long motorized convoy and quickly returned with a full load.

Tang exporters, Germans and grocers in south-central France, as well as aristocratic buyers, all benefited, and the sharp reduction in the price of goods even benefited ordinary French people, which also stimulated their desire to buy and greatly increased the number of goods sold.

In this carnival, who is the victim?

The answer is the French government and customs taxes, the question is ...... Is there a government in France now?

Adolfo-Thiers' government was driven out of the city by the Paris Commune and settled in the town of Versailles on the outskirts of the city, followed by a storming of Paris in April 1871 and a decisive victory at the end of May.

The chaotic situation in Paris made the new government so fierce that it was not until the end of August that the situation was first clarified, with more than 20,000 rebels executed, more than 7,500 imprisoned, and more than 10,000 Parisians exiled through various summary trial procedures.

At this time

Having settled down, Adolf Thiers discovered that the western coast had been infiltrated into a sieve by smuggling, as well as the eastern and northern regions, which were smuggled goods from the German Empire and were mainly industrial goods.

In the north, Britain, a traditional rival from across the English Channel, flooded the French market with a flood of cheap textile fabrics without customs revenue, forcing a large number of textile mills in central and southern France to close down, numbering more than 170.

Faced with this situation

Thiers angrily blamed Datang; "It is an unforgivable crime to steal millions of francs every day as a thief of the wealth of the French Republic......"

So why not blame Germany or Britain?

Ahem...... Where can France afford to provoke these two strong guys today?

Especially Britain, a shady guy who grins in front of him and has a black hand behind his back, the French Empire has fallen to such a point now, and it is a well-known fact that Britain secretly supports the Kingdom of Prussia.

But the French don't dare to say it, if they have grievances, they can only swallow them with tears!

Britain already has a new favorite, the German Empire, and this tough little brother can carry France up with a hammer, no matter how you look at it, you can't afford to provoke it!

Counting and counting, it seems that only Datang can handle it, warning these robbers not to go too far.

After the head of the French government, Thiers, spoke out, the public opinion media joined the ranks of accusations, which naturally attracted great attention from Datang.

The Chinese ambassador to France, Baron Lo Siu-fai, held a press conference in Paris to explain that Datang has always abided by international conventions in its trade practices, and that the export of goods to the Brittania region is purely commercial, driven by the natural market, and the government is not involved.

The merchants of the Tang Empire paid taxes according to the regulations, but the taxes paid were carried out according to the taxation standards of the German Empire, because the above-mentioned areas were German-occupied areas, and the only ones in operation were German customs officers.

This explanation is tantamount to kicking the ball at the feet of the Germans.

I'm not an organized smuggler, and I'm still paying taxes according to local conditions, but I'm a law-abiding businessman.

As for the belonging of the Brittania region, it is a matter between Germany and France, and has nothing to do with Datang.

This explanation made the French Provisional Government dumbfounded.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt, the defeated country France would not only cede Alsace and Lorraine, but also pay a huge war reparations of up to 5 billion francs, as well as a series of terms that would lose the country's sovereignty.

Among them, the victorious powers had the right to maintain the existing occupied zone until France fulfilled its huge war reparation obligations.

The provision of this clause is to use the occupied territories as collateral to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Frankfurt Treaty.

After receiving such an explanation, the whole of France was dumbfounded, they could not go to the Germans to make trouble, and had to pinch their noses and suffer this big loss.

When the news broke, the whole of Europe was in an uproar.

France has become a new laughing stock, seeing that this always strong European hegemon has eaten such a big deflate, the surrounding small European countries are simply happy, and ridiculing the French has become a new focus.

Now the stormy France is a broken boat, and anyone can come up and step on it.

The problem of smuggling in the Saint-Malo area is an unsolvable problem, and it is difficult to eradicate the unprecedented rampant smuggling in the German-occupied areas for a single day. And France is bleeding every day and losing a lot of financial money.

But who is to blame?

It was the French Emperor Napoleon III who blatantly provoked the war, and this Franco-Prussian War has been defined as a war of aggression by France, but it was only beaten by the Germans.

As the initiator of the war, France has no sympathy even if it pretends to be innocent.

In this world of the jungle, all countries respect only the strong, and no one will be overflowing with compassion to care about an old robber.

(End of chapter)