Bonaparte suddenly left the cabin. Just as she thought he was about to fly into another rage over the matter of "ships," he returned carrying a map and laid it on the table.
"How did you get this?" she asked in surprise.
"Have you forgotten Cassini's triangulation method?" Bonaparte said without looking up from the map. "They recruited quite a number of our people as well, using the trapezoidal projection method."
Georgiana looked at the map before her. It was the Complete Map of the Imperial Territories, drawn during Kangxi's reign. The point of what Bonaparte had just said was that Kangxi had recruited cartographers from France to make this map. They had merely used surveying methods France had already discarded, which was precisely why those men had been so easy to recruit.
Even so, it already looked remarkably like a modern map. Bohai Sea and Korea were clearly visible, as were lines of latitude and longitude. Latitude was measured from the equator, with a parallel drawn every thirty degrees, while longitude was measured from Beijing.
"What are you doing with this?" she asked nervously.
"Have you ever wondered why the Qing court forbids grain from Jiangnan to be shipped to Liuhe?" Bonaparte asked as he studied the map.
"No," she answered honestly.
He looked around for his pointer but did not find it, so he casually picked up a pencil and pointed at "Tianjin."
"Saint-Jean-d'Acre is also a coastal city, and it holds great strategic importance. So does this city. It is not only a river mouth, but also a crucial point on the canal. Then there is this place." Bonaparte moved the pencil to "Tongzhou."
"Food is the key to a siege. Occupy these two places, and grain will be unable to reach Beijing. Beijing will collapse without