Patience and Little Toys

Carnot thought for a moment and said, "This matter is very important, and we can't just decide on it between the two of us..."

At this point, Carnot paused again, then said, "I will seriously consider this matter. If it is truly feasible, I will write to you. However... it's always good to be prepared in advance."

Joseph nodded and said, "I will. However, for this, I need your guarantee of priority procurement of the weapons we produce. Also, as you know, genuine products will definitely have higher costs and prices. You need to ensure that our products won't be overtaken by those cheap, inferior goods."

"All I can say is that I will do my best," Carnot said.

"Alright," Joseph said, "If there's really no other way, I'll figure it out myself."

"Stop fooling around right now." Carnot sensed something was off in Joseph's tone and quickly said.

"No, don't you know me well enough?" Joseph laughed.

After leaving Carnot, Joseph, accompanied by his guards, changed into a four-wheeled carriage and left Paris.

The day before Joseph left Paris, all the researchers who had signed contracts with him, except for Lavoisier (Lavoisier still had some matters to attend to with the University of Paris), had already left for Toulon Paris. Joseph even sent half of his guards to escort them. Because their chartered mail wagons traveled relatively slowly, Joseph caught up with them on the third day after they left Paris.

A few days later, they arrived in Toulon. By then, they had already been informed that Napoleon was waiting for them outside the newly expanded "Naval Research Institute"—no, it should now be called the Bonaparte Institute.

The expanded Bonaparte Institute was very similar in form to the old Military Technology Research Institute, both being enclosed within a moat with high walls and drawbridges. The basic layout also largely imitated the Military Technology Research Institute, so the researchers quickly found suitable places for themselves and put their things away.

By this time, Napoleon had prepared dinner for them. They ate together and then went back to rest.

Joseph then called Napoleon outside, and the two walked along the beach, with Joseph telling Napoleon about the situation in Paris.

"You intend for us to march all the way to Italy?" Napoleon said. "Why not just go straight to Paris? What have these guys been up to!"

"Napoleon, now is not the time to go to Paris," Joseph said. "Napoleon, you have won some victories, but does that mean you hold a high enough position in the hearts of the France people? Are you a household name? When the France people face difficulties, will they think of you first and say, 'If only General Napoleon were here'? If you can't do that, think about it, even if you return to Paris and overthrow the government by force, can you maintain a stable government? If you can't, wouldn't you just be paving the way for someone else?"

Napoleon listened, smiled sheepishly, and said, "Actually, I know that too, but watching those fools jumping around like that is really getting frustrating. It's like watching fools play chess."

"You think he's a fool, but others might not see it that way. It's like watching a game of chess; you might think his move is a bad one, but the onlookers, because their skill level is too low, might think it's a brilliant move. What we need to do now is, firstly, increase your prestige among France people, so that when they hear about war, they think, 'If only General Napoleon were in command.' Secondly, we should take advantage of the fact that the government is allocating less funding to us and that the quality of our supplies and equipment is poor, to win over the army and make the Republic's army truly ours."

"You mean I should march into Italy, use the spoils to fund the army, and then use my series of victories to highlight the incompetence of those guys in Paris?" Napoleon immediately understood Joseph's meaning.

"Yes, but not now. We need to let the army experience the pain inflicted on them by an incompetent government," Joseph said. "We need to instill in them aversion and even hatred towards this government. Only then can you buy them off with spoils and turn them into an army that truly belongs to us. Until then, we need to be patient. Also, during this time, I need to prepare some small toys for you..."

"What is it?" Napoleon asked hastily. The "Little Melon" that Joseph had given him last time was so useful that his expectations were immediately raised.

"Keep it a secret," Joseph said.

After that day, Joseph immersed himself in the research institute. And some of the things he told Napoleon began to become reality.

First, military pay decreased. Although on the surface everyone's pay seemed to have increased slightly, what they received were Assignat, whose value was declining almost daily. This was no longer the Jacobin era; there were no longer special envoys with guillotines to enforce the use of Assignat by merchants. As a result, the refusal to accept Assignat began to resurface, further driving down their Assignat. Although the Directory restrained its printing of Assignat to appease the respectable, the devaluation of the Assignat, like their integrity, plummeted.

This caused a sharp decline in the soldiers' living standards; the quantity and quality of bread they received daily decreased drastically. Napoleon, therefore, considerately reduced the frequency and intensity of training. He spent his days in the camp, eating the same food as the soldiers, constantly chatting with them, telling them that the difficulties were only temporary, and even leading them in singing. "It will be alright, it will be alright..." except the last line became, "There will be bread with butter."

Although the soldiers were quite resentful due to the decline in their living standards, they loved Napoleon even more.

If it were merely a decline in living standards, the Directory's image in people's minds wouldn't have collapsed so quickly. However, the various weapons and ammunition the Directory provided them soon after caused people's dissatisfaction and contempt for the government to rise rapidly.

The first thing that caused the soldiers to complain was naturally the "Little Melon" they used to like so much, because this batch of "Little Melon" didn't have the surname Bonaparte.

As a result, the same thing happened again on the northern front, in the armies of both sides.

The first accident occurred during a live-fire exercise. A soldier threw a "Little Melon" (a type of projectile) that didn't explode for a long time. So the silly soldier went to check it out, and as soon as he got a little closer, the "Little Melon" exploded.

Fortunately, this cheaply made Little Melon even omitted the pre-fragmented parts, so the outer shell only split in two when it exploded. The soldier was thrown over by the blast wave, but miraculously, he was not injured.

During the same live-fire exercise, several "Little Melon" also failed to detonate. Having learned their lesson, no one dared to go up again. Napoleon even had that area cordoned off with ropes to prevent others from approaching. As a result, those "Little Melon" remained there for a whole day without detonating.

Aside from the Little Melon, everything else was in a terrible state. The gunpowder used in the cannons was clearly damp, and the sulfur inside hadn't even been broken up; there were also some small stones that were probably used to weigh the weights in. Few of the various knives were usable either; as some soldiers put it, they were worried about chipping or dulling them when cutting bread (this was partly due to the poor quality of the knives, and partly due to the excessive additives in the bread). The uniforms were also poorly made; the fabric was noticeably thinner, and the buttons weren't sewn on properly—they could be easily pulled off.

As a result, the soldiers' complaints really started to get out of control. Some junior officers were still corresponding with their comrades on the northern front, and they vividly recounted the dark jokes from the northern front, making everyone aware of the story of the unfortunate General Joubert.

Napoleon still seemed to be trying his best to whitewash the Directory, blaming everything on those unscrupulous merchants. His words could basically be summarized as. "His Majesty is wise and insightful, but has been deceived by a few treacherous officials." Oh, no, I misremembered the wording; it should be. "The people in the government aren't actually bad people, they're just too young and naive, and have been cheated by those unscrupulous merchants."

However, this argument is rather unconvincing. The soldiers aren't stupid; they wouldn't believe that a group of young and naive guys could climb to that position.

"Only a fool would be fooled so easily by a few unscrupulous merchants," one soldier said.

"They're either stupid or malicious!" someone agreed.

"They've all gotten to those positions, do you think they're fools? Their positions aren't hereditary. If there's no dirty deal going on here, I'm not Mitterrand!" another soldier cursed.

"Maybe some businessman sent them a beautiful woman." Another soldier started to veer off-topic.

"How do you know they sent over beautiful women? Maybe they washed their own sons clean and then sent them to those guys. You know, supposedly some of the guys up there have a thing for that..." And so the discussion went even further astray.

"Well, they weren't the ones who died on the battlefield anyway. They weren't stupid, they were just evil!" someone concluded.