The Self-Strengthening Movement and Batum
Although some progress has been made in long-distance power transmission, inter-regional power transmission remains impossible, at least for now. Therefore, the proliferation of thermal power plants remains largely unchanged; the only difference is perhaps that fewer people are stealing power cables now.
This is partly because there's much less copper in wires of equal length, and partly because stealing high-voltage lines is simply too dangerous. At least in Paris, it wasn't just one out-of-province person—no, the situation has changed considerably; there are very few out-of-province people doing this anymore. Basically, those who do it are either Highlanders, Prussia, Poland, or Italy —mainly foreigners—who, finding the wires unattended, foolishly steal them, only to be cremated as a result.
The deaths of a few foreign thieves were hardly a big deal, especially since it was only the beginning of the 19th century. Not only were the France indifferent, but even the embassies and consulates of the thieves' own countries didn't care. A few lowly people, dead or not, what was the big deal? In fact, they saw these deaths as a reduction in social instability, and even the deaths of a few more were something to celebrate.
While these individuals may not have deserved to die, their deaths had a significant side effect: each incident caused widespread power outages. Although the affected areas were generally not the most critical, the outages resulted in substantial economic losses for factories or bars and nightclubs in Montmartre Heights. Nevertheless, it was a major problem. As a result, the newspaper * Science Truth Daily * even had to dedicate a series of articles to educating the public about high-voltage electrical safety: don't assume it's safe to put your hand over just because a bird lands on it unharmed!
However, these are minor issues. Napoleon's current worry is that arms sales seem to be slow lately.
Austria was originally a good buyer. Whenever the France produced something of value, Austria would grit its teeth and buy it. Especially after copper mines were discovered in Prussia, and the country made a fortune from them, the Austria followed suit and found that the copper veins extended into Austria -controlled territory. So the Austria immediately took action and began mining copper on a large scale. Moreover, unlike Prussia, the Austria did not hesitate to use workers when mining. The Austria simply negotiated with the Poland nobles, provided some money, and then directly dragged all the Poland serfs to work in the mines.
As for Prussia were hesitant to do so now, as Poland now comprised half of the Prussia's population. Consequently, due to their cost advantage, the Austria had stolen a significant amount of business from the Prussia. Logically, with more money in hand, the Austria should have been able to purchase more France weapons.
However, the Austria felt that since they couldn't defeat the France anyway, and given the numerous business dealings the France had with them, they were unlikely to attack them. As for attacking others, there didn't seem to be any immediate targets. Moreover, France weaponry was being updated so rapidly that new weapons would soon become obsolete, and Austria, unlike Britain and Spain, couldn't simply sell outdated equipment to its colonies.
As a result, the Austria simply decided to save the money for weapons or use it to start a business. This way, they could earn more money and buy the latest weapons from the France when war actually broke out. Wouldn't that be better?
Consequently, arms orders from Austria naturally shrank rapidly.
To stimulate Austria's spending desires, Napoleon wanted to conduct joint military exercises with Prussia, or secretly sell some small items to the Poland. He wanted them to cause some trouble so that the Austria would realize the necessity of spending money quickly.
However, both suggestions were opposed by Joseph and Lucien. Joseph strongly opposed the plan to arm the Poland: "If the Poland rebel, the operation of the copper mines will definitely be affected. If the Austria copper mines reduce production, the price of copper in Europe will certainly rise again. The money spent on weapons may not even be enough to fill this hole!"
Lucien, on the other hand, opposed joint military exercises with Prussia. He believed it would undermine France's image as a peace-loving nation and a good friend of all Europe people.
"I don't object to threatening Austria to make it behave in business, but Napoleon, aren't your methods a bit too simplistic and crude? They lack any finesse whatsoever."
Napoleon got angry and immediately resorted to his trump card. "You say I can't do it? Then you do it!"
Lucien immediately replied, "This is not my responsibility. I am not an expert in this field. Don't try to shirk your duty."
Joseph then suggested, "How about we sell some goods to the Russia?"
"Russia? What can Russia afford?" Napoleon said. "Russia are stingy."
Russia's economic situation is not good, especially in the last two years, due to consecutive bumper harvests in France, which has led to persistently low international grain prices. This is a significant blow to Russia, whose main source of foreign exchange is grain exports. Therefore, Russia are truly short of money.
"We can lend them money," Lucien quickly interjected. "Look, we lend money to the Russia use the loans to buy our goods, then use the money we lent them to pay for them, and then slowly repay the interest on our loans, and then... isn't that great?"
"Why would the Russia lend us money? They don't seem to be under any immediate threat," Napoleon said.
"We can spread the word that Turkey wants to buy a large number of weapons from us," Lucien said.
"That's not enough, Lucien, that's not enough," Joseph suddenly said. "We need to spread the word that Turkey and we have reached a deal, under which we will export a gun factory to Turkey."
"What if the Russia ask us to buy their arsenals?" Napoleon asked.
"Sell it to him, and we can even include technology transfer," Joseph said nonchalantly.
"That won't do!" Napoleon said.
"Why not? Even if they own factories, can they produce products that can compete with us in the market? Can they function without relying on our support? Besides, you yourself said that the Russia actually have quite limited funds. If they grit their teeth and buy our factories, they'll have to find other ways to raise that money. How will they do that?"
They can either try to save money, but what can they save on? They buy factories and technology from us, which saves them research and development costs. We could advise them, "Don't reinvent the wheel," since their own research isn't as technologically advanced as what they buy from us, and it's more expensive. In that case, why not cut their research funding?
It's like someone wanting to eat meat. They can buy it at the market or raise their own pig. But if they raise their own pig, because they lack experience and skills, the cost will be high and the taste won't be good. Do you think they can even keep raising pigs? They might as well just go outside—to be precise, come here and buy pork.
In this way, he won't spend money on raising pigs anymore. In fact, as long as he's willing to invest in it and gradually build up his own team, the pork they develop will eventually become more fragrant and cheaper. But by selling factories and technology at the right time, we can disrupt the accumulation of scientific and technological talent among the Russia. On the one hand, we can continuously sell them certain technologies at the most opportune moments, leaving their researchers with no opportunity to use their skills; on the other hand, we can take the opportunity to poach these researchers with no opportunity to use their skills to our side. Napoleon, don't you think this is a very good thing?"
"What if the Austria and the Britain made similar demands?" Napoleon asked again.
"Should we analyze specific problems specifically? Well, Austria is fine, but Britain still needs certain restrictions. However, these restrictions must be measured, and ideally, they shouldn't be imposed directly by us, but by a committee. For example, aren't we very different from the Britain, Austria, and Russia in terms of our systems? We are a republic, aren't we? We can organize those democratic countries in Europe —ourselves, the North Italian Federation, and the Rhine Confederation— that adopt republican systems, and form a special agency to manage technology exports. It would be called the 'Coordinating Committee for Export Controls,' with its office in Paris, responsible for reviewing technology exports from any non-republican country. Technology, equipment, and goods not approved by this committee cannot be exported," Joseph said.
"Yes, Napoleon," Lucien said. "I think we can sell factories to Turkey first, then to Russia; then we can stir up trouble within Turkey or Russia; then they will naturally suppress it; then we can have some 'opposition' media, and other republics, accuse us of handing over the butcher's knife to a tyrant for money; then we can legitimately establish this committee." Lucien added, "Incidentally, we can also use this to plant a lot of spies among the real opposition."