Planting Willows Without Intending To

Next came the task of dispatching technical personnel to both countries to conduct basic investigations and select factories. Of course, this was not a short-term matter. Neither Eastern Rome nor Green Rome had high administrative efficiency, especially the "Sick Man of West Asia," whose administrative efficiency was so low it could drive a sloth crazy.

However, these two contracts were a signal, a signal of military buildup across Europe. News broke that the Bonaparte Arsenal had signed agreements with Russia and Turkey to transfer some technology and help them build new arms factories, and the whole of Europe sprang into action.

Joseph and Napoleon both thought that Austria would be the first to get restless and take action, because in the Balkans, the Holy Roman Empire, the Eastern Rome, and the Green Rome were so conflicted that, in theory, Austria would never stand by and watch those two disrupt the balance of power.

However, to their surprise, the first to come knocking were United States.

Actually, the United States didn't come to discuss the factory; they came to discuss United States's "special interests" in New Orleans.

The representative sent by the United States was their Foreign Minister Robert Livingston, who was also the first United States. Foreign Minister. This choice alone demonstrates how much the United States valued his mission.

New Orleans is located at the mouth of the Mississippi River has the third largest drainage basin in the world. Many of the United States' territories and domains are situated along this river or its tributaries.

The Mississippi River flows through fertile soil, making it an excellent agricultural region. At that time, United States industry was still in its infancy, and the country was primarily an agricultural nation. The Mississippi River basin was the most important agricultural region in the United States.

United States agriculture differs from that of a certain major Eastern country. The agriculture of that major Eastern country has always been aimed at feeding itself, but United States agriculture has been profit-driven from the very beginning. Fertile and vast lands allow the United States to produce far more food than it needs, and the most important use of this food is for export to earn money.

In the era before trains, there were essentially two ways to transport goods from the interior: relying on inland waterways or horse-drawn carts. However, the latter was generally only suitable for small quantities of goods with high unit prices. As for the transportation of grain, it was basically impossible to rely solely on inland waterways.

The Mississippi River is also highly suitable for navigation. Its main stream is navigable from its mouth to Minneapolis, with a channel length of 3,400 kilometers. In addition to the main stream, there are more than 50 tributaries that are navigable. Among them, the channel with a water depth of more than 2.7 meters is 9,700 kilometers long. Using the Mississippi River system, it is theoretically possible to transport agricultural products to the seaside very easily and cheaply, load them onto ocean-going ships, and sell them to Europe to make money.

However, the Mississippi River is not entirely under United States control; a considerable length of the river, as well as its crucial estuary, lies in Louisiana. The estuary, in turn, is in New Orleans.

During the Spain rule of Louisiana, the United States took advantage of Spain's decline and signed the Pinkney Treaty with the Spain, thereby gaining the right to navigate the entire Mississippi River and use the port facilities of New Orleans.

Frankly, the Pinkney Treaty was not very fair to Spain, because the toll paid by the United States was entirely symbolic, and they practically got these rights for free.

But now, with the Pinkney Treaty nearing its end and Louisiana now under France control, the situation is quite different. The France are much more powerful than the Spain; the Mississippi River waterway and New Orleans are under France control, which, for the United States, feels like a component being held in someone else's grasp.

Initially, the United States hoped to instigate and support the independence of Saint-Domingue, thereby depriving the France of a key foothold in the Americas, and then find a way to resolve the issue.

In the original history, Robert Levitt came to France after Napoleon's expedition suffered a decisive defeat at Saint-Domingue, proposing to the France that he purchase New Orleans. However, having lost Saint-Domingue as a foothold, and with the tense situation in Europe and the ever-present threat of war, Napoleon was forced to accept the United States proposal, even going so far as to sell the entire Louisiana to the United States at a low price. (In reality, if New Orleans had been sold, Louisiana, having lost its access to the sea, would have been unable to sustain itself.)

However, the France had now largely resolved the issue through negotiations with Toussaint Louverture, and the Free Trade had demonstrated remarkable combat prowess during this period, eliminating a third of the United States Navy in two battles. Therefore, the United States naturally didn't even mention the suggestion of purchasing New Orleans. Now, the United States were truly only here to discuss how to continue United States use of the Mississippi River waterway and the port of New Orleans.

This isn't a difficult matter to discuss. Although France has already begun its immigration program to North America and has sent some Europe North America, it's far from the time to turn against the United States. North America is a crucial market for Europe industrial goods, especially France industrial goods. You can't afford to offend anyone but money.

Conversely, United States also didn't want to fall out with the France, partly due to pressure from Britain, and partly because offending France would make it difficult for United States agricultural products to enter the Europe market.

Therefore, whether in the original history or in this timeline, although the United States Navy and the French Navy fought tooth and nail in the Caribbean Sea, they never declared war. Moreover, their merchant ships could still peacefully go to each other's ports to do business and even watch the two navies fight for fun.

In this timeline, even though the "Free Trade" destroyed the "America" supercruiser in the waters near New Orleans, and the people in New Orleans, whether France, Spain, or United States, all witnessed it, and then what? Everyone continued doing what they were doing, and United States merchant ships continued to come and go in New Orleans.

Therefore, it wouldn't be difficult for the United States to continue gaining access to shipping lanes and ports, but achieving the near-unrestricted access they enjoyed during Spain rule would be much harder. However, since their plans in Saint-Domingue had failed, at least temporarily, and the outcome at sea wasn't favorable for the United States either, the significant shadow cast by the Free Trade on the young United States Navy, even though it had left the Americas, wouldn't be easily dispelled. So, they had no choice but to honestly negotiate a deal.

In addition to navigation rights on the Mississippi River and port rights in New Orleans, Robert Levitton had another task: to purchase steel cannons from France.

When the France held the Paris Trade Fair, the United States also saw the steel muzzle-loading rifled cannons exhibited by the France. However, because those cannons were too expensive, and the United States also had its own artillery manufacturing companies, purchasing a large number of these cannons would harm the interests of domestic manufacturers. Therefore, the United States did not buy a large number of these cannons at the time. Instead, like the Britain, they only purchased a few, shipped them back for testing, and had their own arsenals try them out to see if they could make a copy.

However, the two most difficult things in reverse engineering are generally these two: technology and materials. When the Britain were copying France steel cannons, they mainly encountered the second problem. The first problem wasn't particularly significant for the Britain. However, the United States technological level couldn't compare to the Britain's. Therefore, the United States encountered both problems, and currently have no solutions.

Fortunately, there weren't many steel cannons in North America before, and everyone didn't have many good ones, so the United States didn't feel too much pressure to quickly replace their bronze cannons with steel ones. Although various tests proved that steel cannons far surpassed bronze cannons in performance, both in accuracy and power.

However, this situation soon changed. First, the Free Trade used its steel guns to easily defeat the America and the Congress from a safe distance. One of the conclusions the United States drew from this battle was that without steel guns, naval warfare would be akin to having no cannons at all.

Then the French Army in Louisiana also began to equip themselves with steel cannons. Of course, this wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was that even the Canada started equipping themselves with steel cannons. In fact, in a recent conflict with the Dakota Indians, the United States even captured a 1.5-inch caliber light steel cannon, possibly developed by the Britain (the France had refused to manufacture weapons of this caliber since inventing the metric unit). This cannon could even be pulled by two people, and two horses could pull it at full speed, but the range and power of its shells far exceeded those of the United States 6-pound and 8-pound cannons.

So Robert Levitton's other purpose in coming to France was to order more steel cannons from France —although the domestic arsenals were very unhappy about this, the situation was pressing.

However, upon arriving in the United States, Robert Livingston discovered that the France were actually willing to sell a company capable of producing such artillery. This was truly... Robert Livingston considered the situation. Two major problems remained unsolved: the material problem was still unresolved, but at least the manufacturing process was no longer an issue!

Of course, none of this is the most important thing. The most important thing is that by introducing such technology, domestic arms factories can continue to operate, and he can also obtain more support.