Peace Talks
Although Napoleon was furious about the Battle of the North Sea Strait, the Science Truth Daily still devoted a large section to reporting on the "decisive and brilliant victory" achieved by the French Navy. Of course, the report focused on the strategic significance of this battle, namely, that after this battle, the British Navy, as a strategic force, ceased to exist.
"And England's maritime dominance, which began during the time of Pirate Captain Drake, can now be said to be on its death knell."
In Britain King had gone mad, so the Crown Prince had to assume royal authority. Although the final decision was still pending, the Britain media had already begun their propaganda campaign. All newspapers were reporting a decisive victory for the Britain Royal Navy, detailing their achievements. Interestingly, like the France, the Britain propaganda devoted considerable space to the battle, praising numerous heroes, but remained remarkably silent on the specific details and outcome of the campaign.
In France reports, you only know which warships the Britain lost; in Britain reports, you only know which warships the France lost. Putting it all together, the Britain discovered that the France seemed unaware that the Cressy had sunk, and had counted it as severely damaged.
After careful deliberation with his ministers, the Crown Prince finally made his final decision: to protect the respectable people, not Great Britain.
"The France are still unaware that our 'Cressy' has sunk, and France losses have been quite heavy. Your Highness, I suggest we seize this opportunity to quickly make peace with the France."
"What peace talks? Isn't this just surrender?" The crown prince was still somewhat unwilling.
So everyone went to look at the Earl of Liverpool.
The Earl of Liverpool felt somewhat uncomfortable with everyone staring at him, but he still stepped forward and said, "Your Highness, there are some things you might need to know. Here is some information compiled by our intelligence department."
As he spoke, the Earl of Liverpool handed a large document bag to the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince glanced at the Prime Minister with suspicion, then took the document bag and began to read. As he read, his hands began to tremble, seemingly unable to contain his anger. Eventually, his entire body began to shake, to the point that some ministers worried whether the Crown Prince had inherited his father's ailment. When he finally raised his face, what everyone saw was not a face clouded with anger, but a pale face contorted with fear.
"How could this be, how could this happen..." The Crown Prince's voice was so loud you could hear his teeth chattering. "Are you lying to me? Are you saying that the streets of Great Britain are full of rioters ready to revolt at any moment, and that the Kingdom's army, especially the army, is extremely unreliable, with many dangerous elements infiltrating the military and dangerous ideas spreading throughout... that at the slightest provocation they will rebel like the France and send us all to the guillotine? How could our army, our police, and our special forces allow things to come to this?"
"Your Highness, there's really no other way. It's because the military, police, and even special forces aren't getting paid, or at least not in full. The naval blockade is a huge blow to us. Your Highness, since the start of the war, the domestic economy has been sluggish, but government and military spending has been increasing. Our normal revenue simply can't support such large expenditures. Your Highness, building a fleet, preparing for counter-landing operations, and building an army strong enough to fight the French Army on the Britain Isles—all of this will cost a great deal of money."
Faced with such a deficit, the government has no other choice but to solve the problem by printing more money. Over the years, our printing presses have never stopped, producing a massive amount of currency. Today, most of our government's expenditures are not maintained by taxes, but by printing more money.
Your Highness, as you know, if paper money is not backed by corresponding collateral, such as gold, then it is worthless. Issuing such paper money and forcing people to use it is, in fact, the state's plunder of its people. This is just like what Robespierre did in Ninety-Three. So, the same situation has appeared in our Britain.
In recent months, we have withdrawn some paper money under the guise of "special treasury bonds." This is essentially just exchanging one type of worthless paper for even more worthless paper. You may have heard the joke: a man carries a basket of pounds to the market, but leaves it by the roadside because he has to go. A while later, when he returns, he finds all the pounds untouched on the ground, but the basket is gone. Now, the pound is completely worthless. As for the "special treasury bonds," it's because the people are still hoping our navy can break the blockade. But once that hope is dashed, I dare say its value will be less than the same weight of plain white paper—at least plain paper has some use.
My esteemed Your Highness, today, most of the employees of our army, police, and other law enforcement agencies are paid such worthless wages. Therefore, they too harbor resentment towards the government and the Kingdom. If it weren't for the hope of breaking the blockade, they might have already rebelled. If we don't prepare now, once they learn the truth, we're finished, Britain will become a republic without a monarch or father.
I can say that if we do not take steps to change all this, there is more than one Bonaparte hiding in every barracks of our army; behind every window of our police and special departments, there is a Robespierre and Saint-Just. At every crossroads and in every square, there are people plotting where to set up the guillotine.
"So, Prime Minister, what should we do now? Should we prepare to flee abroad?" the Crown Prince asked hastily. The King of Britain knew far more about domestic strife and the subsequent execution of the monarch than Louis XVI. After all, in Europe, the first king to be beheaded was the King of Britain.
"Of course we should prepare for that, but that's not the most important thing right now. The most important thing right now is to stabilize the situation as much as possible. It's not time to be completely hopeless yet, Your Highness."
"So, what should we do now?"
"Peace, we need to call for peace, we need to negotiate with the France on the issue of peace," said the Earl of Liverpool.
"Count, I've heard that we've actually been in contact with the France all along, and that we've been talking to them about peace, is that right?" the Crown Prince asked.
"Yes, Your Highness, His Majesty has also given his approval," the Earl of Liverpool quickly replied.
"That's not what I meant. I meant, what are their conditions? Can we achieve peace? And if we do, can we maintain the kingdom's structure?" the crown prince asked.
"Your Highness, we certainly found it difficult to agree to the conditions they proposed at the time," the Earl of Liverpool replied.
"What conditions did they propose?" the crown prince asked.
The Earl of Liverpool waved his hand, and a servant wearing a wig came over carrying a silver tray with a memorandum on it, which was a record of the negotiations between the Britain and France in the "Plane Tree Operation".
The Crown Prince picked up the document and began to read it. When he saw the "Twenty-One Articles for Britain's Destruction," he frowned slightly. But then he put the document down and said to the Earl of Liverpool, "Earl, do you think they would be willing to reach a peace agreement with us based on these demands?"
"Your Highness..." the Earl of Liverpool said with a wry smile, "You know, when the France made this demand, our fleet was still intact... and the France have always been very greedy..."
Everyone fell silent. After a while, the Crown Prince spoke, "Resume negotiations with the France as soon as possible. If necessary, we can make some concessions. You know, what difference is there between a Britain without Britain? Preserving the monarchy is our bottom line. As for the rest, let's see if we can satisfy the France by exerting all our strength in England."
Generally speaking, when facing both internal and external enemies—that is, when there are peasant rebellions within and foreign invasions without—most powerful figures naturally choose the policy of "better to give to foreign powers than to their own people." This has been true throughout history and across the world. Even the Great Meng, which boasted "the emperor guards the nation's gates, the monarch dies for the state," eventually became "pirates guard the nation's gates, bandits die for the state." Most of the original Meng's government troops were transformed into the Qing Dynasty government troops, and those high-ranking officials and nobles of Meng, after solving their own problems, remained superior. Take, for example, the Great Song Dynasty, which rose to power through usurpation; it would rather "send a letter to the fourth prince at night, and I, your subject, bow twice from this point onward" than allow any possibility of internal usurpation by its own people. In the Republic of China, this even led to the story of puppet troops receiving double pay as a "circuitous means of saving the country." In the end, only the Grand Councilor Gangyi was truly honest and openly stated this.
Having received the Crown Prince's approval, Prime Minister Earl of Liverpool acted swiftly, contacting the France again through special channels in a neutral country, expressing England's willingness to pursue peace between the two countries "with greater sincerity."
This news, of course, quickly reached Napoleon, finally bringing a smile to his face, Napoleon had just been sullen after awarding Admiral Brueys a medal and promoting him to Grand Admiral. When Napoleon presented the marshal's baton to Brueys, Napoleon eyes wide, gripping the baton, and striding forward, Admiral Brueys even involuntarily took a half-step back, shrinking his neck, seemingly quite worried that Napoleon would smash the baton into his skull.
According to Alexandre Dumas in his novel, Napoleon later told Joseph, "I really wanted to slap a stick on his forehead." Joseph replied, "I completely understand how you felt. I know how much willpower it took for you to restrain that impulse. Because every time you submit a math paper that I don't know if Laplace or Fourier wrote for you, I also want to find a stick and slap it on your forehead."
Napoleon then summoned Joseph and Lucien to discuss the peace talks.
"Britain, of course, is better off without a revolution." Joseph's words immediately revealed his counter-revolutionary nature.
"That's our consensus. The question now is what we need to get from Britain. Under the existing conditions, is it necessary to go further?" Napoleon said.
Joseph shook his head and said, "This foundation is already sufficient. If we go any further, the Britain government may not be able to stand firm. If it causes a full-scale rebellion, and the Britain government signs an agreement with us, and then the people of London revolt, wouldn't we have worked for nothing? Are we supposed to help them suppress the revolution?"
"How could that be?" Napoleon's eyes widened, his forehead glistening. "Then we would be completely bankrupt in terms of reputation! Our progressive image is extremely valuable! Only foolish merchants who go bankrupt as soon as they start a business would disregard this golden reputation. To ruin the image the country has built up over many years for a little short-term gain. And in a country like Britain, if a full-scale revolution breaks out, how much would it cost us to suppress them? Would we even recoup the costs? How could that be possible?"
"Therefore, we must ensure that the Britain government can maintain its standing after signing the agreement. Consequently, in some parts of this agreement, we even need to back down a bit. Some clauses need to be rephrased to at least appear equal and fair; some clauses need to be kept secret; some clauses need to be amended... Ah, right, we should indeed add a clause: that our war with Britain was not due to any malice towards the Britain people. Therefore, we are willing to contribute to Britain's post-war reconstruction, and we are willing to provide the Britain government with loans for post-war reconstruction in a relatively favorable manner. Of course, we still have the authority to supervise the use of the loans. And the loans will require collateral. Hmm, let's call this loan the Napoleon Aid Plan..."
The three brothers then engaged in in-depth discussions on a series of issues, including how to make the de facto unequal treaty appear exceptionally fair in its wording and how to provide assistance for Britain's reconstruction. Finally, they formulated a set of guiding opinions, which were then sent to Minister Talleyrand.