The Fox of France-Chapter 539: The Peace Talks (1)

Despite Napoleon's fury over the situation in the North Sea, the Scientific Truth Gazette still reported a "decisive and splendid victory" for the French navy. This report focused on the strategic significance of the battle, declaring that after this battle, the British navy ceased to exist as a strategic force.

"The hegemony England has held at sea since the days of the pirate leader Drake is now sounding its death knell."

In England, the king went mad, leaving the Prince Regent to exercise royal powers. Though a final decision had not yet been made, British media had already begun to tout a decisive victory for the Royal Navy, elaborating greatly on their achievements. Interestingly, like the French, the British detailed their heroes extensively but were notably reticent about the specific proceedings and outcomes of the battle.

In French reports, you only knew about the British ships lost; in British reports, only about the French ships. Putting it together, the British discovered something the French apparently did not yet know: that the HMS "Cressy" had sunk, considering it a severe blow.

After thorough consultations with his ministers, the Prince Regent made a final decision: "Save face, not Great Britain."

"Now that the French don't know about our 'Cressy' having sunk, and considering their losses are also quite severe, Your Highness, I suggest we seize this opportunity to negotiate peace with them."

"What, negotiate peace? Isn't that just surrendering?" the Prince Regent was somewhat reluctant.

Everyone then looked at the Earl of Liverpool.

Feeling the weight of their stares, the Earl of Liverpool stood up and said, "Your Highness, there are some things you might need to know. Here are some documents from our intelligence department."

He handed a large dossier to the Prince Regent.

The Prince Regent looked doubtfully at his Prime Minister, took the dossier, and began to read. His hands started to tremble, perhaps unable to suppress his anger, and soon his whole body shook, causing some ministers to worry if he inherited his father's condition. When he looked up, his face was not one of clouded anger but pale with fear and distortion.

"How can this be? How can this be..." The sound of his teeth chattering could be heard in his voice. "You must be deceiving me. You mean to tell me that our streets are filled with rioters ready to rebel at any moment, and that our army, especially the land forces, is utterly unreliable with many dangerous elements infiltrated throughout, spreading perilous ideas... That at the slightest provocation, they would revolt like the French and send us all to the guillotine? How could our army, our police, and our special departments let it come to this?"

"My respected Highness, there's no helping it because the military, police, and even our special departments can't get paid, at least not in full. The naval blockade has hit us hard. Since the war began, our domestic economy has floundered, yet the government and military expenses have only grown. Our regular revenues can't sustain such spending, Highness. Building fleets, preparing for invasions, and readying an army capable of fighting the French on Great Britain's soil—all of these cost a great deal of money.

The government, facing such deficits, had no choice but to issue more currency. Over the years, our money printers have never stopped, producing a vast amount of currency. Most of our government spending is not sustained by taxes but by this excessive issuance of money.

Highness, you know, if the currency issued has no solid backing, like gold, then it's merely paper. Issuing such currency and forcing people to use it is essentially national plunder. It's like what Robespierre did in '93. Thus, the same circumstances are now happening in England.

In recent months, we've recalled some of this paper money under the guise of 'special government bonds,' merely replacing more paper with even more paper. Perhaps you've heard the joke: a man leaves a basket full of pounds on the street while he runs an errand. When he returns, he finds the money dumped out on the ground, but the basket stolen. Now, the pound is utterly worthless. As for the 'special government bonds,' they only hold value because people still hope our navy can break the blockade. Once that hope shatters, I dare say, it would be worth less than an equal weight of blank paper—at least blank paper still has some use.

My respected Highness, most of our military, police, and power department employees are being paid with this worthless paper. Thus, they too harbor resentment towards the government, towards the kingdom. Had they not held out hope for breaking the blockade, they might have already revolted. If we don't prepare now, by the time they realize the truth, it'll be over for us; Britain will become a republic without a king or fathers.

I can say, if we don't

take measures to change this, every one of our military camps is hiding more than one Bonaparte; behind every window of our police and special departments hides a Robespierre and Saint-Just. At every crossroad and square, someone is calculating where to erect a guillotine."

"So, Prime Minister, what should we do now? Should we prepare to flee abroad?" the Prince Regent asked anxiously. The king of England knew more about domestic unrest and the beheading of kings than Louis XVI did. After all, the first king to be beheaded was an English king.

"Of course, we must prepare for that, but it's not what we should be doing right now. What we must do now is stabilize the situation as much as possible. It's not completely hopeless yet, my Highness."

"So, what should we do now?"

"Peace. We need to call for peace, we need to negotiate peace with the French," the Earl of Liverpool said.

"My lord, I heard that before this, we've always been in contact with the French, always talking peace, is that right?" the Prince Regent asked.

"Yes, Your Highness, His Majesty had also approved," the Earl of Liverpool quickly responded.

"I'm not talking about that, I mean, what terms do they have? Can we achieve peace? After achieving peace, can we still maintain the kingdom's system?" the Prince Regent asked.

"Highness, the terms they initially proposed were indeed hard for us to accept," the Earl of Liverpool replied.

"What terms did they propose?" the Prince Regent asked.

The Earl of Liverpool waved his hand, and a wigged servant came forward with a silver tray holding a memorandum, the records of negotiations between England and France in the "Plane Tree Project."

The Prince Regent picked up the document and began to read. Upon seeing "The Twenty-One Demands to Annihilate England," he slightly frowned but then set down the document and said to the Earl of Liverpool, "Do you think they would now be willing to negotiate peace on these demands?"

"Your Highness..." the Earl of Liverpool said with a bitter smile, "You know, when the French first made this demand, our fleet was still operational... and the French have always been greedy..."

Everyone then fell silent. After a while, the Prince Regent said, "Resume negotiations with the French as soon as possible. If necessary, make some concessions. Remember, an England without a king, without nobility, is no different from no England at all. Preserving the kingdom's system is our bottom line; everything else depends on whether we can satisfy the French with all England's might."

Typically, when facing both internal and external enemies, most leaders naturally adopt the policy of "better to give away to allies than to be overthrown by servants." Throughout history, whether it was the Ming dynasty eventually becoming "pirates guarding the nation, bandits dying for the country," or the officials of the Ming transforming into Qing officials, or even from the usurping beginnings of my great cowardice, choosing to "report to the fourth prince at night, my conspiracy starts anew" to eliminate any internal threat of usurpation. Even during the Republic of China, there were stories of "quasi-military double pay for saving the country in a roundabout way." Only the military ministers like Jiang Yi were straightforward enough to openly discuss this policy.

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Since the Prince Regent approved, the Prime Minister Earl of Liverpool naturally acted quickly, using special channels through neutral countries to contact the French again, expressing England's willingness "to pursue peace between the two nations with greater sincerity."

This news was swiftly conveyed to Napoleon, who had just been sullen after awarding Admiral Bruix and promoting him to Admiral of the Fleet. When he handed the marshal's baton to Admiral Bruix, Napoleon's eyes were wide open, and he walked over with large strides, causing Admiral Bruix to involuntarily step back and shrink his neck, as if he was quite worried that Napoleon would hit him right on the crown of his head with the baton.

According to Alexandre Dumas in his novels, Napoleon later told Joseph, "At that moment, I really wanted to smack him on the forehead with the baton." Joseph replied, "I completely understand your feelings. I know how much willpower it took for you to restrain yourself. Because every time you brought me a mathematics paper written by either Laplace or Fourier, I also wanted to find a stick and smack it on your forehead."

Napoleon then summoned Joseph and Lucien to discuss the peace negotiations.

"England, of course, would be better off without a revolution," Joseph started, revealing his counter-revolutionary nature.

"That's our consensus now. The issue is, what do we need from England. Under the original conditions, do we need to push further?" Napoleon said.

Joseph shook his head, "This basis is already enough. Pushing further might destabilize the British government. If it leads to

a full-scale rebellion, causing the British government to sign an agreement with us and then London revolts, wouldn't our efforts be in vain? Are we to help them suppress a revolution?"

"How could that be possible?" Napoleon's eyes widened, his forehead glistening, "That would completely bankrupt our credibility! Our progressive image is very valuable! Only foolish businessmen who go bankrupt as soon as they start trading would disregard such a valuable asset. For a little short-term benefit, they would destroy the national image built over many years. And for a country like England, if it were to fully revolt, and we had to suppress them, how much would that cost? Would it be worth the expense? How could that possibly be?"

"So, we must ensure that the British government can still stand after signing the agreement. Therefore, some parts of this agreement, we might even have to step back a bit. Some terms need to be rephrased, at least to appear fair and just; some terms need to be kept secret; some terms need to be amended... Ah, yes, we should add a clause that our war with England is not out of malice towards the English people. So we are willing to assist in Britain's post-war reconstruction, offering loans to the British government on relatively favorable terms, of course, we would still have supervisory authority over the use of these loans, and they would need to be secured. Hmm, let's call this loan the 'Napoleon Aid Plan'..."

The three brothers then discussed at length how to make an inherently unequal treaty appear exceptionally fair on paper, as well as how to assist in England's reconstruction, eventually forming a set of guidelines that were sent to Minister Talleyrand.