Fox of France

Just when the struggle in Paris was about to enter a fierce stage, in Toulon, Joseph just gave himself a day off, taking his mother and all his younger brothers and sisters to the Mulgrave fort fishing to celebrate the family reunion—— A few days ago, Napoleon had just sent someone to pick up Louis from Paris.

  After punishing Lucien last time, Joseph was quite satisfied with his prestige among his brothers. But he also keenly felt that the distance between his siblings and him seemed to be a little longer.

  This is a very easy situation. As the saying goes, "the cute need not be respectable, and the fearsome is no longer amiable. It is not a problem, but it is also difficult." But if you are the elder brother, but in the eyes of the brothers, it is only "respectable and awesome", then there is no guarantee that there will be no gaps in the future. So in order to rebuild his "lovely" image in everyone's mind, Joseph took the time to arrange this event.

  Of course, according to Joseph’s habit, this kind of thing, of course, is inevitably made for personal gain. So this event, although read as a family gathering, in many places, it has to be written as a "technical experiment" in order to reimburse some reimbursable expenses.

  Of course, the content of the experiment can not be written as fishing and grilling fish, but must be written as "the navigation state of a high-speed communication ship at low speeds, and related experiments to strengthen the self-sustaining ability at sea".

  Seeing the name of this experiment, we know that this family gathering will be held on the newly built small boat of less than a hundred tons. This boat, also painted gray-blue, looks exceptionally short from a distance because it has two hulls, but in fact, the two hulls and the gap between the hulls are also covered with decks. , So at least the deck space is quite spacious. If you look down from a high place, the square deck of this ship feels like a raft.

  But this boat is much more expensive than a raft. Even more expensive than the larger "black pearl". .

  For example, the structural parts that connect the two large pontoons below the water surface and support the entire hull are all made of bronze in order to ensure robustness and resistance to seawater corrosion. Mold opening and casting cost a lot of money. As for the pontoons, each pontoon is made of three thick balsa wood. Balsa wood is the lightest wood in the world. It is half the density of cork stoppers that we usually use to make boiling water bottle stoppers. It has a balanced wood and good corrosion resistance. Can provide considerable buoyancy.

  Balsa wood itself is not precious, but this thing is a product of South America, and the French do not have any stock. So it can only be smuggled in from the Spaniards. Even for the Spaniards, there are usually only balsa boards that have been sawn into boards. The finished balsa wood is thick and dried, and it is hard to find. As a result, the black-hearted smuggler just sold the balsa for the price of Brazilian rosewood. Then wrap it with a layer of copper to reduce resistance, which increases the cost.

  There are boat plates or something. Joseph can use as much as possible, even if it only brings a slight improvement in performance. Joseph didn't care about the cost of the boat, he didn't use his own money anyway.

  The family got on the boat, and the boat opened its sails, as fast as an arrow.

   "How fast can this ship run?" Napoleon asked.

"Fifteen knots or more." Joseph replied, "faster than any other ship now. At sea, there is no ship that can catch up with us. Moreover, the control of this ship is relatively simple. It only requires two people. Being able to control it, even one person is not incapable of controlling it. Also, have you noticed? Although this boat is not big, it is more stable than many much larger boats."

  The two chatted, and the ship sailed into the bay below Mulgrave fortress. Lucien volunteered to help put the sail away, and watched the sailor anchor. Then everyone took out the fishing rod and started fishing. Well, this is the so-called "relevant experiment to strengthen maritime self-sustainability."

  Napoleon’s mind was not on fishing. He randomly put a small piece of sardine on the hook, then threw the bait into the sea, and said to Joseph: "Joseph, the situation in Paris seems not quite right recently."

The situation in Paris is indeed not quite right. As far as the news they have received now, Robespierre first united with Dandong and killed Ebel and the others. Then he turned his head and killed Dandong and the others. . Then there were a lot of extreme economic policies, some of which were even more extreme than Ebel.

"It's not right." Joseph said. "Theoretically, our'uncorrosive' is about to go to ruin. Napoleon, you know, there is a saying that says,'God must destroy it first Make it crazy'. Do you know, why is he crazy?"

   "Why?" Napoleon asked.

"Because he has nowhere to go." Joseph smiled and said, "He killed Ebel and lost the support of the Pantsless Man. He killed Dandong again and lost the support of the businessman and the factory owner. Now, he can only Relying on terror itself to maintain his rule. So he has to be crazy, because he is full of enemies now, and all of them are hating his eyes. If he shows even a slight weakness, those people will rush forward. Torn him to pieces. With his current madness, he will not live long; but if he is not mad now, then he may not even live today."

   "Then why don't you go back to Paris? Going back at this time will have huge political benefits." Napoleon asked.

  But before Joseph could answer, he smiled himself: "Ah, Joseph, I forgot, you are not me. If it were me, I would definitely go back at this time. You...you don't want to take any risks at all."

"Now is not the time to go back." Joseph shook his head, "This is not a question of whether to take risks, but a question of the disproportion of risks and returns. Napoleon, first of all, we must admit that Robespierre is indeed a Very powerful guy. I think you wouldn't object to this, right?"

  Napoleon said nothing.

"The reason why the great guys are great is that they are good at using the resources in their hands, even if they are extremely limited, to create miracles." Joseph continued, "Robospierre is going crazy now, for what? He can mobilize the economy. The resources are not enough to support his policy. He is doing this now in a hurry to buy the bottom layer, but his policy is not sustainable, which means that he will soon face the problem of exhaustion of economic resources. No money means no money, just like If he can’t do math problems, he just can’t do the same. He will definitely take a large-scale adventure before the capital chain breaks, and try to set off another big purge. If he can really succeed, then the resources obtained from the purge will be enough Let him support it for a while. So going to Paris at this time is very risky."

   "So the profit is small?" Napoleon asked.

"I don't understand?" Joseph raised his eyebrows. "You have gone to Paris at this time. Can you become the person who has contributed the most to overthrowing him? Do you have enough resources to control this government that is troubled by both internal and external troubles? None. In that case, are you rushing to do it? Napoleon, don’t you remember, I told you, we don’t need to stand in line. A truly powerful person never needs to stand in line, because where and where he stands It's a team. Now that one has come to an end, but is there any great person who can replace him?"

   "Haha..." Napoleon just laughed twice and didn't say anything, but his attitude was already very obvious.

   "Then don't worry." Joseph said, "Even if these people win, they will certainly not be able to control the current situation. We just have to wait and wait for France to need a real hero."

   "Okay." Napoleon said, "What if Robespierre wins?"

"What if? Let's see if you can control the army. If you are as incompetent as Du Mourier, then we can only use this ship to escape to the New World. But you can rest assured, with your brother and me, Wherever I go, there will be food."

   "Bah!" Napoleon said.

  At this time, the bell on the fishing rod beside Joseph rang suddenly.

   "A fish has been hooked!" Joseph said.

  ……

In Paris, the situation has reached the most critical moment. Just one day ago, a man attacked Couton with a pistol. However, the gunner’s shooting skills were really not good. He failed to hit Couton even with two shots. The surrounding people reacted and surrounded him, and then the person swallowed the poison and committed suicide.

  This unsuccessful assassination caused a huge wave. First of all, the identity of the assassin was confirmed. He was Ebel’s subordinate in the past, and when he shot at Kudong, he shouted: "Kill the tyrant's running dog and avenge Ebel!"

   Robespierre has been working hard these days to try to win over the trousers, but this assassination caused the wound that seemed to be healed to be torn open again.

   Robespierre realized that if this incident were tracked down, it would undermine his ongoing efforts to repair relations with the trousers. But if he is not held accountable, it will obviously make people feel that he is very weak, and therefore, encourage his enemies, so that they dare to unite against themselves. So he fell into a dilemma. However, after in-depth thinking, Robespierre decided that the matter must be investigated.

  This is because his current status is completely dependent on people’s fear of him, or “terror has become a means of protecting oneself, and thus becomes an absurd thing”. (Engels) Anything that weakens terror is weakening his status.

  Secondly, he also realized that if the remaining Ebel elements could not be eliminated, his plan to win over the trousers would be difficult to succeed.

At the same time, the plummeting quantity of material reserves also started to sound the alarm for him. In order to please the trousers, the price of food that had risen was forced down again, and the flour was mixed with chalk, talcum powder and sawdust. The behavior was also stopped. The sale of grain to neutral countries in exchange for some necessary supplies was also suspended, but the grain stocks in Paris are still falling rapidly.

  On the other hand, the grain sent to Paris from other regions is rapidly decreasing. A series of changes made by the central government have reduced their control over the foreign provinces, and some people's deliberate sabotage has exacerbated this problem. Therefore, food in Paris can no longer continue to support Robespierre's policy.

  If it was a few months ago, Robespierre could send special commissioners to other provinces to combat passive sabotage and supervise the recruitment of food. But at this time, he was unable to do so. Because at this time, the people he can trust are already very limited. Sending these people out will reduce his control of the situation in Paris.

  However, he also knows that allowing this phenomenon to continue will only lead to his demise. In such a situation, he also had to take risky actions.

  At the beginning of June, under Robespierre’s arrangement, Kudon submitted a so-called document called "Act for Punishing Revolutionary Enemies" to the National Assembly. This bill further simplifies the trial process of the Revolutionary Court, abolishes the defender, and stipulates that the court makes a judgment without the need for personal evidence, and the court can adopt the method of free evidence, only need to infer from common sense. Sentence the prisoner. At the same time, the penalty has been simplified, and the Revolutionary Court will only issue two sentences: acquittal or death penalty.

  The National Assembly tremblingly obeyed Robespierre’s will and passed the bill. Even Kano, who is now the most unhappy in front of Robespierre, did not oppose this obviously unreasonable bill. Because Fouché had already greeted him in advance, that was: "The moment everyone is looking forward to is coming."

As soon as this bill was announced, it immediately caused a lot of tension. The entire National Assembly was panicked. Everyone at UU reading www.uukanshu.com knew that Robespierre was preparing for another major cleansing, and everyone could It can be seen from this murderous bill that Robespierre's heads to be chopped off this time may be far more than previous times.

  Moreover, this bill has caused controversy in Robespierre’s own team. For this bill, Saint-Just and Robespierre had a fierce quarrel for the first time. It is said that Robespierre returned to his residence after this quarrel and said to his landlord, "Except you, I have no one to trust."

  The Act to Punish Revolutionary Enemies is certainly not for fun. Robespierre must eliminate all enemies that might oppose him before the food supply in Paris completely collapses. As a result, the guillotine began to run wildly, cutting off the heads of 18 to 20 people every day.

  Among these heads, there are merchants, small workshop owners, and even a lot of the bottom layer-because they are suspected of being involved in the assassination.

  In these days, Fouché has not been idle. He disguised himself and kept in contact with the MPs, telling them: "Your name will be on the next list!" Sometimes, he even deliberately risked revealing some traces so that the people of Robespierre could Know who he might have met.

  All kinds of information were slowly gathered into Robespierre's hands, and Fouché's figure was looming in those clues. Robespierre decided to go to the parliament early tomorrow morning to force them to announce the arrest of Fouché and send him to the guillotine.