General MacArthur, a renowned five-star critic from the United States, once said, “The sky is high, the earth is wide, but Daddy is the biggest.” A summons from Daddy must certainly be the highest priority.
Joseph, feeling helpless, looked towards the carriage and gestured to Eman, “Let’s head to the Palace of Versailles first, and then look at them in detail on the carriage.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Before long, several carriages drove out from the Industrial Planning Bureau.
Inside the carriage, Joseph opened the envelopes one by one.
The letters were from the three “white gloves” who had been tasked with purchasing grain overseas for him; for secrecy, they used coded language.
Joseph then took the codebook from Eman and began to read with effort.
In the letters, the “white gloves” first reported on the situation of the grain procurement, which was generally optimistic. The first two batches totaled nearly 70,000 setiers of grain from places like England, North Africa, Eastern Europe, 10,000 setiers of corn, and over 30,000 setiers of potatoes.
A setier was a commonly used unit of measure at the time, with one setier being 4.43 bushels. As for how much grain that represented… well, that varied.
Because a bushel is a volume unit. In practice, it was filled with grain in a large barrel, and when full, it constituted one bushel. For example, when filled with grain it would be about 45-50 French pounds, and for potatoes, between 55-60 French pounds.
In other words, in this period, the three “white gloves” had already purchased nearly twenty million pounds of grain from around the world.
Moreover, according to them, in line with Joseph’s instructions, every time they arrived in a new place, they would spend money to find someone influential locally, and place an announcement in the newspapers claiming that the year was expected to be bountiful, with grain supply possibly outstripping demand.
After all, it was still early before the autumn harvest, so the statement could be freely made.
Subsequently, the local price of grain would begin to slide, and that’s when the “white gloves” would move in to make their purchases, leaving immediately once the prices started to rise even a little bit. So, they had acquired these tens of millions of pounds of grain at basically standard prices.
Joseph did some quick calculations in his head and figured that at this rate of procurement, by July, before the hail came, about five hundred million pounds of grain should be purchasable.
Of course, relying on this grain alone would not be enough to overcome the great famine, but now a third of the French provinces had planted potatoes, and the grain yield was expected to rise significantly and not be completely wiped out by the hail.
With efforts from both sides, getting through this winter safely should not be a problem. As for next year… that would have to be dealt with one step at a time.
Of course, another issue was that the French Government needed to have the funds to pay for these five hundred million pounds of grain.
Sure enough, in the latter half of the letters, the “white gloves” mentioned that the first two allocations of funds were nearly exhausted and asked His Highness to allocate the subsequent funds as soon as possible.
In addition, they also inquired about where the grain piled up in Le Havre was to be transported within the country.
Joseph couldn’t help but rub his temples, as transportation was also an extremely troublesome issue. Of course, in the end, it was still a matter of money.
You see, the transportation capabilities of this era were quite poor, and even using the cheapest river transport, the cost would double the price of the grain.
He had seen in a report from Valerna before that of the five million livres used to purchase potatoes in the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, nearly half had been spent on transportation costs. Explore more at m,v l’e-NovelFull.net
And this was the result of the Governor’s orders to cooperate fully along the way; otherwise, the expenses would be even higher.
Speaking of river transport, Joseph suddenly remembered that this year’s drought would lead to some waterways drying up. They would then be forced to transport grain by land, increasing costs several-fold.
Historically, during the Feuillants’ time in power, they used many means to requisition grain from other provinces to alleviate the food shortage in Paris, only to fail to get the grain to Paris in time because of the exorbitant cost of land transport.
And the fact that the people of Paris could not eat bread was one of the major reasons for the Feuillants’ eventual resignation.
Therefore, while river transport was still running normally, it was imperative to transport the grain from Le Havre to various places as soon as possible.
That was yet another substantial sum of money.
Joseph calculated that Paris Fashion Week was about to open, and it should be able to make some money, but the gap was still large.
The income from Paris Angel Company now had a large portion subsidizing the Crown Prince’s Guard Corps, leaving only a little over two hundred thousand livres each month.
The paper mill was still under construction and would not generate profits for at least three more months.
The winemaking industry itself didn’t collect much in patent fees, and it was not yet the season for mass production.
As for the industrial park in Nancy, it goes without saying that it still needed constant investment. Profits were not even worth considering.
Joseph looked out the car window at the streets speeding by and sighed inwardly; money was truly easier spent than earned.
It seemed that he needed to further intensify efforts to increase income and reduce expenditure.
As for generating income, he had always been working on it. The remaining were projects that required large investments and had long cycles; they were not likely to yield profits in the short term.
Another option, which was what the current European powers were engaged in, was colonial expansion.
Since the Age of Discovery, colonies had been the major source of funds for countries. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, they provided a massive amount of resources and also served as markets for product dumping.
Therefore, colonization was absolutely the necessary path for a country to become wealthy and powerful.
The current fiscal difficulties of France were largely due to the loss of vast colonies to the British after the defeat in the Seven Years’ War, leading to a drastic plummet in overseas earnings.
Joseph naturally began to ponder suitable locations for colonial development.
First, the Far East was definitely beyond their power to meddle in. Historically, it wasn’t until nearly a hundred years later, after France had completed the industrial revolution, that it re-engaged in the Far East.
As for the Americas, they were almost entirely within the spheres of influence of England and Spain. Although rich, the distance was too great, making it difficult to project power. For the moment, it would be good enough if France could maintain its current colonies in the Caribbean Sea.
After considering all options, he found the choice historically made by the French to be the most sensible: North Africa.
Close to France, it boasted vast areas of fertile land, particularly Egypt, a world-class strategic location. If they could seize Egypt and threaten the British by developing the Suez Canal, France could gain a significant strategic advantage.
However… Joseph immediately furrowed his brows, as England regarded France as a mortal enemy and closely monitored every French move.
If France showed any sign of gaining a foothold in North Africa, the British would definitely interfere. Historically, as soon as Napoleon landed in Egypt, his maritime supply lines were cut off by the British.
Thus, the most important thing about getting a hold of North Africa was how to deceive the British…
He thought hard for a long time but could not grasp the key. So, he had to temporarily let it go.
Since it was not easy to increase income in the short term, Joseph turned his thoughts to how to cut costs.
He reflected on the current major expenditure items of the French Government and was startled to find that the largest expenditure was actually the interest on the debt.
The interest payments exceeded two hundred million livres every year!
If he had that money, neither famine nor industrial development would be an issue.
However, the loan agreements were clear, and as time went on, the interest would only accumulate.
Joseph knew that in just two years, the French Government would need to pay over four hundred million livres in interest…
Note 1: The Suez Canal had not been developed in 1788. Trade from Asia to Europe had to go around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, a journey of over ten thousand nautical miles. However, taking the Suez Canal reduced the distance to only five thousand nautical miles. So whoever controlled the Suez Canal could control Europe’s trade!