At the royal palace in Berlin, Frederick III felt only a lot of pressure. After the outbreak of the economic crisis due to the war, the Kingdom of Prussia fell into the Great Depression early.

The Berlin government has been able to sustain itself until now, and it has only been by overturning the table and raiding the house to obtain a sum of money.

The overturning of the table also came at a cost, and although Frederick III took decisive measures to resume production in time, the government's revenues suffered greatly.

If that's all there is, it's nothing, and you'll always be able to recover after a while.

However, the house leak was rained overnight, and the factory was just assigned, and everyone was about to roll up their sleeves to do it, when the economic crisis that swept the world came.

A large number of products are piled up, but they can't be sold. The officers and soldiers who got the factory had to solve the problem with the government.

There was not enough market, and Frederick III could not change it. There is overcapacity in the whole of Europe, and the two big hooligans of Britain and Austria are playing dumping unscrupulously.

As a result, the prices of industrial and commercial products in the world are now lower than the production costs of Prussian enterprises. Not only in terms of price, but also in terms of quality, Prussian products are far behind.

The Berlin government had an agreement with the British creditors that they could theoretically settle their debts with industrial and commercial products, but unfortunately the pricing power was in the hands of the British.

For example, now, the British refer to the wholesale price in the international market to make a 7% discount, and then after the comprehensive quality assessment deduction, it is the final price.

According to British pricing, the price of most goods is less than half of the cost of production.

"Selling" is a blood loss, and this loss cannot be borne by the producers, otherwise one of the factories in the country will be counted as one, and all of them will go bankrupt.

This was absolutely unacceptable to the Berlin government, and now these factory owners were the cornerstone of the Kingdom of Prussia.

It was not easy to buy them with economic interests, so that the Junker aristocracy accepted disarmament, and now they immediately smashed their jobs, which is a dead government.

The tide of revolution in Europe was so strong, and the Kingdom of Prussia was able to maintain stability because of the preservation of employment.

The factories are all the workers themselves, and naturally there is no unemployment. In order to reassure the people, the Berlin government assured everyone that the cost price would be covered.

When the economy is functioning normally, there is no problem with this promise. Enterprises are going to make money, and no one will deliberately produce a bunch of unsalable products and throw them to the government to find trouble.

Now it's different, the economic crisis has broken out, the market is a mess, and businesses can't make money at all.

According to the agreement, now that everyone's products cannot be sold, the Berlin government is obliged to help them dispose of them at cost price.

Prussia had no colonies, and if it wanted to dump goods, it had to compete with European countries.

From a purely economic point of view, the British are pricing reasonable. It is true that Prussian industrial and commercial products are not competitive, and can only play a price war.

Don't count on the European continent, which is affected by the economic crisis, and most of the European population is very poor, unless it is a commodity that is just needed, otherwise it is difficult to find a market.

For many people, the commodity that was just needed at this time was grain, and unfortunately Prussia did not have enough to eat this thing itself, and exports did not exist.

These industrial and commercial products of poor quality can only be dumped overseas. There is no doubt that Prussia does not have the capacity to carry out global dumping, and most of the overseas markets they cannot enter.

There are only a few countries that have a relatively complete business network and are capable of dumping in most parts of the world.

They are Britain, Austria, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and these six countries all have a common feature - colonial empires.

Among them, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal were all in decline, and the commercial network was still there, but there were not many colonies, and they could not absorb the industrial capacity of Prussia.

France had many colonies, but the market was not large, and the domestic capitalists were not enough to divide up, so it was naturally impossible to let Prussian goods enter.

Austria's colonies are well developed and the market is relatively perfect, but it is a pity that Austria's own industrial capacity is very large and there is no surplus market.

Moreover, even if Prussian goods were to be put in, they would not be able to sell them in the face of competition from Austrian goods.

The British had the most colonies, the market was relatively abundant, and the internal competition was not so fierce, so it could be said that Prussia was the only option.

In this context, the British naturally want to lower the price. On the one hand, they exported industrial raw materials to Prussia, and on the other hand, they accepted Prussian industrial and commercial products to pay off their debts, which seemed to be helping the Berlin government, but in fact Prussia was working for them for nothing.

Not only did they work for nothing, but now the British went one step further and wanted to make the Kingdom of Prussia work at a loss.

Frederick III is now in the same mood: fortunately, he worked hard for a year, and at the end of the year he did not earn a penny, and he still owed a lot of debt.

But he can't refuse yet, otherwise he will lose his job, and the mortgage, credit card, ~~ and bei will be pressed together, which is simply ......

Life always has to pass, and "blood loss" is better than "blood loss". The price was depressed, and the Berlin government had to bear the loss.

Frederick III asked expectantly: "What is the situation, have the English agreed to the extension of the debt?" ”

There is no way, the Kingdom of Prussia is short of resources, and it must import industrial raw materials, which everyone does not recognize, which must consume foreign exchange.

The agreement with the British in kind did not mean that the goods were thrown to the creditors, and the Berlin government was not so domineering.

Most of Prussia's creditors were banks and financial institutions, and these people were playing with finance and had no interest in international commodity trade.

The real situation was that Prussia sold its industrial and commercial products to the British capitalists in exchange for foreign exchange, and after deducting the costs, the rest of the money was used to pay off the debt.

The effect of the "agreement" was that the British government would also bring in Prussian goods. Otherwise, under the free trade system, the sales of Prussian goods would be limited to the British mainland, and you would not be able to sell them at all.

Now that prices have plummeted, the selling price of commodities is not enough for the cost of industrial raw materials, and the Berlin government naturally has no "foreign exchange" to repay its debts.

Foreign Secretary Ferdeman's face sank suddenly: "We have tried our best, and even won the support of the London government, but in the end the negotiation failed."

The impact of the economic crisis on the UK has been greater than we expected, and the banks are now short of money.

One of our creditors, Garrit Bank, went bankrupt during the negotiations because of a broken capital chain. ”

Creditors are also short of money, which is a big problem. In particular, the Garrit Bank, which itself went bankrupt due to the rupture of the capital chain, is even more unlikely to agree to the debt extension.

Frederick III sighed deeply and asked the Chancellor: "How much foreign exchange do we have now, and how long can we hold it up with normal debt payments?" ”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Owitz frowned and replied: "The situation is very bad, and now all our foreign exchange is worth about 7,656,000 pounds, including 3,540,000 pounds, 5,680,000 Aegis, and 8,000,000 francs......

Theoretically, if you don't spend anything else, you can only pay off your debts, which can last up to seven months.

In reality, this is not possible. We must import industrial raw materials, machinery and equipment, and agricultural products to meet the needs of domestic production and life. ”

Foreign exchange is both in and out, and under normal circumstances, it is still possible to break even with the export of industrial and commercial products.

After all, domestic industrial raw materials and labor costs do not need to pay foreign exchange, and the problem can be solved with marks.

7.656 million pounds is equivalent to 56.04 tons of gold, which is a well-deserved huge amount of money in this era, exceeding the total gold reserves of many countries.

If there is no external debt to be repaid, for a small country, so much foreign exchange reserves are enough to live a very prosperous life.

Unfortunately, there was no if, and the Kingdom of Prussia had a huge foreign debt to repay. This huge amount of money is only enough to pay off seven months of debt.

In fact, it could not last that long, and now the Kingdom of Prussia has entered an era of trade deficit due to the fall in the prices of export commodities.

Unless the creditors were willing to accept the mark's payment, the Berlin government would not have been able to pay the debt on time.

……

When Franz received a telegram from the Berlin government asking for help, Franz's first reaction was to encourage the Prussians to pay their debts.

As soon as this thought came out, it was as if I had entered a demonic barrier, and it could no longer linger.

"What will happen if the Berlin government defaults?"

Foreign Secretary Wessenberg's face changed slightly: "Your Majesty, Prussia's economy is seriously affected by the British, and the Berlin government does not have the ability to default on its debts.

If Berlin defaults on its government debt, the British only need to impose trade sanctions on them, or Prussia will collapse in less than half a year. ”

It is a fact that if the Royal Navy takes the coastline, the Kingdom of Prussia will fall into a state of embarrassment due to the lack of industrial raw materials and the lack of markets for products.

Of course, they can also bypass neighboring countries by land, but the cost is enough to bankrupt any business.

Felix retorted: "Not necessarily! In normal times, perhaps the British would do this to set an example for the monkeys.

But now it is different, and the wave of revolution in Europe is intensifying.

The French revolutionaries had occupied Paris, and the Kingdom of Prussia was in a very bad situation, and a revolution could break out at any time.

As long as the British were not prepared to collect debts from the revolutionaries, the Kingdom of Prussia could not be brought to an end.

Now that the Berlin government is really unable to repay, it is a matter of time before the debt defaults, and the London government should also be prepared.

As long as the Berlin government does not directly declare that it will default on its debts and find a reasonable excuse for the debt moratorium, the British government will not resort to extreme measures.

It was the banks, financial institutions, and speculators who lent money to the Berlin government, and these interest groups, although they had great influence in Britain, did not reach the point of making decisions for the government.

It is impossible for the British government to ignore the overall national strategy for the sake of their interests. Without the support of the government, these people could not help the Kingdom of Prussia at all.

If the situation in Europe deteriorates further, then the Berlin government could also negotiate terms with the British to seek some debt relief. ”

It is not yet after World War II, the aristocratic group is at its peak, and the consortium wants to control the government.

The French Revolution was already terrifying, and if the Prussian Revolution had been allowed to succeed, the European revolutionary tide would no longer have been able to control it.

Although Britain was isolated abroad, the revolutionary wave did not spare them.

Britain and France have been exporting each other for many years, and they will not be able to stand alone as the revolution spreads.

……

On May 1, 1882, a huge anti-hunger campaign broke out in the Kingdom of Prussia, and countless people took to the streets to demand that the government import more food to solve the food shortage in the country.

After the outbreak of the anti-hunger movement, the Berlin government reacted very quickly and came to the aid of the international community in the shortest possible time.

At the same time, on the grounds that the repayment of foreign debts consumes a large amount of foreign exchange and there is no money to buy food, they ask the creditors to postpone the payment of their debts.

Undoubtedly, this is not like a "request" but more like a notice.

At the same time as the request, the government in Berlin had already suspended debt payments for May.

It was announced that the debt repayment funds in May would be used to buy grain to solve the food shortage in the country.

Most of the creditors of the Kingdom of Prussia were concentrated in Britain and France, which together held 95.4% of the foreign debt of the Berlin government.

If we get rid of the two big creditors of Britain and France, we can say that we have got all the creditors, and to be precise, we can just get rid of the British.

The French are very busy now, and the civil war has broken out, and they can't care about this trivial matter for a while.

Was there really a famine in the Kingdom of Prussia?

It depends on what the British think!

If the London government accepted this statement, then a famine "really" broke out in the Kingdom of Prussia.

If the London government did not approve of this statement, then there would have been no famine in the Kingdom of Prussia.

Politics only has to weigh the pros and cons, and the truth doesn't matter.