This autumn is unusually rainy in northern France. From La Rochelle to Nantes, from Brest to Le Havre, from Paris to Dunkirk, there is not a place where the muddy and wet weather and the resulting poor harvest for agricultural producers are not suffering.

The failure of the agricultural harvest meant that the French had to spend extra cash to procure food from abroad, which was somewhat difficult in the face of the increasing persecution of the Huguenots in France and the flow of money out of France through legal and illegal channels. After all, the funds controlled by the Huguenots were still very considerable, and most of them were merchants, bankers, navigators, skilled craftsmen, artists and other middle and upper classes of society, and they were relatively wealthy themselves, so even if they were persecuted, even if the French government ordered that no Huguenots should be allowed to leave the country and not to assist them in transferring their property, there were still too many loopholes at the specific implementation level, so that most of the rich and powerful Huguenots left safely. The only people who remained in France and suffered were the low-level Huguenots who worked as farmers, sailors, and craftsmen in general, who did not have much money.

With so much money flowing into England and the United Provinces through various means, the money in the French market is somewhat insufficient, and the tax revenue that the government can receive has begun to decrease, so that neither public nor private can raise enough money to purchase food from the outside world - of course, this is an exaggeration, because France has a population of more than 20 million, and the wealth created is not a small amount, not to the point where it cannot afford to import food. But if you spend more money in this area, you will definitely spend less money in other areas, such as military spending or something.

However, the East Coast ambassador to Paris, Lin Dingzhi, helped the French solve this problem: he creatively helped the French introduce the grain business worth more than one million livres from the northern shore of the Black Sea, and advised the French to continue to make huge purchases in Syria and Egypt, the famous grain-producing regions. The Ottoman Empire had a bumper grain harvest this year, so although they were a little embarrassed on the battlefield, they had a lot of resources after all, and the order of the regions that were not involved in the war was relatively stable, and grain production was not affected in the slightest.

Lin Dingzhi got the news through Gao Wengang, and then contacted the French directly, saying that he could help them solve part of the food gap through the relationship of the Crimean Khanate. The French were also interested in this route, and for many years the Ottoman Empire had attached great importance to the Black Sea as its own backyard, and it was easy not to let outsiders in unless you got their special approval. Therefore, the number of French merchants who had access to the Black Sea and even the Sea of Azov was actually very limited, which led to a lack of clarity about what happened in the Crimean Khanate. They only vaguely knew that the Genaeans and Venetians had set up trading posts there to purchase grain and livestock, but they did not know exactly how large it was, or they were too lazy to know.

But this time they found that the Crimean Khanate, a nomadic country with relatively strong cavalry, could throw out so much grain to supply them in one go (it is said that it was still in preparation for war and banned too much grain exports), which is simply incredible! Haven't the grassland peoples never been able to produce and are relatively short of food? Crimean Khanate, what the hell is this road? Could it be that the country has been completely transformed? Was it done under the influence of the East Coasters?

In any case, the grain business introduced on the east bank helped the French a lot, and at the same time brought valuable money to the Crimean Khanate. Especially in such a tense moment, it is important that they receive every monetary or material aid, because it means that they have another point of hope of winning the war.

Grain from the Black and White Seas was transported back to the ports of northern France by merchants, and then distributed to towns and towns via canals and roads, where it was sold to the hungry. The French once asked the East Coast if they could transfer steam train technology to them to help France build a railway from Paris to Strasbourg, but Lin Dingzhi refused without hesitation, even if the French were willing to give the East Coast the privilege of low tariff rates, because trains were not included in the list of domestic goods exported.

However, perhaps in order to appease the French, or perhaps to be genuinely interested in the French market, the East Coasters promised a certain degree of technical support for France, such as steam engine technology. As we all know, the steam engine has been widely used in Britain now, and has long gone out of the mines, docks and other places, and began to develop into machining, grinding, forging hammers and other industries, and has made great progress. Compared with the British, the progress of the French side is much slower, and it can still only be used for low-level applications of pit pumping and dock lifting, and the only deep-level applications are only used by large mills to grind flour, which is far less slippery than the British, so this has caused a gap in production efficiency between Britain and France.

Perhaps the current gap is not very large, and France has a relatively large population, so the gap in national strength between the two countries is not obvious enough. However, with the development of the British economy and the infusion of foreign capital, technology and population, the population growth rate of the British population in the state of peace is higher than that of the war-torn Kingdom of France, so if there is no surprise, there is no doubt that the balance of national power between Britain and France will gradually become more inclined to the British side in the future.

Therefore, the people of the East Coast intended to give the French a little gift, which was to export to them the old steam engine production line design that had long been obsolete at home, and to help them to rebuild a new production line accordingly, which was a little more advanced than the British had just hatched, or at all, of the same level.

For example, a machine-made flour production line to be exported to Orleans, a suburb of Paris, is a relatively primitive and old steam engine design, newly made, and then packaged and sold to France together with the production line. This not only allowed the French to greatly open up the market and let the goods of the east coast enter, but also strengthened the national strength of France in disguise, giving them more energy to scare the air and drag the energy of major powers such as Austria, Prussia, Sweden, England, and the United Provinces, so that they did not have the heart to make trouble outside, and at the same time let Spain see the power of it, and rely on the east coast people more closely.

So this is a completely one-size-fits-all business, which has been approved by Gao Wengang and shipped back to China by a special ship for review by the superiors, and I believe that the obstacles to passing will not be very big, because they are really very eager for the market that the French have ceded, which is essential for nourishing the local industry in South America.

At a time when Lin Dingzhi, the ambassador to the East Coast, was frequently "wandering" among the mansions of various nobles in the upper class of French society, in the London Iron Mansion across the Strait, Cai Zhenguo, the ambassador of the East Coast, was receiving some businessmen who had just been withdrawn from Moscow.

Most of these people were East Bank businessmen active in Arkhangelsk and Moscow, both staff of state trading stations and a number of brave private wholesalers. They had been trading with Russia for many years, simply taking machinery and parts thereof, military supplies, books, and other goods permitted for export from the East Coast, and selling them to poor Russians, from whom they purchased such goods as furs, grain, timber, whale products, wax, honey, and hemp, and resold them to England, France, or Italy for a profit.

It can be seen that the demand for goods from the East Coast in Russia is relatively large, but the demand for Russian goods from the people on the East Coast is not large, or even if there is, they are purchased for entrepot trade, not for their own use. Considering that the East Coasters did not have a strong shipping and sales network in Europe - no ships could not do business in these years, and the captain was synonymous with merchants at the same time, and there were few pure transport merchants - so they really could not purchase the above goods from Russia in large quantities, so the trade with the Russians was actually unequal, and it was easy to take out the Russians' cash, so the scale was never up, and the Russians also had some nerves from time to time to blackmail the East Coast merchants, so the business has been stumbling.

After weighing the pros and cons of the war at Vienna, Russia finally decided to gradually reduce the scale of its business in Russia, slowly recoup the funds, and gradually divert personnel to London, Amsterdam and Riga, so as not to anger them in the future and cause undue economic and human losses.

Cai Zhenguo met with the second group of evacuees today, and some of them even had engineers working at the Arkhangelsk Gun Repair Plant and the Little Star Shipyard. The departure of these people has already made the Moscow side a little uneasy, but their current internal strife is relatively fierce, the palace intrigues are one after another, and Princess Sophia, who holds great power, has no time to deal with the east coast at all, so the withdrawal of these people has not caused any monstrous waves.

Of course, then again, even if the Russians are not happy, this time the east bank is determined to withdraw. Their determination to defend Crimea was so strong that they did not hesitate to abandon the relations they had built in Russia for many years (in fact, they did not manage much) and fully supported the political, military, and economic reforms of the Crimean Khanate to strengthen its national power against Russian aggression.

"Russia could go south at any time." Cai Zhenguo held a tea party in the conference room, chatted with the retreating personnel, and only heard him say: "We expect that the Russians will send 100,000 troops, and Eastern Ukraine can also gather 50,000 Cossacks, which is 150,000 people. Therefore, in order to support the Crimean Khanate, we will certainly take some more radical measures, which will certainly cause displeasure among the Russians, so that you will not be able to return to Russia in the near future. At this time, I sincerely suggest that you can temporarily go to the Kingdom of France on the other side of the Channel, and use your wisdom and wisdom to help Ambassador Lin Dingzhilin to develop the market in France and lay a good foundation for the mass sales of products from the Great East Coast in France. ”

"There are more than 20 million people in France, and they are rich, even if they will be a little poor because of the war, but the overall market is still not small, and it is worth our focus on tackling key problems." Cai Zhenguo continued: "Entering the French market is an opportunity that is not easy to get, and we have been working hard for several years, so we must know how to cherish it. Of course, if any of you want to stay in the UK, I have no objection to it, because this is actually a dynamic emerging market with a lot of opportunities, and it is not unavoidable to stay. In short, I want to say that Russia will not be able to go back in a short time, and the determination of Gao Wengang's special envoy and Commander Mao Jun has been decided, and thousands of men and horses have already marched eastward in batches to Haji County on the coast of the Black Sea to garrison, and it is not impossible to participate in the war. In short, we have offended the Russians miserably this time, and relations between the two countries are destined to enter a low ebb, so it is better to be careful. ”

"Of course, if you want to return to China, it is not impossible, after all, many domestic industries are continuing to develop, some new technologies have begun to be widely used, and there are still more business opportunities." Cai Zhenguo finally said.