King's Landing in France

"They have a large number of people in Paris and have a huge influence. In this sense, you have helped me." Christina said.

"But I still hope that you will maintain the image of that noble guardian of the revolution. This is my little personal expectation."

An Ning thought for a while, and replied: "I will publish a news in the newspaper, saying that in order to support the ideal of the steam revolution, Paul Barras has deposited [-] ounces of gold in the newly opened bank, and he can withdraw it at any time. "

Christina: "Even if you say so, Ballas won't dare to take it out."

An Ning was speechless, and then replied: "Well, at the end of this year, we will give him a dividend according to the proportion of his [-] ounces in our total share capital.

"That way people will believe that the five hundred ounces are an investment, not a bribe."

When An Ning said this, his heart ached. The steam engine factory he opened was losing money, because France really didn’t need so many steam engines, but the steam textile factory he opened was profitable, and could make up for the shortfall of the steam engine factory.

It's a bit distressing to cut a knife to Ballas all of a sudden.

But in order not to live up to the name of bribery, it had to be like this.

Christina: "I will also try my best to explain to everyone that this is an investment, not a bribe."

"Well, please." An Ning paused, then changed her smile, "Why don't we talk about the wedding next? How are the preparations for the wedding going?"

Christina also smiled, and her face was full of happiness: "Everything is going well, and if there are no accidents, we should be able to get married in August."

Chapter 308 I really admire Frost's foresight

The matter of An Ning accepting an investment of [-] ounces of gold was like dropping a blockbuster in Paris.

All the young and old in Paris were talking about it for a while.

All of a sudden, the balance of power in Paris changed subtly again.

One of the most notable changes was the sudden popularity of the balls and salons at Malmaison.

In the past, only people whom Josephine knew well would come to Malmaison's salon, but now it's a good thing, as soon as Josephine enters the hall where the salon is held, she can see people she doesn't know.

Josephine enjoyed the attention of the public very much. She was busy at salons and balls every day, and suddenly became the number one socialite in Paris.

In addition to these "timely" guys, there were many people in Paris who attacked Frost for accepting bribes.

But someone immediately refuted: The great General Frost saved France, what happened to some gold bars?Besides, what kind of onion is Paul Ballas? He has collected so much ill-gotten wealth, it is better to give it to General Frost than to put it with him.

The two factions practiced oral gymnastics in the streets and alleys of Paris and bars everywhere all day long, and the scuffle continued.

Sometimes the talk will develop into a duel or a random fight, and it is very lively for a while.

As for the "steam revolution" proposed by An Ning in several articles, no one cared about it at all.

For example, Lavoisier, who has been away from Paris for almost a year, is currently studying smokeless gunpowder in Marseille in the south.

But the gentlemen who are not in Paris are not completely unaffected, and one person is very concerned about this matter.

※※※

Fouché is far away in Lyon, and he is not as sensitive to Paris news as Ballas. This old and cunning guy deliberately showed that he was not interested in Paris. He neither entrusted someone to bring newspapers from Paris, nor arranged for someone to write regular letters about Paris. The situation then came quickly.

Fouché seems to be a parliamentary commissioner who is really not interested in everything in Paris and just wants to do his job in Lyon.

But this doesn't mean that he doesn't collect news from Paris anymore, it's just that the means he collects are relatively secretive.

For every person who comes from Paris, Fouché will find a way to find a reason to invite him to dinner. During the dinner, this old fox will calmly remember everything about Paris, and then click around and tick off some things he is interested in but others Things not mentioned.

Of course, Fouché, the Paris newspaper, would also read it, but it would be much later.

On this day, Fouché was reading the Paris newspapers that were many days late, and then suddenly came across an article criticizing Frost.

The title of the article is "Is the Savior of France Really So Great and Upright?" and the signature is Camille Desmoulins.

In this article, Desmoulins complained that Andy Frost claimed to have accepted an investment of [-] ounces of gold from Ballas and promised to pay dividends to Ballas. This behavior was actually accepting bribes, and then lamented that Even Frost has been corrupted, leaving Robespierre, the incorruptible, still standing strong.

But at the end of the article, Desmoulins asked: "Is Robespierre really incorruptible? I don't know when this man who is in charge of life and death in Paris will reveal his true colors?"

After reading the article, Fouché double-checked the byline and smiled.

He asked suspiciously the gentleman from Paris who brought him the newspaper: "Why is the commissioner laughing?"

Fouché: "Look at the signature of this article, this is the person who, together with Frost, encouraged the patriots to capture the Bastille, and he has known Frost for a long time at the Jacobin Club.

"This shows that the monolithic Jacobin Club has begun to split."

The visitor from Paris immediately showed a knowing smile: "You mean, your chance has come?"

Fouché: "General Frost, if he had been a sensible man, would have known that in such a situation men like myself could be trusted more than those brought together by the same ideals.

"Because my actions are based on my judgment and interests about the future situation, I am predictable and controllable, and I will not turn against each other because of differences in routes or cognition."

The visitor from Paris nodded understandingly, and then asked, "So you're going back to Paris?"

"No, there's no need. It's best to go back before Frost gets married. If you go back now and get caught by something, it's not worth the loss."

The visitor from Paris asked again: "So, Mr. Foucher, what do you think of this steam revolution that Frost talked about?"

Fouche: "Talleyrand should know better, he is now in England. Since the British began to use steam engines to dig coal and drive spinning machines in large quantities, their economic competitiveness has become much stronger immediately.

"Unlike us who are poor and clinking, the British government is very rich. This is not achieved simply by blood transfusion from the colonies. The steam engine has played a huge role in this.

"So don't ask me what I think of Frost's imagination of the steam revolution, you should ask me what I think of Britain, and my answer is that Frost has done well, and you can know that this is the future trend when you look at Britain.

"I really admire Frost's foresight."

Fouche seemed to forget that Frost couldn't hear him at this time, and said this sentence with very full and abundant emotion.

※※※

The great debate in the streets of Paris has an additional effect: Andy's new bank is overcrowded, and the bank now has "double insurance," one for Frost's enormous prestige and the other for the five dollars Ballas had just given him. hundred ounces of gold.

An Ning also specially organized a big job, asking the troops to escort a carriage full of gold bars through most of Paris, and put the gold bars into the bank's vault.

The bright gold blinded the eyes of many people, and the publicity effect was full.

Of course, putting all the gold in the vault made An Ning a little worried. After all, he was also someone who had watched John Khan's "Hardcore and Ruthless" series, and he knew how outrageous the thieves would be.

So An Ning arranged for soldiers to guard the vault in shifts, and every time before changing guards, the number of gold bars had to be counted.

The strict rules and regulations were quickly spread through the word of mouth of the soldiers guarding the gold bars, which in turn strengthened the desire of Parisians to deposit.

When the bank first opened, not so many people came to deposit gold.At that time, An Ning arranged dozens of entrustments, but in the end only one real depositor deposited the gold.

At that time, everyone in the audience wanted to applaud together.

But now, Anning's bank is full of people, and there are still queues for depositing gold.

When gold and silver began to flow into An Ning's hands continuously, An Ning decided to proceed to the next step.

He is going to issue a new banknote to replace the coupons.

Chapter 309 It's Polina Time Now

An Ning knew that to master the right to issue coins, two necessary conditions were required. One was to have a very high reputation, and the other was to have a large number of commodities in hand.

Not to mention prestige, this is the basis of currency issuance, and commodities are mainly used to ensure that the currency issued is useful.

Otherwise, if the banknotes are sent out, nothing can be bought, and the currency will soon become a beautifully printed piece of paper.

The thing that An Ning released in Italy attracted guarantees from several big chambers of commerce in Milan. The transactions of these chambers of commerce will use this equivalent coupon, so it was successfully promoted in Milan.

This is particularly important in the environment of France, because France has a tradition of anti-paper money. The paper money produced by the king's reforms before the Great Revolution directly caused the French people to generally distrust paper money.

The indiscriminate issuance of coupons after the Great Revolution made ordinary French people's favor for banknotes drop to a freezing point.

In order to fight against this deep-rooted negative emotion, An Ning must have a large number of circulating commodities.

Therefore, An Ning urged the National Assembly to pass a bill to impose high tariffs on cloth from the UK.

In this way, the prices of all the fabrics from the UK rose sharply, and the products of the steam spinning factory that An Ning established in the south occupied the market on a large scale.

In addition, An Ning also took advantage of his huge reputation in the southern countryside to establish a chamber of commerce for the unified purchase and sale of southern agricultural products.

These preliminary preparations are now fully completed.

And the printing of banknotes had already started. An Ning commissioned a committee composed entirely of painters to design the first banknotes of the Republic—referring to coupons that were something from the kingdom era, not counting.

The printing of banknotes was entrusted to the largest and most technologically advanced Berryman Printing House in Paris.

When the factory heard that this was a job entrusted by General Frost, they immediately dispatched their best engraver to carefully craft the printed master.

In July 1793, Anning's notes went offline.

On this day, An Ning went to the printing factory in person, and was the first to pick up the finished product that had just been printed.

"Oh, really good." An Ning looked at Mr. Voltaire printed on the banknotes, "The details are very clear!"

The director of the printing factory said respectfully: "I can assure you that only we can print such clear finished products!"

An Ning: "This is the effect I want."

In this era, it is impossible to provide so many anti-counterfeiting measures on banknotes. There are no anti-counterfeiting methods that are very common in later generations.

Therefore, in order to prevent counterfeiting, we can only make a fuss about the printing accuracy. Such a high printing accuracy must be the work of a large printing factory with skilled workers. It is easier to detect counterfeit banknotes printed by such factories.

An Ning looked at the banknotes and imagined the future happily: Now I am the chairman of the Federal Reserve of France, Greenspan of France.

As the one who holds the right to issue coins, my financial resources are unlimited. In the future, whether it is to promote rapid industrialization or refit the troops in batches, I will have a financial foundation!

As for An Ning Zhengmei, Napoleon's younger sister Paulina came over and said, "Who is the big head printed on this banknote?"

An Ning suddenly woke up from her imagination and glanced at Polina. The little girl looked curious and her big eyes flickered.

An Ning: "This is Mr. Voltaire. All denominations of banknotes are printed with the masters of enlightenment thought..."

"Oh!" Paulina interrupted An Ning, "I know this man, the one you rescued from the Bastille!"

An Ning choked for a moment and coughed several times before recovering.

"Uh, this..."

"That's what everyone says!" Paulina said enthusiastically. "Everyone also said that you are the illegitimate son of Voltaire, which is why you can make the revolution so good!"

An Ning scratched her head, wondering how the rumors were still evolutionary, and I suddenly became Voltaire's illegitimate child?

An Ning: "Uh, no, um, Mr. Voltaire was indeed imprisoned in the Bastille, but...uh, anyway, the reason is quite complicated, anyway, I am not his illegitimate child, no."

Paulina: "Then whose bastard are you?"

"I'm not an illegitimate child! I'm the son of a cobbler. Some people think it's shameful for a cobbler's son to ride on their head, so they make up various backgrounds for me.

"In the kingdom period, they said that I was the illegitimate son of a great nobleman. After the revolution, the nobles were worthless, so they began to say that I was the illegitimate son of Voltaire."

Paulina smiled happily: "My brother is right, as expected, you will be anxious when you question your background as a cobbler."

An Ning: "This Napoleon, is this something you can tell your sister?"

Paulina asked a new question: "By the way, why do you want to print Voltaire on banknotes? Isn't it more acceptable for everyone to print your face?"

An Ning: "I'm not a great person. As the first currency of the republic, it should naturally be printed on those great men who gave birth to the republic. Voltaire is printed on 100 yuan, Rousseau is on 50 yuan, etc..."

Paulina: "Why is Rousseau worth 50 yuan? Is he inferior to Voltaire?"

An Ning: "Of course not, he is also a very important Enlightenment thinker, on par with Voltaire..."

"Then why did he go for 50 yuan?"

"It has nothing to do with the face value. We just print the portraits of every enlightenment thinker on the money. One person is responsible for a face value, and there is no distinction between high and low."

Paulina: "But that's what people think. I really think they're indistinguishable, so they're printed together on the banknote, four people in a row."

An Ning: "That won't work, I will have a sense of déjà vu when there are four people in a row."

I think of Huo Yingshan, or the prototype of the US President Hill, or a certain version of the renminbi.

Paulina began pestering An Ning again to ask what "déjà vu" is.

While the two of them interacted like this, the owner of the printing factory and the Parisian dignitaries who came to attend the ceremony of rolling out the new banknotes were all watching.

Someone could not help but whisper a few words: "What is this, leave us alone and date a girl?"

As soon as the man finished talking, different people elbowed him in the side, stomped on his feet, and patted him on the back.

The man who poked his side said, "Be careful, Frost hasn't come out to kill people by himself recently, but he was a big murderer in the south back then, and the nobles in southern France were basically sent to the street by him— —there was no guillotine then.”

The person who stepped on the foot said: "You don't know, that little girl is Frost's new love, the younger sister of his hero Napoleon, and he has a good relationship with the little girl to make Napoleon give up on him."

The person who patted the back said: "Her brother was the one who bombarded the Duinleli Palace, and now he has won a great victory against the rebels in Cordini. It is said that he used [-] national troops to attack [-] to [-] rebels. And win big.

"If there is no accident, he should become Frost's second.