C1757 A hard decision (1/2)

France in the 19th century definitely wanted to be a great influence in the world, and the position of the second most powerful country in the world was not out of the question.

The first time, the Industrial Revolution originated from Britain, and France and the United States followed suit. They also managed to complete the country's initial industrialization during the first time, as well as hoarding large amounts of capital.

Following that, during the first transition between Industrial Revolution and itself, France embarked on a completely different path of development, namely usury capitalism.

In the international community at that time, there was a very common loan business between the people and the people, between the country and the country, between the country and the people.

At that time, if the European countries wanted to colonize and start a war, if they wanted to build a brand-new army, it was very common for them to not have the money to borrow. In any case, with the national tax as the safety valve, the business was very safe.

At that time, France had already tasted the benefits of usury capitalism. They made a lot of money from this kind of financial lending business, and then Napoleon III used his abundant capital to develop his army. He won a few battles to expand some colonies, which further increased France's national credit.

The richer France is, the more money it can make from home loans, and the stronger France is, the more secure it will be in terms of the recovery of loans.

Until the later stages of the Second Industrial Revolution, which was before the Second World War, France's economic model should have been called usury imperialism, while Britain should have been called colonial imperialism, the United States should be called trust imperialism, and the Prussian Germany should be called Junker imperialism.

Imperialism, on the other hand, is a stage of capitalism, a stage of monopolization, and it goes without saying that almost everyone knows it.

Since the France had the title of usury imperialist, one could imagine how rich this country was. According to historical records, in 1914, French outbound investment, which was the home loan, amounted to 6 billion Gold franc.

This was not a randomly printed credit currency by the central bank. In those days, francs were always used to lock in gold, and paper money was equivalent to gold. In those days, people often heard of deflation but did not know what inflation was.

From the looks of it, the 5 billion Gold franc compensated by the Franco-Prussian War were nothing to the France.

With such abundant national power, it was truly not something that the current Hua Clan could afford to offend. Wang Huaiyuan and Sima Yun's worries were not without reason.

Xiao Letian fell into deep thought. It wasn't just because of Molière's small life, it was because he needed to properly judge the relationship between him and France. How to make the France go crazy and squeeze even more oil out of it was the key issue.

In the history of the Franco-Prussian War, France compensated 5 billion Gold franc. How much silver was this equivalent to the Great Qing at the same period? In his previous life, there was actually a scholar who had studied it.

Based on the exchange rate of the currency at that time, using the sterling as the most stable currency, someone had calculated that 5 billion Gold franc was equivalent to 200 million pounds of silver, and 200 million pounds of silver was equivalent to 721 million taels of silver.

From this, it could be seen that the world of the 19th century followed the laws of the jungle. Europe was ruthless towards the Great Qing, they were not courteous towards their own people, and their knife sharpened.

But what made the world gasp in shock, especially what made Bismark regret the most, was that France had spent only three years to repay this debt with interest.

Bismark was shocked. Originally, the Prime Minister Iron-Blood wanted to extort from France a huge sum of money, making it impossible for France to afford the money. In exchange for the Prussian Army's permanent presence in the France and obtaining the Alsatian Lorraine region.