Chapter two thousand and ninety-five Han Tong in England
When the Coal War first started, everything was going well. Although the war broke out, the English royal family could still support it.
In recent years, the British royal family has actually made a lot of money by exporting coal to the Tang Dynasty. The royal family has a deposit of millions in the Royal Bank account!
Among the many small countries in Europe, the English royal family has actually lived a relatively comfortable life in recent years, at least much better than the Scottish royal family in the north.
But all this money was spent in a coal war, and most of the money was used to purchase weapons and supplies for Datang.
After all the money was spent, they had to find ways to borrow money. To this end, the British royal family had already borrowed nearly two million yuan from the Royal Bank.
However, this is still not enough!
The continuation of the Coal War has completely depleted the finances of the English royal family. Now it is even difficult to borrow money because they have mortgaged almost everything they can reach.
All that is left is land, but the attitude of the Tang Dynasty people is clear: they will not accept payment for land in principle!
In order to be able to pay with land, the Ottoman Kingdom begged for a long time. Only then did the Tang Dynasty reluctantly agree to the Ottoman Kingdom paying with the territory of North Africa.
As for England, for the time being, the empire doesn't have much interest in this poor place.
The climate in this place is not very good. It is cold and cold most of the year with no sunlight.
Relatively speaking, the Tang Empire had a favorable impression of the places along the Mediterranean Sea. The climate there was good, but unfortunately there were too many indigenous people.
Therefore, if you don't want land or anything like that, don't want it. It would be great to just sell weapons and make money.
Besides, if we really want this place, with the coal war in England now affecting Scotland in the north, it is estimated that when their coal war is over, not only will the finances be completely ruined, but the population will also plummet.
At that time, you can try to negotiate with the winner among them, buy the place at a good price, and then help move their remaining population to Africa. In this way, you can make money and buy the land.
In short, I don’t want this crappy place now. If you want it later, let’s talk about it later.
By using tariff and coal revenue as collateral, the English royal family obtained 800,000 Tang Yuan in funds. Using this money, the English royal family purchased 20,000 ordinary-type Suifa muskets and one hundred muskets from the Datang Arms Trading Company.
Artillery and a large number of weapons and ammunition.
Using these weapons and ammunition, the English royal family will supplement part of the existing army and form a new army of approximately 10,000 people.
This time, the English royal family was extremely determined to quell the civil strife, completely win the coal war, and thereby control the entire coal resources in England for export.
In their words, if the war is won, they will be able to mine more coal in the future and earn more income by exporting it to Datang. This income will be enough for them to repay the loan in the future and even have a surplus.
If the war is lost, then there is no need to think about repaying the loan, and the throne may not be able to be saved by then.
Interestingly, the other party in the Coal War, the Free Army of England, had the same idea as them.
What freedom?
This is not talking about human freedom as later generations would say, but freedom of trade!
In other words, they just wanted to trade coal with the Tang Dynasty on their own, and refused to sell the coal they mined to the London royal family at a low price, and then the King's Division in London unified the organization to sell it to the Tang Dynasty.
At the same time, I also want to control more coal mines!
They want more profits.
Of course, this was their initial thought. As for now, the coal war is no longer just an issue of coal interests, but an issue of England's national system.
Because these appear to be great nobles, but are actually coal merchants and wool merchants. They directly refuse to recognize the ruling power of Elizabeth I, deny that she is the Queen of England, and even reject messy things like the Parliament of England. They think these are barbaric.
The backwardness of England was also the direct cause of England's backwardness and various sufferings.
If England wants to become stronger, it must reform.
And how to reform?
What else can you do? The Tang Empire is right in front of you, just follow it and learn from it.
Learn from the Tang Empire to develop industry and commerce, establish a complete education system, and actively participate in trade.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand why the Tang Dynasty was so powerful, just follow the example. The Tatar Kingdom did quite well in this regard.
To be honest, all aspects of the system of the Golden Kingdom of Tatar were almost copied from the Tang Empire. Not only the political system was copied, but also the military was copied.
For example, people in the Tatar Kingdom now also implement a military rank system, and the military ranks range from first-class private to second-class private to lieutenant, colonel, and then to general. They don't even need to translate the title, they just use it directly.
Why?
Because the official language of the Tatar Kingdom is also Chinese...
The Tatar Jin Kingdom copied basically everything that could be copied. As for what could not be copied, there was no way but to improve it on its own. In short, what the Tatar Jin Kingdom did was to 'learn from the strengths of the Tang Dynasty and use it to control the Tang Dynasty'. However,
After playing for so long, they desperately found that the gap between them and Datang was getting bigger and bigger, so big that they didn't even have the courage to continue to imitate and learn.
However, this is only relative to the Tang Dynasty. If it is compared to other countries, then the current Tatar Golden Kingdom is a giant!
They have no serfs or slaves. The nearly 20 million people under their rule are all free people and can work freely. At the same time, a large number of farmers can obtain land distributed by the government for free for cultivation. At the same time, the Tatar Golden Kingdom has been established as much as possible.
Although the government-run education system is not large in scale, it has been established at least.
And they also have a large professional army.
At the same time, their weapons and equipment are basically self-sufficient. Although the quality is a bit poor, there is no shortage of flintlock guns and smoothbore cannons.
Such a Tatar Kingdom, without the Tang Empire, would undoubtedly be the most terrifying country on earth. Especially for Europe, which was still in the Middle Ages, the power of the Tatar Kingdom was invincible.
of.
Without the support of the Tang Empire, Europe would have been wiped out by the Tatar Kingdom long ago.
Now, if England wants to change its current barbaric and backward situation and integrate itself into the civilized world, what is the best way?
Just like the Tatar Golden Kingdom, it moved closer to the Tang Empire in politics, military, education, industry and commerce.
The idea of the English Free Army was to comprehensively learn from the Tang Dynasty, so they eagerly hoped to establish a new country where the monarchy was supreme, had a complete imperial examination system, established a professional bureaucratic administrative system, and also valued education and industrial and commercial development.
The British royal family actually agrees with their ideas.
Even in the early days, Elizabeth I was very confused, what are you doing? I also agree with the ideas you said, especially the supremacy of monarchy, so I raise my hands in favor!
So you are free to just let me continue to be the queen, and then carry out education and industrial and commercial reforms and that's it, why bother?
This is because Charles, the leader of the Free Army of England, claims to be a descendant of Charles II, the last monarch of the Plantagenet dynasty hundreds of years ago, and calls himself Charles III!
I have to be the king!
As for authenticity and nonsense, it must be fake!
Not only is the bloodline fake, but the name is also fake.
What outsiders don't know is that Charles III, the leader of England's Free Army and the self-proclaimed orthodox heir of the Plantagenet dynasty, is a genuine Tang Dynasty man.
His name is Li Handong. His father is of English descent, but he was naturalized in the Tang Dynasty with Viscount Gerdes 40 years ago and became a real Tang person. His mother is a naturalized Portuguese.
Li Handong was born and raised in Guangzhou. When he grew up, he entered the Investigation and Statistics Section of the Hanlin Academy and is now the deputy director of the Covert Operations Division of the European Department.