Chapter 114: , Sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight

  In these days in the south, Napoleon was busy retraining his army and compiling a new combat syllabus, because "Bonaparte’s Melon" brought too much change to the way of fighting. First of all, nowadays, any horizontal team and column will become tomorrow's yellow flowers immediately after the appearance of "Little Cantaloupe", because the threat to them by the skirmishers equipped with "Little Cantaloupe" is too great.
  In the past, a skirmisher fired at the queue. One shot passed and knocked down at most one person, and the queue counterattack could also knock him down. Most of the time, the skirmishers are more valuable than the private soldiers (the skirmishers must have a certain degree of autonomous combat effectiveness), so the threat is limited.
  But now it’s different. Throwing a "little melon" over can bring more damage than a bullet. According to the figures of the "Military Technology Research Institute", each "Little Melon" can have more than 30 cast iron fragments on average after the explosion, and each fragment has the equivalent of a bullet within 20 to 35 meters. The lethality. (Because the performance of the filled Republic 1 explosive is unstable, the damage radius of the cantaloupe also varies greatly)
  In this way, a "little melon" thrown by a skirmisher may cause several people or even a dozen people to be injured or killed. What's more, throwing a "little melon" is much faster than firing a bullet. Within the time of loading one bullet, the skirmishers can throw over dozens of "little melons". If an army is still rigidly using dense formations, then once they encounter a small group of skirmishers equipped with "little melons", they will be crushed.
Therefore, almost all French generals who have seen the performance of "Little Melon" on the battlefield, whether it is Napoleon in the south or Rubel in the north, have realized that since the "Little Melon", the skirmishers will inevitably Become the main way soldiers fight on the battlefield. But how to efficiently use the skirmishers equipped with "Little Melon" is not known to everyone. Therefore, Napoleon, who was originally responsible for the construction of the "Red Army", was ordered to study an efficient method of using skirmishers. Prepare a set of operational outlines to guide the future operations of the entire French army.
  In addition to this incident, another important thing for Napoleon was to confess with the whole family and unify the caliber together, so as not to let Joseph know about some things that happened outside Toulon. To be honest, the above did not transfer his army back, but asked them to suppress the place in the south while studying new tactics, which really relieved Napoleon.
During   , Napoleon and Joseph also exchanged some letters. Of course, because of Joseph's current special situation, communications between him and anyone must be checked by the National Salvation Committee. And it can be issued only after the signatures of the three members of the "National Salvation Committee". In addition, every letter he sends will be archived as an important confidential document in the National Salvation Committee for future reference. The safe containing his letters is said to be the work of His Majesty the King.
  Of course, so did the reply to Joseph. Under such circumstances, it is of course impossible for Joseph to discuss political matters with his unreliable brothers in the letter, even if he really wants to warn Napoleon. At this time, he must counsel a little and then counsel. One point, always persuaded, the Bonaparte family is saved, but he dare not mention half a word, even dare not even use cryptic words-Robespierre is a good lawyer, and lawyers are the best It's just plain text.
  So Joseph's letter to Napoleon is generally only a few ordinary greetings, and then the main content is some discussion of tactical details.
  Although before crossing, Joseph did not study military affairs. But after crossing over, especially in the past few years, he has been in charge of military work. Today Joseph, even without the intellectual benefits brought by crossing, is already a real expert. And Joseph has the knowledge of later generations as a reference, so his opinions naturally become more valuable. Even St. Just saw it and was amazed.
Joseph's hiding in the "Military Technology Research Institute" was largely to avoid the chaotic situation today, especially during this period of time, when the external enemy was defeated, all the contradictions within the Jacobins also appeared. Come out, the situation is messed up.
  Kano ordered Joseph to report to him at the Ministry of War. To a large extent, he wanted to know what Joseph thought about the current situation.
  It is said that the two people discussed for a long time in the office of the Ministry of War. As for what they discussed, both of them kept tight-lipped on the grounds that important secrets were involved. But after that, Kano rarely made any comments on political issues.
  Kano no longer speaks on political matters, but has brought another result, that is, his status in the entire "National Salvation Committee" seems to have risen. Even all the members of the committee, including Robespierre, are a little afraid of him. Because now, although Kano no longer speaks on political issues, when he speaks, there is definitely only one topic-asking for money!
"I want to remind everyone that the'equality grenade' is of course very good, but if the current situation is allowed to continue, we will soon be out of grenades! You must come up with a plan for me as soon as possible!" Kano blows his beard Staring at Robespierre, he turned on the hair dryer.
   "What's the matter, General Cano?" Robespierre leaned back slightly to keep himself away from Cano's mouth.
"What's the matter? Hell!" Kano slammed a document on the table with a "slap", "Look at it, look at it, how low is our stock of saltpeter and caustic now! Last one! In October, I mentioned this problem with you, and you said you will find a solution; I reminded you again last month, you still have not solved it. Live to hell, if this goes on, soon our army will have to use Cold weapons are fighting! I tell you, this issue cannot be delayed any longer, any delay is treason!"
Saltpeter and caustic (sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide) are both important raw materials for the production of explosives, and they are not produced in France. But these things are indispensable to France. The saltpeter mainly comes from Turkey, a traditional ally of the French. There are many saltpeter mines in its control area.
  As for caustic alkali, the sodium hydroxide used by the French was mainly from Spain, while the potassium hydroxide they used was mainly from the Baltic Sea region. Nowadays there are problems with the input of these materials.
  Because of the loss of half of the French fleet in Toulon, France lost its dominance in the Mediterranean. The British, Spanish, and even Italian navies severed the connection between France and its traditional ally, Turkey, and saltpeter could not be shipped in. The only way for the revolutionary government to respond was smuggling. However, the amount of smuggling is limited and cannot support the huge consumption during the war.
  As for caustic, it can only rely on smuggling. Smuggling of these things is limited in quantity, and the price is ridiculously high. Moreover, those smuggling merchants would not accept coupons at all, but only wanted real money. This has increased economic pressure.
"Kano, don't worry, we have already taken some measures." Robespierre said, "We have ordered the whole of France to carry out nitrate piles, but you also know that the output is limited, and it will take some time. Produced. But this is the only thing I can do right now."
"Well, in this case, tell me, how many nitrate dumps are you building now? What is the estimated output?" Kano said, "This is related to the next step in our army building, if the output can be guaranteed , We can produce more "melons". Otherwise, we can only compress or even suspend the production of these things."
  "We can only try our best. But Kano, you know, we can't make it out of nothing." Robespierre replied.
  Kano stopped speaking, he knew that Robespierre did their best in this matter. They even sent a special team to every village to collect the nitrate soil from the walls and barns of the farmers, and the ashes from the kitchen (this can be used to purify potash). And allow farmers to use these things to offset part of the tax.
   "Basically, we still have to rebuild the navy." Kano said at last.
   "Yes, we need to rebuild the navy, but this is not easy. We need more things to rebuild the navy."
"I suggest that we should set up a'material management committee' to coordinate the management of these important materials. And restart trade with neutral countries." Barrell said, "we should suspend the navigation law, and use hard currency and foreign exchange and other Materials trade with those neutral countries."
  "Hard currency? Where do we have so much hard currency?" Robespierre said.
"The property of those traitors is confiscated. In addition to money, there are all kinds of luxury goods, artworks, and various other things they need, such as wine or other things. Anyway, their cargo ships cannot go back empty. We can barter." Barrell replied.
   "The Paris Commune may be unhappy," Campon said.
  This is natural, because doing so means that a lot of materials will be used for bartering foreign trade, and France has not many things that can be used for foreign trade at this time. Don't look at Barrell's example of talking about wine, but everyone knows that wine alone is a drop in the bucket. The only thing that really makes sense is the "other things" he didn't say later.
  As for the other things that are not mentioned, everyone actually knows in their hearts. There is only one other thing that can be traded in a large amount, and that is food.
  This year there was a bumper harvest of grain. The pantless men represented by the Paris Commune thought that the price of food would come down. But if these grains are exported in large quantities, it is almost an artificial famine. The supporters of the Paris Commune are the poorest group of people, and they must be the group that suffered the most from this policy. So it can be foreseen that the Paris public society is very dissatisfied with this.
"Yes, they will be unhappy. If we do this, it will cause people to starve. Some people may even starve to death because of this. Paris may be okay. After all, we will take more care of Paris, but in other provinces In rural areas, there may be people who grow food and starve to death during the harvest year. But if we don’t do this, we will completely collapse economically. Economic collapse will also become military and political By that time, more people will die, and the cost of flying out will be greater." Barrell said.
  "This matter, I think I must do it, even if I take the risk." Robespierre said, "As for the reaction of the Paris Commune, I think I will talk to Ebel. They should be able to understand the difficulties of the Republic."
   Robespierre said so, but everyone did not think he could really convince Ebel them. Especially Kano, he even immediately remembered what Joseph said when he "reported his work" to him.
"The scarcity of materials, especially strategic materials, will be the most difficult problem to solve below. If this problem is not resolved ~ EbookFREE.me ~ the previous victory of the Republic will be meaningless. But to solve these problems, it will It can only rely on trade with neutral countries. The Republic lacks hard currency, so to a large extent, it can only rely on barter transactions. And the only goods that the Republic can provide in large quantities are food. In this way, it will definitely hurt The interests of farmers and the bottomless men in the city. They will certainly not agree.
  So the National Salvation Committee will definitely clashed with the Paris Commune. Ebel has a lot of ambitions, he is afraid he has long felt that he has not obtained the position he deserves.
  Haha, the establishment of the Republic relied on the revolution of the Paris Commune; the power of the Paris Commune to cut off the king’s head; in the end, the Mountain Sect defeated the Marsh Sect and relied on the support of the Paris Commune.
  However, after the victory, the Paris Commune got nothing. The National Salvation Committee is the most powerful institution in the entire country and the core of national power. However, none of the representatives of the Paris Commune could enter this institution. Do you think Ebel will be willing?
  He will certainly not be reconciled. He will definitely try to take advantage of this opportunity to take advantage of the dissatisfaction of the pantsless man to launch a revolution, to guillotine all those in the National Salvation Committee, and then establish the direct rule of the Paris Commune over France. But Lazar, I think the situation today is different from when the Brissots were still in control of the National Assembly. At that time, the National Assembly was not united, and no effective measures could be taken. But the current National Salvation Committee is not so easy to deal with. Just wait and see, there will be a good show..."