The Crown Prince of France - Chapter 139

Chapter 139: Expanding Sources and Cutting Costs

The famous American five-star general MacArthur once said, "The sky is vast, the earth is vast, but Father is the greatest." The summons of Father is certainly the highest priority.

Joseph helplessly looked towards the carriage and signaled to Eymond, "Let's go to the Palace of Versailles first. We can look at it in detail once we're on the carriage."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Before long, several carriages left the Bureau of Industrial Planning.

Inside the carriage, Joseph opened the envelopes one by one.

The letters were sent by the three "white gloves" who had helped him purchase grain from overseas. For the sake of secrecy, they had used coded language.

Joseph took the cipher book from Eymond's hands and painstakingly compared it as he read.

The letter began with a report from the "white gloves" on the status of grain procurement, which was generally optimistic. The first two shipments had brought in nearly 70,000 seties of grain from places like the United Kingdom, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, 10,000 seties of corn, and more than 30,000 seties of potatoes.

Setie was a commonly used unit of measurement at the time, with 1 setie equivalent to 4.43 bushels. As for the corresponding quantity of grain… that was not necessarily fixed.

This was because the bushel was a volume-based unit. In practice, a large barrel was used to hold the grain, and when it was full, it counted as 1 bushel. For example, grains typically weighed 45-50 pounds in weight, while potatoes weighed between 55-60 pounds.

In other words, these three "white gloves" had already brought back nearly 20 million pounds of grain from around the world during this period.

According to their report, whenever they arrived at a location, they would first spend money to find locally influential people and place advertisements in the newspapers claiming that this year would be a bountiful harvest, and there was a possibility that grain would exceed demand. Since harvest time was still far off, they could say whatever they wanted.

Subsequently, local grain prices would begin to decline. Only then would the "white gloves" step in to buy, and as soon as the prices showed any sign of rising, they would leave. This meant that most of the grain they had acquired had been bought at bargain prices.

Joseph roughly calculated in his mind that at this rate of procurement, they should be able to purchase around 500 million pounds of grain before the hailstorms arrived in July.

While this grain would not be enough to survive a large-scale famine, nearly one-third of the provinces in France had already planted potatoes, so grain output would significantly increase and would not be affected by hail.

With the combined efforts, they should be able to survive the winter with relative ease. As for next year… it was best to take things one step at a time.

Of course, there was another problem: the national finances needed to have enough funds to purchase these 500 million pounds of grain.

Indeed, towards the end of the letter, the "white gloves" mentioned that the funds for the first two purchases were almost exhausted, and they requested that His Highness promptly allocate further funding.

Additionally, they asked Joseph where the grain stored at the port of Le Havre should be shipped within the country.

Joseph couldn’t help but rub his forehead in frustration. Transporting the grain was a massive headache as well. Of course, at the core of it all was still the issue of money.

It was well known that the transport capacity at this time was rather poor. Even with the cheapest river transport, shipping costs would double the price of the grain.

In fact, Joseph had seen in a report from Valéan that the 5 million livres spent on purchasing potatoes in provinces like Alsace and Lorraine had nearly half been used for transport costs.

This was after the governors along the route had been instructed to cooperate fully, or else the costs would have been even higher.

Recalling river transport, Joseph suddenly remembered that this year's drought would cause some waterways to dry up. When that happened, land transport would have to be used, further increasing costs.

Historically, during the time of the Feiyan faction, efforts to alleviate food shortages in Paris led to the procurement of grain from other provinces. However, the exorbitant land transport costs eventually prevented the grain from reaching Paris in time.

This was also one of the key reasons for the Feiyan faction's downfall when the Parisians couldn't get their bread.

Thus, they must act quickly and ship the grain from Le Havre while river transport was still functioning.

That, too, was a significant expenditure.

Joseph thought about it for a moment. Paris Fashion Week was about to begin, and he should be able to make some money from it, but the shortfall was still considerable.

The income from the Paris Angels Company was largely spent on subsidizing the Crown Prince's Guard, leaving only about 200,000 livres per month.

The paper mill was still in the planning stages, and it would take at least three months before it could generate any profit.

The wine industry didn’t earn much in patent fees, and it was not yet the season for large-scale wine production.

As for the industrial development area in Nancy, it was even worse. The investment was ongoing, but there were no returns to speak of.

Joseph gazed out the window at the passing streets and sighed inwardly. Money really was easy to spend but hard to earn.

It seemed that they would need to focus more on expanding sources and cutting costs.

On the expansion side, he had been working on it, but the remaining projects required huge investments and long cycles, making it difficult to produce immediate returns.

Another avenue that the current European powers were pursuing was the expansion of colonies.

Since the Age of Discovery, colonies had been the "bloodbags" for all nations. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, they provided massive resources while also serving as dumping grounds for products.

Therefore, colonization was definitely the path to national wealth and power.

France's current fiscal difficulties were largely due to the loss of large colonies to the British after the Seven Years' War, resulting in a sharp decline in overseas income.

Joseph naturally began to consider potential regions for colonization.

First of all, the Far East was definitely out of the question. Historically, France had not been involved in the Far East until nearly a century later, after completing its Industrial Revolution.

As for the Americas, nearly all of it was under British and Spanish control. While the region was rich, it was too far away and difficult to project power. Currently, the French colonies in the Caribbean were barely holding on.

Looking around, he realized that the choice made by the French in history was the most sensible one: North Africa.

It was close to France, with vast fertile land, and especially Egypt, a world-class strategic location. If France could secure Egypt and threaten the British with the construction of the Suez Canal, it would give France a significant strategic advantage.

However… Joseph furrowed his brow. The British saw France as their mortal enemy and were extremely vigilant about France's every move.

As soon as France showed any intent to seize North Africa, the British would definitely intervene. Historically, the French couldn't even land in Egypt without the British cutting off their maritime supply lines.

Thus, the key to gaining a foothold in North Africa was how to deceive the British.

Joseph pondered for a long time but could not come up with a satisfactory solution, so he decided to set the matter aside for the time being.

Since expanding sources in the short term seemed difficult, Joseph then turned his mind to the idea of cutting costs.

He reflected on France's major expenditures and was shocked to realize that the largest expenditure was interest on debt.

The annual interest payments exceeded 200 million livres!

If they had this money, famines and industrial development would no longer be an issue.

However, the debt agreements were signed with clear terms, and as time passed, the interest would only increase.

Joseph knew that in just two years, the interest France would have to pay would exceed 400 million livres...

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