Grenville also worked as a diplomat. Although he relied heavily on his cousin's trust, he himself was also capable of dealing with people.
So even though he was busy and exhausted, he finally managed to gather his energy and deal with Malthus.
Then he didn't dare to stop at the Prime Minister's residence and went directly to the Parliament in the Palace of Westminster.
Then he immediately suffered a new blow.
The request that Parliament follow the plan discussed by the cabinet and refer to the cooperation method between the French Crown Prince Charles and Zhu Jingyuan to open the same industry to the joint venture between Charlotte and Zhu Jingyuan has undoubtedly been met with a lot of doubts and opposition.
According to the consistent understanding of the people in the parliament, even if the request is reasonable, there will definitely be opposition to resist it.
Even if a bill is approved by most people, it is difficult to pass it in just one discussion.
Not to mention the special proposals that affected the royal power and opened up key industries to the Ming Dynasty.
Grenville faced a lot of questions and objections, and after a long time of answering and explaining, he became irritable.
Grenville seemed to be furious, banging the speech platform hard and roaring loudly:
“You can think that if we don’t immediately pass laws related to the joint venture between Her Royal Highness Charlotte and Prince Dashi, Britain will soon...Britain is now facing the threat of war from the Ming Dynasty.
"If this law cannot be passed today, then I will not occupy the position of prime minister and deal with a bunch of bad things inside and outside here! Whoever of you likes to act, whoever you like to do, I will not do it anymore !”
The scene immediately fell silent after Grenville finished yelling.
Grenville provoked two shocking events at once.
One is of course the so-called war threat of Ming Dynasty.
Another is Grenville's own threat to resign.
What Grenville said actually came from his heart.
He was really worried that if this matter was not handled well, it would trigger the threat of war in the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, it's just a worry, not something that has happened, so Grenville is exaggerating a bit here.
But my threat to resign is completely real.
Grenville is really fed up with the job of Prime Minister and really doesn't want to continue doing this job.
After the scene was quiet for a long time, Henry Addington stood up and said with obvious caution:
"Your Excellency Grenville, please don't be impulsive. What exactly is the threat to Ming Dynasty?
"Have you really received news from Ming Dynasty? If we don't cooperate with Her Royal Highness Charlotte on this matter, will Ming Dynasty really want to launch a war against Britain?"
This is certainly not the case.
Daming did not give any news or threats. This was actually Charlotte herself pretending to be powerful.
If it is a normal matter, according to the normal logic of politicians' speech, if Grenville accidentally said something wrong, he would definitely deny it tactfully, or at least not give a clear answer.
But now Grenville was in high spirits, still maintaining a state of anger and annoyance, and loudly said:
"Yes, yes, if we don't accept Queen Charlotte's request, the British will wait for a new war to begin!
"No Europeans will come to help Britain this time! This is the British's own war!
“I believe that my abilities are limited and I cannot handle these things, nor can I bear this responsibility.
"If the council doesn't cooperate, then please ask the regent to hire someone else!"
Grenville was no longer very respectful to the Prince of Wales.
Grenville has even considered immigrating directly to Dongyi Country after resigning.
In the past, the vassal states of the Ming Dynasty had very strict inspections of Thai and Western immigrants, and most of the vassal states did not welcome Thai and Westerners.
After the establishment of Dongyi Kingdom, the situation changed significantly.
Although Dongyi State’s review of Thai and Western immigrants is still very strict compared to other Thai and Western countries.
But it is not difficult for a politician with Grenville's background.
In addition, the main residents of Dongyi Kingdom are Taixi, and it is geographically close to the colonies of Britain and France, and the climate is not very different from that of Taixi.
So now Dongyi Country has become the first choice target for immigrants from middle and upper class people in Thailand and the West.
Or immigrate directly to the United States.
Grenville subconsciously felt that with the state of the parliament, his demands could not be met.
So I already thought about ending the meeting and going back to pack my things.
However, things often do not develop in the direction expected by the parties involved.
When Grenville was in despair and decided to give up completely, things took a turn for the better.
Grenville's threats of war scared most of the MPs, including the opposition MPs.
Although many congressmen also have doubts in their minds whether Ming Dynasty will really continue to launch a war, they dare not take a gamble.
Grenville's threat to resign also played a role. The current British Prime Minister is really not something ordinary people can provoke.
In a particularly strange atmosphere, Grenville's original proposal was passed by an absolute majority.
Then Grenville was dumbfounded...
When the Speaker sealed the text of the bill and sent it to the Regent, the Prince of Wales, for confirmation, Grenville realized that he had gotten through a big trap.
After this matter is declassified, it will definitely prove to be a political scandal.
But at the same time, this incident also gave Grenville a taste of the sweetness.
It turns out that Ming’s threat is so effective!
Grenville left the parliament hall with a particularly complicated mood and returned to his official residence as prime minister.
Notify other members of the cabinet of the passage of the bill and send it to the American court via telegram.
Queen Charlotte would receive news of this upon her arrival in America.
Then he continued to deal with the naval treaty in a nervous mood.
The sensational news that has appeared one after another, such as "British officials and parliament bullied Princess Charlotte, leading the Ming royal family to issue war threats to Britain" can only be ignored.
For Grenville, compared with the troubles within Britain, the naval treaty was relatively simple.
With the help of the naval generals headed by Nelson, the cabinet headed by Grenville quickly determined Britain's negotiating goals and bottom line.
Other countries have postponed in-depth discussions on cooperation with Ming Dynasty and concentrated on dealing with the naval treaty, so the speed of determination is faster.
So just fifteen days later, the Atlantic-Western Naval Development and Control Conference was held in Paris, the hometown of French Crown Prince Charles, who proposed this proposal.
After the opening ceremony of the conference, the first meeting started immediately, where each country first explained its main goals.
After their respective explanations, all parties participating in the meeting discovered that except for Lucia, the largest, and the Netherlands and other countries that were already obviously weak, the goals of other major countries in Thailand and Spain were "very different."
Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and the Ottomans all hope to limit the total tonnage of naval capital ships to between 150,000 and 250,000 tons.
At the same time, the tonnage of a single ship is limited to between 30,000 and 40,000 tons, and the caliber of the artillery is limited to 360 mm.
The requirements of obviously disadvantaged countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark are to set lower standards, and their opinions do not matter.
The more important one, and the one whose opinions are obviously different from everyone else's, is Lucia.
Lucia demanded a capital ship share of 400,000 tons.
It also requested that the tonnage limit of capital ships be relaxed to 50,000 tons.
Relax the caliber of the artillery to 400 mm.
It is directly different from other major countries.
Although most of the representatives knew that the amount Lucia asked for directly was definitely a sign of the lion's openness, and it could definitely be reduced in subsequent actual negotiations.
However, the target amount requested is so large, which shows that the other party's bottom line is not too low...
The main difficulty in the subsequent negotiations is obviously Lucia, and the difficulty of the negotiations will certainly not be easy.
After the opening exchange of statements, Talleyrand, the French representative and host of the meeting, looked directly at Lucia's representative Wedemeyer to remind and suggest:
“Lucia’s current target amount is significantly higher than other countries.
"When everyone hopes to limit the total tonnage of the capital ship to about 200,000 tons, it is meaningless to ask for the construction of a 400,000-ton capital ship, right?
"After learning about other countries' targets, Lucia should re-evaluate the target tonnage, right?"
After hearing the goals of other countries, especially those of Britain, France and Spain, Wedemeyer was actually a little surprised.
He knew that the current status of these three countries was not good, but he did not expect it to be this bad.
It only requires a battleship tonnage of about 200,000 tons, which is only the size of five 40,000-ton battleships.
Compared to Lucia's ideal goal, it was directly twice as bad.
Europe's traditional major naval nation has just fought the World War a few years ago. Are they all so stretched out now?
But in the face of Talleyrand's demands, Wedemeyer had no intention of giving in.
The 400,000 tons proposed by Lucia is really not an exorbitant price. Lucia is really prepared to build so many capital ships.
In Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, the German Imperial Navy before World War I had a battleship tonnage of 720,000 tons.
In this life, under the leadership of the Ming Dynasty, the European and Western navies directly skipped the traditional dreadnought stage and entered the era of super-dreadnought-class high-speed battleships.
The unit tonnage cost of their 40,000-ton battleships was significantly higher than the traditional dreadnoughts of the Second German Empire.
However, with the current size of Lucia, building a 400,000-ton battleship will still not be too stressful.
Other countries have no clear needs, so they are not prepared to squeeze their potential to the limit.
Lucia's idea is that if the highest goal cannot be achieved, it will be reduced from 50,000 tons per ship to 40,000 tons per ship, and the total tonnage will be reduced to 320,000 tons.
Of course, this kind of bottom-line goal cannot be stated directly.
So Wedemeyer was very decisive, and with a bit of pride, he responded to Talleyrand very seriously:
“Lucia’s naval construction plan is based on its own actual needs, not for any other country.
"This target tonnage and scale are Lucia's current real needs and do not need to be re-evaluated."
At this time, there was obviously some confusion in the venue, and representatives from most countries began to whisper.
Talleyrand's expression was also a little ugly:
“The goal of this meeting, which is also the goal of our Highness Charles’ proposal to sign a naval treaty, is to call on European countries to proactively limit the size of their naval armaments in order to maintain and ensure the peace and development of Europe.
“Based on this premise and goal, European countries are actively restricting their own shipbuilding plans.
“What Lucia calls building in accordance with her actual needs is to go against this general trend and trend, and to deviate from the direction of all other countries in Europe.
"More importantly, this kind of behavior has a very obvious suspicion of 'militancy'."
The key to being an enemy of the entire Europa is militarism.
These two natural accusations suddenly reversed the mood of Wedemeyer, who was originally somewhat complacent.
Lucia didn't want to be the enemy of the entire Europa, and she didn't dare to "go riot", which was directly warned by Ming Dynasty.
Wedemeyer was a little worried.
Whether or not it is militancy seems to be a matter of contrast.
Lucia originally compared Ming Dynasty's plan and felt that her 400,000-ton naval battleship plan did not seem to be militaristic.
But compared with the European countries, which are a bit stretched, it seems that they are really suspected of being militaristic.
Wedemeyer had no choice but to express tactfully that he needed to reconsider.
Then, the first day of the meeting ended, and representatives from various countries immediately returned to their residences, discussed internally and reported to the rear.
Two days later, a new round of meetings began, and Talleyrand asked the Lucians to speak first.
Lucia's Wedemeyer directly stated that Lucia was willing to limit the total tonnage of the capital ship to 320,000 tons.
In Lucia's opinion, this was a huge concession.
But other European and Western countries, including Talleyrand, frowned visibly after hearing this.
Talleyrand was about to continue persuading him to deal with Ming's threat, but the Prussian representative asked to speak.
Prussian Hardberg said with a straight face:
"Prussia requested to modify the target tonnage of our capital ships. We want to increase the total tonnage to 320,000 tons."
At this time, the representatives from various countries who had ugly expressions screamed out in surprise.
Talleyrand's expression became even more ugly, and he almost cursed in his heart.
What are you doing?
Lucia only made such a small concession, so why are you, Prussia, retreating?
Can Prussia afford a 320,000-ton cutting-edge high-speed battleship?
To be honest, Prussia can really bear it.
Even damaged traditional naval powers such as Britain, France and Spain can barely bear it now.
They just didn't want to over-squeeze their potential, so they had the intention to sign a naval treaty.
Relatively speaking, Prussia's pressure is smaller than that of Britain, France, and Spain.
Prussia suffered the least losses in the world war.
If Prussia had not also had to pay compensation to the Ming Dynasty and gained Nigeria, it would even feel like a victorious country.
Prussia's economic strength at this time may have been stronger than that of the German Empire before World War I.
The German Empire can build 720,000 traditional dreadnoughts, and Prussia can now build more than 300,000 tons of high-speed battleships.
And now it is certain that we can get the technical support provided by Daming, and there are no technical problems.
At the same time, Prussia's shipbuilding target plan at this time was very flexible.
Although there is a rough target range, Hardberg's actual task is to "play it as the situation arises."
Originally, Prussia's navy was oriented towards Britain, France, and Spain, and its pursuit was not to be significantly weaker than these three traditional naval powers.
The three countries proposed a shipbuilding plan of about 200,000 tons, and Prussia immediately followed.
But after the Lucian opened his mouth, the Prussian suddenly realized that he seemed to have found the wrong person all along.
Britain, France, and Spain are now on an equal footing, and Prussia will have to contend with its neighbor Lucia in the future.
Lucia wants to build a 400,000-ton battleship, and Prussia must not only have 200,000 tons.
So after having a phone discussion with his king, Hardberg directly changed the goal of the negotiation.
The tit-for-tat confrontation followed Lucia directly.
(End of chapter)
