There are no fixed topics for family discussion.
After discussing the war goals for a long time, Prince William finally realized that the topic had gone too far.
I almost forgot my mission.
So while his father was thinking silently, William directly jumped to the topic:
"By the way, Dad, my sister and I came back specially this time because we were entrusted by His Highness Prince Dashi.
"Come to contact Prussia and Ming Dynasty to discuss a new round of cooperation."
William III was stunned for a moment, and then breathed an inexplicable sigh of relief.
It seems that hearing the question of Ming’s invitation to cooperate means that the subconsciously worried Ming war is even more distant:
"Does Ming Dynasty have any new cooperation plans? Is it also arranged by His Highness Prince Dashi?"
Prince William nodded slightly, roughly explaining Zhu Jingyuan's thoughts.
These include the construction of transcontinental railroads, free trade zones between countries, and the vision of the Monarch United Trading Company:
“The discussion between Daming and Lucia should have started.
“If we want to establish a railway connection with the Ming Dynasty, we must pass through the territory of Lucia.
“So Daming needs to talk to Lucia first.
“After they confirm their intention to cooperate, His Royal Highness Prince Dashi will send us a relatively formal invitation.
“Then formal negotiations begin.
"Now we just need to be mentally prepared."
When his son spoke, William III quickly considered the cooperation plan in his mind.
William III's feelings were similar to those of the Lucians, and the direction of cooperation seemed very fair.
But in fact it should be more beneficial to Ming Dynasty, but Prussia does not suffer a loss.
After all, in his own lifetime, Prussia would never be able to become an enemy of the Ming Dynasty again.
The Prussians, unlike the Lucians, had very little resistance to the Ming Dynasty.
The two sides are very far apart and have never competed directly before.
In the negotiations after the end of the world war, Ming Dynasty also gave Prussia quite favorable conditions.
Therefore, the Prussians have a relatively good impression of the Ming Dynasty.
William III quickly nodded directly:
"Then I will discuss with the ministers tomorrow what conditions we should require in cooperation..."
Soon after, the negotiations between Daming and Lucia achieved initial results, and the cooperation intention between the two parties was confirmed.
Then the Ming Dynasty Honglu Temple sent formal invitations for cooperation to Prussia and France.
The Prussians were already prepared and soon gave an official response:
"In principle, we are interested in joining the cooperation agreement and can start formal negotiations at any time."
After the Ming Dynasty Honglu Temple received the response, it immediately sent a formal invitation, hoping that Prussia would arrange for representatives to go to Xianbei City for talks.
King William III of Prussia arranged for his son Prince William to go to Xianbei to negotiate with Hardenberg.
At about the same time, France also received an invitation from Ming Dynasty.
The French court under the leadership of Charles agreed more readily than the Prussians and arranged for Talleyrand to go to Xianbei City.
After arriving, personnel from all parties first discussed issues related to railway lines and urban free trade zones.
These are actually relatively easy to determine.
In the early planning of the land bridge, existing railway lines should be used as much as possible. Cities that wanted to establish free trade zones could only choose to build next to the railway lines.
Due to the same natural environment, the direction chosen for this railway line is also very similar to Zhu Jingyuan's mainland bridge in his previous life.
Even Daming also chose two routes.
The northern route takes the Western Xianbei Principality and enters the northern part of the Ming Dynasty from the Mongolian Plateau.
Of course, it is also different from the First Continental Bridge in Zhu Jingyuan's previous life. From Xianbei to the east, it is the territory of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, we won’t go around the Mongolian Plateau to Vladivostok. The railway line goes directly through the Mongolian Plateau and goes south.
In Xianbei City and Tianjin Port along the way, exclusive areas have been set aside to establish free trade zones.
A large part of the original railway on this road was built by the Lucians.
Before the establishment of the Western Xianbei Principality, the Lucians built the Eastern Railway along the Kazakh border in order to control the eastern lands.
This section of railway was originally connected to the Lucia road network.
After the Western Xianbei Principality was established and placed under the ownership of the Ming Dynasty, the railway lines continued to operate for several years.
Mainly, the "Minghua elements" were transported from Lucia to the Xianbei Principality, and the "Great Lucia elements" were transported from the Xianbei Principality to Lucia proper.
Of course, this is all official business. Private transportation has completely stopped, but the railway has not been cut off.
At the same time, the eastern end of this railway was naturally connected to the Ming Dynasty road network after the establishment of the Xianbei Principality.
After the Northern War, Lucia maintained continuous peace with the Ming Dynasty for more than a hundred years. Lucia's industrialization completely copied the Ming Dynasty's plan, and even adopted the same standards on the railways.
In Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, the width of train tracks in various countries around the world was not exactly the same.
However, the track width used by more than half of the countries is the "four feet eight and a half inches" standard left by the British, which is 1435 mm, which is called the "standard gauge".
Anything above this standard is called "broad gauge", and anything below this standard is "narrow gauge"
The "standard gauge" of this world was determined by Emperor Shizu of the Ming Dynasty. It is a width of one and a half meters directly selected according to the metric system, which is an integer of 1500 millimeters.
After the start of the World War, the British tried to mobilize the countries of the Anti-Ming Alliance to jointly modify the railway gauge.
This would prevent the railways they built from being used by the Ming Dynasty people.
However, due to the huge cost of transformation, before preventing the Ming people from using their own railways, they would not be able to use them in the first place.
In addition, the war quickly entered a state of stalemate and consumption. Neither side occupied a large area of the other's land, and of course there was no opportunity to utilize the other's railways on a large scale.
So much so that even the most cutting-edge Lucians eventually no longer had the energy to modify the railway gauge.
Therefore, the difficulty of connecting railways in various countries is now very low.
Especially now, the Ming Dynasty and Lucia have actually completed the road network connection through the land of the Xianbei Principality.
All that needs to be done now is for officials to accept it and open the road network to the other side.
The other southern route takes the Principality of Kazakhstan, passes through the Western Regions, passes through the Hexi Corridor, and reaches the Jiangnan region from the Central Plains region.
Areas have been set aside to establish free trade zones in Yili, Xi'an and Songjiang Prefecture along the way.
Most of the railways on this route are the original Daming Railway.
After the Kazakh Khanate officially joined the Ming Dynasty and became a vassal state, the Ming Dynasty extended the railway built in eastern Kazakhstan to the west.
And it is connected to the western border of the Xianbei Principality by railway in the Ural region.
In this way, the two lines from north to south merge into one after reaching Lucia.
Ming Dynasty selected a total of five cities and established five free trade zones, one more than the negotiation requirements.
Moreover, the railway lines completely ran through the mainland of the Ming Dynasty, passing through the two countries of Shuntianfu and Yingtianfu in the Ming Dynasty, and extended to the two most important seaports in the north and south.
Taixi people are allowed to take the railway across the entire Shenou continent, and then take a boat in Songjiang or Tianjin to circle back to the mainland of Taixi.
Although this actual demand may be small, it gives people ample room for imagination.
This is Ming Dynasty taking the initiative to show its sincerity to other countries.
Lucia naturally chose the western half of her original Eastern Railway, the original railway line that was originally connected to the Xianbei Principality Railway.
The railway runs through the Ural region to Moscow and all the way to Riga on the Baltic Sea coast.
We chose Orenburg at the foot of the Ural Mountains, Simbirsk on the Volga River, Vladimir next to Moscow, and the Port of Riga on the Baltic Sea coast.
The Ming Dynasty did not place the free trade zone in the capital, but in the nearby seaport city.
Lucia also did not choose the capital Moscow. She also chose a city next to Moscow and a seaport.
According to Ming's request, it is enough for Lucia to choose three cities to establish free trade zones.
However, Ming took the initiative to add one more, and the Lucians also followed suit and added one more.
But I was a bit of a thief and chose Orenburg at the foot of the Ural Mountains.
This city has been determined to belong to the border free trade zone between Ming Dynasty and Lucia.
To be honest, I just made up the numbers and got an extra trade area.
At the same time, Lucia chose Riga further north instead of Minsk and Huasha in the south, which also pushed more land bridge railway lines into Prussia.
Because Riga is very close to Königsberg, the easternmost part of Prussia's territory.
So Prussia also accepted the proposal to connect the railway line directly from Königsberg to Lucia.
It extends southwest to Berlin and eventually to Cologne on the Rhine.
The Prussians were more honest and directly chose the three cities of Königsberg, Potsdam, and Cologne to establish free trade zones.
Potsdam is also next to Berlin, where the Potsdam Proclamation was originally issued historically.
The Prussians also stated that if the Dutch later joined the agreement, they could change the route to Wilhelmshaven further north and replace Cologne in the south with Wilhelmshaven, so that the route could pass through the entire Netherlands.
The French route was more direct, starting from the Prussian border, leading naturally to the capital Paris, and then extending to the southwest to the city of Bordeaux.
The French only chose two urban free trade zones, but they chose Paris directly, plus Bordeaux in the south.
According to Zhu Jingyuan's vision, the four parties of Ming Dynasty, Lucia, Prussia, and France are the basis of this cooperation agreement.
Even if other countries join, they are latecomers. After the railway line connects to this main road of the continental bridge, it can also be regarded as a branch line.
Therefore, when the four parties formally signed the contract, they still followed the existing planned route and did not consider the situation of other countries for the time being.
At the same time, the planning of the Royal United Trading Company was quickly completed.
The Emperor of Ming Dynasty was the founder, contributed the most capital and held the most shares, owning 40% of the shares.
The monarchs of the other three countries each accounted for 20%.
After the monarchs of other countries join, the shares of the existing four monarchs will be reduced in the same proportion.
The Ming Dynasty only wanted the city, which in the eyes of the other three countries could be regarded as a proactive concession, so the negotiation process was accelerated.
The four parties quickly negotiated all the details and formulated a formal cooperation agreement document.
Representatives of the four countries first signed the contract in Xianbei City, and then sent the text to the capitals of the four countries.
The agreement can only come into effect after the monarchs of the four countries have personally read the contents of the document and given the signature and seal of the approval document.
There were no problems with the Ming Dynasty, Lucia, and Prussia. The emperors and kings decided directly after seeing it.
There's a little problem here in France.
The document was sent to Paris as a matter of course and presented to the Prince Regent Charles.
After receiving the agreement document, Charles once again took his own car and headed to Versailles to meet his father, the current King of France, Louis XVI.
Louis XVI had now entered de facto retirement.
Just like a retired old man, he is focused on developing his personal hobbies.
Now I am in my own dedicated studio, concentrating on the latest Ming-style cipher suitcase.
Seeing his son enter his studio with another document, Louis XVI immediately knew that he had to sign it himself.
Louis XVI immediately complained a little and said:
"Char, when are you going to take over the throne?"
If Louis XVI's words were simply read in content and heard by outsiders, they might give rise to various thoughts.
But Louis XVI himself was completely sincere, even a little impatient.
Charles also fully understood his father’s mentality, so he immediately laughed and said:
"If you really want to retire, wait until the two battleships we are building are commissioned.
"I want to hold a grand naval parade then."
In fact, after Louis XVI retired, he basically didn't care much about outside affairs.
Although the construction plan and final budget approval of these two ships were personally signed by Louis XVI.
But he didn't read the content at all when he signed it, so he had no idea what Ciel was talking about.
At this time, he said a little confused:
"Two ships and two ships, how many ships do you want to build? Don't you want to build more after these two ships are completed."
Charles smiled helplessly and awkwardly and said:
"There are only two ships. These two ships are different from the previous ones. They are given complete technical support by Ming Dynasty and can reach the approximate level of Ming Dynasty's existing warships."
Louis XVI finally became interested, put down the box in his hand and asked:
"How long will it take for these two ships to be commissioned?"
Charles put the document in his hand on the table next to Louis XVI, and took out the seal and pen in the box:
"It can be as little as one year, as long as two years, it won't be too long..."
Louis XVI still didn't read the content of the agreement at all, and directly picked up his pen and asked:
"Then as soon as possible, give me a little urging... Where should I sign?"
Charles opened the document and found the place, asked Louis XVI to sign his name, and sealed it for him.
Then Charles was about to chat with his father for a while, but was kicked out by Louis XVI:
"Go and do your work quickly, don't delay my research here..."
Charles had no choice but to smile helplessly, took the documents and left.
(End of chapter)
