Chapter 651 The trajectory of history (the main content is in the second half)
"How is this going!"
This time Sir Franklin was even more excited than the young officer and grabbed the other man's collar.
"Sir, please listen to my explanation. It is normal for one or two out of eight thousand cans to be damaged."
The custodian is still quibbling, but there is no can in the world that smells bad less than a month after delivery, unless the beef itself is bad.
Afterwards, the expedition team members opened other cans and found that almost all of them in this box were bad, and the canned fruit on the side was even more outrageous. Not only had they not been peeled, they even had the corpses of insects inside.
Then these people who were about to risk their lives on an Arctic expedition expressed strong "dissatisfaction" with the warehouse keeper and his colleagues.
When Royal Navy guards arrived, the warehouse keeper had been beaten into a pig's head.
Later, after interrogation, it was revealed that the salesperson of the cannery bribed the custodian and passed off the goods as inferior goods. Naturally, Sir Franklin could no longer trust Duquette and his London canneries.
So Alina finally got the deal, but she couldn't help but feel worried. After all, Sir Franklin was already 59 years old at this time, but the latter responded to the former with the humor unique to British gentlemen.
"Miss, I am not yet sixty years old! Wish me good luck! If we return safely, we will never forget the help you and your cans have provided to us."
However, just two months after Sir Franklin's voyage, his expedition lost contact with London.
There are many different opinions on the reasons for Sir Franklin's failure in history, but it is certain that most of them died of lead poisoning and scurvy.
There are also many theories as to why the crew would rather eat their compatriots than canned food in the cabin.
One group believed that many of the cans were broken before being sent to the ship and were inedible, so the crew chose to find food on their own.
Since Austria has developed canning compression technology, these 8,000 cans can still make some small money. After all, in this era, the mainstream relies on manual canning and sealing, and the cost will be several to dozens of times higher.
However, this level of funds is almost invisible in Franz’s account. But having said that, there are really not many people who buy cans in peacetime, so it cannot be said that it is a worthless thing.
Of course, whether the cans of the Austrian Empire can become an instant hit in the UK depends on whether Sir Franklin and his expedition team can come back alive. After all, they are the best billboards.
In fact, Austrian cans have a price advantage, but they cannot withstand the high tariffs charged by the British, which greatly offsets their competitiveness.
After that, Alina got a new task, which was to sell the cans of the Austrian Empire to the world. Although it sounds very high-level, he is actually a high-level salesman.
However, this kind of words was still very useful to the ears of nineteenth-century people. She felt that she was taken seriously and started to work harder.
Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.
Some news from the other side of the world made Franz very depressed. The Americans were buying piglets from the Qing Dynasty and planned to build the Pacific Railway.
The Americans finally found their way to the Pacific through the cracks, and they are working hard for their destiny.
However, this also meant that the United States' mobilization capabilities would increase in the future, and war with the California colonies would be inevitable.
After all, there are British people in the north of Oregon, Russians in the northwest, and Austrian colonies across the mountains.
If the Americans want to gain a foothold, they cannot do nothing, and their biggest enemy is Austria.
This is mainly because the numbers of Russians and British are too small. The total number of colonists from the two countries probably does not exceed 2,000.
In Austria's California, there are hundreds of thousands of Germans alone, not to mention the local indigenous and imported Central American populations, as well as the rapidly increasing number of Japanese workers.
In fact, Franz used Japanese laborers instead of Qing laborers. The main reason is that the latter's combat effectiveness is too strong.
Although the Japanese also have a tradition of subjugating superiors, it only exists among the samurai class.
On the other hand, since the uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang in the Qin Dynasty, the idea that "princes, generals, and ministers would rather have their own kind" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Let’s not talk about the clan and party issues in the south. Let’s just talk about the northerners who everyone thinks are weaker and more docile.
The latter undertook almost all the large-scale uprisings in the early and mid-Qing Dynasty, including the Pu Shao Uprising of the Laoguanzhai Sect; the Wang Lun Uprising of the Qingshui Sect; the Li Wencheng and Lin Qing Uprisings of the Tianli Sect; and the Sichuan-Chu White Lotus Sect uprising.
Even during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there were Nian troops in the north, as well as the Wenxian Rebellion and the White Lotus Rebellion in northwest Shandong.
The subsequent Boxer Rebellion caused great chaos in the world, as a famous invader of later generations would describe it.
"The Chinese people have infinite vitality. No country in Europe, America or Japan has the brainpower and military power to rule a quarter of the world's living beings!"
The enemy's evaluation is often extremely pertinent, Franz has no doubt about this.
When someone mentions a fighting nation, they always think of Russia, and when someone mentions a powder keg, they always think of the Balkans. The Qing people were insensitive and easy to rule.
But the reality is that according to the "Records of the Qing Dynasties", from the Opium War to the fall of the Qing Dynasty on February 12, 1912, more than 5,000 uprisings broke out.
Among them, between 1856 and 1865, the most violent period, more than 2,000 uprisings broke out. Moreover, the Qing Dynasty's own records are quite good, and there is almost no possibility of adding exaggeration or falsification.
In the twenty-four years known as the most turbulent in Japanese history, from the arrival of the Black Ships in 1853 to the end of the Southwest War on September 24, 1877, there were less than fifty large-scale civil unrests.
In comparison, are the Chinese people’s fighting spirit much stronger?
Therefore, if Franz wants to save his life, it is best not to touch the Chinese workers. After all, Austria itself is also a powder keg.
Franz was fighting a civil war here, and he couldn't stand it when he suddenly said, "Princes, generals, and ministers would rather have their own kind" in the backyard.
At the same time, the Japanese are relatively easy to rule and assimilate in terms of tradition, thinking mode, and national character.
To put it simply, at that time, Japanese civilians did not even have names, and the stickiness of village communities was not strong.
Mainly due to Japan's mountainous and island environment, coupled with its location in a volcanic and earthquake zone, as well as the blessing of typhoons, tsunamis and other natural disasters, human life is not guaranteed at all, so they have no guarantee for the inheritance of blood. Not too much attachment.
On the contrary, these people are both indifferent and fanatical. They are extremely cruel to the weak and extremely flattering to the strong.
In ancient Japan, society was not based on blood lines, but was divided by region and class. This resulted in Japanese people being "model students" wherever they went, because these people would spare no effort to integrate into the local society.
Like the Japanese who fought for the U.S. military in World War II, they even sacrificed the lives of their compatriots in exchange for military glory.
As for the spirit of enduring hardship and standing hard work, this is common to East Asian nations. Although Franz hates Koreans, those people can really endure hardship.
Even those Korean entertainment stars who are often ridiculed may have very distorted personalities, but their serious and hard-working attitude is worthy of recognition.