Chapter 1168 Russia’s Choice
After the dinner, Earl Derby got into the carriage, and he suddenly felt that the empty check that the Baring family had handed him before was not so good.
In addition to the delicacies and fine wines at the dinner, Councillor Lionel also presented two super luxury cruise ships anchored in Portsmouth Harbor as a birthday gift for Earl Derby's youngest son.
The cost of the two cruise ships was 75,000 pounds and 83,000 pounds respectively, and the price of a third-class battleship at the same time was 100,000 pounds.
Adding the decorations and furniture, the total price of the two cruise ships was at least more than 200,000 pounds. For an ordinary British farmer, it may take 10,000 years to accumulate such a huge fortune.
In addition, Lionel was willing to use 1% of the shares of the Suez Canal Company to establish a foundation to support the Tory Party.
At this time, the total share price of the Suez Canal Company was at least more than 1,600 pounds, or at least 160,000 pounds, and this fund still had room for appreciation in the future.
And the maximum amount of the so-called empty check was only 100,000 pounds. Of course, even 100,000 pounds is enough for a British farmer to save for 5,000 years.
Earl Derby was still very happy. Today, he not only guarded the future and hope for Britain, but also realized his own life value. He couldn't help but feel that he had reached the peak of his life.
In Vienna, the various topics of the conference were basically finalized. Instead, the European Monetary Union and the Suez Canal Company became the protagonists of the conference.
Although the former was opposed by Britain, it was precisely because of Britain's opposition that economists throughout Europe conducted a very extensive discussion on this.
The result of the discussion was that Europe and even the world needed such an alliance to exist, because it could greatly increase the liquidity of markets and funds, reduce trade costs, reduce exchange rate fluctuations, and increase economic stability.
Of course, the so-called world monetary union is impossible, and the communication technology at this time is not enough to support a network of such a scale.
Britain's opposition does not constitute a real obstacle to the establishment of the European Monetary Union. After all, most countries can benefit from it, just to varying degrees.
In essence, the establishment of the European Monetary Union belongs to a positive-sum game, not a usual zero-sum game. It can increase the total amount of wealth and achieve a win-win situation.
Of course, how much of the dividends brought by the opportunity can be obtained depends on the ability and size of each country, but it will be stronger than in the past.
Although the British have always strongly opposed it, they did not hesitate to join it, which made the representatives who had wavered before roll their eyes, but Viscount Stratford chose to turn a blind eye.
Somewhat unexpectedly, Russia, which has always chosen neutrality, did not join the monetary union in the end, while the Kingdom of Sweden chose to pull its vassal Norway into the circle of its own.
So far, a super monetary union that almost covers the whole of Europe, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states has been established.
The British double-faced was already within Franz's expectations, and he did not believe that the British would miss this opportunity.
In fact, he did not consider leaving Britain aside to reduce competitive pressure, but if Britain was really left aside, the monetary union at this time might not be the same.
Britain and France are both ambitious, the Spanish are fence-sitters, and Portugal and the Ottoman Empire are British diehards, and Muhammad Ali looks like the sixth.
If Franz insisted on excluding Britain, Europe would most likely form two monetary alliances, or as history has done, but in either case, it would not be possible to mobilize and integrate the resources of the entire Europe most effectively.
Sweden is actually a very strange country. Although it does not seem to be very strong in people's impressions, they have the pride of being the Nordic lion.
After the Great Northern War, this country inevitably declined, but they did not look down on the so-called powers on the European continent.
At the same time, Sweden is also considering national security. After all, Europeans once took over Sweden by religion. They did not know that this time Europeans would subvert Sweden again under the guise of a monetary union.
The sudden withdrawal of the Russians was unexpected by most people, but Franz knew that Russia was a country with an extremely lack of security.
Whether it is military security, political security, transportation security, or economic security, the Russians have set up many obstacles to prevent invasion by other countries.
The most typical one is Russia's broad-gauge railway. In fact, compared with transportation volume and stability, the Russians give priority to national security.
During this period, the railway capacity in many areas was far higher than the actual needs, and many large mines actually used narrow-gauge railways.
And there were more than one way to increase the train capacity during this period, such as increasing the speed of the train, adopting larger and more solid carriage designs, etc.
The Russians' anxiety originally came from the East. The Mongolian expedition to the West caused serious psychological trauma to the Russians.
The 150,000 Mongolian troops were invincible and conquered every inch of Russian land.
Almost all the cities were massacred wherever they passed, and all the men were killed, leaving only women and children to interact closely with the Mongolian men who came from afar.
It is no secret that Genghis Khan's army was a routine to massacre.
For example, the wheel chopping (first developed by the Jin people) and Genghis Khan's famous motto:
"The greatest pleasure in life is to kill all the enemies, rob all their property, watch their relatives cry, ride their horses, and rape their wives and daughters."
During the 250 years of Mongol rule, the so-called "pure Russians" were almost exterminated, at least Russian men were slaughtered for several generations.
That is why Westerners like to call Russians "white Tatars", and Russians are also ashamed of it.
In a sense, this sense of uneasiness of the Russians originated from the East, that is, the shadow cast by the Mongols on the Russians was too great.
Of course, the nightmare of the Russians is far more than that. Later, the Poles also beat the Russians into fleeing.
The most recent one was Napoleon at the end of the anti-French war. If it weren't for Kutuzov and General Winter, it would be hard to say what the fate of Russia would be.
It would be strange if the Russians could still feel safe after experiencing several catastrophes, and this is the fact.
When the news of the Europa Monetary Union reached St. Petersburg, it was opposed by most Russian senior officials as soon as it reached St. Petersburg. Almost everyone thought it was a conspiracy from the West.
In addition to the Russians' own persecution delusions, the British spies buried in Russia also played a very important role.
In the eyes of the British, any possible move by Russia to become stronger must be prevented, because the latter is too large and its threat spread across Eurasia, which is simply not comparable to that of Austria.