Chapter 270 North Africa Wind Rising

Chapter 271 North Africa Wind Rises

Olivier Viscount hesitated and said: "Your Highness, but if there are too many orders that prohibit sales, the factory will be unsustainable..."

Joseph smiled and waved his hand: "Please rest assured, most of the order associations will not ask. Only a few buyers who may endanger national security will be banned, and they may only appear once every few years."

The factory owners were relieved when they heard this. If this is the case, it is almost equivalent to having no restrictions.

Compared with the benefits brought by the new technology - the quality of iron ingots has been greatly improved, and the output of refined steel has increased - this is completely acceptable.

In fact, they did not notice the "quality assessment" clause. And this is the main means of restraining steel mills.

The so-called quality assessment is conducted on a company, which is equivalent to rating the company.

Everyone knows how powerful the three major rating agencies in the United States in later generations are - if they don't like you, they can give you a lower rating and immediately blow up your stock.

At present, these factory owners have not seen this kind of operation. Imagine that other steel mills are all A++ grade, but yours is only B grade. Who will buy your products?

In the future, these factory owners will have to cooperate with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince honestly?

Joseph threw another bait: "Oh, the association will soon announce an ironmaking technology using new fuel, which can further reduce impurities in iron ingots and increase production."

He was referring to ironmaking with coke.

After the gas lamp was put into use, one of the by-products of distilling coal gas was coke.

As a fuel for ironmaking, this thing has the advantages of less impurities and high heat. It can be developed as one of the supporting industries for gas lamps.

This time, it was Mr. Gregor Jr. who was the first to get impatient: "Your Highness, Gregor Brothers Steel Company sincerely hopes to join the Steel Technology Association."

Olivier Viscount and other factory owners immediately followed up, "Your Highness, Silk Steel Company has also applied to join the association!"

"And the Red Furnace Ironworks..."

"And Willhauri Steel..."

Joseph signaled to the development zone director Rameau to distribute the association management regulations and application forms that had been prepared to everyone: "Everyone fill out the application and submit it to Mr. Rameau. After that, the association will send technicians to teach you new smelting technology. You may have to wait for a while, after all, there will be more procedures in the middle."

In fact, there are no procedures, but Joseph has not yet applied for the patent for "hot blast ironmaking", and he also needs technicians to turn his principles into drawings, which takes time.

The factory owners don't mind a few months later. After all, with the efficiency of this era, it won't be too fast to do anything new.

Joseph reminded again: "Oh, by the way, you can first purchase some refractory bricks and steam engines to drive the blowers, which will be useful in the future."

The factory owners hurriedly told their technicians to take notes.

Joseph stayed in Nancy for three days, and after finishing all aspects of the development of industrial enterprises, he set off south to Saint-Etienne.

The newly built industrial development zone there was officially put into use four months ago-because it is closer to Paris, its scale is no smaller than that of Nancy.

Joseph naturally had to go there to take a look, and at the same time he had to pull the steel mills there into the "Steel Technology Association".

The trip to Saint-Etienne was similar to that of Nancy. When Joseph left the development zone here, he was going to continue eastward to Lyon, the textile center of France, to promote the automatic loom that had just been successfully copied.

There was no way. Now he had to build the framework of various industrial fields in France first, and then lay out advanced concepts before gradually handing them over to Mirabeau and others. He was so busy at this time.

However, when he arrived in Faure, east of Lyon, he met a messenger waiting there.

The latter handed him a letter from the Royal Arsenal. The letter said that the mass-produced automatic looms had encountered some problems, mainly because the craftsmen did not have enough processing precision, and Louis XVI had to guide them one by one, which resulted in the first batch of ten looms not being completed until the end of next month.

Joseph had no choice but to take out his schedule, looked down, and finally decided to return to Paris first and apply for a patent for "hot blast ironmaking".

However, before he left, he received a report from the National Intelligence Agency, which was the upgraded police intelligence department.

He opened the secret letter and handed it to Emman along with the code book.

The latter decoded it quickly and skillfully, and then turned to look at Joseph:

"Your Highness, a coup took place in Tripoli six days ago."

Joseph frowned, took the translated report, and saw that it said: On March 18, the Ottoman officer Ali Benjiul launched a coup in Tripoli with the nobles who were dissatisfied with the Pasha.

Ali I, Pasha of Tripoli, fled to Egypt. Benjiul announced that Tripoli would return to Ottoman rule.

There are signs that the British were involved in the coup, including the weapons and funds of the coup plotters, most of which came from Britain.

British? Joseph immediately became alert. The British would never go to a small Mediterranean country with a population of only a few hundred thousand to participate in a coup for no reason. Most of them were targeting France.

It seems that although he has been very restrained and limited his sphere of influence in North Africa to the small Tunisia, and did not directly attack Algiers as in history, he still attracted the attention of the British.

There is something fishy, ​​and he must not be careless.

Joseph picked up the itinerary again, looked at the last line, sighed and said:

"It seems that it is necessary to go to Tunisia in advance."

After Tunisia eliminated the chaos of the Guards, after a few months of governance, order has been basically restored. He was originally going there to deal with some problems and arrange subsequent development plans.

He looked at Eman:

"Is the Moulin Corps still in Montpellier?"

The latter recalled and nodded:

"Yes, Your Highness, they have just completed the reorganization of the Montcalm Corps and should not have returned to Moulins yet."

Joseph immediately wrote a letter, sealed it with wax, stamped it with a private seal, and then handed it to Eman:

"Send someone to Montpellier immediately and give it to Lieutenant Colonel Andre."

In the letter, he asked Andre to take two regiments and go to Toulon immediately, and then take a boat to Tunisia there.

He wrote another letter and told Emmanuel: "Send this back to Versailles and have the General Staff make a transfer order."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Now, let's go to Toulon to catch a ship. Oh, if Her Majesty the Queen asks, just say I went to the 'domestic province'."

Well, this is absolutely true, Tunisia is now a province of France.