Life of Being a Crown Prince in France

Chapter 1117: Chapter 1023

The young man pointed to the stock exchange behind him: “Let the British see our resolve!

“Since they want to destroy the East India Company, they should not expect any investment from the Netherlands. Join me in selling off shares of the Birmingham Kovak Steel Company!”

As the Security Bureau agent led the charge into the trading hall, hundreds of Amsterdam citizens also surged in.

They didn’t look for stockbrokers but withdrew funds from investment firms—most people couldn’t come up with the funds for a single trading unit, so some investment companies pooled everyone’s small amounts of money to buy stocks.

Of course, after receiving numerous withdrawal requests, investment firms could only liquidate stocks.

The next day’s newspapers featured news of the “Birmingham Kovak Steel Company being sold off by angry Amsterdam citizens.”

This issue had nothing to do with the East India Company and wasn’t under news censorship, so many newspapers incited people to join the selling action.

In two days, the stock price of this British steel plant fell from 760 units per trade to 782 units.

The power of the small citizens was ultimately limited, but the trend had begun to emerge.

With this downward trend, De Witt could take action.

Three days ago, he repaid all the “borrowed” East India Company shares and made a profit of nearly 100,000 guilders from short selling.

At this moment, his traders started looking everywhere for those holding a large number of Kovak Steel Company shares with funds in hand.

The same operation as before, in just a few days, over 1 million guilders of sales emerged, and the Kovak Steel Company’s stock price plummeted to 1,070 units per trade.

Yes, the market value of this company was far smaller than the Dutch East India Company, and without the Dutch Government’s support, it was much easier to crash.

Initially, Dutch citizens sold off Kovak Steel shares out of anger, now it became necessary—not selling meant watching daily market value shrink by more than 20%, who wouldn’t be terrified?

And those big capitals, with sharper senses, had already started cutting losses and liquidating positions when the stock fell below the psychological barrier of 1,000 units per trade.

Over the next three days, Kovak Steel plunged below 1,800 units per trade.

It wasn’t due to a lack of sales, but continuous triggering of the 30% circuit breaker, otherwise, it would probably have directly broken 3,000 units.

Subsequently, under the explosion of nationalist sentiment, Kovak Steel’s crisis began to spread to other British companies.

Naturally, De Witt efficiently followed up, focusing attacks on five larger British companies with not-so-good revenue conditions.

The process didn’t change much, starting with emotional sell-offs by small citizens, followed by the entry of De Witt’s short funds, and the big Dutch financial capitals fearing losses, had no choice but to sell along.

In case of encountering big capital trying to forcibly support the stock—like when they had invested too much in a certain British company—De Witt wouldn’t get entangled and would immediately switch targets.

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In 1789, an uprising of the bourgeoisie erupted in France. On November 9, 1799, Bonaparte

Napoleon launched a coup and took office as the First Consul. In 1804, Napoleon also crowned himself as the Emperor of the French Empire. During Napoleon’s rule, France’s intelligence work developed swiftly. But as the empire fell

, modern France’s intelligence efforts also stagnated, only until after the Franco-Prussian War

did France begin to establish a permanent military intelligence agency, with serious politicization of intelligence. After the outbreak of the Revolution, France’s domestic and foreign security environment was extremely hostile. To counter the domestic and foreign enemies’ assaults, the French Government attached great importance to intelligence work, with Napoleon being the most outstanding in this regard. Napoleon himself had a keen interest in military intelligence work. Revolutionary France was besieged by foreign enemies, and countries such as England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia

formed Anti-French Alliances multiple times. After Napoleon came to power, he reformed France’s political and military systems, establishing a powerful bourgeois army. With superb military command artistry

, the French Army repeatedly defeated attacks from the Anti-French Alliance forces, and military intelligence work played a very important role in Napoleon’s military strategies. Emphasizing intelligence is a significant reason for Napoleon’s repeated victories. Before each campaign, Napoleon would always conduct reconnaissance. He said, “Every general, as long as he’s not in the desert, but in a populated area, if he cannot fully understand his enemy, then he cannot be deemed proficient in his field.”

Napoleon had a clear understanding of the uncertainty of intelligence. Due to limited means of collection, the information about enemy forces was always incomplete, so it was necessary to make clear judgments on the battlefield situation based on his judgment ability. Before launching a campaign, he would do his best to gather intelligence and then make assumptions about various situations that could occur during the war according to the intelligence he had, proposing targeted contingency plans. During the campaign, he continued to gather intelligence, eliminating assumptions inconsistent with actual battlefield situations, and continue making new assumptions until the war ended. Due to the slow pace of war, this method effectively resolved the problem of the battlefield’s opacity, well satisfying the intelligence needs of war command. To adapt to this new war demand, Napoleon established an intelligence system led by the Chief of Staff

Napoleon used multiple intelligence methods, such as spies, troop reconnaissance, and postal inspections. The Cavalry

was the main force for reconnaissance, responsible for discovering the primary posture and terrain situation of the enemy ahead, but the most valuable intelligence was provided by spies. In the early empire, most major espionage activities were carried out by Jean Savary

Early on, the spies Napoleon controlled were mainly Northern Italian nationalists. At that time, Italy was in a fragmented state, and some Italian nationalists attempted to use France’s power to establish a regime. In 1795, French Army General Scheler established the “Secret Communication Agency,” which operated in the Genoa

region. On March 27, 1796, after Napoleon took over Scheler’s military command, he also took over Scheler’s espionage network. Later, Napoleon increasingly used monetary means to recruit opportunists as spies. Napoleon was less generous in paying spies compared to England but more generous than impoverished Austria. The Austrian Army usually paid spies no more than 100 francs, while Napoleon paid up to 1,000 francs. Based on the advice of strategist Alexander Bredel, he established an index card system, recording information on espionage activities on the cards, including the characteristics of spies, their motivation for being spies, and the quality of the intelligence they provided. In 1796, General Massena’s staff officer Paul Teboul prescribed regulations for military intelligence work. He required division chiefs of staff to be responsible for gathering intelligence within their jurisdiction and stationed areas, with an officer from the General Staff managing the secret register, maintaining communication with the division chiefs, receiving the intelligence provided by the division chiefs, and then reporting to the Chief of Staff, presenting to the Commander-in-Chief. Later, Teboul compiled his intelligence work regulations into a manual, detailing the basic principles of intelligence work, reasons for using spies, types of spies, topics for spies to gather, and methods for verifying intelligence.

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