I Became The Crown Prince Of The Mexican Empire - Chapter 86



Only Noblemtl

Mexican-French War (1)

When news reached me that Britain had decided to wage the Opium War, I went straight to my father’s office.

“I thought it would happen someday, but it happened sooner than I thought.”

“Yes, when Britain declared war on Afghanistan, they just let it go, but now that they’re at war with China, France won’t stay still.”

“I was preparing hard, but I thought there was still time left···.”

My father, who did not know that the Opium War would occur, probably thought that there was still time.

“France will not declare war right away either. It will take months for the British fleet to assemble and reach China, so it will not be able to move until then.”

My father nodded to my words.

“I see. So, would it be possible to say that there will be about half a year until the full-scale fighting begins?”

“Yes, it will take about that much time. And by then, we will be somewhat prepared.”

Father also nodded.

“We’ve been preparing for a long time. We’ve been slowly preparing since France started extorting people openly.”

Aside from the warships pouring out of the four shipyards, there is a lot more prepared.

‘At least there is no more overlap between domestic and foreign affairs.’

Usually, when a country falls, internal and external conflicts often overlap, but I was not worried about the risk of internal conflict.

As time passed, the power of the imperial faction grew stronger, and in addition to being able to stably coordinate between the landowners and the republicans, many domestic risk factors were eliminated.

“The domestic situation is stable, so I think we can focus on fighting France. It’s different from France, where the citizens are extremely dissatisfied.”

“Yes. I was going to say that. It was a stroke of genius to order a security survey while conducting a census.”

“Yes, there were some unfortunate sacrifices because of that.”

If it weren’t for the census, there would be no reason for the government to send people all over the country to investigate on a large scale. So I ordered them to investigate the security situation in the area as thoroughly as possible, but incidents big and small broke out all over the country.

“Yeah. I didn’t know there were still such fearless people left. It’s unfortunate, but it can’t be helped.”

Even though the central and local armies had been cooperating to eliminate bandits and other criminal organizations since immediately after independence, a detailed investigation showed that many still remained.

Since the investigators are not professional investigators, they did not request an investigation and were simply instructed to ask local residents questions about things like the security situation and criminal organizations.

‘I never thought there would be crazy people out there who would retaliate just by asking about it.’

Some righteous investigators have been retaliated against for digging into dangerous areas, but both are unacceptable.

“We’ve already wiped out all the people identified in the last census. There are probably still some people we haven’t identified, but they’re probably just petty criminals.”

“Yeah, good job. Oh, by the way, aside from crime, have you dealt with the problem of illegal immigrants coming from Colombia?”

“Yes, as we decided last time, we will deport criminals and allow immigration only to those who have sworn to become official Mexican citizens. We have also set up immigration offices in border cities to prevent this kind of thing.”

“I see.”

Father nodded.

The census has been a huge help in terms of crime and this southern border incident. It has given us some level of visibility into every part of this vast Mexican empire.

‘With this, we can be confident that the domestic situation is extremely stable.’

How many obstacles had there been up to this point? From the republicans who tried to overthrow the royal family right after independence, to numerous native tribes, to various bandits and criminal organizations that appeared like mushrooms during the war of independence, to the Americans in Texas and the southern border. They succeeded in resolving all of these without a hitch.

“But it’s not like we only care about internal situations. We’re also spending astronomical amounts of money on naval training and fleet expansion.”

“Shouldn’t we have stayed for another year or two according to our plan?”

“That’s true, but that’s when you consider the full force of the French fleet as an enemy. But the French can’t bring all their ships in at once. And they can’t do it even if they wanted to.”

“It must be because of the colonies.”

“Yes, the colony is not in a stable state, and we are trying to expand further, so we need to leave a certain number of fleets. If we were facing Britain, we would call in all the fleets in the world, no matter how difficult it may be, but they will not value us to that extent.”

Although it was still the early days of imperialism, France had already expanded its colonies in Algeria and Senegal in Africa and the Indochina Peninsula in Asia.

Just looking at the diplomats’ attitude, you can clearly feel that they are ignoring us. There is no way those arrogant guys would treat us like the UK.

“Okay. So it depends on what we do from now on.”

Even though the declaration of war had not yet arrived, we began full-scale preparations.

***

“Finally! Finally the chance has come! Isn’t that right, Kijo?”

“Yes, it’s a definite opportunity.”

When Louis Philippe heard that the British Parliament had decided to go to war with the Qing, he forgot all about his dignity and clapped his hands.

“Those pirates are even starting a war just to sell drugs. They really can’t hide their dirty nature!”

“Hahaha, it will go down in history as the ugliest war.”

One of the subjects intervened like this.

“Well, then, we can finally get our fair share of the 35 million pesos debt, right?”

Louis Philippe asked in a greedy voice.

“Yes, even Britain cannot intervene now.”

“Great! Plus, I can distract those worms.”

It was an opportunity that Louis Philippe and the French royalists could not miss, because those who had praised Louis Philippe as a citizen king when he first became king were increasingly rebelling.

Those ignorant bastards wanted more freedom without even knowing the topic and claimed that the bourgeoisie was exploiting them.

It wasn’t a serious problem yet, but I could sense that discontent was building up. Didn’t Louis Philippe become king because of a revolution? Even a king couldn’t ignore this in a country that was going through a revolution. And then there were more than a few people who ended up getting beheaded.

“Your Majesty, we will proceed as planned.”

“Okay. Let’s go ahead.”

A plan was in place to turn the working class’ discontent outward.

They use the media to claim that all of this is the fault of the Mexican Empire.

A huge debt of millions of francs. The fact that the country had ample finances and had repaid its debts to Britain and the United States, but only to France, was indiscriminately reported in the press.

“What? The Mexican Empire? An empire of unheard-of guys.”

“It’s only been 17 years since independence? That’s much later than the United States. It took that long to become independent from Spain, let alone Britain?”

“So. They’re big, but aren’t they worse than Haiti? These guys aren’t paying back our 7 million francs? And that was the money we lent them to fund their war of independence?”

‘Those cheeky bastards.’

Newspaper articles suggesting this view spread from Paris to other major French cities.

It didn’t work for those who were familiar with foreign affairs or those who noticed the king’s intentions, but it did work for many of the people.

Negative press coverage of the Mexican Empire grew more and more intense, and public opinion in France was also growing increasingly negative.

It took less than three months for those who had been claiming that Mexico was not paying its debts, as the King had intended, to begin to appear. By directing discontent toward the King and the government outward, they also secured legitimacy for the war.

“Hahaha! You really get along well!”

Louis Philippe praised the courtier who proposed this plan. He had heard of the plan and wanted to put it into action sooner, but if he did not start a war, the people’s discontent would only increase. France, wary of possible British intervention, had been wary of the rumors about this debt spreading.

“At this point, I think there would be no problem declaring war.”

The advice was thus given, and it suited the King’s taste very well.

“Minister Schneider, prepare the fleet.”

Louis Philippe gave orders to his Minister of War, Antoine Virgile Schneider.

There was no question of whether they could beat Mexico, or even how good their skills were.

A newly independent nation, much weaker than the United States.

To France, Mexico was nothing more than that. They won against Spain, but France knew better than anyone how messed up Spain was at the time. It was just a lucky victory.

Especially in terms of the navy, Mexico was a country that had only recently started building shipyards and ships. I thought that a country like Mexico could not possibly be a match for France.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I will lead the fleet and destroy Mexico.”

Although Minister Schneider did not know the exact size of the Mexican Imperial Navy, he responded to the King’s instructions immediately as if it were a matter of course.

In July 1839, the Kingdom of France declared war on the Mexican Empire.

France did not even try to force Mexico to pay its debts again, claiming that it had already formally demanded it once before, but in reality it was trying to force them to pay a higher price through war.

***

As the Mexican Empire’s crown had expected, France declared war.

“No matter what, I thought they would declare war without an ultimatum.”

“How reckless.”

While the Emperor and the Crown Prince were thus speaking, most of the citizens of the Mexican Empire were shocked by the news of France’s declaration of war, and there was much talk of asking Britain for help.

“There’s no way Britain would listen.”

“Still, I think I should give it a try.”

The emperor thought it was a pointless thing to do, but he asked his subjects once at their request.

Britain flatly refused to help, and the United States, without even asking for help, first sent a message that it could not help and would remain neutral.

Even if they were not at war, they would not have fought against France for the Mexican Empire. But since they were already at war with two countries, there was no way they would help. However, the news that Britain had refused to help was a shock to the Mexican public.

“If France brings its fleet, is there any way to stop it?”

People of some rank know that the Mexican Empire’s naval power is expanding rapidly, but most citizens have no idea how large its power is, except that they remember buying naval bonds.

As the people were anxious, the emperor himself came out to the square. It was the first direct speech in over a dozen years.

Constitution Square was packed with tens of thousands of citizens, and the Emperor opened his mouth.