Chapter 1389: Better to Steal Than to Build, Better to Steal Than to Buy (Seeking Subscriptions)

A week before Christmas of 1669, the acknowledged most handsome man in France, the Sun King of Europe, the absolute monarch who declared "I am the state," Louis XIV, was standing before an oil painting he detested most, sulking.

This oil painting was a portrait, depicting the Emperor of the Great Ming Empire, the Sun King of the Eastern world, the peerless Hongxing Emperor Zhu Cilang.

The painting had been commissioned by Marie Mancini several years earlier and sent to Louis from ten thousand miles away. Marie told him in her letter that the man in the painting was the Ming Emperor, and that it was life-sized... Louis felt something was wrong the moment he looked at it!

How could this man be so tall and imposing, with a thick, bushy beard? He looked utterly barbaric, certainly not the emperor of a civilized people. Would he mistreat Marie? Of course he would!

The moment he thought of how the most beautiful woman in his life had been given away to that barbaric Eastern monarch by the treacherous minister Mazarin, King Louis's fury surged up from within!

What infuriated him even more was that this king of the Eastern barbarians surpassed him, the Sun King of the West, in every conceivable respect...

The Sun King ruled over a population of as many as twenty million — an enormous figure in the West — yet the Hongxing Emperor ruled over as many as two hundred million!

Ten times as many! How could he possibly govern so many people?

The territory Louis XIV ruled was already vast by European standards. But the realm of the Ming Hongxing Emperor was simply boundless — boundless in its home territory, not boundless in the sense of colonies with barely a handful of people!

As for wealth, there was even less comparison. King Louis's treasury was perpetually empty, impossible to fill no matter what.

Yet this Hongxing Emperor was the richest man in the world — bar none!

And despite already being so wealthy, he kept devising new ways to extract money. He was insatiable to the extreme!

Another thing that made King Louis envious was the Hongxing Emperor's offspring... The Governor-General of New France, Lord Saint-Lusson, had just sent King Louis an urgent report: the Ming Emperor's son, King Zhu Cihe of the United States, had arrived in Washington, the capital of the United States of the New Continent.

The man's son had already become a king! And he had gone to North America to become a neighbor of New France... And this Hongxing Emperor had another dozen or so — perhaps twenty — sons. It was simply absurd how many he had.

Louis XIV turned around and looked at a map of the Americas hanging on the wall. Gazing at the New France colonies occupying the northern, northeastern, and vast central regions of the North American continent, he finally recovered a measure of confidence.

At least France still possessed boundless American colonies... But the number of French colonists on this enormous territory was somewhat small.

There were only a little over ten thousand people — a figure that was itself the result of Louis XIV's vigorous efforts to promote immigration after he assumed personal rule.

Meanwhile, in the English New England and the Chinese United States of the New Continent, the settled colonists numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

By comparison, the population of the New France colonies was far too sparse — it had reached a dangerous point.

If the Chinese continued to pour into the New World in an unending stream, sooner or later they would cross the Rocky Mountains and enter the New France colonies.

When that time came, would New France be able to hold out?

But increasing the colony's population was truly difficult!

France itself was rich and fertile, and now it was ruled by the wisest Sun King in all of Europe. Its population was not excessive, and the fertile land of the homeland could fully support them.

So France was unlike the Great Ming Empire, which could always find a large crowd of paupers who could not survive in the homeland and send them off to the New World to scrape by.

Moreover, France under the Sun King's rule was not like England across the English Channel, with its endless upheavals and persecutions, which always made some nobles and commoners unable to survive in the homeland, forcing them to go to the New World — the English were especially gifted in this regard. Historically, even into the glorious and prosperous Victorian era, they managed to stir up the Great Irish Famine, which added population to America...

Finally, although France's colonies on the New Continent were vast, no maddening gold had been discovered there — at least none so far.

But the Great Ming's luck was off the charts: not long after seizing California, they discovered enormous quantities of gold!

The Sun King sighed softly.

At that moment, a loud announcement came from a servant outside the door: "The Minister of State for War and the Minister of State for the Navy have arrived!"

The Minister of State for the Navy was Colbert, the minister Louis XIV relied on most. He had previously been responsible for rebuilding the finances of the Kingdom of France, and now oversaw the navy and colonial affairs.

Although the Prince de Condé had proposed to King Louis a strategy of French army plus Dutch navy for hegemony, Louis XIV remained obsessed with building France's own great navy.

Especially after the Battle of Malacca, when the world's major naval powers all fell into a period of "confusion," Louis XIV felt that the opportunity for France to develop its navy had arrived. So once the finances had loosened slightly, he transferred his trusted confidant to reorganize the navy, while also placing him in charge of France's vast and desolate colonies.

And King Louis's current Minister of State for War was the Prince de Condé.

The door to the king's office was then pushed open.

The two ministers walked in one after the other, came before Louis XIV, bowed, and kissed the back of the king's hand.

Louis XIV glanced at the two men and noticed that Colbert wore a pleased expression, so he asked: "Minister of the Navy, has some good news come back from the New France colonies?"

"Your Majesty," Colbert answered with a smile, "the good news is not from New France, but from our East India Company... They have reached an agreement with the Shun Empire.

The Shun Empire's envoys have already arrived at the port of Marseille with the agreement bearing the imperial seal. Once you sign the agreement, our army can march from the island of Ceylon to Fort Saint-David.

The rich Coromandel Coast will soon belong to France!"

This was indeed good news!

Louis XIV turned to look at the Prince de Condé. "Prince, have you chosen a target? Where do you plan to begin?"

"It has already been chosen," the Prince de Condé said. "France will begin its conquest of rich India from Pondicherry!"

Pondicherry lay just south of Fort Saint-David. It had once been occupied by the Portuguese, and had now been retaken by the local Indian princely states.

In the original history, the French seized it in 1673, thereby beginning the colonial history of French India.

Now, with the Dutch and the Shun as helpers, the French dream of India had begun several years early.

"Will he interfere?" Louis XIV turned around and pointed at the full-length portrait of Zhu Cilang.

"He has already begun to interfere," the Prince de Condé said. "He took Aurangzeb's daughter, Princess Nisa, into his harem precisely in order to interfere in Indian affairs!"

"How utterly shameless!" King Louis cursed — not because Zhu Cilang's interference in India was shameless, but because taking Princess Nisa into his harem was shameless.

"Prince," the Sun King looked at the Prince de Condé, "is there truly nothing we can do about him?"

"Of course not," the Prince de Condé said. "We still have many means to deal with the Hongxing Emperor and his empire."

"What means? Speak quickly!" the Sun King said.

"Your Majesty," the Prince de Condé said, "we should seek a broader alliance, uniting with the Great Ming Empire's existing and potential enemies to create difficulties for the Hongxing Emperor on every front."

"Tell me, who can be won over?" Louis XIV asked.

"First, the Kingdom of New Spain," the Prince de Condé said. "The expansion of the United States of the New Continent poses a great threat to the Kingdom of New Spain. The regent of New Spain, Don Juan José, will certainly be willing to stand with us. Moreover, after the death of Philip IV, the population of the Kingdom of New Spain has grown rapidly, and it has begun to build its own navy. It already has the strength to fight the United States of the New Continent again.

Second, Russia. Their war with the Great Ming has in fact been ongoing. The two sides have been fighting continuously over Central Asia and the steppes of southern Siberia. Furthermore, Russia has allied with several Muslim states in Central Asia and has also gained the support of Persia. And the Great Ming homeland is too far from Central Asia and Siberia to commit sufficient forces. So Russia and the Great Ming have fought to a standstill in Central Asia and Siberia."