Chapter 173: Sleeping Lions (3)
Chapter 173: Sleeping Lions (3)
In the late eighteenth century, when entertainment meant gambling—or buying magazines filled with utterly dull stories.
Board games in the eighteenth century.
I could practically smell the sweet scent of honey tickling my nose in real time. At the same time, the scent of possible failure also tickled my nose, which was the problem.
This was the eighteenth century, after all.
Collusion between politics and business was commonplace, and officers considered themselves so superior in status that they would not even eat at the same table as soldiers.
All sorts of things happened that felt deeply alien to the common sense of a modern person.
Hadn’t I seen it just a few days ago? That active Member of Parliament—Wilberforce or whatever his name was—openly smoking opium.
—Opium? Why on earth would you smoke that?!
—It’s simply medicine… why do you ask?
What was natural in this era was not natural to me.
And what was natural to me was not natural to this era.
This sort of clash had happened more than once during my life.
“Your Excellency, a person as distinguished as yourself—the Controller-General of Finance—coming all the way to this countryside town of Birmingham just to meet a rustic like me… I am deeply moved.”
“Why speak that way between business partners? More importantly, what do you think of it?”
“Hmm. I suppose I need to try it with my own hands.”
Matthew Boulton, president of Boulton & Watt, who had previously established a cooperative relationship with me while I was in France, was also the owner of the Soho Manufactory, Britain’s largest producer of toys and miscellaneous goods.
A man who had spent his entire life handling toys and trinkets would certainly know whether this board game would become a hit—or end up in the trash.
For quite some time, Boulton fiddled with the wooden pieces I had carved myself and the booklet describing the rules. Then he finally spoke with a trembling voice.
“You… came up with this entirely on your own?”
“Yes… well, you could say that.”
Strictly speaking, it was an item someone in the future had created after racking their brains for a long time.
“It’s definitely entertaining. Once this hits the market, it could easily bring in ten thousand—no, even one hundred thousand pounds, regardless of age or gender!”
“Really?”
“However… you intend to sell this to naval officers?”
“Yes.”
Boulton shook his head several times.
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Civilians like myself might enjoy rolling dice, traveling across the country, buying land and buildings, and occasionally landing on someone else’s property and getting fleeced. But soldiers—those fellows are mad for conquest and honor by nature.”
Hmm. For this era, that was certainly true. Actually… perhaps even somewhat true in the twenty-first century.
“Then what should be done?”
“If you satisfy their desire for conquest and glory, they’ll become completely obsessed with the game.”
“Thank you for the insight.”
“Please, don’t say that! You’re sharing a fortune with me—I should be the grateful one, Your Excellency.”
After hearing Boulton’s suggestion, I decided to develop separate board games—one for the military and one for civilians.
For civilians, games where you roll dice to buy land and avoid other players’ properties—something like Blue Marble or Monopoly.
Or simple but entertaining games like Halli Galli.
For the military, I planned something closer to the wargames we used to play at the outpost level during my GOP days—just simplified enough to be enjoyed casually.
After several days of struggling to carve wooden pieces and refine the rules, Guillaume de Toulon’s Wargame No. 1 was finally born.
The pieces were crude, but the game itself was enjoyable enough.
Once factories began operating, the pieces could be made far more attractive and polished.
For now, all that mattered was whether this would appeal to our customers.
“Director, I received your invitation. You said you wanted to show something to me and my comrades?”
“Yes. Captain Hardy, you mentioned before that life aboard ship was unbearably dull. I tried making a game myself in case it might help, but I have no idea whether it’s actually fun. Perhaps you and your comrades could test it.”
“Haha, what an honor this is!”
Captain Hardy and the officers who came with him all laughed cheerfully as they sat at the table I had prepared.
And fifteen minutes later—
“Enemy fleet—three ships of the line launching!”
“Escort with five frigates! We must intercept them!”
“Blue fleet takes nine direct hits on the ship of the line! She’s sinking! She’s sinking!”
“Bullshit!! Nine hits? At eight hundred yards! Eight hundred yards! How the hell do you score nine hits on the first salvo at eight hundred yards?!”
“If you’re upset, you should’ve rolled the dice better! Right? Heh heh.”
“Damn this stupid dice game!!”
“Alright then—Sector A goes to our side.”
Captain Thomas Hardy and his friends had completely immersed themselves in the board game, hurling vicious insults and curses at each other without hesitation.
Hmm. A wonderful sight.
After all, extreme immersion is the best indicator of a game’s potential and entertainment value.
In that sense, seeing them shouting and pounding the table with their fists was excellent news.
While I watched them happily shouting “Just one more round! Just one more turn!” Florian approached me.
“Boss. A visitor has arrived.”
“Is it someone important?”
“They say they came from Versailles.”
Versailles?
If someone from Versailles was looking for me, it could hardly be something trivial.
I stood up, leaving Captain Hardy and his friends in the middle of their fierce battle, and went downstairs to the reception room.
“Who are you?”
“Huff… huff… I came… from Versailles… Your Excellency…”
“Well… catch your breath first and speak slowly.”
The man from Versailles seemed to have run all the way here. After catching his breath, he finally spoke.
“Your Excellency… President Mirabeau of the National Assembly has collapsed.”
On a night of pouring rain, grim news arrived from Versailles.
“Damn it. I told him countless times to stop drinking so much. Eating meat every day and drinking alcohol like water—of course something like this would happen.”
I muttered unconsciously while resting my chin on my hand.
“Director, we’ve arrived.”
“Yes.”
Thanks to Prime Minister Pitt inviting me to express condolences, my carriage had already reached the Prime Minister’s residence.
When I entered the reception room, Pitt extended his hand to me as before.
“I heard the President of the French National Assembly has collapsed. As Prime Minister of Great Britain and a fellow practitioner of parliamentary politics, I offer my deepest sympathies. I hope he recovers as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.”
Hmm. Pitt wasn’t the type to summon me just to exchange a few polite phrases.
As if answering my thoughts, he spoke shocking words.
“The Russian Imperial Navy has passed through the Bosporus Strait.”
“The Bosporus Strait?”
“Istanbul—Constantinople, the capital of the Turks.”
“…Have you perhaps been smoking opium with your friend Mr. Wilberforce?”
Oops. That may have come out a little too harsh.
“Director, do you have some kind of grudge against opium? It’s simply medicine.
In any case, both our Admiralty Intelligence Department and the Foreign Office have verified the report. The Russian Navy has indeed passed through the Bosporus Strait.”
“The naval officers I was with earlier said nothing about this.”
“That’s because this is an extremely fresh and highly classified secret.”
“…I see.”
Russia? Why suddenly?
Three years had passed since the declaration of war with nothing happening. Wouldn’t the statute of limitations between us normally expire by now?
Even in monarchies that shift according to a ruler’s whim, it was strange for nothing to happen for so long and then suddenly—
“Our Foreign Office and I are just as puzzled. But as I said, it’s true.
Incidentally, the only people in the British Empire who currently know this are Vice Admiral Hood, the Foreign Secretary, and myself.”
“…Telling me this means you want something from me again.”
“Strange how I communicate better with a Frenchman like you than with the members of Parliament at Westminster.”
Pitt chuckled.
“The Russian Empire is daring to set its sights on the Mediterranean. The British Empire cannot simply stand by.”
“Of course.”
“But even if we find Russia outrageous, our navy cannot launch a preemptive strike. After all, Russia is formally Britain’s ally.”
Preemptive strike. Ally.
Yes—credibility was important.
But if he was telling me this, he was basically asking France to launch the strike.
“Prime Minister, France has no naval forces available.”
Go fight yourselves. We can’t do that.
“Do not worry, Director. The First Lord of the Admiralty mentioned that our Mediterranean squadron is currently stationed in Toulon.
Six ships of the line, in fact. I do wonder why they chose Toulon—your hometown—instead of the larger port of Marseille.”
“Ahem.”
Why poke around in someone else’s pockets like that all of a sudden?
“So what exactly are you proposing?”
“Simple. Let’s behave as we did during the American War of Independence.”
“…You mean the days when British and French warships sailed under pirate flags instead of national flags?”
“Exactly.”
Pitt nodded.
About ten years ago, during that war, both countries found it extremely unpleasant to watch the merchant ships of neutral traders sail freely between them.
However, because the era still insisted that war must be “honorable,” those merchant ships had to be allowed to pass.
Then some clever naval officer devised a brilliant solution.
If they spotted an enemy merchant vessel, they would quietly lower their navy flag, raise a pirate flag, and attack.
—Our merchant ship disappeared. Your doing, right?
—What are you talking about? We heard pirates attacked it. Doesn’t sound like us.
A perfectly plausible excuse.
As a result, during the American War of Independence, every merchant ship crossing the Atlantic or sailing near the West Indies constantly had to fight suspiciously powerful pirates.
“So you intend to issue a warning using France’s name.”
“France can deal with the immediate threat, and the British Empire can quietly warn Russia. There is no harm for either of us.”
“Very well. Let’s say British warships lower their Union flags and raise French ones. But will the fleet commander actually listen to France?”
“That is something I will ensure.”
Pitt slid a document across the table.
“His name is Horatio Nelson. Commander of the Mediterranean Squadron. The man who will fly the French flag and teach that unruly bear a lesson.”