Holy Roman Empire - Chapter 446

Chapter 446: Chapter 19, The Path to Courting Death
 

Since the opening of the Suez Canal, Austria’s export trade with Asia surged, accompanied by a sharp increase in maritime accidents involving ships.

To maintain the smooth flow of maritime trade, the Austrian Navy had been deployed numerous times, sweeping through multiple pirate strongholds.

Pirates hanged at the ports now numbered in the hundreds, and those directly killed were naturally even more.

The eradication of pirates was indeed effective, as no country openly supported pirates, regardless of whether there was support behind the scenes.

During the campaign against piracy, navies from various nations participated. This was because the likelihood of ship incidents in recent times was about to surpass one percent.

Claims of sea monster sightings have also been frequently appearing lately. As for the truth, Franz was unsure, with eyewitnesses claiming to have seen pirates numbering in the thousands, including people from all nations.

Of course, these sea monsters were not terrifying, as evidenced by the fact that the witnesses were still alive. These creatures were still within the realm of scientific explanation, merely being large in size and with a strong combat ability.

Fire-breathing sea monsters didn’t exist, but there were plenty that spat water. They had no magical abilities, nor could they traverse the skies; they were simply causing mischief in the sea.

Many sea monsters were just odd-looking and passed quickly through people’s line of sight, without attacking the ships.

It was unknown whether they were docile by nature or if ships simply did not fall within their dietary preferences. Indeed, who would be interested in chunks of wood and iron?

To say they hunted for human flesh was laughable; the little meat on humans wouldn’t be enough to wedge between the teeth of such enormous creatures. There was simply no motive to attack ships for it.

Capturing sea monsters was not within the responsibility of the Austrian Navy. Although biologists were thrilled, Franz had no intention of joining them in their pursuits.

No matter who was causing trouble, capturing and exterminating pirates was never a mistake. And even if there were mistakes made, it didn’t matter, as no pirate was innocent.

Every cause has its effect; choosing the path of no return, they should be prepared to be killed. Those who kill must be prepared to be killed in turn.

The campaign to extinguish piracy continued right up to the end of 1869. First, the Mediterranean pirates received a severe beating by society, followed by misfortune for the pirates in the Indian Ocean, and finally, the pirates in Southeast Asia also did not escape their fate.

Being able to protect the shipping lanes and train their forces, and possibly seize some spoils of war as a bonus, the Austrian Navy was growing fond of this meaningful activity.

Removing the pawns of England, France, and other countries was only incidental. After all, no one would admit to connections with pirates, and after tens of thousands of pirates were destroyed, no one came forward to speak a word in their defense.

Media from various countries boasted about their successes in eradicating pirates. If you were to sum up all the numbers from the newspapers, they could encircle the Earth hand in hand.

Whether there actually were that many pirates, was not important. In any case, following the eradication campaign, the thriving pirate gangs were heavily hit.

Looking at the continuously growing labor force, Franz was considering whether to dig another major canal. The original Austro-Hungarian Empire also had a plan for the Ubersichts-karte canal, which ultimately fell through due to the World War.

Now the same proposal has surfaced again, to dig a canal from Vienna to Driasku. There are several rivers along the route, which theoretically could be connected.

However, Franz was unsure about the true utility of this grand canal once built.

Consider that the railway from Vienna to Driasku was already in operation; either the canal’s capacity would be insufficient, losing its economic value against the competitive railway, or the canal would have enough capacity to render the railway economically irrelevant.

In the end, one of them would fall—the railway or the canal. The Suez Canal and Suez Railway are obvious examples, with the British Suez Railway Company now bankrupt.

“`

From an investment perspective, it didn’t seem very cost-effective. However, a country can’t focus solely on short-term benefits; the operational costs of a canal are much lower than those of a railway, and this canal could potentially become another major artery for Austria.

With an investment involving tens of millions of Divine Shields, Franz was extremely cautious. The issue was temporarily shelved, and to be safe, Franz decided to organize several more field investigations.

As for the captured pirates, they might as well join the Road Repair Army! The size of the Road Repair Army had already drastically decreased, on one hand, due to the peace under heaven, reducing the number of “severe criminals” joining; on the other hand, due to significant casualties, the earlier batches of the Road Repair Army had been worn down.

In this era, major engineering projects were filled with the cost of human lives. Taking the Suez Canal as an example, behind every meter excavated was a vast number of white bones.

Although railway construction wasn’t so extreme, on average, a few people would still fall on every kilometer, especially in cliffside construction areas where the losses were even more severe.

On one hand, the protection awareness of the construction teams was not up to standard; they had not conducted proper safety education, and on the other hand, from the very beginning, these criminals were doomed to be expended, and their casualties did not receive significant attention from the railway companies.

By the time Franz realized this problem, it was already too late. He had no skill in reforming these people, and since they were destined to be enemies, it was naturally impossible to let them go.

Filled with hatred and seeing no hope whatsoever, these people were not easy to manage.

Nearly every month, incidents of convict uprisings would occur, and to guard these people, an entire division of troops was stationed nearby.

There’s no need to describe the internal situation; it was very bad indeed. The capitalists’ management model aimed to minimize costs and extract profits to the fullest.

Franz was no saint, and he never showed mercy to his enemies. For the sake of Austria’s long-term peace and security, he chose to turn a blind eye.

As a result, Austria’s Convict Construction Team on the European Continent was widely criticized, and Franz’s reputation suffered alongside it.

If it weren’t for the governments of various countries sitting upright, Austria’s days would have been unbearable. There were many who sympathized with the Rebels, many who thought they were eloquent and self-righteous.

Austria also had many who were all talk and no action. Franz didn’t hesitate to invite these people to go and educate the convicts.

In simple terms, he made them accompany the criminals, not to do anything else but to work on their thoughts. After experiencing it firsthand, these people changed their stance after leaving.

Of course, some never left. Those who don’t seek death will not die; the Saint Party believed they were all good people, and the price they paid was their lives.

There was no helping it; aside from political prisoners, the convict camps were filled with extremely vicious felons. Many were those who should have received the death sentence, sent here only as a waste of resource, to extract their last value.

If someone wanted to try to transform them with love, Franz wouldn’t oppose it; after all, anyone who wanted to go could go on their own.

Adults must be responsible for what they say; they cannot just talk without action. If they dared to advocate in the newspapers, they had to practice it in prison.

It might seem cruel, but the world is even crueler. One cannot sacrifice the interests of millions for a fool.

Strict law enforcement brought social stability. If one took the wrong path, they had to pay a price for it, even if that price might be very cruel.

…

In Mexico, Maximilian I made a rare wise decision and accepted Franz’s advice, contracting the task of suppressing the Rebel army to the French.

The proud French didn’t yet realize they had taken on a huge problem. As Maximilian I’s reform measures were introduced, the strength of the Rebel army grew day by day.

“`

He was not only emulating Austria; many of his policies were even more radical than Franz’s. For instance, he stipulated by law:

Workers have the right to leave their places of employment at will, regardless of whether they owe their employer debts, canceling all debts over 10 pesos, limiting working hours, and the use of child labor, and prohibiting corporal punishment of laborers.

At the same time, the property rights of Indian villages were restored, and village land was distributed to those villages without it.

In simple terms, this was the liberation of the serfs, and the cancellation of the national debt, while also distributing land to the public.

Clearly, this was in the interest of the lower strata of the populace. In theory, such a land revolution should have been popular, and an emperor supported by the people could quickly suppress the rebellion.

The reality was quite the contrary; the unorganized lower classes were passive recipients and did not come forth to support the emperor. In fact, many of them stood in opposition to him.

There was no remedy, since the voice of society was neither in the hands of the emperor nor the lower classes. Without the cooperation of the ruling class, the decrees of Maximilian I, the foreigner, could not extend beyond the Imperial Palace.

Losing out in the reform, landlords and capitalists who received no compensation were naturally very dissatisfied. Apart from resisting the reforms, they also tacitly supported the rebel army.

These people controlled the societal discourse, and soon Maximilian I became notorious in Mexico for greed, inhuman cruelty, recklessness with human life, moodiness, arbitrary despotism…

All words describing a tyrant became the titles of Maximilian I. The only supporters left for the emperor were idealists, who were merely champions in talking.

Their actual capability seemed to be non-existent; otherwise, such policies that offended the entire ruling class should never have been introduced.

Even if reform was necessary, it should have been done in steps! To do everything in one go was not ascending to heaven, but falling into hell.

In the original timeline, that is exactly how Maximilian I ended up on the guillotine, personally driving the Constitutionalists and the Church who had supported him to the opposing side.

Now, Franz’s intervention had still not changed his determination to court disaster. No sooner had he coaxed the French than he thought everything was great and he could mindlessly seek his own demise.

Had he only been causing trouble domestically, it would have been bad enough, but the naïve emperor even shouted political slogans about reclaiming lost territories. It seems he truly thought he could bully the Americans and that they would spit back the land they had swallowed.

This move clearly offended the Federal government. With England, France, and Austria pressing from above, the Federation did not dare to act rashly on the surface, but no one could guarantee what they might do in secret.

That was not all; another incident occurred that made Franz spit blood.

Since the emperor and empress were childless, they adopted as their own sons Agustín de Iturbide’s grandchildren, Little Augustine and Salvador, bestowing upon them the title of Prince Iturbide, with Little Augustine named as the heir to the Mexican throne.

Silently creating an heir to the throne, he effectively declared that the Mexican succession had nothing to do with the Habsburg dynasty anymore.

At this point, Franz truly had nothing to say. Even if the Habsburg Family had no interest in the Mexican throne, to appoint a new successor still required informing them!

Could it be that he really thought of Maximilian as a child of destiny? In the original timeline, he had been on the guillotine by 1867; yet here he was, still alive and kicking on the throne, causing trouble, and that too with significant effort from the Habsburg dynasty.

In any case, once this news reached back home, Franz found himself held accountable by a bunch of Grand Dukes from the Habsburg family, demanding all support for Maximilian I be cut off.

The reasons were ready-made; the family’s resources were limited and could not be wasted on outsiders.

The opinions of family members also needed to be considered; they might not seem very effective, but through political marriages, they had all made contributions to the family.

European royal families are all related; that’s how it comes about. Otherwise, purely relying on the marriage alliances of emperors’ and kings’ offspring, there wouldn’t be enough to go around!

Franz didn’t hesitate and agreed straight away. After all, his duties as a brother were fulfilled, and the resources spent on Maximilian had been plenty, so much so that protests had arisen among the family members.

Given the age of Maximilian I and his wife, they were far from the time of infertility; Empress Carlota was not even thirty, fully capable of bearing children.

To secure the support of the former regime by appointing Little Augustine as the heir to the Mexican throne was, to say the least, a complete blunder.

Not to mention the question of what to do if they had their own son, just considering the reaction of the Habsburg Family alone, they should have considered family members first.

Maximilian I didn’t have a son, but he had a bunch of nephews, with more than ten of them being eligible.

Even if the direct line wasn’t interested, there were still collateral members. No matter how distant the blood relation, they were still family, and that wouldn’t have caused so much resistance.

Political resources have always been limited; the game rule has always been that if you take more, someone else will have to take less.

There were no careerists in Franz’s generation, aside from the idealist Maximilian I. His other two brothers were only mediocre in ability, and it was much the same with a few princes from the collateral branches.

Otherwise, these individuals would have vied for resources long ago. These political resources are not to be underestimated, investing in a certain individual could now put the Spanish or the Polish throne within reach.

Alternatively, they could court the constitutionalists in some South American country and involve themselves in the struggle for the throne.

This is the legacy left by their ancestors; many nobles in South American countries have some ties with the Habsburg Family.

This is an old story from a century ago when the Spanish Habsburg dynasty became extinct, and the crown fell to the Bourbon Dynasty. “A new king, new courtiers”—this saying is true everywhere.

Nobles who had been too closely associated with the Habsburg dynasty were gradually marginalized from the power center, and many family members were forced into the colonial expansion movement.

Many of these individuals have now become rulers of various South American countries, the relationships among nobility are always convoluted, and behind-the-scenes connections still exist.

Especially after Austria’s rise, these potential networks were re-established, but expecting their continued loyalty was out of the question.

However, in some nations plagued by severe infighting, the constitutionalists were still thinking about restoration. After all, South America had only attained independence a few decades ago, the American leader of the republic had been soundly defeated, and monarchy remained the global norm.

A constitution naturally involves a king, and the Habsburg dynasty is a suitable candidate. With connections at hand, people naturally prefer to elevate someone familiar.

Had there been careerists in the family, Franz wouldn’t have minded giving a push. Just emulate Napoleon III—emerge directly as a presidential candidate, then switch from republic to empire.

Fortunately, no such individual existed, or else it would have been tragic for Maximilian I. Divided political resources would have endangered him, and he might have met the guillotine once again.

A high-regarded direct descendant of the family, and a disregarded member, are utterly different concepts.

In the original timeline, due to Austria’s decline, the Habsburg dynasty had limited power and couldn’t intervene in Mexico, leading to Maximilian I’s execution.

If an army had appeared right at their doorstep, the Mexican Revolutionary Party would have thought twice. Even if they had been hot-headed, artillery would have cooled them down.

Sighing, Franz sent a letter to Maximilian I, conveying the Habsburg Family’s stance directly, henceforth delineating clear boundaries between them.