Eagle’s Glory

Good rain knows the season.

On this night at the turn of spring and summer, thunder rumbled and shook the earth, followed by the patter of raindrops.

Fine raindrops slapped on the woods, soil, and buildings everywhere, turning the land into a wet world.

Different from the violent and harsh winter rain that hopes to take away the last trace of heat from people's bodies, the current rain is like a gift from God to the world, nourishing the creatures on the earth, driving away the sweltering heat, and bringing them the longed-for warmth. Cool.

On this dull rainy night, Aigron quietly came to the outskirts of Milan with several of his guards.

He is now wearing a black raincoat, and his whole body has blended into the dark night, walking on the deserted road with the help of only a few dim lights.

The heavy rain did not affect his mood. On the contrary, the closer he got to the city of Milan in the night, the happier he felt.

He had just completed a feat not long ago. He sneaked into France and then issued a declaration in front of the people.

With his adventurous actions, he easily made himself the center of attention and once again turned the European public opinion upside down.

On the way out of France, he hid all the way through Switzerland and finally came to Milan, so he had little chance to contact outside information along the way, but he could predict that he must have done this.

Of course, he knows better that not everyone likes him. As many people cheer for him as there are people who want him to die immediately, so his most important task now is to protect his own safety.

Milan will not be a city that welcomes him.

After 1815, with the collapse of Napoleon's empire, Austria retook the Lombardy region centered on Milan and established the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venecia on its own Italian territory, with the Austrian Emperor as its head of state.

Although Lombardy and Venetia were merged into one country, in fact the two regions still had their own parallel set of governments, and the Austrian royal family sent a governor to oversee the operation of the kingdom.

The current governor is Archduke Rainer - he is the twelfth child of the late Emperor Leopold II, and naturally the younger brother of Emperor Franz and Archduke Karl. He has been staying in Lombardy since 1818. The Kingdom of Venetia served as governor,

Rule this area of ​​Italy on behalf of the Austrian Emperor.

As governor, he and his family usually stayed in Milan.

Theoretically speaking, this Grand Duke should be regarded as Aigron's great-uncle - of course, Aigron would not dare to go to this Grand Duke to talk about family ties.

Aigron knew that the Bourbon royal family hated him so much that he must not fall into their hands, but would his fate be much better if he fell into the hands of the Habsburg family? I'm afraid that's not necessarily the case. His grandfather was a petty and vengeful person. He had brought him so much humiliation. How could he just pretend that nothing happened?

Moreover, the local Milanese are different from the French.

The French remembered the glory brought by the emperor and the security and stability he brought to the country by restoring order, but these Lombards were different.

Although they were once Napoleon's subjects like the French, they did not particularly have a favorable impression of the French - these poor Lombards were, after all, Italians, and they became the first to bear the brunt of Napoleon's rise. The conquered were ravaged and plundered everywhere. Napoleon relied on the wealth here to complete his primitive accumulation. The French army burned, killed, and looted in this area, and the various disasters they caused are also engraved in the local historical memory.

After Napoleon founded the empire, they were merged into the Kingdom of Italy with Napoleon as the monarch, but even then they did not receive any benefits. They still had to bear high taxes and endless military service. Generally speaking, they were not So much love for Napoleon - even though Napoleon was technically of Italian descent.

As the empire fell into endless wars, the increasingly heavy oppression made the Milanese people more rebellious, and the continuous military defeats at the end of the empire gave the locals more courage to rise up against the empire.

On April 20, 1814, large-scale riots broke out in Milan, and Giuseppe Lina, the then Finance Minister of the Kingdom of Italy, was even lynched after being caught by the mob.

One can imagine what image the empire has in their minds.

Of course, the only thing that makes Eggron a little relieved is that the Lombards don't like the Austrians very much either.

To be fair, compared to the rule of the Napoleonic Empire, the Austrian rule is now much more relaxed - the Austrian Empire is not as tyrannical as the French Empire, and even allows the Lombards to have a certain degree of autonomy, and Milan, as the regional capital, is in this In the new period of peace, the economy also developed rapidly.

But the problem is that under the impact of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, the Lombards, especially the upper-class elites, began to awaken to national consciousness.

They identify themselves as Italians, and are tired of being invaded and dominated by the French or Germans in history. They do not want to be reduced to second-class citizens and be regarded as insignificant frontier areas. They want an Italian. Their own country - and the Kingdom of Italy that Napoleon once kneaded happened to meet their expectations to some extent.

They wanted an Italian kingdom created by Italians themselves.

Today, Italy has returned politically to the fragmented state it was before the French Revolution. The north is ruled by the Habsburg family, the south is ruled by the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies of the Bourbon family, and there are a bunch of small states in the middle.

Faced with this cruel reality, the Lombards did not feel that they could overthrow the Austrian rule on their own, so they pinned their hopes on the neighboring Kingdom of Sardinia.

The Kingdom of Sardinia was originally just a small state. During the Napoleonic Wars, territories such as Piedmont on the European continent were directly swept away by Napoleon. However, after the fall of the French Empire, it not only restored its old territories, but also recovered from Vienna and They won Genoa in the meeting and their strength was strengthened.

Metternich made this arrangement at the Congress of Vienna. His original intention was to create a powerful buffer state between Austria and France, which would serve as the gatekeeper to French expansion and withstand the first blow.

This abacus was indeed a good one, but he forgot the fact that Austria itself would also become a target of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

After the fall of the French Empire, French power temporarily withdrew from the Italian stage. The next ones who controlled Italian territory, especially the most elite Northern Italian territory, were the Austrians, so they became a thorn in the side of the emerging nationalists.

The disasters caused by Napoleon have been far away from this land, and the wounds of the past are slowly healing. Gradually, people will forget these disasters and instead pay attention to the positive parts he brought (although they may not be his original intention).

Just as the fire of nationalism began to burn, the ancient Savoy family that ruled the kingdom also became the hope of unification in the eyes of these Italian elites. They either publicly stated or secretly hoped that the Kingdom of Sardinia would take the lead and use Italian guns to unify Italy, expel all external interference forces, wipe away thousands of years of humiliation, and reunite this divided country.

At this time, in order to expand its own power, the ancient Savoy royal family was also secretly catering to such a trend of nationalism and wanted to borrow this power for its own use. In this era of Europe, feudal lords expanded their territory. Instinct and the glorious dream of the nationalists to liberate the motherland will indeed be combined wonderfully at a certain historical stage. This is not the only example, nor is it the most grandiose example. It even ranks among the largest in terms of the disasters created. No number.

On the original historical line, Metternich's calculations completely failed. This diplomat was still an 18th-century person after all. He dealt with contemporary problems using the methods of various feudal kingdoms, and for a time he did handle them well; but The nationalist trends that spread throughout Europe in the 19th century were so unfamiliar to him. As for the feudal royal family's liaison with nationalist trends, it was unheard of for him, let alone preventive measures in advance.

No matter what he originally thought, in short, the House of Savoy became Austria's ulterior enemy. It continued to incite resistance against the Austrians in the Lombard region, and took advantage of the revolution in Vienna in 1848, armed Attacked Lombardy - but was defeated.

After the failure, the Savoy royal family still persisted in their evil intentions and were still determined to complete their great cause. In order to make a comeback, it even turned to France. After 1848, Louis Bonaparte was elected President of France and became Emperor of the Second French Empire in 1852. The Kingdom of Sardinia immediately moved closer to him and sought him. asylum as a backing for revenge against Austria.

In order to please the Bonaparte family, the Savoy royal family spent a lot of money - King Vittorio Emanuele II married his daughter Princess Clotilde to Napoleon III's cousin.

Napoleon III also reciprocated the favor. He originally wanted to hit Austria hard and avenge himself for the past, but now that he had a little follower, he was naturally more happy to do so.

In 1859, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the French Empire successively declared war on Austria. Finally, with the decisive victory of the French army at the Battle of Magenta, the Austrians had to give up Lombardy. The long-cherished wish of the Kingdom of Sardinia for decades was finally came true and took a decisive step towards the unification of all Italy.

The end of the Austrian rule in Italy was actually accomplished by the Savoy family, which was really unexpected - after all, the Habsburg royal family and the Savoy royal family had married many times in history, and even fought side by side. , against Napoleon.

The exquisite arrangements for the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Congress of Vienna, but due to the ambitions of the old era and the ideological trends of the new era, led to a result that was completely opposite to the wishes of the parties involved. How ridiculous this is...

Of course, for Aiglon at this time, these things that happened in the "future" can only be regarded as reference.

At present, the nobles in the Lombardy region are only muttering in their hearts that they want to get rid of the Austrian rule, or at most send their children to the Kingdom of Sardinia to study and establish connections. They have not really had the courage to openly seek independence. The Austrian rule over this land still seems to be as solid as a rock.

He respects this and has no intention of challenging the Austrian official's patience with him.

He came here just to solve some old problems.

Previously, from his mother, he learned that the treasure-looting team he had made up before actually existed; and later, from his sworn brother Ou Ren, he got further information.

Prince Eugene also knew about the existence of these people - after all, he was once the governor of Italy and ruled this area on behalf of the emperor, and the activities of these people could not be hidden from him.

But he didn't get deeply involved in these matters because he didn't want to get the reputation of a tomb robber. He just made some conveniences for these people when necessary.

But even so, he still had a lot of information about them.

When Prince Eugène fled Milan with his family, because the situation had become very chaotic, he did not dare to go to these people and take away the treasure, because that would only make his escape more dangerous.

However, deep down, he still believed that these wealth belonged to the heirs of the empire.

So in the last days of his life, while writing his memoirs, he dug out relevant information that he still remembered from his memory, recorded them all, and then sealed them as a posthumous manuscript.

If Eglund is still under the control of the Austrians and has never had the opportunity to visit his family, then these manuscripts will remain in the box and never see the light of day; if Eglund one day escapes from prison and comes to his family, then he will He was about to fulfill his last wish - and perhaps the last favor he could do to his adoptive father's heir.

Aigron did indeed do it, and he got the last gift from his adopted brother.

These manuscripts are now hidden in Aigron's arms. Even the heavy rain from the sky has not been able to damage them in the slightest.

In the dark night, rain poured down, washing out these paths into bumps, but the fire in Aigron's heart grew stronger as the distance got closer.

He raised his head and stared at the lights of the city in the distance, his eyes burning with greed.

To be fair, he is not sure that he can really get what he wants; and now he does not necessarily have to get the so-called treasure.

However, he does not want to lose anything that belongs to him. This is the only paranoia in his life. He has been fighting for this until now, and this time is no exception.

"I will devour them all, and what belongs to me will belong to me forever." His little murmurs melted lightly into the rain.