War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz was engrossed in reading several letters from California.

It clearly reads: "After all the hard work, Baron Bruno finally found several huge gold veins. According to conservative estimates, the total amount is more than 1 million ounces, equivalent to 38,834,500 florins."

Putting down the letter in his hand, Franz leaned on his chair and breathed.

"It seems that the geology of this era is unreliable. Even the most conservative estimates of later generations show that the total gold mine volume in California is more than 12 million ounces. Most experts' estimates are between 20 million ounces and 30 million ounces. between."

In fact, this kind of open-pit gold mine is easy to discover. As for whether it is easy to estimate, Franz doesn't know. However, in this era of scarcity of precious metals, it is human nature to have insufficient control. Of course, that is just his most malicious guess.

If the gold mines here were dug out, it should be enough to pay off the debts of the Austrian Empire. But Franz didn't really want to do this. After all, why should he pay back the debt he owed based on his ability.

Of course, the main reason is that there are a large number of loan sharks in these debts. In some cases, the total principal and interest has even doubled dozens or even hundreds of times.

Over the years, through Baron Bruno's unremitting efforts, he has reached an agreement with his creditors. Otherwise, Franz plans to kill all the guys who are overfed.

Coincidentally, during the previous internal strife in Hungary, the empire received the corpses of another batch of creditors, so its overall debt dropped directly by more than 200 million florins.

Franz had asked someone to do a rough calculation and found that as long as creditors with serious anti-Austrian tendencies disappeared from the world, the empire's debt level would be reduced by 60%.

Although it would be fun to do so, what you are doing is just repeating the same choices made by countless predecessors in parallel worlds.

To truly break the cycle of reincarnation, Franz must take a path that no one has ever traveled before. Of course, this road will be difficult, perhaps more difficult than realizing the ambitions of the Habsburg royal family, but he does not intend to back down.

On the other hand, Baron Bruno also brought bad news, that is, the Mexicans did not keep their promises. While they turned a blind eye, a large number of American pioneers poured into California.

Although it has not yet formed a large scale, it will definitely become a big trouble here in the long run. It is not difficult to imagine the next scene. Once they have established a foothold, they will compete with the local Austrian immigrants for land and resources.

Once they discover the secret of the gold mine, the consequences will be disastrous. This land will definitely become the object of fierce competition among major powers such as Britain and France.

By that time, not only will it be unable to fulfill its promise to Mexico, but it will even be unable to recover the costs that the empire has invested over the years.

The New Mexico Defense Line, built under the leadership of Tasan Anna, was like a colander. The two neighboring countries in the north can always move in and out easily, allowing them to clearly understand the true strength of their southern neighbor.

It's just that France and the United States are intimidated by each other's strength and dare not invade Mexico easily, unless God tells them in a dream tomorrow that there is a gold mine in California.

In this regard, Franz could only sigh with emotion: "It's really impossible to hold up the wall with mud."

Also immigrating to California were Spanish laborers, most of whom were refugees from the Civil War.

These people had just arrived and were not familiar with their identities. Not only did they look down on the local Mexicans and indigenous people, they even planned riots in some settlements to overthrow the rule of the O-Mexican United Company.

However, they were quickly suppressed by Austrian soldiers organized in time by Archduke Carl Ferdinand.

In addition to the 500 retired soldiers recruited by Franz from various places, there were also 200 elite guards of Archduke Karl who followed the great justice. It was precisely because of the existence of these people that the laborers who participated in the riot paid a heavy price. A terrible price.

Those who came to California to start new jobs to escape the war did not know how to be grateful. Instead, they believed that they should be the rightful owners of this former Spanish colony. Under the deliberate instigation of local Hispanics, they either fled or participated in the rebellion.

In the largest riot, the number of people killed alone reached 3,700. Due to the language barrier and the depth of the wilderness, the local Austrian soldiers showed no mercy.

Archduke Carl Ferdinand is different from his brother who is full of honor and who advocates force. He just wants to complete his mission and is a truly ruthless killing machine.

Regardless of whether they are participants or facilitators, regardless of whether they are men, women, old or young, as long as they participate in the rebellion, they will all end up dead. Even the instigators who hide in the village and think everything is fine are not immune.

Although this approach is cruel, it is effective in the western region where "natural selection and survival of the fittest" prevail.

Moreover, the number of local Austrians is at an absolute disadvantage. If they stand aside and watch the other party's forces twist into a rope, they will be the ones who are treated cruelly.

After reducing the local population of 4,000 households to 1,000, the situation gradually stabilized. However, after nearly two years of development, the local Mexican population has not increased, but has declined significantly.

Austria's population increased from 700 to 4,000. The number of indigenous people dropped from 20,000 to 8,000, and of the 20,000 Spanish workers introduced, only 3,000 remained at this time.

At this time, there were only about 15,000 white settlers in the entire 563,970 square kilometers of California, which means that on average, you can meet one person within 39.59 square kilometers.

This gave pioneers from the United States and France a great opportunity, because not only the number of Austrian immigrants was limited, but also enough militiamen needed to be trained and deployed to guard their homes, and the available manpower was really stretched.

At the same time, finding and identifying intruders on the vast plains cannot be accomplished overnight.

What's even more fatal is that Mexico is an unreliable partner. They have no intention of contributing, and relying solely on the numerically disadvantaged Austrian immigrants cannot solve the current difficulties.

So Baron Bruno wrote several letters to Archduke "Franz Karl", hoping that he could find a way to help them get out of their predicament.

To be honest, it was quite tricky to deal with this matter. Franz originally hoped that the Mexicans could be the black gloves, but what he didn't expect was that Austria actually took the blame.

But there is nothing that can be done about it. The wilderness has its own laws, and if you try to violate them, you will definitely suffer backlash. If the first 700 Austrians did not rise up to resist, they would have become a pile of bones by now.

In fact, it is not difficult to find a few hundred people who understand Spanish from within the empire, but if the number expands to tens of thousands, even Austria, a big language country, cannot do this.

The reason why the Spanish laborers resisted so fiercely has a lot to do with the long-term national characteristics, inherent concepts, and prejudices.

During this period, Europeans looked down on Americans. In addition, Mexico was once a Spanish colony, so these Hispanic immigrants believed that they were superior people from the mother country.

Another point is the national identity. After all, the empires that tried to conquer Spain all declined without exception. Neither the Berbers, who were at their peak, nor the arrogant Napoleonic Empire could conquer the Spaniards.

And with the end of the Carlos War, fewer and fewer people are willing to come to the New World, so Franz's Plan A should have failed.

Fortunately, he is not a person who likes stud, so it is always good to have a few backup plans.

At this time, Franz set his sights on another place on the map, the Central American Federation.

The civil wars in Central America significantly escalated in intensity as the French became increasingly involved, and the land was also inhabited by Spanish-speaking people.

And most of them are of mixed race. These people's self-esteem is not as strong as the Spaniards, and they are more able to endure hardships. At the same time, they are smaller and easier to rule.

Regarding the title, many people felt that the title could not express the complete content, so they lengthened the title.

Thanks to recent book friends Dimensional Nanba Zhiya, Xiao Shenda, The Strongest Kindergarten Small Class, S Yun Dong Bafang, and book friends 20221014001131291 for their rewards