The parliament was the attacker, but the king also wanted to reform.

It is said that Prussia is a militaristic country, as if Prussia is brave and ruthless, but this is not the case.

The Americans once made a statistic that among the 278 wars in the world from 1800 to 1940, Britain participated in 28% of them, France participated in 26%, Russia participated in 23%, and Prussia participated in only 8% of them, and Prussia was the least.

But the reason why Prussia gives people a militaristic image is because of the large number of standing armies, and 85% of the state budget was spent on army construction in Frederick's time, so Prussia can rise rapidly in the Bode Plain, the land of four wars, and the neighboring Poles, the area and population are much larger than Prussia, and the Poles often give people the impression of being warlike, but Poland is not divided under the aristocratic democracy.

Prussian militarism is embodied in the creation of the system, rather than in the courage of the people's spirit, after Napoleon, it is generally believed in Europe that the courage of the French army is the highest, and the French soldiers are also the most courageous and enthusiastic people, while the Prussians are rigid and rigid machines.

The Prussian army relied on an extraordinary discipline.

To ensure this kind of discipline, it depends on strict training.

In order to ensure a huge number, it is necessary to rely on system building.

The monarch of Prussia, as it happens, has always attached great importance to the creation of a military system. Prussia does not have a long history, and it was only during the Seven Years' War that Prussia really became famous, less than a hundred years ago.

According to the Chinese literati, Prussia, in the era of its greatest empire, was a standard militaristic state, with eighty percent of its finances spent on military affairs, armed with a population of about 2 million and armed with more than 80,000 standing troops, known as peacetime barracks.

From a military point of view, this is a very remarkable achievement, first of all, with such a small population, to ensure such a large number of troops, this is not something that can be explained by the four words of reckless military force, he needs a whole system to ensure it. The first is the financial system, the second is the conscription system, and a whole set of strict management systems such as the census and administrative management, otherwise it cannot be maintained for a long time, and Prussia has maintained this system.

A reckless militarism could not explain it, and under such a high level of militarization, the Prussian economy was still growing, and Frederick the Great was still in a large surplus when he died. This is in conflict with the thinking of the Chinese literati, because the result of reckless military force can definitely be the withering of the people's livelihood, or even the people's misery, and the world is in chaos. But none of this happened.

Just like Confucianism criticized the Shang Dynasty reform, it was dark for more than 2,000 years, but under the Shang Dynasty reform system, the Qin State did not have a major disorder, and it maintained a strong and prosperous state for hundreds of years, and finally dominated the world.

Prussia's system allowed him to rise to become a great power, but it was shattered under Napoleon's national war.

Then came another round of new institutional creation, presided over by Scharnhorst and others.

After Napoleon defeated Prussia, in addition to ceding more than half of Prussia's territory, he also limited Prussia's military power. The Treaty of Paris, which Napoleon forced Prussia to sign, stipulated that the total strength of the Prussian army should not exceed 42,000 men for the next 10 years.

In order to circumvent this treaty, it also reformed the old-fashioned system of long-term service, even lifelong service, and established a reserve military service system. Scharnhorst et al. developed these provisions:

Gradually train a large number of recruits to meet the needs of the Prussian army in wartime, let the infantry regiments and artillery leave three to five or more soldiers in each company according to the number of recruits they need for new recruits, and conscript the same number of young men of the conscription area to enlist in the army, and after a month's training, let them return to their hometowns, and then recruit the same number of young men, and so on in this way, until the young men in the conscription area are enough to replenish them when they need them.

The purpose of such a short period of military service and such a rapid turnover of personnel is to enable all young and middle-aged people to receive training, and finally, when necessary, to achieve the effect of all the people becoming soldiers. Therefore, it is stipulated that citizens between the ages of 20 and 35 must serve, and the candidates are determined by lottery, and cannot be exempted or replaced in any way.

In this way, in 1806 and 1813, Prussia received military training for 36,000 young people, circumventing Napoleonic regulations. Together with the active ones, the Prussian armed forces in 1813 amounted to more than 80,000 people. Prussia also created 3 reserve forces on the basis of the Rapid Army. The reserve force is composed of career officers and non-commissioned officers and retired soldiers, the reserve army is formed by reservists who have served two years in the reserve led by career officers and non-commissioned officers, and the civilian army is formed by retired reserve personnel.

Through these reserves, Prussia miraculously quickly armed 240,000 men at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and finally after defeating Napoleon, it seized a large amount of territory, allowing Prussia to establish itself as one of the four great powers in Europe.

This system quickly proved to be effective in the late Napoleonic period, and it was persisted ever since, with 40,000 men recruited annually in the army, three years for infantry, and even longer for cavalry and artillery. Every year, the army recruits new soldiers at the same time, and those who have completed their service are immediately discharged. Retired soldiers enter the reserve for two years, and during the reserve, exercises are conducted once a year in the summer. After that, he retired and joined the militia, which was called the reserve army and needed to serve for 7 years, and after seven years he became an ordinary citizen and no longer had obligations to the state.

The Prussians have always thought that this system is good, but any system has flaws, and even if it seems to be good, time will slowly find flaws.

During the war against Russia, the Prussian government suddenly discovered that when mobilization was carried out, the reserve army behaved very poorly. Due to the negligence of the peaceful environment for a long time, the reserve army behaved like a rabble, the officers forgot their duties, and the soldiers did not know their position.

After the war, the Prussian military establishment determined that only units that continued to exist in peacetime and had a cadre of career officers could be effectively engaged in wartime.

In the Scharnhorst era, the reform and training of soldiers to the decisive battle with Napoleon, but in seven or eight years, in fact, it was equivalent to the army just after training, pulled into the battlefield, and did not go through a long peace test, the reserve army officers have not forgotten their professional knowledge, and the soldiers have not forgotten the training they received, so the organization is the army.

But after twenty or thirty years of wear, when it came time to fight the Russians, a whole generation had not tasted war, and the short training in peacetime could not keep the soldiers in memory of military skills for a long time, and the inexperienced officers were completely incompetent.

As a result, the war with Russia was very poorly realized, but fortunately, Russia's mobilization mechanism was also chaotic, which gave Prussia plenty of time to polish its army, train its soldiers, and adapt its officers to the battlefield atmosphere.

But if there was another war of this magnitude, the Prussian army might not have been so lucky, and the military believed that if the enemy's mobilization mechanism could be the same as that of Napoleon's French army, Prussia would probably collapse in the first three weeks of the war, and according to the current Prussian mechanism, it would take at least seven to eight weeks to put the army in order.

Under these circumstances, the king, who was highly concerned about the construction of the army, hoped for a new round of reforms. First, in the light of the population growth over the years, the king hoped to increase the number of troops to be drafted from 40,000 to 60,000 in order to train more people, which would halve the Prussian active force. In addition, the period of reserve service will be extended from 2 years to 5 years, so that reserve soldiers can maintain their training status for a longer period of time and avoid premature forgetting of military skills. As for the reserve militia, the war has proven that they are really a bunch of peasants and no longer need to be maintained.

However, parliament opposed the reforms, not only did not want to extend the reserve period, but also demanded that the period of active service be reduced from three to two years. Why does the parliament do this, firstly, it is a parliament that represents the interests of the people, and does not want to serve too long, militarism is only a thing at the national level, and the common people who want to dedicate their youth to the military camp. Secondly, it was in the democratic revolution that the bourgeois politicians in parliament saw that the militia was the armed force on which they could rely and that the regular army was loyal to the king. So reducing the active forces and maintaining the militia was a power struggle between the parliament and the king.

Bismarck met with the king and first told him the good news that he had extorted ten million pounds a year in aid from England, and although this was not yet confirmed, Bismarck first told the good news as if an agreement had been reached.

This is indeed good news, compared to Britain, Prussia is really a poor country, later accounting statistics, during this period of Britain's total wealth accounted for 70% of Europe, Prussia accounted for only 4%, British fiscal revenue of 80 million pounds, will be one-eighth to Prussia, this is indeed a huge amount of money for Prussia.

But the king's headache was not the problem of money, although Prussia's financial income was low, but the cost of living in Prussia, arriving the land, and raising a soldier, was the lowest in Europe, lower than in Russia. And with at least three-quarters of its finances spent on military spending, Prussia could afford to feed its own army.

The king's headache was the issue of military reform, and the parliament was not entangled in the question of the cost of appropriation, but the question of appropriation to block the king's reform, the king wanted to eliminate the militia that lacked discipline and had no combat effectiveness, and strengthened the standing army loyal to the king, and the parliament believed that the militia should be retained and the standing army that had suppressed the revolution should be weakened, and this was the crux of the problem.

Bismarck then told the king that he could guarantee to carry out the reform of the army.

When the king asked him what he was going to do, Bismarck said that he must first be appointed prime minister and given full powers.

This is where the king was most dissatisfied with Bismarck, stubborn and tyrannical. If he wants to come back as foreign secretary, he also has full powers to formulate foreign policy, and now he still wants to be prime minister, and he still has full powers.

But the king and Bismarck had the same goal, which was to defeat Austria and unify Germany. The king endured Bismarck's plan and agreed to Bismarck's request.

What did Bismarck have to do to resolve the knot of parliament?