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Prince Wilhelm, Bismarck, Moltke, the three blacksmiths who forged Prussia into an empire were assembled.

Prince William mediates.

Bismarck was in charge of domestic and foreign affairs, and he submitted military reform proposals to the parliament again and again, which were rejected by the parliament's cheers, so he did not once introduce a new government finance plan, and everything was carried out according to the old rules.

Moltke made a bold move to realize all his ideas in Poland.

It is not difficult for Poland to provide 400,000 soldiers, because Prussia can form an army of 700,000 with a population of 18 million, and it is not difficult to form an army of 400,000 out of a population of 12 million.

Poland currently has a standing army of 80,000 and reserves mobilized up to 240,000, all of whom are trained soldiers. Moltke only needed to add another 160,000 men, so Moltke withdrew from the new military program, he borrowed the short-term military training system that Scharnhorst explored in the Napoleonic Wars, and continuously called up a short-term service army for three months, 40,000 people at a time, three months of service, and was transferred to the reserve after the training. In this way, he will only need one year to complete the rotation training of 160,000 people, and in one year, through exercises and other means, to maintain combat effectiveness, within two years Poland will be able to arm a regular army of 400,000 people.

This short-term rotation training system does not put much pressure on the finances, and Poland's own finances can even support it.

So Moltke did not intend to use British aid for military reform, he decided to use it to improve Poland's backward communications.

Since the British demanded that the money be used entirely for military purposes, it was necessary to carry out certain operations, on the one hand, this money would be used as a budget for the purchase of new weapons, and then from the appropriation of armaments, money would be taken out to build railways. This appropriation of armaments was easily settled in Prussia and Poland, and it could be completely in the name of a war-ready railway. But it is better not to use it, because it is more deceptive if it is civilian, so as not to arouse the vigilance of Austria.

Moltke planned to build the railway in Poland to the Galician border, connecting with Lublin, Krakow and other cities on the Warsaw main line, and also standardizing some regional railways, due to the influence of China, the main railway from Poland to Prussia was built according to Chinese standards, but some early railways, the standards were very complicated, most of the short-distance railways, are narrow gauge, this situation not only exists in Poland, but also in Britain. The standards of each company are different, with the Great Western Railway's tracks being more than two metres wide and the British railways in India being less than one metre wide.

The cost of building a railway on the German plain terrain is the lowest in Europe, 11,000 pounds for a mile of freedom, and as high as 16,000 pounds in Belgium, and the cost of the United Kingdom is as high as 30,000 pounds or more. For 10 million pounds, it is possible to build about 1,000 miles of railways, enough to train Poland's major cities into a railway network, and then quickly advance the army to the border areas.

Bismarck was very satisfied with Moltke's work, not Moltke's system of the General Staff, Bismarck did not understand much about this, although he served, but only a mid-level officer, and was not interested in staff officers. He was mainly satisfied with Moltke's speed, and he thought that it would take Poland two years to complete military training, but Moltke planned to complete the field in one year and form combat effectiveness in two years.

For Bismarck, 400,000 Polish troops as a reserve were enough, he did not expect the Poles to play a role, he did not look down on the Poles, even though the Polish cavalry had always been famous. He considered Prussians to be the best, and he even felt that all Poles in Prussia should be expelled to avoid the Polonization of eastern Prussia (Herüberfluten).

With 400,000 Polish troops pinning down Austrians in Bohemia, the Prussian army could drive long into Vienna and force Austria into submission.

The faster Moltke moved, the better, because whether it was the neutrality of France and Russia, or the struggle for hegemony between China and Britain, it was time-sensitive, and Prussia could get involved in other disputes at any time. And he can't guarantee that he will always be able to stabilize the parliament, the group of politicians in the parliament who are not politically competent, they are also growing rapidly, and they are still content to veto the government's budget again and again with high-minded rhetoric, but sooner or later they will find that Bismarck is fooling them, and they will find that the power they think they hold has been being played by Bismarck.

As Moltke's movements picked up, Bismarck felt that he only needed an opportunity, one that would ideally allow Austria to take the initiative to declare war on Prussia. Prussia would be "forced" to fight a defensive war, and then the national mood of Prussia would be mobilized, and the Prussian army, with high morale, would teach the Austrian nobles a hard lesson. Then squeeze Austria out of the German Confederation, and Prussia would lead Germany forward. At that time, if Britain fought a war against France, it would completely eliminate France's interference with German unification, and it could also use France's loose German national concept to force other states to unite around Prussia.

Bismarck was good at taking advantage of the development of the international situation, but if there was no favorable international situation, Bismarck was happy to make one.

And it is not made out of thin air, the bomb planted by Bismarck between Prussia and Austria two years ago could break out at any time, during the war Prussia seized Krakow and Lublin from Russia, two Austrian Polish territories, in the treaty Russia only provided for the annexation of Polish regions to Prussian Poland (Poland with William as king), but did not specify the scope of Poland in detail, and before the war these Austrian Polish territories were under the control of Russian Poland (Poland where the Tsar was also king), Austria said that these two Austrian Poland did not belong to the Kingdom of Poland, The Kingdom of Poland could also say that Lviv, which was still under Austrian control, should also be assigned to Poland.

And because Poland ostensibly served as a buffer under the guise of an independent state, and because Austria had suffered a weakening in the war against Russia, the two disputed territories had been put on hold. Austria had taken a hard line on Prussia before, mainly because Prussia wanted to break up the German Confederation. When Prussia was forced to rejoin the Confederation, Austria resorted to political maneuvering, and Schwarzenberg hoped that the Confederation would decide on the ownership of Austrian Poland. It hoped that Krakow and Lublin would be recognized by the German Confederation as belonging to Austria, but Austria never succeeded in the face of Prussian opposition.

But Austria will certainly not give up on these two territories, Poland's nominal independence, so that Austria can better deal with it, they can also say that this is their dispute with Poland, has nothing to do with Prussia, and then use the German Confederation to suppress it.

Prussia could only eat this bitter fruit.

Before Austria could take action, Bismarck had to complete some legal formalities to make the Austria-Poland problem a problem between Austria and Prussia. But if Prussia annexed Poland in advance, or any other overt political act of strengthening ties, it would certainly be subject to French interference. France would never tolerate Prussia and Poland becoming one country, even if Prussia and Poland were now basically ruled by one king, and it was impossible for William IV of Prussia to have children, Prince Wilhelm was the first in line to the throne of the King of Prussia, and Prince Wilhelm was the Kingdom of Poland.

Once he inherits the throne of Prussia, Prussia and Poland will be under one royal power, and then France will definitely intervene to ask Prussia to admit that it will not merge the two countries, or even go further, and will ask Prince William to either give up the Prussian throne or the Polish throne, just like in history, after Louis XIV's grandson inherited the Spanish throne, European countries forced European hegemons like Louis XIV to recognize the Spanish throne inherited by Philip V through a war of succession. But he and his descendants had to be disqualified from the French throne, and it was stipulated that France and Spain could never be united, even if they were ruled by the Bourbons.

Bismarck was convinced that once the Prussian king died, Prussia and Poland would certainly have this kind of problem, and that a war of Prussian or Polish succession would break out in Europe around the question of Prince Wilhelm's succession, and that France, Russia, Austria, and even Britain would not be able to accept a united Prussian Poland.

But this alliance of countries took time, and Bismarck decided not to give them time to react, and to deal with the strong enemies one by one.

Taking advantage of the question of the Prussian and Polish crown, turning the Polish question into a Prussian question, using the union of Poland and Prussia to stimulate France, as for Russia, Prussia will not see the possibility of Russia recovering in four or five years. Britain needed Prussia to deal with the Sino-French alliance, and had to acquiesce.

Therefore, the Prussian Polish crown had to play two roles, one was to turn the Polish question into the Prussian question, so that Austria would go to war with Prussia because of Austrian Poland, and then it would cause the Franco-Prussian question, and finally solve the French problem.

Bismarck first asked the Prussian delegates to express in the German Confederation that Prussia would not recognize Austrian Poland as belonging to Austria unless the people of Krakow and Lublin consciously joined Austria.

So Austria really began to operate, requiring the local councils of Krakow and Lublin to vote for the ownership of the two places, in fact, Austria easily achieved the goal, these two places belonged to Austria after 1895, Austria cultivated an unknown number of puppets here, the local councillors were mainly composed of nobles and urban bourgeoisie, the aristocracy was mostly inclined to Austria, and the urban bourgeoisie could be bought by various means.

After Austria demanded a vote in Austrian Poland, Prussia began to hype up the concept, so that the Prussians, and indeed the whole world, knew that Austria was now actively causing trouble.

But de jure this is still an Austrian-Polish question, and if this question is not resolved, Bismarck will not be supported in the Prussian parliament.

So under the operation of Bismarck, in this emergency moment, the king of Poland and the king of Prussia signed a treaty of royal union on behalf of the two countries.

The constitution provided that the king had the right to declare war and peace, to conclude alliances and other treaties with foreign countries, and to appoint and receive envoys, without the need for parliamentary approval, so that a treaty of union of nations could be concluded between the two kings.

In the spring of 1852, Austria successfully pushed the parliaments of Krakow and Lublin to pass a vote on their willingness to belong to Austria.

At this time, the Kingdom of Poland stated that it would not accept such a vote, and that according to the Polish Constitution, Poland was inseparable. The local council did not have the power to decide whether to secede from the kingdom. Austria forcibly declared that Austrian Poland had been reassigned to Austria and sent troops to the two places.

The Kingdom of Poland declared Austria an invader, and King Wilhelm was authorized by the unanimous vote of the Polish Parliament to present an ultimatum to Austria, which Austria refused, and the King of Poland declared war on Austria on the grounds that it had suffered an Austrian invasion.

The Kingdom of Poland then appealed to Prussia for help, demanding that Prussia fulfill its allied obligations and provide assistance to Poland in the event of an invasion. Bismarck, citing the invasion of Prussia's allies, asked the parliament to agree to Prussia's declaration of war on Austria and to allocate funds for the war.

At this time, parliament was still difficult to deal with, and they did not agree to allocate funds for the war budget. At this time, Bismarck was no longer polite to the parliament, and directly used the power of the king to announce the dissolution of the parliament, declare war on Austria, and carry out a general mobilization. Everything was supported by Prussia's existing finances.

Bismarck finally provoked a war with Austria!

The internal parliament was temporarily dissolved, the state began to mobilize, and Bismarck now held all power through the king. Domestic problems will not break out for a while, and the only things that can hinder Prussia are those external forces.