Nathan happily returned the bonds with both hands, and he was determined to take advantage of the opportunity to exchange them for greater benefits, much to the great influence of London, as Nathan did not have to return the bonds so soon. Nathan www.biquge.info action of the pen "Fun" received the effect he expected.

But Nathan knows that this is not enough, and he needs more and broader support.

This is the real reason why he appeared at his grandson's birthday party.

Kingdom of Prussia, Berlin, Prime Minister's Residence.

It was late at night, but Otto von Bismarck did not fall asleep, but sat at the table, reading a letter.

This letter was just written by his "head of private banking" Bray Schroeder.

“…… Under the pressure of financial austerity across Europe, Baron Rothschild, who held the power of the entire family, insisted on revising and adjusting the previous agreement. Given the current situation, it is understandable to want to cancel and modify the deal, but I believe I succeeded in convincing Baron Rothheard last month that such a move was not worthy of his family's honour, and that I had reached an agreement with it......"

"The proposal of the Rothschild family is very acceptable, and in view of the future development of the financial situation in the present environment, I believe that it is necessary to provide assistance to the Rothchild family with all its strength, which is related to the credibility of the country and is essential to the financial situation of the kingdom; And it is clear that the exchange loan deal under discussion will cost them a lot of money, which will further strain our relationship with the Rothchild family. If we force their companies to scrupulously adhere to the agreed dates to fulfill their contracts, no matter what disadvantage they are in now, they will be able to sell new bonds in any market at any price, and that will be a big blow to the public credibility of our country. Our previous experience is enough to prove that once we turn friends with the Rothschild family, the results are disastrous, the financial plan is in vain, and the economic plan is carried out without reliable people, as we have unfortunately found in the exchange, and nothing can be done. ”

Seeing this, Bismarck frowned, and his face became extremely gloomy for a while.

His thoughts flew to the battle-torn battlefield in an instant......

It was dawn on July 3, 1866, and the war between Prussia and Austria was raging. In the Bohemian village of Sadova, at the fortress of Koenigretz, a force of 35,000 men is quietly advancing through the rain curtain. The young, angular faces are full of tension, excitement and anticipation. The boys of the Prussian Elbe knew that they were going to attack the 200,000-strong Austro-Saxon army. Outnumbered, they could only count on the 85,000-strong Prussian First Army, commanded by Prince Frederick Charles, to attack from the other side at the same time. Originally, according to the strategic deployment of General Moltke the Elder, Chief of the General Staff of the Prussian Army, the 100,000 troops of the Second Army Corps led by Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia should have participated in the attack at the same time, but because the garrison of the corps exceeded the receiving range of the telegraph signal, it could not receive the order in time and did not carry out the maneuver.

Due to excessive haste, the Prussian Elbe Corps did not fully extend its line of attack, and its fire crossed the path of the First Corps, and the situation was very chaotic for a time. By 11 a.m., the Prussian offensive was halted by heavy Austrian counter-attacks and intensive artillery fire, and the reserves were engaged in an already highly dense frontal attack. Had the Austrians resolutely launched a cavalry assault at this time, the Prussian army might have been expelled from the battlefield. But the overly cautious Austrian commander-in-chief, Field Marshal Bernardeke, kept the cavalry still. The two sides are at a stalemate on a chaotic battlefield.

At the critical moment when the Prussian army was about to be defeated, Bismarck, who had been with Moltke all along, suddenly discovered that a few kilometers east of the battlefield, there was a line of something like a tree moving!

Moltke picked up the binoculars and observed them for a moment, and then said excitedly to King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who was on the expedition beside him: "Your Majesty! Not only did you win the battle, but you also won the war! ”

It turned out that at the same time that the Prussian Elbe Army and the First Army were in a bitter battle with the Austrian army, a herald galloped more than 30 kilometers and sent the king's mandatory order to Crown Prince Wilhelm, and the Second Army Corps immediately began to move northward, which was the "moving tree" that Bismarck saw!

At 2:30 p.m., the 2nd Army launched an attack on the Austrian defense area to the north. The Austrian line began to crumble. Marshal Bernardeke ordered a retreat on all fronts at 3 p.m. However, the Prussian offensive was so fierce that the Austrian 1st Army could only launch a cavalry counteroffensive to support the artillery and cover the retreat of friendly troops. The operation resulted in 10,000 casualties in 20 minutes, and the Austrian First Army was almost disabled. However, this counteroffensive of the Austrian army bought time, and the main force of the Austrian army, nearly 180,000 people, successfully withdrew from the gap before it was completely encircled. This is the famous Battle of Sadowa.

At the Battle of Sadova, the Prussians won a decisive victory. Ten days later, the Prussian army approached Vienna, the capital of Austria, and captured the fortress of Vroslov, only 6 kilometers from Vienna, and the capture of Vienna and the conquest of Austria were just around the corner.

At this time, a very strange thing happened in the eyes of outsiders, the victorious Prussian king Wilhelm I, Prime Minister Bismarck, and General Moltke, the chief of the General Staff, suddenly quarreled at this moment. King Wilhelm I advocated a direct attack on Vienna, the capital of Austria, which was already close at hand, and Moltke, from the perspective of a soldier, certainly hoped to seize this rare opportunity to take Vienna, which was already an isolated city. Chancellor Bismarck, however, tried to "pour water into the boiling wine" and insisted on abandoning the attack on Vienna and taking advantage of his military advantage to sign an armistice with Austria as soon as possible, as long as the goal of expelling Austria from the German family was achieved. When the king refused to give in, Bismarck was so anxious that he shed tears, and even threatened to resign from the post of Prussian prime minister, and even planned to jump from four floors!

The famous quarrel lasted until late at night, and King William finally bitterly agreed to abandon the attack, but asked that the situation be recorded in the National Archives "to prove how helpless and aggrieved he was"!

Later, Prussia signed a "city alliance" with Austria that would not cede land or pay reparations, and Austria withdrew from the German Confederation.

However, it is a mystery why Bismarck gave up the opportunity to attack Vienna in order to extend the results of the war when the situation was extremely favorable.

Many scholars have given the following answer to Bismarck's threat of resignation and jumping off the building, and to resolutely prevent the Prussian army from marching into Vienna in defiance of the holy will: First, out of strategic considerations for the balance of power in Europe, other powers would not sit idly by and watch Prussia completely defeat Austria and rise to become a Central European power. If the Prussian army insisted on capturing Vienna, it would inevitably provoke the armed intervention of other powers, and the process of the rise of Prussia and the unification of Germany might be interrupted; Scholars believe that Bismarck's fear that a prolonged war would provoke French intervention or a revolution in defeated Austria would ruin Prussia's plan to unify Germany, and that if the feelings of the Austrians were too hurt and forced them to make desperate or even desperate attempts, then Austria's neutrality would not be able to be won in the future Franco-Prussian War, which would be very disadvantageous to Prussia. Secondly, although the Prussian army won a decisive victory in the Battle of Sadova, it did not annihilate the main force of the Austrian army, and the 180,000 Austrian army successfully broke through the siege and retreated to defend the Beijing division. As a brilliant strategist, Bismarck had a more long-term vision. Therefore, he strongly advocated the immediate conclusion of a peace treaty with Austria.

But is this really the case?

In fact, Bismarck did that for another reason!

And this reason is known only to him himself and a few people who are familiar with the inside of Prussia!

The real reason is that by the seventh week of the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck, who had arrived at Vienna, was approaching the limit of his financial mobilization capacity, and he could no longer afford to continue the war!

War, in fact, is fought for money and food!

In the first three weeks of the war, Bismarck's worries about the follow-up war expenses outweighed his concern about the situation of the war, and the cost of the war clearly exceeded his predictions, and without follow-up funds, Bismarck's army might only be able to support it for another two months or so. If the war is not over, Bismarck will be caught between the indiscriminate bombardment of the parliament and the gloating ridicule of the European powers. It is no exaggeration to say that the name Bismarck will become the laughing stock of Europe, and he himself will henceforth retire from the stage of history.

The Prussian-Danish War, which had already taken a toll on Prussia's finances, and whose years of fiscal surplus had been wiped out with the flames of war, was a time when Bismarck felt the most direct sense of the war's astonishing ability to devour wealth.

From 1864 to 1866, Bismarck was desperately trying to do two things: to do his best to get every penny for Prussia to prepare for the war, and at the same time to do everything in his power to prevent Austria from financing the war in the European financial markets. Bismarck's strategy was to push his opponents into a financial corner, dragging down Austria under the threat of war. It is true that Austria's financial situation was worse than that of Prussia, and it had long since dried up its finances and was on the verge of bankruptcy after years of exhaustion of nationalist unrest in the Balkans and elsewhere. Neither side wants to publicly show its financial predicament, and both are secretly raising funds behind the scenes, ready to fight.

――――Dividing Line――――

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