After eating with the old man, Qiao Zhiyong rested in the room by himself.

When there was no one around, he took out a small wooden box and opened it, and inside was a thick stack of letters.

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's actions had the desired effect.

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? Feng? 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 businesses to scrupulously adhere to the agreed dates to fulfill their contracts, no matter what disadvantage they are in now. At that point, they will be able to sell new bonds at any price in any market. This would be a big blow to the public credibility of our country. Our previous experience is proof enough. Once friends and enemies with the Rothchild family turn into enemies, 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, powerless and nothing. ”

Seeing this, Bismarck frowned. 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, the only thing they could count on was Frederick, who attacked from the other side at the same time? Prince Charles' 85,000-strong Prussian First Army. 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 Elbe corps of the Prussian army did not adequately extend its line of attack. Moreover, its fire crossed the attack path of the First Army, and the situation was very chaotic for a time. Under the heavy counter-shock of the Austrian army and the blow of intensive artillery fire. By 11 a.m., the Prussian offensive was halted, 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, when King William finally bitterly agreed to abandon the attack. However, it was required that the circumstances be recorded and deposited in the National Archives. "To prove how helpless and compromised he was at that time"!

Afterward. Sure enough, Prussia signed an "alliance under the city" 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 his disobedience to the will of the Holy Will, which would resolutely prevent the Prussian army from marching into Vienna: First, it was out of strategic considerations for the balance of power in Europe. The other powers would not sit idly by and watch Prussia 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 plans to unify Germany, and Bismarck believed that if the feelings of the Austrians were too hurt, they would be forced to take a desperate gamble. Or even take a risk, then. In the coming Franco-Prussian War, Austria will not be able to win neutrality, which will be very detrimental 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.

What drove Bismarck mad the most was that the parliament, as in the past, rejected all his budgets and declared that the government had no right to use the funds of the state treasury without the approval of the parliament, otherwise it was unconstitutional, for which the government ministers were fully responsible. Bismarck issued a strongly worded response on the same day, characterizing the parliamentary opposition as a "traitor" who obstructed the king's foreign policy and objectively played a role in collaborating with the enemy. In fact, Bismarck knew that many in the liberal wing of the parliament were overjoyed by the Prussian victory in the Prussian-Danish and Austro-Prussian wars, and that his accusation of treason was intended to stab the self-esteem of these people and thus induce them to change their ways. The fanatics in the liberal wing of the parliament were also not vegetarians, and there were accusations that Bismarck was deceiving the parliament and the king. Bismarck was furious when he heard the news, and immediately asked the other side for a duel. The whole of Berlin politics was shaken, knowing that the duel was a mixture of bravery and recklessness, and that once the duel began, there was no possibility of backing down or fighting. The probability of either death or injury on both sides is extremely high. If the Prime Minister of Prussia dies in a dueling arena. The situation in Europe will change abruptly. Bismarck was irritable by nature. As early as when he was in college, he had duels with people 27 times, and he was amazingly bold. Thanks to the private dissuasion of Braischroeder and others, even Rothschild, who was far away in Frankfurt, was concerned about the duel. Although the final duel was dissuaded, Bismarck's anger and anxiety about the parliament's rejection of the government budget grew day by day.

Bismarck needed money too much, and without the support of money, his ideals could only be dreams, and his dreams would eventually fade into fantasies. Hateful. King Wilhelm, the head of a kingdom, knew nothing about finance, and he did not know that Bismarck was facing powerful characters from both the old and new generations of the Rotthild family.

Bismarck put down the letter from Braeschroeder in his hand and took another letter and read it.

This letter is James sitting in Paris? Meyer? Rothchild wrote to him.

"I hope that I have not made any bad impression on you, my honor, and although I have never had the pleasure of meeting you, I hope that the pleasant experience of our family business and your cooperation, as well as some other cooperative relations with us, will make you fully believe in my sincerity. You have seen that our family has benefited greatly from the good business relations with the Prussian government. Naturally, our family was willing to offer its most loyal service to Prussia, not out of any personal considerations. Rather, it is in the interests of the whole family. Despite the recent events in Europe that have affected peace and order, resulting in the recent stagnation of transactions, great financial losses to the family, and extreme psychological disappointment, we have a clear conscience and we can operate with confidence in the face of God and all those who deserve respect. My nephew is doing his best to negotiate this deal, and a letter on the details of the matter will be presented to you later. ”

"I would like to ask for your forgiveness, I am old and in deteriorating health, and I am no longer able to cope with the numerous complicated and difficult events around me, so I hope that the process of negotiations will be speeded up, so that my nephew Meyer Carr can return to me as soon as possible, he has always been my right-hand man, my right-hand man, without whom it is very difficult for me to deal with affairs. Gracious Excellency, I beg you to be considerate of my plight, and I am sure that the business between us will be resolved smoothly, and that the justice and loyalty of the Prussian Government have always filled me with great hope......"

Bismarck looked at Braeschroeder's letter again.

"They stressed that they were taking great risks in fulfilling their contracts, that they would still have to suffer some financial losses even if some of the terms were amended, and that the Rothschild family felt that all their financial plans had been hampered by some bias, and that they wanted to be completely freed, and that they were willing to pay a certain amount of wealth as compensation. The Rothchild family are willing to offer a sizable fortune to get out of this contract, even though they have been approved to restart the business at any time, and they will not hesitate to act if the circumstances turn in a favourable direction. ”

"I hope that you will persuade the king to accept the Rothchild family's demand, through this exchange loan transaction the country has achieved the desired goal, and it should be done in moderation, so that the interests of the Rothchild family will not be sacrificed more."

Seeing this, Bismarck couldn't help but clench his fists.

Braischroed's advice was correct, and it would not be easy to force the Rothschild family to bow their heads if they were to the end, even though it might be a detriment to their family's honor. Worse still, such a protracted lose-lose war would bring shame on the country's fiscal system. He therefore proposes to meet all the demands of the Rothschild family, which are a helpless act to adapt to the needs of the affairs of the state in order to conform to the present situation.

"The recent political turmoil and financial austerity in Europe have made the old way of obtaining loans completely unworkable...... The Rothschild family's wealth is still very substantial, but they lack the large amount of cash needed for this transaction, because most of the Rothchild family's wealth is public debt of European countries and cannot be immediately exchanged for cash on exchanges. As a result, the Rothchild family's banks had to refuse large direct loans and instead use principal-agent methods to handle the loans, such as the loan business with Austria, and if the Rothchild family needed to make an advance payment, they would sell the newly issued public bonds at a very low price, which would greatly hurt the issuing country. ”

Bismarck knew that he had instructed Braischroedt to do his best to start a new "business" with the Rothschild family, which, if successful, would not only make up for the years of Prussian state finances, but also raise a huge sum of money for the war!

Although Breschroeder was still apprehensive about the deal, he wanted to work with the Rothschild family again, as he felt that the Bank of Berlin "could not afford such a huge deal". This scheme greatly pleased the Rothild family in Frankfurt. (To be continued......)

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