While the Germans were fed up and playing infighting, the Austrians were in complete trouble.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was generally a mountainous country, with the entire western side of the country occupied by the vast Alps, and the capital, Vienna, is shown on the map at the eastern end of the Alps. From here, the main stream of the Danube bypasses the Alps and flows towards the Black Sea.

The Danube forms a sedimentary plain beneath the city of Vienna, one of the largest in Austria, but only more than 200 kilometers long and less than 100 kilometers wide.

To the south of this plain is the Balkan Peninsula, where the small amount of arable land is distributed in the intermountain basins and the Mediterranean coast.

To the north and east of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was the Carpathian Mountains, which were bent into the shape of a bow. The largest plain in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire is located between the Carpathians, the Alps and the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula.

Unfortunately, most of this plain is within Hungary and Romania.

Romania has become independent from Austria-Hungary, it took away nearly forty percent of the empire's livestock production capacity, so that the empire lost more than two million tons of annual grain production, which made the first year after the war Austro-Hungarian Empire fell into a serious ****, if the people had not become accustomed to the harsh food supply during the war, Austria-Hungary would probably have become the first republic in Central Europe before Germany.

After Romania took away the fertile basin of Transylvania and the farmland and pastures of Wallachia on the Black Sea coast, Hungary became the largest breadbasket of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The outbreak of war in mid-1932 did not affect agricultural production in Hungary much, so the Hungarian farmland had a decent harvest that autumn. In contrast, the war-torn Balkan provinces of the empire were basically in a state of poor harvest, and Austria's own one-third of an acre of land was poorly harvested due to conscription and preparation.

The Hungarians took the grain, thinking that this time they could sell it for a good price.

Unfortunately, the Imperial Government could no longer afford to pay the Hungarian government for the purchase of grain because of the war. At this time, the Germans offered the Hungarians a price that looked quite good.

The two heads of the Austro-Hungarian double-headed eagle began a never-ending war of words again, while its people endured hunger and winter.

There was a huge and irreparable divide between the Austrian people and the Austrian rulers: the people wanted to be fed, while the aristocracy wanted the people to shut up and "wait for a turnaround."

Some nobles even wanted to direct the resentment of the people to the Hungarians, but they did not realize that the Hungarians were far away at the foot of the Carpathians, but their castle was in front of the people.

On March 14, 1932, on an ordinary afternoon, in the Austrian province of Burgenland.

Originally, this province was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but after the end of the last war, in order to get rid of the difficult situation after the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire carried out large-scale reforms in the country, abolished the privileges of some of the great nobles, and turned the original kingdoms into "provinces" more suitable for the modern state structure.

Unlike the provinces that had been converted from the original kingdom, Burgenland had no large aristocracy, and the governors and provincial councils were initially dominated by small and medium-sized nobles. After more than ten years of evolution, merchants and factory owners now occupy a considerable number of seats in the Burgenland Parliament, while many of the original aristocratic families have declined and can only rely on merchants and factory owners to become their political spokespersons.

It was this background that made Burgenland the province with the highest degree of "republicanism" in the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire.

And early that morning, not long after the councillors entered the chamber, they rushed out of the door and faced the crowd that had already gathered in the square in front of the chamber.

"Gentlemen!" Joseph as Speaker? Lord Landall took the megaphone, and his voice echoed throughout the square, "The council has made a resolution!" We refuse to starve! ”

Immediately, the square erupted in a uniform response, and everyone raised their fists and shouted loudly.

Joseph continued to chant: "We refuse to be forcibly expropriated!" ”

The crowd raised their fists again.

Burgenland, once part of the Kingdom of Hungary, was agriculturally developed and produced large quantities of its own cereals, grapes and sausages, and at this time the province is one of the few provinces in Austria that has a surplus of agricultural products. In order to cope with the famine, the Austro-Hungarian government had recently passed a special bill to levy agricultural products from the stocks of Burgenland farmers.

The Austro-Hungarian officials did not seem to realize that their move had ignited the fuse of the explosives.

Although the crowd was fully agitated, Joseph was still raising his arms and shouting: "We refuse poverty!" Refuse to raise taxes! Reject the stupid old aristocracy! Germans! Workers! The time has come! Let's take up guns and defend the fruits of our labor! ”

With that, he stepped aside, and several councillors behind him immediately unfurled a bright red flag, with the red eagle and yellow coat of arms painted in the center of the banner, and a white symbol of a combination of fig leaves and sickle hammers in the upper right corner.

"If we are destined to die of hunger and poverty, then we might as well choose to die a glorious death!" As he spoke, Joseph took the German-made MP18 submachine gun from his entourage and swept out a shuttle of bullets directly into the sky, which set off the atmosphere of the entire square to the extreme.

After firing the magazine, Joseph waved his hand and ordered loudly: "Shoot!" ”

So the cloth covering the carriage parked next to the square was lifted, revealing a wooden box covered with a fig leaf sign underneath, and a few seconds later the first box was pried open, and the brand-new German-made rifle was taken out and thrown to the nearest crowd.

After a while, another box was opened, and Huang Chengcheng's bullets were poured directly onto the empty freight wagon, allowing the crowd to take them at will.

All firearms use uniform ammunition specifications, and there is no need to worry about the messy ammunition specifications that have plagued the Austro-Hungarian army for many years.

Seeing the crowd looting weapons and ammunition, Joseph was silent.

Then he heard someone behind him whispering prayers.

The aristocracy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was generally devout Catholic, and even when they became merchants and factory owners, this tradition was preserved. But Joseph? Landall and his family are outliers, and his father and grandfather are both adventurous and believe that their own destiny should be in their own hands.

This idea was also passed on to Joseph.

But at this moment, Joseph had an impulse, and he joined the praying man in a soft murmur as he finished praying: "Amen." ”

- May the Lord bless us, bless this land, bless this country.

Joseph? Landall prayed from the bottom of his heart.

But there was a voice that lingered in his head: the Lord had not helped the empire in the last war, and the devout Catholics had been defeated by both the Orthodox and Puritan believers.

**

On March 15, the Austro-Hungarian ministers attended the Imperial Council at Schönbrunn Palace as usual, and Sissi attended the meeting as a representative of the goddess.

And the content of the meeting was the same as usual, just a pure waste of time.

Sissi kept suppressing the **** who spoke in her heart, watching this group of big men be humble to each other, ramp up, and scold the Hungarians together.

It didn't make any sense to speak herself, Sissi thought, because she didn't have any power to force these people to consider their opinions, let alone get them to adopt them. Unless—

- Unless, like Iron Hime, she transforms the country into a state where she has the final say.

But Sissi doesn't want to do this, and she can't do it, she is a knight who protects the country, not an iron-fisted tyrant. This may be the sorrow of the knight, knowing that Lang Dao has to take extraordinary actions to change the situation, but because of the eight virtues of the knight, he is restrained everywhere, and can only watch the country slide into the abyss.

Sissi looked at Emperor Ferdinand's sullen face, and her mood became heavier and heavier.

His Majesty the Emperor must be the same as himself at this moment, wanting to do something to save the country, but he is bound by the traditional and classical concept of justice, and has no way to take action.

Sissi couldn't help but think that if His Majesty Ferdinand ordered him to break the necks of these guys in front of him, he would probably happily carry it out, because then the responsibility for this action would fall on His Majesty who gave the order, and she could openly move out of the grounds such as "obeying orders is the duty of a soldier" and avoid moral punishment with peace of mind.

That's an irresponsible idea.

Sissi sighed, and at this moment, the door of the conference room was opened, and the confidential officer hurriedly broke into the room, and said breathlessly: "I just received an urgent telegram, the whole territory of Burgenland Province is controlled by armed people, and the troops stationed there have given up resistance. ”

"What?" Austro-Hungarian Emperor Ferdinand I stood up sharply, "Are you sure?" ”

"Yes, the telegram was taken last night, and we just received it."

Ferdinand left his place and strode up to the confidential officer, taking the telegram from his hand.

His gaze quickly swept over the message, and he tore it in half.

Immediately afterwards, the emperor turned his face to the important ministers present, and the anger in his eyes was visibly suppressed.

"It's because of you! Because you've been wasting your time, the worst has happened! ”

"Your Majesty," said the Imperial Prime Minister slowly, "although this news is very bad, it would be too pessimistic to say the worst. Riots like this have happened many times in the history of the empire, and it would be nice to send the Knights of Warlord to quell the rebellion. The moment the crowd saw the magic armor of the battle queens, they would scatter. ”

At this time, Sissi reminded: "Two years ago, the German masses were in Dessau, but they still fought hard in the face of Zhan Ji and fought to the death. ”

"That's the Germans." The Prime Minister was completely unimpressed.

Sissi was silent for a few seconds before she sighed heavily and stopped talking.