Hearing this, Boist's face became even more bitter.

Even a rich country cannot have a fiscal surplus in two consecutive wars.

Moreover, Austria-Hungary is not a rich country in the first Prussian war in 1866, they paid a sky-high compensation to the central bank for the central government's excessive currency issuance, and the debt has not been paid off until now.

Even the current cost of requisitioning domestic railways is owed first, and where can I find any money.

…… In fact, it is not that it cannot be afforded, but the matter is not so important that Austria-Hungary needs to borrow money.

"For another one, Your Majesty, we owe you £7,250,000." Boist said with some embarrassment.

"Well...... Alfonso was also embarrassed: "Without money, it's hard to help you."

We helped France fight the war, and they forgave millions of pounds in debt.

This is to take the initiative to attack Prussia, I'm afraid it ......"

In fact, Alfonso did not have to ask for money, in addition to money, he also wanted scientific research and industrial means of production, but Austria-Hungary could not get these things either.

Bohemia's military industrial strength is not bad, but Austria-Hungary is a good one, and its technical level does not surpass Spain much.

The two then discussed that Boist still could not come up with enough interests to impress Spain.

So the talks broke up unhappily.

After Boist left, Alfonso secretly slandered himself, this is obviously wanting Spain to work for a day, not to mention that the two countries are just friendly quasi-allies, even if the two are the same family, they have to give some benefits to others.

You don't see that Hungary needs the central government to sell benefits to everything it does.

Spain dragged 100,000 Prussian troops in Strasbourg, making the other party unable to escape, which was already benevolent, but he didn't expect his teammates to want to continue to prostitute in vain.

Theo did not negotiate with each other, but the war still went on.

In the blink of an eye, two weeks had passed since Austria-Hungary declared war on Prussia, and the scattered Wehrmacht soldiers had finally gathered on the front line.

Emperor Franz's claim of "military superiority" has finally appeared, after all, no matter how Prussia can be a violent army, it is impossible to withstand the two great powers of France and Austria at the same time.

However, superiority in force does not mean victory.

In this war, Austria-Hungary entered the war on the pretext of helping Bavaria defend Prussia, which is obviously untenable.

In the contract signed in 1866, German affairs had long ceased to be related to Austria-Hungary, let alone an alliance against foreign enemies.

Austria-Hungary, as the aggressor, was at a disadvantage in terms of morale, justice, and international public opinion.

Coupled with Prussia's lenient policy towards Austria-Hungary back then, the soldiers below had no sense of revenge, and it was naturally impossible to defeat the Prussian side that defended the country.

In this way, Austria-Hungary fought back and forth with 480,000 troops and Prussia's 360,000.

For every kilometer of advance to the west of the South Germans, Bohemia had to lose almost the same amount of land.

In this way, Austria-Hungary suffered a bloody loss, and almost all the military industry of the entire empire was concentrated in the small one-acre and three-third land in Bohemia, and every inch of land was the essence of Austria-Hungary.

South Germany was only a temporary occupation of Prussian land, and if it was lost, it would be lost.

And in order to accommodate the mood of the ally Ludwig, they could not plunder in Bavaria, but Prussia had no scruples about Bohemia.

In the Hofburg Palace, Franz had nothing to say about such an embarrassing situation, and everyone who should be angry was angry.

After thinking about it, it was still Austria-Hungary that lacked money.

If they have money, they don't have to deduct and search when they mobilize, and if they have money, they can command Spain to be used as gunmen.

So on March 22, the Emperor summoned the senior ministers of Vienna, including the Hungarian ministers, who had recently had a staggered relationship.

The emperor announced only three things, the first of which was that Hungary's financial burden was immediately reduced from 30% to 23.7%, and there was no need for another central financial conference.

The second was to impose a nationwide war tax and borrow £4 million from the Central Bank to deal with the war.

Third, suspend the repayment of all debts, including principal and interest.

A few simple words caused a stir in the entire empire.

Such a tough measure of money collection undoubtedly shows that the central government's financial situation is deteriorating sharply.

Almost all the people began to criticize the government's aggressive diplomacy, and the war tax was a real pain point.

However, the turmoil in the empire is gradually improving.

While tax increases and the moratorium on debt payments are effective for the whole country, the reduction of fiscal obligations is for Hungary alone.

The disadvantages of the former do not offset the gains of the latter.

In return, the Hungarian politicians not only stopped slandering the central government, but immediately sent 100,000 troops to Bohemia to help, even misinterpreting the law to allow local defense forces to move across the border.

With the help of Hungary, the dual empire of Austria-Hungary was finally no longer fighting with one hand, and the situation gradually improved.

On the Iberian Peninsula, Alfonso is keeping a close eye on all this.

Every day, someone would come and report to him the latest developments of the war.

The fact that Austria-Hungary stopped paying its arrears had an effect on him, since both Romagna and the Lunwei kingdom owed him money (Croatia's money had already been paid off).

But he was not concerned with this matter, but with something else - Austria-Hungary borrowed 4 million pounds from the Central Bank.

In fact, this was just a pretense, and the main purpose of Austria-Hungary was to issue more paper money in the territory again, and the purpose of borrowing money was to explain to the people the source of the funds.

This is no secret at the top of the world, after all, financial scholars are well aware of the economic situation in Austria-Hungary.

Austria-Hungary didn't even want to hide it from everyone.

This is what Enrique has just told Alfonso.

It has to be said that it opened the door to a new world for Alfonso.

Austria-Hungary can increase the issuance, why can't Spain increase it?

Austria-Hungary, like Spain, did not have much reserves of precious metals, even less.

Where is the confidence for him to dare to issue additional currency?

There is no confidence.

The Habsburg finance ministers had been trying to stabilize the value of the country's paper money for many years, but with little success, because the successive wars and debt payments were too costly.

In addition, it was a monarchy, and the Ministry of Finance was unable to persuade the emperor not to issue currency indiscriminately.

But Spain is different, with at least three advantages in comparison:

One: there are more domestic precious metals. Two: Spain has a strong central government. Three: Spain's central bank has more real estate and precious metals on the asset side.

Spain annexed Sicily and Sardinia, and after more than two years of rapid development, the economic strength has long been enough to carry more currency, but because of the stock of precious metals, it has not been issued often.

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