Franz looked at the news of the Silesian uprising in the newspaper in front of him and thought to himself, "Is this year a little wrong?"

In fact, Austria's accession to the German Customs Union had sharply increased the political, economic, and geostrategic pressures on Prussia, which unfortunately were also passed on to the civilian population.

At the same time, the immigration policy led by Franz and the spread of Greater German ideas also accelerated the fermentation of this event.

Regardless, Franz felt that this was a good thing, because the civil strife in Prussia meant that its position within the German Confederation would also decline.

If the current trend continues, Austria will definitely be able to secure the presidency of the Confederation and even have a chance to reunify.

Of course, Franz is not ready to take on all of Europe alone for the time being, so this idea is still only in the back of his mind. But what he didn't expect was that the top of Austrian politics was unexpectedly uninterested in recovering Silesia.

The crux of the problem was religion, but Franz did not understand it, and up to now, under his own guidance, at least 100,000 Protestants from North Germany had been recruited, and nothing was found wrong for the time being, especially in the royal estates, where the question of religious differences seemed to have been forgotten.

Although Austria's fiscal revenue has grown rapidly in recent years, there is still a big gap between it and Britain and France. At this time, Britain was at its strongest, and Austria's economy was about two-thirds the size of France's.

It's just that Austria's tax power is too poor, and too many people in the country pay less or even no taxes. For example, the tens of millions of florins that Franz has earned over the years have not been taxed a penny.

Strictly speaking, the Austrian Empire was not a modern state, and although it always wanted to establish itself as a universal empire regardless of nationality or religion, its essence never changed.

A feudal dynasty based on the royal family and linked by religion. Its most striking features are the immense power of the local and the ubiquity of the church.

These forces are mainly local economic, military and political blocs, and they are fighting with the central government. And the consequence of the constant internal friction is that whenever the imperial government proposes reforms, they will create a whole bunch of moths to push back.

One of the largest tumors was the Kingdom of Hungary, which at this time had a revenue of 230 million florins. Hungary, which accounted for nearly 40% of the empire's land area, only paid 22 million florins, less than 10% of the empire's revenue.

Franz has bought more than 10 million acres of "wasteland" in Hungary, but in reality this is still only a small part of his "wasteland".

Now just a million acres of it have been developed, and Franz has already recouped his costs, and even has extra money to strengthen the construction of the royal estate.

In addition to the immigrants who joined the royal estates, there were many German immigrants who were directly integrated into Austrian society, especially South Germans, and it was difficult for Franz to distinguish them from the Austrians.

Hungary has 7.8 million hectares of arable land, and until the beginning of the twentieth century it developed only 2.5 million hectares, when it probably had less than 2 million hectares.

(This refers to Hungary proper, not to the rest of the Kingdom of Hungary.) ）

Franz's actions also aroused the hostility of a section of the Magyars, who propagated that the Habsburg royal family was ready to encroach on Hungary by way of purchase and that they had to find a way to save their homeland.

According to Franz's vision, Hungary had about 3 million serfs and nearly 800,000 landless aristocrats, and as long as the Hungarians could enact a bill similar to the American westward movement, the whole of Transleitania would be greatly developed.

In this way, the problems of taxation and development can be greatly alleviated. Moreover, 10 million acres of land can already attract at least 200,000 immigrants, and if you include other industries and related personnel, the total number should reach 500,000.

However, the Hungarian extremists chose the last thing Franz wanted, that is, to try to violently drive out German immigrants, and called on the Hungarian aristocracy not to sell land to the royal family.

"The Germans in the royal estates are nothing more than serfs of the Habsburgs, and they have no right to cultivate our sacred land in Hungary!"

"They must be sanctioned!"

"Take back what belongs to us Magyars!"

"Long live Hungary!"

Kossuth's speech was so successful that many of the young Hungarian nobles of the lower middle class were instigated by him to join the so-called "Hun Legion".

At first, they carried out some intimidation, kidnapping, and extortion, and the deacons in charge of the estate asked the Hungarian government for help, but received no response.

Soon the situation took a turn for the worse, and on May 1, 1840, the first German immigrant was killed on Hungarian Holy Advent, and by May 17 there had been a number of atrocities, including the murder of a royal deacon.

On 20 May, the Hungarian royal estate and the Reclamation Regiment began to organize guards, and after that, there were several fierce exchanges of fire between the two sides.

As the situation continued to escalate, some people began to waver among the great Hungarian nobility, such as Count Széchenyi and Prince Elthazy

They did not think that the so-called freemen and descendants of the Huns could defeat the Austrian regular army, so they sent a great deal of information to the Austrian side.

In fact, Franz has been pressing this matter and did not report it to the Austrian Imperial Government, because he was afraid that a civil war would break out between the two sides in advance.

Although Austria is unlikely to lose, it will bury the current good situation, and will allow Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia to intervene as appropriate, and even Serbia and Sardinia will intervene.

Some people think that civil war is a good thing, but in reality war is always the last option unless there is a force that defies everything.

Hungary is not an indigenous African, nor is it a small country that can be controlled by a treaty, it has nearly 40% of the Austrian Empire, 35% of the population, and has a history of nearly 800 years.

If the war drags on, economic development will inevitably come to a standstill, and prices will skyrocket, and social unrest, unrest, and panic may trigger mass exodus, or even another uprising. Even if you use a quick fix to end the war as soon as possible, there is a high probability that you will need to fight another law and order war after that.

This is an extremely terrifying depletion of national strength, and if you want to completely solve the problem once and for all, you must either invest a huge amount of manpower and material resources, or expand the scale of the operation, and obviously Franz cannot accept either result.

Metternich, who learned the news, naturally tried his best to avoid the outbreak of civil war, so he only imposed a slight punishment on the families involved in the attack on the royal estate, and was ready to let the Hungarian side hand over the horse bandits involved and compensate the royal family for losses.

Before Count Korolaf could object, the military jumped out first, and Count Latour said that all suspected families should be arrested, punished, and acquitted.

Count Latour also pointed out that Hungary is dominated by plains, and there is no danger to defend in the whole territory, except for two important fortresses, Przemyśl and Budapest.

Among them, General Namet Hans, who was stationed at the Przemyśl fortress, was a virtuous man, and if he did not help Austria in the event of a war, he would not join the rebels.

The rest of Budapest, the Austrian military was sure to take it within two months.

At the same time in Belgrade, there was also an Austrian heavy army group, and the mobilization for the war would take a month, and Tular was sure that he would take the whole of Hungary in two months.

Count Korolav said that the use of force had not yet been reached, but Metternich's punishment was too light, and they had to be allowed to see blood, and that the Hungarians should be threatened with the emancipation of the serfs and let the Hungarians solve the problem themselves.

If the Hungarian side accepted the emancipation of the serfs, it would also be good news for Austria, not only would it fulfill the long-cherished wish of Joseph II, but also that the division of land would greatly weaken the power of the Hungarian nobility.

If they are not willing to emancipate the serfs, then they must show sincerity to satisfy the empire, otherwise

Thank you for your reward and your support.

Ask for tickets.

(End of chapter)