Franz's rhetoric that "everyone in Austria should have clothes to wear" is not an empty phrase. With the expansion of the market space within the empire and the formation of a relatively stable cotton supply chain, clothing with low price advantages will take advantage of favorable transportation conditions and pour into all parts of the country.

In this way, it can not only reduce production costs, but also greatly meet the people's demand for daily necessities, and also stimulate employment.

At the same time, these clothes were also in the hands of the Austrian Empire, such as Saxony, its strongest textile industry, cotton was supplied by Austria, and the market was dominated by Austria, as a middleman, it could only choose to follow in the footsteps of Austria.

In recent years, Prussia, the second elder of the German Confederation, has been in a difficult state. The once-glorious textile industry of Silesia, which was once its pillar industry, was already in decline, and it had to face the trade dumping of the Confederacy by the giant British.

The German Customs Union was finally established, but the Austrian tiger came out halfway. Originally, the Prussians hoped to use state subsidies to support their own clothing industry to fight the Austrians, but the heavy blow of the Americans directly killed them.

Not only did it lose millions of thalers, but it also spent a lot of manpower and material resources, but it ended up selling factories and machines cheaply. What was even more difficult for them to accept was that Austria became the ultimate beneficiary of the big acquisition.

However, Frederick Wilhelm IV had a bigger headache than the fiasco in the clothing market, and that was the discontent of the constitutionalists in Prussia.

The Junker aristocratic military took a hard line and advocated taking the opportunity to abolish constitutionalism and crack down on and weaken the speculative merchants.

Due to the food crisis of previous years and the entry of the Austrian Empire into the German Customs Union, the liberal constitutionalists in Prussia were much weaker than they were historically, and the voices of the Junker landlords were growing louder.

However, William IV did not have the courage to upset this fragile political balance. He feared that without the restraint of the liberals, the conservatives and the military would be allowed to dominate the sky, and eventually break free from the control of the monarch like a wild horse, and he feared that this would repeat the tragedy of the French Revolution.

At the same time, there was another dangerous force growing rapidly in Prussia: the radicals. These people have a much stronger view than the conservatives and liberals combined, such as their strong support for the abolition of the monarchy and its replacement by a republic.

In fact, not only Prussia, but the entire German Confederation was filled with such voices, and even Austria was not immune.

This was especially true in the small vassal states, where even the ruling party was republican, which made Wilhelm IV so frightened that he could not sleep at night, and thus joined forces with the conservative leader Metternich more and more frequently.

But even so, the situation did not improve, and he now did not want to anger the constitutionalists or hand over his precious power. After thinking about it, he decided to be a deaf wooden man and ignore those voices for the time being

Although politically challenged by radical ideologies, Austria has been a successful country in the economic and trade spheres.

After entering the German Customs Union and the Apennine Customs Union, its ready-made garments also flowed along the Danube River into Serbia and the three countries of Wallachia and Moravia, as well as the Balkan territories under Ottoman rule.

Sadly, the garments didn't make much of a splash in the area. The main reason is that the standard of living in these countries and regions is simply too low.

Poor locals prefer to buy coarse fabrics rather than ready-to-wear. Although the profit margin of the cloth business is lower, as the saying goes, fly legs also have meat, not to mention that this is just a stepping stone.

In fact, Franz's real intention in advocating the opening of the Balkan market was to export culture in order to cultivate a group of spiritual Austrians.

By the end of the Turkish-Egyptian war, the doors of Egypt and the Ottomans had been opened to Austria, and the only trouble was that the garments sold to them needed special modifications to make them more in line with the local aesthetic.

In fact, after years of "Westernization" by Ali and the Ottoman Sultans, a large number of spiritual Europeans had been cultivated in these two places, so that Austrian goods were surprisingly sold here.

But Egypt and the Ottomans had their own considerations. With the end of the war in the Near East, the French had temporarily withdrawn from the competition, and the remaining two powers, Britain and Russia, one wishing to dominate their markets and the other never concealing their ambitions for their land.

Although the British were gentler than the Russians in comparison, their trade hegemony was still a bit overwhelming for the two countries.

At first, the British imported goods did seem to be good and cheap, but when the French were a strong competitor, they tore off their masks and bared their bloodthirsty fangs.

Prices were the first to rise in arms, then cotton and saltpeter, and in just one year the prices of commodities except grain and timber almost doubled.

The grain and timber trade was occupied by the Russians, who did not manipulate the price, but the export was a bit difficult for the Ottoman Empire to accept.

McGid had to borrow money from the British to build ships, and the large amount of grain became a war reserve.

McJid was not an incompetent monarch, and he soon recognized the problem that the Ottoman Empire was becoming more and more dependent on Britain and making less and less profit from trade.

In the past, a top-quality carpet could be exchanged for twenty guns, but now it can only be exchanged for ten, and it is still an old-fashioned flintlock pistol, not the latest type of firing pistol.

McJid knew that this was what happened to only one tiger in the mountains, so he hoped that another tiger would appear and let them compete, so that the Ottomans could make the most profits.

In fact, his first object of thought was the French, who were once supporters of Egypt, but MacGid believed that France was the only country in the world capable of competing with England economically, politically, and militarily.

Not only him, but many of the Ottoman elite who had been to Europe admired France, a country that had almost ruled Europe single-handedly.

From a historical point of view, the Ottoman Empire was at its most glorious when it suppressed the Habsburgs by relying on the "Blasphemous League" formed with his half-brother France. I think that Suleiman the Magnificent swallowed thousands of miles like a tiger, defeated Hungary, beheaded its king, besieged Vienna several times, and caused European countries to pay tribute

Unfortunately, the French did not intend to give their once close comrade-in-arms a chance to relive their old dreams, and ruthlessly rejected McGid's offer. Guizot, the pro-British leader, even made a deal with the British to control the price of goods.

Russian products are not competitive at all, and no normal person will choose Russian products. The Prussians produced something better than their eastern neighbors, but their scarce quantities and expensive shipping costs were prohibitive.

General goods were simply not enough to offset the enormous impact of British goods on trade in the Near East. At this time, there was no German craftsmanship that later generations talked about, and now Prussia is known as the Yiwu of Europe, and their products are famous for their inferior and cheap imitations.

Originally, because of the feud between the two sides, Austria itself was not in McGid's consideration, and he did not have any good feelings about this country, and the behavior of the other side during the war in the Near East deepened his disgust.

But when he saw the cheap ready-to-wear, he was shaken. Soon McGid showed his flexibility as a proper monarch, and he decided to involve the Austrians in the beast race in order to drive down the price of the British.

As a result, with the help of the Ottoman Empire, Austrian goods quickly became popular in the Near East. The British immediately felt the pressure and had to sell their goods at a reduced price, causing profits to plummet.

Knowing that the Anglo-Saxons have never been players who play by the rules, they immediately found the Americans, ready to solve the competitors at the source.

Earlier, the new president, John Taylor, had asked (Harris had died) to redefine the border between the United States and British North America. The British, who had a request for help, had to agree to their demands and promised not to cross the border and invade American territory again.

Soon the clothing goods of the Austrian Empire withdrew from the market in Anatolia.

Just when the British were complacent about achieving their goal, they did not know that it was actually a deal reached by Franz and John Taylor's representatives, and the latter once again owed the former a great favor.

The Americans won the border negotiations, and the Austrians succeeded in completing their plan to show weakness to the British. After all, Franz didn't want to be remembered by the British, and what Austria needed most now was time. And McGid succeeded in using the goods of his former rival to suppress the price of British goods.

After this game of chess, everyone felt that they had won.

(End of chapter)