December 25, 1845, Christmas Day.

On this day, there was a strange sight in the streets of Vienna from the morning, full of Santa Claus dressed in green, green hats, and carrying horse-drawn carriages.

Santa Claus in the nineteenth century was not the red coat, red hat, sleigh, and reindeer that we later know.

In fact, the image and identity of Santa Claus in Europe are different in different times and countries, sometimes it is a bishop with a halo on his head and a leather whip; Sometimes it's a farmer with a sad face, but a strong body.

Sometimes it's a hairy, pot-bellied savage; In parts of Germany, she was once a terrible witch with iron teeth.

The image of modern Santa Claus originated in the United States, and in 1821, American writer William Geely's "Friends of Children" first proposed the image of red clothes, red hats, sleighs, and reindeer.

But in Austria, that image is about to change. First of all, sledding and reindeer are two things that are rare to see in Austria, so they were replaced by the most common horse-drawn carriages.

Secondly, the red coat and red hat belong to the Spanish colors in the eyes of the Austrians, and the former prefer green, believing that it represents luck and beauty.

Then there is the bag on the back, which in Germany is often associated with being a farmer or a thief.

So the cloth bag was changed to a box wrapped in colored paper, in fact, this is also to consume inventory, in fact, the sales of colored paper in Austria are far less than expected, and these colored paper actually have a shelf life.

This is the first time that Franz knows that paper also has a shelf life, and in this era, due to technical limitations, colored paper will naturally fade after six to eight months

Instead of rotting in the warehouse, you might as well take it out and show it off.

Historically, the Austrian Empire often did this, and even borrowed money from bankers to show its national strength, commonly known as "slapping a swollen face and filling a fat man".

The streets of Santa Claus are actually employees of Franz's company, or priests who have volunteered to help.

Roman Catholicism does not actually recognize this alienated image of Santa Claus, believing that only Bishop St. Nicholas is the real Santa Claus.

But the affairs of the Holy See are related to Austria. The Austrian Church, under Franz's reform, has long since parted ways with Orthodox Catholicism.

So Franz did this, not only did the clergy jump out against it, but many people chose to join it.

In fact, through these years of change, the clergy of the church have long known how to adapt to the new era.

Moreover, the church was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the reform, and the church in Austria owes much of its current situation to Franz's reform.

In particular, the emergence of the Chenla Patriarchate allowed the Church in Austria to have its own "Vatican", although Chenla nominally belonged to the Chenla royal family, but in fact it was a vassal colony of the Austrian Empire, but this did not prevent the clergy from being proud of what they had done.

In order to maximize labor savings, fairness and safety, Franz did not choose to have people go door-to-door to deliver gifts.

Instead, people park the carriage in a designated area and wait for the staff to pick it up, while a special person maintains order and registers it.

In this era, it was dangerous for a horse-drawn carriage laden with valuable goods to traverse the streets repeatedly, even in large cities like Vienna, Paris, and London, where pickpockets, gangsters, and desperate gamblers could take risks.

At the same time, the possibility of self-theft is not impossible, even if each box is wrapped and no one knows what is inside.

But that didn't stop the guys from banding together to embezzle the goods, which were not monitored at the time. However, in public, they will still be a little more restrained.

In addition, Franz also took other precautions, such as multi-party supervision. But in reality, no one wants to make themselves unhappy at Christmas.

Especially when Franz deals with 10,000 people at a time, even the most greedy people will temporarily restrain themselves.

Because they saw Franz's determination and difference, there were actually many people waiting to see the show, but no one dared to stand up and fight Franz.

After all, the aristocracy usually did not have trouble with the future emperor, and the capitalists would not kill themselves if they had to make money from the goods in Franz's factory.

As for the commoners and scholars, they did not have as much say as they thought, and Franz did not harm their interests.

Franz's gifts were mainly food, unsalable goods and consumption vouchers, and of course the value of food and unsalable goods would be slightly higher than that of consumption vouchers.

This kind of behavior is actually reducing the threat of inflation, because Franz has too much gold and silver in his hands, and these things will be fried in the market in one go.

After all, the gold diggers in the United States at that time could be described as unorganized, undisciplined, unskilled, and uncommanded, while Franz was directly panning for gold with methods far higher than the technology at that time, coupled with an efficient organizational structure.

Gold production was much higher than in California at the same time in history, and Franz also scavenged gold and silver from all over the world to Vienna.

The domestic gold price in the Far East is much higher than in the international market, so Franz has carried out a large-scale hedging operation, which alone will take Austria's gold reserves to a new level.

Although it is impossible to have no money, too much money is not necessarily a good thing.

For example, as long as Franz throws his gold into the market at this time, it will immediately cause the depreciation of gold, followed by terrible inflation.

Although it can shock countries in a short period of time and gain a certain advantage in international competition, there are no enough valuable goods at this time, so it is Franz who suffers in the end.

This kind of behavior is equivalent to lowering the price of your own goods, spending money to buy sin for yourself. Therefore, the currency that Franz put on the market was exactly the same amount as the economic development of the Austrian Empire.

As for what this figure is, it is not up to Franz to decide, but to dozens or even hundreds of economists.

The good news is that as the Austrian Empire's economy grew, the amount of money needed in the market became larger, which meant that Franz could slowly put these precious metals into the market.

But even this caused inflation to a certain extent, but the existence of the German Customs Union and the Apennine Customs Union greatly prevented the outflow of precious metals from the Austrian Empire.

At the same time, because he has enough precious metals in his hands, Franz is also more confident in foreign trade, especially in the monopoly of some commodities and the impact on the regional situation.

For example, the quagmire of war in southern Brazil at this time was actually inseparable from Franz.

How could a poor and weak agricultural country be able to stop the United Legion led by the British Empire, the world's most powerful force at this time?

(The Combined Corps refers to the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Uruguay.) ）

(End of chapter)