Italy, 9 January 1848.

In Palermo, the capital of Sicily, a proclamation appeared on the city walls.

"Sicilian! …… Protests, petitions, peaceful demonstrations have proven useless, Ferdinando II has shown in his eyes that there is only contempt, and for us free people have been chained to miserable chains.

How long will we have to wait to get our rightful rights back? Take up arms, sons of Sicily, we take up arms! ”

The most ridiculous thing is that the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at this time only regarded it as a joke, and Ferdinando II even had a grand birthday celebration on January 12, that is, three days later.

In fact, successive disasters have plunged agriculture into an unprecedented trough, and the worldwide economic crisis has destroyed its handicraft industry.

In the face of internal and external difficulties, heavy snowfall has destroyed people's hopes for the future. The public believed that it was all King Ferdinando II's fault, and the disregard of the government and the royal family irritated the people.

Ferdinando II was an enterprising king, and as soon as he came to power, he carried out a large number of reforms, selecting the best and eliminating the accumulated defects, and trying to create a clean and efficient government.

Later, Ferdinando II reduced taxes, abolished servitude, encouraged industry, developed trade, established education, promoted talents, and even established an early welfare system.

Under his propulsion, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies established the first railway in Italy (the Naples-Portici Railway), the first navigation company in Italy, and the first telegraph company in the Apennines.

Ferdinando II was once considered the most likely monarch to reunite Italy, but at this time he wanted nothing more than to live his life in mediocrity.

Three days later, January 12, 1848.

At the celebration of the king's birthday, the red, white and green flags, symbolizing Italy, were unfurled, and then people took up arms and ran to the palace, as in the announcement.

At this time, in order to have a peaceful birthday, Ferdinando II mobilized five regiments to maintain order in front of the palace, and a whole fleet was still stationed in the harbor.

In addition, there are a large number of military police, spies, strong fortresses and black cannons.

All the rebels together had only 500 guns, and they were craftsmen from various guilds, refugees fleeing famine, and bankrupt craftsmen, all of whom were not affiliated with each other, a typical rabble.

No one thinks the latter can win.

Ferdinando II dragged his eldest son, Francesco II, who would become King Francesco II, to the balcony of the second floor of the palace to see for himself how the rabble had fallen.

Father and son were ready to watch a bloody massacre, but at this time, Ferdinando II's close retainer, Dozanka Charlot, stepped forward.

"Your Majesty, those filthy blood should not defile your eyes, just leave it to Weichen here."

Ferdinando II was unmoved.

"I'm going to see how those who don't know what to do are crushed by my army! Damn Diao Min! Blame me for the natural disaster! The plague of locusts was clearly summoned by Shelter IX! ”

In fact, Pius IX also collected debts from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the debts of the Murat period were also counted on his head, so the relationship between the two sides was very poor.

Dozanka Charlot was a little overwhelmed, because he was a traditional nobleman, and he still respected the pope, at least he didn't dare to scold the pope in front of others like the king.

Of course, as a wise man, he didn't want to annoy the king, so he only waited for Ferdinando II to be a little less angry before suggesting again.

"Your Majesty, there will be no eyes in the guns when the battle starts, and it will not be good if you accidentally hurt Your Majesty and the prince."

Ferdinando II thought about it and it did make sense, so he decided to go back to the palace for a while, anyway, there were high-walled fortresses and more than 10,000 troops outside, and the other party only had 500 rabble, and there was really no reason to lose.

"The king is gone!" A roar and a gunshot shocked everyone and kicked off the vigorous prelude to the Spring of Nations.

Something incomprehensible to Ferdinando II arose, and fifteen minutes after he had left, his army had broken through the defenses, and the city was full of routs, and five hundred rabbles rushed to the palace.

In fact, after the French Revolution, the word revolution was enough to make all the aristocracy fearful, whether it was the Industrial Revolution or any other revolution.

Another unexpected reason was that Ferdinando II left the balcony, and the sudden departure of the king directly caused the morale of the army to collapse.

"The king is gone!" ", which directly shattered the remaining fighting spirit of the soldiers.

If Ferdinando II had never left, or had never been on the balcony, the situation would not have been so bad.

"Don't let Ferdinando II run!" Someone shouted, and then Ferdinando II fought and retreated under the desperate protection of the royal guard, and fled into the port of Palermo in a hurry to survive.

Ferdinando II, who fled to the battleship, looked at the rebels cheering in the harbor in the distance, and from time to time his ears heard "Long live Italy!" "Long live Pius IX!" Voice.

"Damn Patronus IX!" Ferdinando II spat into the sea, and he knew that the rebels had no ability to break through his defenses, and that the great demon of Pius IX must have used some kind of spell.

In fact, at this time, the banner of the Italian unification movement was Pius IX, because after he came to power, he granted amnesty to the world, and many demons and monsters were released along with political prisoners.

These people lived up to expectations and began to make trouble everywhere, and the city of Rome was already under the title of "Long live the Pope!" "Death to Austria! "Long live Italy! These slogans drowned.

Even the French ambassador thought the Pope was crazy, he wrote in a letter to the French king, Louis Philippe.

"The Pope is digging his own grave. His madness put even the most brutal and violent revolutionaries to shame"

Some secret leaflets even claimed that "the Jesuits were a conspiracy of the Austrians", that "the Pope was under control" and that "the Holy See could only be saved by expelling the Austrians from Italy".

While the rebels were preparing for an uprising, Pius IX suddenly decided to set up a Consultative Council to openly seek a solution to the Italian nation.

In fact, Pius IX wanted to mobilize the people to drive the Austrians out and become the leader of Italy.

But the reality is that the political prisoners he released were not interested in an Italy founded by the Pope, and they demanded more rights.

The monks on the Consultative Council were soon hollowed out, and the radical nationalists came to the stage of history.

As a result of the tandem of these men, a large number of jockey clubs appeared in Italy, which, like the banquet movement of the French, were not simply jockey clubs, but openly associated.

Franz was well aware of this, and Al Pacino Corleone, who was a Sicilian, was well aware of the means of such association.

Franz naturally had a countermeasure, which was to arrest those who did not have horses for fraud. In the end, everyone in the entire Jockey Club really had to bring a horse with them, which greatly raised the threshold for membership.

At that time, the price of horses was not cheap, especially the follow-up costs, and Italy itself did not produce horses, and the total number of horses was not as high as in Belgium before the dissolution.

However, the reality was that the nationalists in northern Italy were not easy to deal with, and on January 1, 1848, they launched a campaign to quit smoking.

In fact, the planners originally planned to replicate the tea dumping incident in North America that year, but as soon as they poured two boxes of tobacco, someone lost their money.

It was clear that Austria had a much stronger security presence in northern Italy than Britain in North America, and that Al Pacino Corleone, the local snake, and his gang of Sicilians were the underground managers of the docks.

But Franz didn't want too much blood, so he just let the nationalists lose money. But tobacco prices were not cheap at the time, and the arrested nationalists were unable to pay off their debts.

In order to avoid the fate of being sent to the colony to pay off their debts, they had to identify the real culprits behind the scenes. Franz still dealt with them with fines, which worked especially well against these middle classes.

Many people lose their heads overnight, but they are helpless, because there is the support of the law, and they get the stolen goods. In fact, many people, after losing their property, are not so radical.

And the people at the bottom like to see these people unlucky, and the number of report letters has gradually increased, and some people even make a living from it.

In desperation, the nationalists in northern Italy had no choice but to quit smoking, in fact, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol has always been advocated by Franz, after all, tobacco and alcohol are not a good thing.

After the start of the smoking cessation campaign in northern Italy, Franz even sent people to promote the harm of smoking.

It's just that at that time, the harm of these so-called cigarettes was all nonsense without scientific basis, because people who smoked and drank alcohol were obviously more energetic and lived longer than those who did not smoke and drink.

Although the nationalists in northern Italy can not smoke and can call on the people not to smoke, they cannot restrain the soldiers in the army.

At that time, tobacco was not cheap and not widely available, at least most of the people at the bottom could not afford to smoke. Historically, it wasn't until after the popularity of paper cigarettes that the number of smokers really began to approach the number of alcoholics.

At this time, although there were paper cigarettes in Austria, they were not widely used, and most people still liked to use pipes, snuff and other things, which were too expensive for ordinary people.

The price of tobacco is not high, but the tax is very high. The cessation campaign was driven by nationalists in northern Italy to crack down on Austrian taxes and force the government to reform.

I have to say that there must be government officials or experts who are familiar with taxation to help with advice, but the Austrian treasury is much more abundant now than it was in history, and tens or millions can afford to spend it.

In fact, this amount of money is really not worth mentioning in the face of import and export duties, industrial taxes, agricultural taxes, and the funds of the Royal Development Company and the Austro-Mexican United Company.

The top echelons of the empire, other than Franz, didn't even take this matter to heart, and the local officials were in a hurry, but they weren't particularly anxious, at least they didn't feel that they should take any special measures.

However, nicotine withdrawal was not so pleasant, on January 3, two days after the start of the quitting campaign.

A group of smokers stormed the sentry and beat a soldier who was smoking. A large number of soldiers then arrived, and a physical altercation ensued.

Marshal Radetzky was very strict in his administration, and he did not want too many clashes between the army and the locals, so the soldiers were very restrained and remained at the level of brawls.

Soon however, some radical nationalists began to use weapons, and when the violence escalated, the soldiers of the army reverted to military and began to fight back quickly and resolutely.

It all stems from the royal family's gift to the Italian legion, "The wicked should not be connived up, and the good should not be wronged." (Foreshadowing)

In the face of heavily armed and well-trained soldiers, how could those nicotine withdrawal thugs be able to resist.

The fighting may not have been a battle at all, and the riots were quelled after the killing of two armed thugs.

As a result of the decisive action taken, the casualties were much lower than in history. Only two people died, and more than a dozen were slightly injured.

In fact, the aristocrats and merchants of Italy did not want to make things too stiff, because they just wanted to achieve independence like the Hungarians.

To be honest, both the policies of the Austrian Empire and the markets of the Austrian Empire were very satisfying to them.

They have made a lot of money over the years, and they are not doing very well compared to their relatives and friends in other countries.

However, once they had the money, they felt they could go further.

They weren't necessarily nationalists in reality, but with Hungary in front of them, the Italian nobility and merchants also wanted Northern Italy to be independent so that they would have enough power to protect their interests.

Officials in northern Italy also wanted to expand their power, so the two sides hit it off, and a vigorous nationalist movement began.

However, while inciting the nationalists and the lower classes to make trouble, they also sent people to contact the Austrian Imperial Government.

These men hoped to get the Austrian Imperial Government to compromise under heavy pressure, but Metternich and Count Korolav had seen a lot of this.

There were many people in the Austrian Empire who wanted to do this, and Bohemia was even more violent at this time, and if they had been so easy to compromise, Austria would have been torn apart.

So Metternich directly ordered the arrest of a group of nationalist leaders such as Danielle Manin, Niccolò Tomaseo, Bishop Corser, and Bishop Ambras.

On the other hand, Marshal Radetzky felt a strong sense of unease, as a veteran who had participated in the war against France, he was well aware of the horror of the "turmoil."

In a telegram to Vienna, Marshal Radetzky said: "We must at once take the strongest measures against the insane and radical reformers, and we must nip this flame in the bud." ”

However, the old marshal's surprisingly intransigent nature did not attract the attention of the Viennese government, for Metternich felt that as soon as the leader was arrested, the matter would soon be settled.

However, a gunshot in Sicily shattered Metternich's dreams, and the whole of northern Italy was agitated.

At this moment, Metternich finally smelled a strange smell, the salty and wet breath of a bloody storm.

But the 74-year-old Chancellor still didn't think anything could shake the well-fed and well-stocked Austrian Empire.

What he didn't expect was that the approaching storm would be so large, destructive, and far-reaching that it would completely exceed everyone's estimates, including Franz, who was full of confidence at this time.

At the end of the month, I asked for a ticket

(End of chapter)