Venice, City Hall.

The fall of the Hungarians was not what Franz expected, but in order to prevent the Presbourg tragedy.

He deliberately added five full infantry regiments to Pressburg in the name of the Ministry of War, a total of 8,000 men, so that the total strength of Pressburg reached 15,000 men.

In fact, if it weren't for the historical tragedy, Pressburg alone would definitely be the kind of fortified city that could not have fallen.

As Vienna's last barrier in the East, its importance cannot be overstated.

The city has only been captured three times in hundreds of years: Suleiman the Magnificent and Napoleon, and Grand Vizierkala Mustafa.

The city is high and deep, the firepower is complete, the grain and grass are abundant, and it is located at the confluence of the Morava River and the Danube River, surrounded by water on three sides.

Only one side needs to engage the enemy, which greatly limits the attacker's superiority in strength, and it is worthy of the word indestructible no matter what point you look at.

Such a fortress, Franz could not think of how it did not hold out for even a day.

However, in view of the fact that there are too many strange deeds in Austria in history, such as sending all officers to death before starting a war, which led to the collapse of its entire command system.

Or use half of the opponent's forces to fight a war of annihilation, only to be annihilated by the opponent, and after deciphering the enemy's code, take the initiative to contact the other party to ask if the password will be changed

Franz decided to make a change of general, but naturally it could not be in a contradictory way such as transfer or promotion.

Franz decided to give the general in charge of Pressburg a vacation, and although the treatment of Austrian soldiers was a mess in history, the benefits of the officers were not insignificant.

In addition to one day of vacation per week, there are 7 days of monthly leave per month and 28 days of annual leave per year, all of which are counted separately.

Overall, Austrian officers have an average of 164 days of vacation per year, but it still makes the nobles complain.

In fact, in Austria the military rank was more of an honorary title, and the salaries of officers were very low, and cavalry officers even had to buy their own horses.

This is one of the important reasons why the Hungarians are so unruly, because many of the ranks of cavalry officers are bought, plus they buy their own horses and are responsible for their own training.

This is a bit like the regimental training in the late Qing Dynasty, where the autonomy was too strong and the rate of return was too low, which led to the long-term low morale and military discipline of the cavalry troops.

The accumulates of the Austrian Empire for hundreds of years are quite deep, and they cannot be explained by Franz in a sentence or two, let alone solved by him with a casual movement of his fingers.

The roots of corruption have long been rooted in the depths of the earth, and the intertwined interests are like a mess.

Franz tried to set out to build a new army himself, but if he was just having fun.

Then the nobles and merchants would send fine horses, elaborate swords, ornate hussar uniforms, as well as suitable training grounds and trainers, and wealthy clan families would even send their best disciples in.

But once Franz does more than he can play, then he will run into all sorts of unexpected troubles.

It is possible that the horses will be frightened en masse and then disappear, and the horseshoe will not be nailed properly and the horse will fall to their death.

So the size of the regular army that Franz was able to control never exceeded 10,000, because those people probably felt that was a safe number.

But Franz was not completely without a counterattack, and these people wanted to put their hands into his arsenal.

Franz broke them off and deliberately threw the severed limbs on the street.

In the past, reverse infiltration was not so difficult when Adjani was there, Colonel Bordeaux worked very hard, and Adjani's successor was also loyal to his duties, but Franz still had to warn others by killing chickens and monkeys.

The military industry and the Academy of Sciences are Franz's bottom line, and they can run military enterprises, but no one can touch Franz's arsenal.

Similarly, Franz doesn't mind that the privileged class invests in education or technology, but they have to compete on what they can, rather than poaching people from Franz or replacing technological progress with power control.

In fact, the arrival of the year of the storm also gave Franz a chance to liquidate, and most of the people who restrained Franz were also doing things in Vienna at this time.

The logic of this group of people is very simple, that is, to resolutely limit the imperial power, and must not allow the royal family to dominate.

In fact, this is a kind of sadness of the times, and they cannot wake up from the struggle between the nobility and the royal power.

It's not that they can't see new opponents, but they don't want to abandon old ideas, even if it's to drag the whole class to accompany them.

But Franz won't let them get their wish, since they like to make trouble, then Franz will help them make a big fuss.

When Franz learned that the privileged nobles and businessmen had fled to the liberal side again, he decided not to return to Vienna.

The reason, of course, is that the railway is not smooth.

In fact, some people had sent people to bomb the railroad in order to prevent Franz from returning to Vienna, but the people they sent happened to be spies sent by Franz in the past.

Franz's basic plate is indeed the aristocracy, but the privileged class is not equal to the entire aristocratic class.

Franz did not want to deal with them, not to destroy himself, let alone to betray his own class.

On the contrary, what Franz did was to save the aristocracy and get rid of the blood.

It is ridiculous to equate the privileged class with the entire aristocratic class, there is no reason to enjoy the benefits alone, and the pot has to be carried by everyone.

Vienna has been carefully renovated by Franz for so many years, and if he still can't resist the pressure, then he doesn't mind a thorough purge.

Of course, Franz will take his family out before that, after all, at that time, the royal inheritance is more important than anything else.

Otherwise, it will be like the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, which is indescribably fragmented, and can only be said to be fragmented.

Franz did not return to Vienna, and he would not be idle.

Fortunately, the old emperor wanted to make Venice the capital of the Austrian Empire, and Franz later ran it when he developed overseas trade and colonies.

Therefore, Venice at this time has the ability to be the capital of China, whether it is the bureaucratic system or the economic system.

As for the so-called rebels and rebels, they either threw the Italian tricolor in the ditch or stormed the Jesuit church for zero dollars.

Perhaps the transformation of these Italian nationalists is a bit abrupt, but it is easy to understand if you look at it from another perspective.

Most of the insurgents simply treated the revolution as a business, and neither the Charcoal Burners nor Pius IX had far less influence than they had imagined.

In fact, those people had revolted before because they thought that Italian nationalists could win and that they could reap the benefits of following them.

Just as betraying and attacking the nationalists and looting churches at this time is also because it is in the best interest of those who insurgent.

In other words, whoever wins, they help.

This is the typical characteristic of the petty citizens, who like to think in a bourgeois way, but they have no capital, so they can only be the pawns they despise the most.

This is also the reason why the uprisings in northern Italy are more likely to take place in the cities, and the peasants are more risk-averse than the citizens, so as long as they do not survive to the point that they cannot easily rebel.

Franz was well aware of this, of course, so he only had to give out some relief grain and raise the purchase price of the grain a little higher.

The peasants would stay at home, and when the urban insurgents went to the countryside to recruit soldiers, they would encounter desertion and even rebellion.

In the eyes of the peasants, the government that gives them relief grain and collects crops at a high price is a good person, and the old man who makes them unable to eat is a bad guy.

Driven by these austereocy, Austria's eyeliner in northern Italy is almost ubiquitous.

As for the wall-to-wall grass who hunted down and mutilated the insurgents everywhere, Franz was also not prepared to condone them.

It is true that they can be used to suppress Italian nationalists better, but this is not good for the restoration of order.

What Franz wanted now was to restore order, both to stabilize the Venetian region and to support the Po line of defense in Albrecht.

The best way to quickly stabilize order is to punish harshly and harshly enforce the law, which translates into an easy-to-understand word of "kill!" ”

In fact, Franz killed many more people in order to stabilize order than he did in Venice.

However, in order to prevent abuse of power, Franz delegated the power to impose the death penalty only to lieutenants, and the death penalty had to be reported and recorded.

Many of the Venetian rebels were university students, and Franz directly requisitioned these prisoners of war to help document the war.

There are three reasons for this, first of all, Franz really does not have so many subordinates, and secondly, college students are still very precious in this era, and he is a little reluctant.

In the end, Franz was still a mere mortal, and he had compassion for the young men who might have been deceived and led astray.

However, the sins they have committed must also be paid for, and these young men will be sent to war after completing the work given to them by Franz.

If they survive, then they still have a chance to atone for their sins slowly, otherwise let them wash their sins with blood.

Po River Line.

Albrecht's march was fast, and the insurgents and rebels he encountered along the way were no threat to his army.

The construction of the defensive line was almost complete, and the equipment in the rear and the reinforcements temporarily transferred by Franz from Venice were also arriving.

Albrecht, however, was depressed because the Italian coalition did not enter the battlefield he had expected on time.

That's right, now tens of thousands of troops are coming in the dust, but not even a single shadow of the Italian coalition is seen, and the scouts are scattered in batches, but there is still no news.

The Po line was very strong, and it was blessed with natural hazards, so the General Staff felt that 50,000 troops were enough to stop the Italian coalition.

Unless they choose to take a detour, but it is not an easy thing to make a detour with such a large army.

Not to mention the grain carts and horses of hundreds of thousands of people on the march, the dung alone is already amazing.

Coupled with the mountainous nature of Central Italy, it was overwhelming for them to take a detour.

Three days ago, in the mountains of Bologna.

Brening was an orphan, but fortunately he was adopted by an heirless nobleman.

But unfortunately, his stepmother disliked him very much, and when his adoptive father died, she kicked him out of the house.

But the aristocracy still had to be decent, and his adoptive mother bought him the rank of major.

Although he was a major, he and more than 1,000 people were thrown into the mountains, supposedly to guard strategic points.

However, in this place where birds don't poop, there is usually not even a smuggler, and Blening has no chance to make a contribution.

After five or six years in a row, he saved a small amount of money, which was enough for him to buy dozens of acres of land and hire two helpers to be a small landowner in the countryside.

On this day, Brenine watched as the sun rose and set, as usual, when suddenly a sentry ran back.

"People! Person! Person! That's a lot of people! ”

"Bastard! Did you drink soup to burn your tongue? Straighten your tongue and speak! ”

Major Bolening has been in the army for many years, and his official authority is still a little bit.

"Report! There are a lot of people in the valley! ”

The sentry didn't get to the point for a long time, but this was a very common situation at that time.

Because the quality of most soldiers is very low, with the exception of a few gifted people, most people can only describe the number of enemy troops in terms of many, many, very many when they probe the enemy.

Although they also have special military training, they have learned and can use two different concepts.

The high-ranking scouts in the army were usually directly linked to the headquarters, and the Breins were nothing more than homeless men in military uniforms.

"Say no more! Take me there. ”

Brening looked helpless.

He was really startled when he came to the valley, where a large army was slowly advancing.

Although it is a valley, the open area in the middle is hundreds of meters wide at its widest, so the tactics of blocking the road with huge rocks in Switzerland simply do not work.

At this time, Bellens was not ready to retreat, he only knew that there were many people, and he did not know that there was a whole Italian coalition army in the valley.

"Tell the brothers, South Italy stinks for rice and Hanako is here!"

Most of the Buren's army were Northern Italians, and although they were the bottom of Northern Italy, they looked down on Southern Italy as much, and even felt that it was the Southern Italians who had robbed them of their jobs that caused their miserable lives.

Hearing the commander say this, the sentry was instantly less afraid, and looked at the dense enemy in the valley with only contempt and contempt in his heart.

"Yes!"

Hearing the sentinel's resounding reply, Bellen couldn't help but admire.

"The tongue is straightened, there is a future! This battle is won, and you will be promoted to be the sentry commander! ”

"Yes!"

Sentinel Jeno happily went.

Blening looked back at the fortress behind him, and he felt that he had arrived behind him.

In fact, what Major Brening didn't know was that the strategic deployment map in his hand was already a few years ago.

At this time, his flanks and rear flanks had long been devoid of friendly troops, and the closest Po River defense line to him was also dozens of kilometers away.

True, the fortress was ignored, the bad news was that no one informed them of the retreat, and the good news was that the Italian coalition did not know that there was a fortress here.

The fortress was built for many years as an outpost of Austrian operations in Bologna, but with a series of secret deals between Metternich and Gregory XVI.

This outpost was suddenly a chicken rib, and the Austrians could enter the Papal States openly, so naturally there was no need for this sneaky outpost.

But at this time, due to the sudden death of Archbishop Cavaji on the way over the mountain, the Italian coalition army fell into a state of leaderlessness.

Eventually, after some conspiracy and mergers, Mr. Pollal, a liberal leader from Tuscany, took the reins of the army.

According to the information sent earlier, the Austrians had formed a defensive line near the Po River.

Mr. Pollard, who had been a small shopkeeper, was not going to jump into the fire pit in a hurry, so he decided to temporarily change the route of Archbishop Kawaji's march and take the valley instead of the main road.

(End of chapter)