Chapter 253 The storm subsides
As we all know, in any era, the favorite thing of farmers is to divide the land from local tyrants.
The reason why so many serfs had uncontrollable expressions of excitement on their faces when they saw the house burning with fire was not because of their cruel and ruthless nature, but because of the shackles on their bodies - the contract of prostitution. The fire disappeared.
They naively thought that as long as the bond of sale was burned, they would be free from the shackles of their current status.
In fact, the nobles had already registered their status as serfs. Even if the deed of sale was lost, they could go to the Hungarian government to get one.
In other words, unless the serfs and the noble lord go to the government for notarization together, even if the noble lord dies and the deed of sale is lost, they will still be the property of the noble.
But this short-term freedom and sweet dream still made the serfs intoxicated.
The "Horse Bandits" suffered repeated setbacks, and the Austrian Empire began to gradually exert pressure, which put Kossuth's position in danger.
At this time, some pro-Austrian nobles jumped out and called for an end to terrorist actions and cooperation with the empire to develop the economy, such as building a railway from Vienna to Budapest, which would provide more jobs for Hungarians. As for serfdom, it was the lifeblood of small and medium-sized nobles. Of course no one will mention it.
It was impossible to build the railway, but no one wanted to continue building it.
Someone once suggested that the Royal Dragon Knights and Archduke Karl's guards should be eliminated to avenge the young people who died.
It's just that that person was sprayed all over his body on the spot. Let's not talk about how difficult it is to defeat these two troops. Simply annihilating them would be equivalent to declaring war with the Austrian aristocracy.
No one is really stupid enough to think that the Habsburg royal family can rule Hungary only by an agreement. Moreover, the Neletanian nobles, who are also full of martial virtue, are by no means easy to mess with. Most of them are military nobles. , generations have had long and rich war experience, especially when fighting civil wars.
Although the Austrian nobles often colluded with the French and Prussians, they never compromised with the Hungarians.
It was the royal family and the government that compromised Hungary. Since the time of Queen Theresa, the military has always had plans to unify Hungary by force, such as the famous "Plan U."
Why Plan U instead of Plans A, B, C, D, E, and F? It's been planned for a long time, and it's over.
The pressure from the nobles and the government was okay. What really caused the "Hun Legion" to be temporarily disbanded was Albrecht's proactive strategy.
Under normal circumstances, it is illegal to execute someone without approval, but given that the other party has the huge bonus of royal status, and there are a large number of serfs as witnesses every time, it cannot be inferred based on common sense.
It would be fine if the charge was just that of raising private soldiers without reporting the matter, but there was no way to clean up such things as allowing slaves to plunder and attacking merchants.
On the vast Hungarian plains, there is nothing more terrifying than cavalry. They come and go like the wind and can travel hundreds of kilometers a day.
Unless they were hiding in the city, no family's mansion could block a regiment-sized cavalry raid.
In fact, it is common for Hungarian nobles to have dozens or hundreds of thugs in their homes, and many manors have forts.
A Wubao is a small castle made of accumulated bricks and stones. It can resist bandits and bandits. It has food and water sources inside and can even protect itself in low-intensity wars.
But in the 19th century, let alone this kind of dock, even a standard castle like the Bastille could not withstand artillery bombardment.
However, when performing an attack mission, the commander usually does not require the riders to carry such heavy weapons in order not to affect the speed of travel. This also caused some of the enemy's enemies to feel confident in the early stage.
(Cavalry artillery is not the same as cavalry. Some people must say that cavalry does not always run when it is forced to march, but cavalry artillery still has weight no matter how light it is.)
However, judging from the experience of fighting during this period, there is no doubt that Archduke Albrecht has a way to crack the shell of Wubao. Therefore, the upper echelons of the Hunnic Legion decided to temporarily disband in order to wait for opportunities.
After all, Albrecht could not always take the five thousand men under him to protect the German immigrants in the royal estate for a long time.
A horse bandit stronghold that had just been wiped out by Albrecht.
Among the ruins, the soil began to loosen, and gradually the movement became larger and larger, as if a green plant was about to break out of the ground.
With a "dong" sound, the wooden board was lifted, and Itamar was lying on the ground inside, breathing in fresh air like a fish lacking oxygen.
In fact, many aristocratic houses had cellars like this for hiding people. He escaped into the cellar as soon as the fire broke out, so he was able to escape.
At this time, Itamar was horrified to find two figures walking towards him.
Itamar was panicked at first, but when the other party got closer, he realized that they were actually two serfs of his own family, and he couldn't help but said angrily.
"Damn thing, you still can't help me up."
The two serfs remained silent. One of them walked directly behind Itamar and stretched out his hand. However, the other serf did not want to help him up, but held his arm.
"Hurry up, Dan!" shouted the serf behind Itamar.
Matthew raised the hoe in his hand high, and Itamar immediately started struggling.
"Matthew! Dan! Are you all crazy? I am Master Itamar!"
However, the two serfs did not listen to his explanation, and the hoe fell on their master's head. Then they tied him up with hemp rope and threw him into the cellar again.
Matthew put the lid back on the cellar, and Dan moved a big stone from the side to put it on top. Then the two began to fill it with soil until it was completely buried.
Although their hands could not stop shaking and they were afraid that they would be punished, in order not to return to the old days, they still mustered up the courage to send the noble man who crawled out of the ground back to the cellar.
In the days that followed, Albrecht and his soldiers trained new recruits at royal estates across the country.
These German immigrants and Hungarian refugees are very cooperative. After all, after experiencing so many ups and downs, even the weakest people have learned to be strong.
(The Hungarian refugees were caused by the previous floods, not by Franz’s plundering of the population. I wrote about it in the previous chapter. If you are skipping to read it, please don’t criticize the protagonist for being inhumane and deliberately burning people’s fields. You can’t see my reply, so I just It’s mentioned in the article.)
The purpose of training militiamen is to protect their families and the country. Although these militiamen do not know what a country is, they know the importance of protecting their families. They also know that if there is no so-called country, weak people like them will not even have a chance to protect their families.
The militiamen were trained diligently, but Albrecht and his officers were still very demanding, and it was not just a matter of the military training style of this era.
What's more important is that they all know that they can't always stay here to protect the farmers. Soldiers also have feelings, but they follow discipline more than feelings.
A strong army must have iron discipline. Otherwise, it cannot be defeated unless there is a generation difference in weapons or a huge disparity in strength.
Although Albrecht hoped that these civilians would never need to appear on the battlefield, because that would be a dereliction of duty as a soldier.
But after listening to Franz's "Total War" theory, Albrecht began to understand his father's approach.
"Total War" was actually proposed by the German general Ludendorff during World War I. It was essentially an extension of "On War".
What he saw in Hungary made Albrecht realize that that day might not be too far away.