Chapter 576 Internal and external troubles

Chapter 576 Internal and external troubles

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

The flowers are still blooming, but with some cold-resistant varieties. But Franz felt something unusual, and he was afraid that the coming days would not be easy.

While Western Europe was hit by blizzards, Central Europe experienced a mild winter. It seemed that there had been no snow in Netalenia all winter, and there might be another drought next year.

But in fact, Franz was overly worried. The Austrian Empire's agriculture would only experience poor harvests after 1846, but it was still much better than its neighbors.

France would have three consecutive years of poor harvests in 1845, 1846, and 1847, which led to a sharp decline in the purchasing power of French farmers. At the same time, financial defaults increased significantly, land annexation accelerated, and ultimately triggered the revolution.

As for how bad things will be in Spain, Franz is not sure, but he will not jump out of the routine of famine, riots, and civil war.

At the same time, Franz also planned to increase the area of ​​food cultivation in the colony. Although doing so would sacrifice some economic benefits, it would add insurance for the future.

In fact, such behavior will not lead to a reduction in production, but a relative slowdown in growth.

In addition, Franz also needs to establish some more food reserve bases. After all, with his brain circuit, uprisings and riots always seem to be related to not having enough to eat and not being able to survive.

Franz was thinking that if he could feed most people, would he be able to eliminate the rebellion in some areas? Or should we only allow rebellion to appear in some areas and then use all our strength to completely eliminate it?

But a sudden riot poured cold water on Franz.

Northern Italy, Milan.

Italian nationalists launched a riot in this city, the heart of the Austrian Empire, and naturally ended in failure.

Historically, there were constant small-scale riots in northern Italy under the rule of the Austrian Empire, and there are even no accurate records about them.

However, this time the scale was very large. The insurrectionists had a large number of weapons. They first attacked the police station, and then coerced the people to try to rob the arsenal.

Fortunately, Marshal Radetzki did not adopt a soft policy this time and directly mobilized three regiments of troops to suppress the attack.

When the crowd saw the troops in full formation, they began to retreat. The insurrectionists who coerced the people knew that they would completely lose their chance when the crowd dispersed.

So someone detonated the explosives that had been prepared in the crowd, and then opened fire on the crowd.

"The Austrians fired!"

"Fight them now!"

"Come on!"

Fortunately, Marshal Radetzky's soldiers were disciplined enough and did not fire indiscriminately due to excessive nervousness, otherwise it would have been a real massacre.

The people fled in panic, but since the Austrian army did not fire, and the black muzzles and neat queues were also intimidating, naturally no one would rush towards the Austrian army's formation desperately.

Soon only the die-hard insurgents were left. Instead of retreating, they chose to shoot at the Austrian troops and throw homemade explosives.

However, this kind of chaotic attack was not a threat to the troops who were ready for battle. As the neat gunfire sounded, the first insurgents who rushed up were wiped out, followed by continuous gunfire. The sound is like fried beans.

The insurgents were completely suppressed and the lines began to move forward. Those who had never experienced war were frightened by this sense of oppression and could only run as fast as they could.

However, elite hunters had already gone around and cut off their retreat. At the same time, they also occupied commanding heights everywhere, and a precise hunting began.

Later, the existence of the remnants of the rebels was learned through the captured insurgents, and nearly 1,300 people were finally arrested. Added to the total number of people killed and captured before, the total number reached an astonishing 2,500 people.

Although it is not as high as the number of the Papal Palace rebels, who often numbered in the tens of thousands, the northern Italian region controlled by the Austrian Empire has not had a riot of more than a hundred people for several years since the Carbonari uprising.

After all, when you have money to make and food to eat, who wants to risk your life? Moreover, due to the emperor's imperial edict, "Evil people must not be tolerated, and good people must not be wronged." Coupled with Franz's continued attention, the security in Northern Italy is relatively good.

On the other hand, armed fights involving hundreds of people often broke out in Italy due to things like grabbing business or gangs grabbing territory. However, because the Austrian Empire collected a large number of weapons, there were not many casualties.

The local magistrates just said that this was a national tradition and did not interfere too much.

After investigation, most of these insurgents were dock workers, traditional craftsmen and small businessmen. They each have their own reasons, although on the surface they say they want to overthrow the monarchy and resist foreign humiliation.

But in fact, they are all based on their own interests. Due to the arrival of a large number of immigrants, the wages of dock workers have been suppressed again and again. Although Italy's economy has taken off, their wages have continued to decline.

At the same time, the officials of the Austrian Empire had no intention of stopping these foreign populations. After all, in their view, this was a problem between brothers.

And the border is so big that they can't manage it. What's more, the Austrian Empire is traditionally a multi-ethnic country and has never said that people from the country are not allowed to enter.

Some officials were even "foreign immigrants" who migrated from South Germany or North Germany.

Austria's industrialization will inevitably have an impact on handicraftsmen, especially the emergence of large-scale factories, which directly eliminates the survival soil of many traditional handicrafts.

As for the small businessmen, they have also been severely affected, because the development of industrialization will inevitably tilt financial policies towards the big businessmen.

This has led to the rapid expansion of capital, with the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. While the big businessmen were praising the policies of the Austrian Empire, the small businessmen were struggling for shrinking assets and squeezed living space.

In fact, big businessmen will not give up on certain industries because of low profits. On the contrary, they plan to take them all. In order to complete the monopoly, those small businessmen need to be squeezed out.

So they frantically raised the threshold while frantically lowering prices.

Although the people feel benefits in the short term, in the long term the results of monopoly are likely to harm the interests of the people and upstream and downstream industries, and may even harm the country.

But now it seems that we don't have to wait long before these people can stand up and endanger the interests of the Austrian Empire.

This uprising sounded the alarm for Franz. It seemed that things would not be as smooth sailing as he thought.

At the same time, such a large-scale uprising also has these weapons and intelligence. Franz didn't believe that it was all organized voluntarily by the local people, and there was most likely a black hand behind the scenes.

And this black hand may be the United Kingdom, France, or even Sardinia or Switzerland, or all of them.