Chapter 1136 Extraordinary Person
The British plan to hold a peace conference in London was going to fail, and Prince Schwarzenberg was full of hope that the Austrian Empire could dominate the situation again.
However, this was not a good time for the Austrian Empire, because Franz was still wearing down the Hungarians' will to resist.
The Austrian army went down the Danube River all the way, and the offensive was unstoppable. Every battle made Hungary flee with its head in its arms and suffered heavy casualties.
But the amazing thing was that the Austrian army did not seize the opportunity to pursue the victory, and Kossuth could always use his outstanding talent to recruit another army to slow down the pace of the Austrian army.
However, even if miracles happened repeatedly, the flesh and blood of the Hungarians could not stop the Austrian Iron Division.
During this period, Kossuth recruited at least one million people, but very few people could return alive from the battlefield.
For the prisoners, unlike the Austrian Empire's previous direct release method, this was a civil war after all, and it was understandable to execute the traitors directly if they were caught.
Franz was still relatively merciful, as long as they admitted their sins, they could be exempted from the death penalty.
The captives had to confess all their sins. Some of them who knew they were spared from death sincerely repented, while others were fearless and began to brag about their great achievements.
The latter would be directly pulled out and sent to some old mines in the empire that had not yet been safely rectified. They would spend twenty years underground in the dark. If they were still alive, Franz would pardon them.
However, only a few people could go to the mines, and most people would not be crazy enough to make all their crimes such as murder, arson, rape and looting public.
Journalists and historians would help these guys complete this.
Some people were just infected by the madness of those evil people and began to brag. Although they did not necessarily commit the crimes they boasted about, Franz was not interested in wasting national resources to identify them one by one for such guys.
Similarly, even if they sincerely repented on the surface, Franz could not pardon them on behalf of the victims. These captives would be sent to the road construction team of the Austrian Empire to atone for their sins.
In fact, these Hungarian prisoners of war were responsible for the most difficult and least technical road-building work.
After all, the Austrian Empire has many mountains and rivers, and the roadbeds in these places cannot be sloppy. Franz will not let a group of resentful captives repair them, but simple excavation and cleaning work is no problem.
They can also clean up the silt, but Franz would rather give the work of building dams to refugees than to them.
The sentence of the road construction team is 20 years. According to the average life expectancy of the Austrian Empire population in this era and the work intensity of this work, the number of people who can survive to the end of the sentence is definitely no more than 10%.
Of course, in order to reduce accidents and stabilize work emotions, these people still need to be given hope.
For example, a centimeter system can be established to encourage more work and more pay. Centimeter can be exchanged for what you want, even freedom, but it does not increase the total amount of distribution.
Then find some easy-to-control people from these natural cattle and horses and let them become the so-called captains.
It is necessary to treat them differently and give them certain rights within a certain range to create class gaps, so as to achieve the purpose of differentiation and disintegration.
Generally speaking, pressure is transmitted layer by layer, and these so-called captains are selected from the prisoners who participate in the work. They have a high understanding of the degree of completion of the work, so they are not easily deceived by the bottom.
At the same time, in order to prevent these so-called captains from pretending to obey but disobeying, corresponding reporting and review mechanisms must be provided, and the last-place elimination system can be adopted when necessary.
These mechanisms have been developed for hundreds of years, and by the time they understand them, they have long lost the strength to resist.
For civilians who are unarmed and cannot bear the oppression of the Hungarian government, Franz is still quite merciful. They will be sent to refugee camps for shelter, protection, and re-education by government officials and clergy.
Hungarians first need to understand that this is a conspiracy against the empire. The war was initiated by only a small number of so-called Hungarian elites. They launched this sinful war in order to expand their power and get more from the empire.
As for the black materials of the Hungarian elites, there are so many in the past few hundred years, and even these refugees will continue to provide more black materials.
Secondly, they need to understand the current situation of Hungary and the Austrian Empire. The Hungarian region had already suffered natural disasters, and the noble elites' hoarding made ordinary people miserable.
In order to maintain the war, the Hungarian government turned a blind eye to the behavior of the elites to gain their support, while madly exploiting ordinary people.
Nationalism is a beautiful word, but at this time it is just a tool for ordinary people to endure exploitation.
Men who have nothing will be sent to the battlefield in the end, and the elderly, weak, women and children at home will not be redeemed. What awaits them is a more terrible abyss.
Even though the situation is so difficult, the area where the elites are still singing and dancing every day, and they eat war horses when they are tired of eating pigs, cows, chickens, ducks and fish.
The wives and children of ordinary soldiers left behind are the objects they can ravage at will. After all, the evil people are just bad but not stupid. They know that they have to pick the soft persimmons, so they choose these families without men.
The cruelty of the war has further fueled their arrogance. After all, only one in ten people can return to Budapest alive. Even if they can come back, they will most likely be regarded as deserters or sent to the battlefield again for various reasons.
The privileged elites used their various wartime rights to live like feudal emperors. When the front line needed to save shells due to insufficient gunpowder and soldiers had to equip cold weapons, the rear still set off fireworks for love to create a romantic atmosphere.
Journalists, clergy, and historians of the Austrian Empire would record these contents and bind them into books for future research.
In short, through continuous education, ideological transformation, value reshaping and other means, let them understand who is the enemy and who is the friend.
This is very important for Franz's subsequent plans. War has never been an end, but only one of the means to achieve the end.
If there are more clever and more effective means, Franz would not choose to hang on a tree.
Generally speaking, the siege will be surrounded on three sides and one side, giving the opponent a gap to weaken the enemy's will to prevent the dog from jumping off the wall.
However, this time the Austrian army only surrounded two sides of the siege, deliberately leaving Kossuth with a route to escape to Slovakia and Transylvania.
In order to prevent Kossuth and his idiot staff from not seeing it, Franz specially sent people to shout every day that there were two roads in the southeast and northeast that were unobstructed.
People who look ahead and behind will think that this is a scam. After all, the Austrian army is strong and the surroundings are flat. There is still a glimmer of hope if they hide in the city. Once they reach the plains, the Austrian army will follow and kill them. They may not be able to survive.
But more people will definitely choose to take the opportunity to break through. After all, people will seize any opportunity they can get in desperate situations.
The difference is that some people may cross the river with the people like Liu Bei, and some people will let women and children take the property out of the city first like Qin Hui, and then take the opportunity to fish in troubled waters.
Of course, there will be brave men who will take risks to test whether the road ahead is safe, and there will be real villains who will take the opportunity to eliminate dissidents.
However, Kossuth is not an ordinary person. He did not choose to break through, nor did he choose to stick to it, but chose to seek help from outside, to bloom in the center!