Some readers thought that seeing a Chinese name among all those foreign names felt jarring. Sorry, I hadn't noticed it before, but I've fixed them all now. Thanks for the valuable feedback! If you spot any mistakes, please point them out, and I'll correct them right away!
Ferdinand had always been a man of action. Since he planned to build a grain-processing factory, he might as well start preparing now.
The main crops grown on his estate included wheat, barley, sugar beets, potatoes, and flax. Livestock farming mainly focused on pigs and cattle.
The best way to maximize profits was to build processing facilities for these products. A flour mill was the obvious first choice, followed by a sugar refinery. Oh, potatoes could be made into French fries, too—that was worth keeping in mind. As for flax, did he really need to open a textile mill or a clothing factory? He'd put that aside for now. A slaughterhouse could work, and wouldn't require much investment. And then there was...
The more he thought about it, the more ideas he came up with. If he saw them all through, Ferdinand could proudly say that he was self-sufficient in every aspect of life: food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Just like that, he'd achieved the ultimate goal of every feudal landlord.
Building factories was no simple matter. His father had died young, and the family's investments had mostly been conservative, befitting their noble status. They hadn't yet had the chance to make the transition to capitalism.
Then he'd just have to start with himself. The combination of a great aristocrat and a great capitalist—that was what would define the social mainstream over the coming decades.
For now, Ferdinand faced a bit of a problem. His family had invested in several factories, but none were under their direct management, so they were bound to be short on experienced personnel.
"Steward Karl, have someone look into the flour mills around Vienna!" Ferdinand finally decided to start with a flour-processing factory.
"Certainly, Your Highness. I'll see to it right away!" Karl Chekhov replied politely.
Ferdinand was growing more and more accustomed to his noble status. Unlike when he'd first arrived, he no longer felt the need to handle everything himself. Having his clothes brought to him and his meals served—that was his life now.
Ferdinand also planned to report in at the city guard headquarters. He'd been absent from work ever since he'd crossed over. No one had questioned him, but he still felt it was wrong. He ought to at least make a token appearance!
Although Ferdinand had no interest in military life at present, he still had no plans to take off his uniform!
The thing was, nobles in the German lands traditionally served in the military. If you didn't enlist, people would look down on you and think you were a coward. You'd even have a hard time finding a wife from a family of equal standing!
Ferdinand's family was also part of the German nobility, so naturally, they had kept up the tradition.
But the Austro-Hungarian Empire had grown decadent. There were plenty of officers like Ferdinand, living off the state and waiting to die.
The old emperor was powerless to do anything about it. To preserve the army's fighting strength and keep these officers from corrupting the others, he simply dumped them all into the city guard.
Of course, if they were willing to endure hardship, they could apply for a transfer. The original Ferdinand had been planning to jump ship, but the current Ferdinand had no such intention!
As soon as he entered the city guard building, a musty stench hit him. It was exactly as he remembered: a dilapidated, eyesore of an office building that looked ready to collapse.
"This place is a dump! No wonder nobody comes to work. Who in their right mind would show up in conditions like these? I don't know how the original owner put up with it!" Ferdinand grumbled to himself.
Along the way, aside from a few guards on duty, lounging around, Ferdinand didn't see another soul.
He found his office, a room less than twenty square meters in size. Inside were a small wooden desk, a chair, a teacup, and a stack of old newspapers. That was everything in the original owner's office.
A thick layer of dust coated the room. It looked like no one had been there in ages. Ferdinand looked around, but in the end, resisted the urge to clean it himself.
He went straight back the way he'd come. There wasn't even a single officer on duty, so what was the point of reporting in? His visit to the city guard had left him deeply disappointed. With troops like these, no wonder the Russian bear had beaten them until they couldn't tell east from west.
Ferdinand knew this was only one part of the army, though, specially set aside for men like them. They had no training and no duties. It was meant for the nobles; the rest of Austria-Hungary's forces still had some fighting ability. After all, it was one of Europe's five great powers.
But when he thought of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's tangled ethnic conflicts, Ferdinand shook his head. The old emperor had to speak eight languages. Just imagining it was terrifying.
"So how are you supposed to command an army like this? If each ethnic group forms its own unit, the country could easily split apart. But if you mix them all together and want to keep them effective, the commanders would first have to learn the languages of all the other ethnic groups. Where are you going to find a whole group of multilingual academic hotshots?"
"That's the root of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's collapse, isn't it? Unless they act now and cut through the Gordian knot by unifying the language and culture, the country won't last much longer—even without World War I." Ferdinand thought to himself.
He had already resolved to take the lesson to heart. The ethnic problems in the Balkans were no better than Austria-Hungary's; the only advantage might be that there were fewer people. Since when had a smaller population become an advantage? The thought amused Ferdinand.
Walking through the streets of Vienna, Ferdinand still found it hard to get used to. Compared with the modern age, Vienna was just as prosperous, but it could hardly be called clean and orderly. Many places reeked!
If he couldn't change the world, he'd just have to adapt to it!
Before he knew it, he'd arrived outside a Volvo supermarket again. Ferdinand stopped and watched for a while.
He watched the crowds coming and going, carrying big and small packages. People chatted and laughed as they headed home, their purchases in hand.
Ferdinand was pleased. He strode toward the Volvo and waved at the guards at the entrance, signaling for them to stay put.
Then he went into the supermarket. The staff were busy at work. When they saw Ferdinand enter, they started to come over, but he quickly gestured for them to carry on.
It was a little chaotic inside. A lot of the goods were in disarray, and the staff were busy putting them back in order. There was plenty of trash on the floor, too. Ferdinand furrowed his brow, then relaxed.
On the whole, he was satisfied. Everyone was doing their part and working diligently, and business was thriving.
But perhaps this was simply a limitation of the times. Public supermarkets didn't take hygiene or the comfort of their customers into account.
Of course, in the nineteenth century, the people might have been used to it. Vienna reeked, and the streets were strewn with trash. People just weren't as particular about hygiene.
Ferdinand found Franz and both praised his work and laid out his expectations for cleanliness.
Ferdinand would rather spend a little more now to keep his customers. After all, when faced with a clean and tidy store on one hand and a disorderly one on the other, people would find it easy to choose.
This was the most comfortable era for capitalists. They could make workers put in overtime as they pleased, without the unions of later generations or the threat of the Soviets.
The labor costs Ferdinand had expected to go up hadn't increased. The staff, however, now had another duty: cleaning whenever needed.
Protests, demonstrations, strikes, demands for higher wages—none of the things Ferdinand remembered from his past life had appeared.
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