A Ruler from Another Age?

1834, Austrian Empire, Vienna.

Blue skies and clear river water—this was a pleasant city to live in, but it hardly seemed the capital of a great power in the nineteenth century.

By contrast, gloomy skies, heavy smog, and black rivers might have been bad for the environment, but they were unmistakable signs of a nation's strength in this era. London, Britain, was a prime example.

Inside a classic building with a Baroque exterior, the rooms were decorated in the Rococo style. The antique furnishings were an eclectic mix, with everything from porcelain from the East to raw amber from the Baltic Sea.

Its owner was Francis II, the last ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and the first ruler of the Austrian Empire.

Francis II now faced a choice—a difficult one. Should he choose an exceptional heir, or adhere to tradition?

Perhaps it was because grandparents doted on their grandchildren. Ever since Franz was born, Francis II had spoiled this special grandson. A healthy baby boy with no intellectual disabilities—he was Francis's hope, and the empire's hope as well.

(That's right. At the time, the Austrian Empire really did face a shortage of qualified heirs.)

But today, Francis II's eldest grandson had taken five letters from the children's room and arranged them into a combination the old emperor couldn't ignore.

"A.E.I.O.U"

They were the words Frederick III had left at St. Stephen's Cathedral, still engraved above a shrine to this day.

They were also the only way Franz Joseph could think of to get the old emperor's attention.

"Austria is destined to rule," Francis II murmured.

Frederick III was the last Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned by the Pope in Rome. Yet he could hardly be called a great emperor. When the Hungarians invaded, his own forces were too weak, his vassal princes dragged their feet, and his allies stood by watching. He had no choice but to flee west in disarray.

He had tried to reform the empire and root out its abuses, but the great nobles opposed him, and the effort came to nothing.

In the end, he had to live in seclusion, finding pleasure in studying astrology and alchemy.

Was Francis II any different? His grandmother, Empress Theresa, had shone so brightly that every successor after her seemed dim by comparison.

Worse still, the radical reforms of Joseph II, the previous emperor but one, and the shock therapy of Leopold II, the last emperor, had thrown all of Austria into chaos. Meanwhile, France, Austria's sworn enemy, had produced a figure like Napoleon.

In the age named for Napoleon, Francis II and the Holy Roman Empire, who opposed him, naturally became mere background figures. The capital fell twice; Francis married off his daughter to make peace; the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved.

Francis II had too many regrets. Yet his legal heir, his eldest son Ferdinand, seemed incapable of shouldering the burden of restoring the empire. His second son had no talent for governing either.

But Francis II's eldest grandson was different. Franz Joseph was a special child. His behavior was somewhat unusual, but from a young age he had shown exceptional intelligence. The trouble was, Franz was too young, and Austria had never before seen an eldest grandson leapfrog his father to inherit the throne.

Francis II still remembered the War of the Austrian Succession, sparked by the Pragmatic Sanction.

But there was something else, buried deep in his soul, that he could never forget: his dream of a powerful nation. It was a dream shared by every emperor.

What emperor in this world didn't want to expand his borders and see his country flourish? Even ordinary people hoped to live in a great power. Who wanted to live in a country torn apart by war, where the people starved and gunfights broke out in the streets?

But Francis II had failed. He had watched his country decline, step by step. He knew he had no more time to turn things around, so he could only place his hopes in the next generation.

An intellectually disabled eldest son, or a reclusive second son? Neither seemed capable. At the very least, they would do no better than he had. Francis II truly didn't want the declining Austria before his eyes to be the empire's peak.

What Francis II didn't know was that, in actual history, the Austrian Empire lasted through only three rulers. After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, it became an empire in name only, replaced by the Austro-Hungarian Empire—a puppet empire that vanished into the river of history after World War I.

At the time, his eldest grandson, Franz Joseph, had no idea how conflicted Francis II was. His soul came from a later era. The nineteenth century had neither computers nor phones, but at least he had been born into royalty. Surely he could live the life of a spoiled young aristocrat.

But he soon realized that the identity he had gained through transmigration belonged to Franz Joseph, a famously tragic emperor. His romance with Empress Sisi was known to all.

Yet his siblings, parents, children, and wife all died before him. His empire became a backdrop to the rise of Germany and France, then finally collapsed in World War I.

Franz Joseph's life could only be called a tragedy—and even that word didn't do it justice. He was the last ruler of the Austrian Empire and the first ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Two years after his death, the Austro-Hungarian Empire perished, shattered into pieces.

But at that moment, what worried Franz most wasn't any of that. It was the debts of the country and the dynasty. Owing more than a billion florins was truly outrageous.

The Austrian Empire's government brought in about 110 million florins in revenue each year, while its annual spending exceeded 100 million. At that rate, even without interest, it would take the Austrian Empire more than a century to repay its debts.

Franz felt a wave of sorrow well up inside him.

Fortunately, Franz Joseph had been born early enough. The trouble was, his body couldn't do much yet. All he could think of was to curry favor with the old emperor and get his attention.

After all, the old emperor held real power, unlike Ferdinand, who would come later and whose decrees had to be approved by the Regency Council. If the old emperor was pleased, he might grant Franz some estates or businesses. That would give him seed money, and with his far-reaching vision, he could make a fortune. At least, that was what Franz thought.

Franz was in such a hurry because the first turning point that could change the fate of the Austrian Empire was drawing closer and closer.

The Zollverein was founded in 1834. The Austrian Empire refused to join, and from then on, the death knell began to toll for the empire.

Meanwhile, with unease gnawing at him, Francis II decided to seek God's counsel. Of course, he wasn't really going to heaven to question God. He was going to ask God's messenger at a church.

Since ancient times, when rulers in the East couldn't make up their minds, they liked to seek immortals and ask for divinations. Even in modern times, people checked their horoscopes for no particular reason, consulted tarot cards over small matters, and turned to the I Ching for the big ones.

The East was no different from the West. So Francis II found himself at the entrance to St. Stephen's Cathedral.

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