A month earlier.
Brescia, Lombardy Province.
Two very strange people arrived at a new recruit camp of the Austrian Empire: a limping man with a full beard and a fellow whose appearance made it obvious he was not European.
The new recruit camp established in Brescia looked more like a refugee camp than a military barracks. Franz had also made it clear to the officials in charge that their task was to reduce the number of vagrants and beggars as much as possible.
At this moment, stabilizing people's minds and reducing the sources of social unrest came first. As for the so-called recruits, they still had to undergo training; only those who ultimately passed the tests could become soldiers of the Austrian Empire.
Those who failed would be released back into society in batches at an appropriate time, or sent to the colonies.
So the officials in charge set the requirements for new recruits very low. The camp had everything from toothless old men over fifty to toothless boys of seven or eight.
(The average life expectancy at the time was only a little over thirty, so anyone in their fifties was definitely considered old.
As for the so-called toothless old men, food among the lower classes was extremely coarse, which also caused severe wear on their teeth.
On top of that, people hardly protected their teeth at all, and everyday items for dental care were even less common.)
Still, the limping man and the foreigner were difficult for the officials and soldiers in charge to accept. The Austrian Empire's warehouses had plenty of grain, and the army barracks were spacious enough, but these two were far too much! They were plainly here to waste food.
"Oh, God! Can we really find any qualified recruits?"
Baron Marcelo, who was in