Austria, Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.
The sunlight was gentle, and the leaves glowed.
Beneath a tree, Franz lay sprawled across Thalia's lap.
Thalia was the governess Sophie had hired for Franz Joseph.
In Thalia's own words,
"The little prince is wonderful in every way. It's just that his studies are a little..." "Too advanced!"
Though the little prince still couldn't write many words, he could always apply what he'd learned to new problems in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He quickly grasped many things that even Thalia didn't understand.
So, much of the time, all Thalia could do was read the newspapers to the little prince.
The little prince also had a few odd habits, like hugging people's thighs while he slept.
Thalia remembered that the royal family had rules against archduchesses raising their own children, and felt sorry for the little prince.
Little did she know that Franz was lying on her lap, lost in thought.
For Franz, getting the old emperor to agree to join the Zollverein was already the limit of what he could do.
Whether Austria could join, and whether he could fleece Prussia after it did, was now in the hands of fate.
For now, Franz ought to enjoy everything his status brought him: the sunshine, the grass, those lovely long legs.
After all, if Heaven gives you an opportunity and you don't take it, you'll be punished for it; if the time comes and you don't act, disaster will follow!
That afternoon, Franz stretched and found that Thalia had fallen fast asleep.
He tried poking her a couple of times, but she didn't wake. She only rolled over, and her sleeping posture got even worse.
So Franz went alone to the desk in the garden and opened the newspaper.
In the corner of the page was a short article:
U.S. land prices hit a historic high. In just four years, from 1830 to 1834, land in Chicago had tripled in value. Prices continued to climb, and were expected to double again over the next three years.
Franz smiled. It seemed the Austrian economists had been too conservative. From 1834 to 1837, land prices in Chicago had soared sixty-fourfold, directly causing the economic crisis of 1837.
In the end, land prices returned to their original levels. Land that had sold for as much as $12,000 at the peak in 1837 was worth just $100 by 1839, with sellers left waiting for buyers.
Britain and the United States suffered the most from this crisis, of course, because their economies were so closely intertwined. Meanwhile, protectionist trade policies were widespread across continental Europe, so it was less affected.
It was a pity Franz couldn't invest. Otherwise, he'd gladly have helped make life miserable for the Americans.
Should he have the Austrian royal family buy in? What if they refused to sell when the crisis came? Franz didn't dare bet on human greed.
The newspaper devoted two full pages to the news that the Austrian Empire was preparing to join the Zollverein.
One page praised Francis II to the skies; the other described the enormous benefits joining the Zollverein would bring.
At midnight on January 1, 1834, strings of four-wheeled carriages that had been anxiously waiting at the borders of the various states raced through, piled high with goods. With the taxes on imports from other states abolished, profits had surged, and German merchants were rushing about, driven by the lure of money.
In 1834, the German Confederation's trade volume in the first quarter alone exceeded the total for all of 1833. Austria's trade volume, by contrast, had risen by just 6%. If that continued, Austrian merchants would suffer enormous losses.
The newspaper described the Zollverein as a vast market of 23 million people that Austria could tap into.
Blind optimism was unwise, but this wasn't the time to pour cold water on the merchants, either.
Prince Metternich's press censorship system was working reasonably well; not a single opposing voice appeared in the papers.
There was also news about rebel forces in various regions. From 1833 to 1834, a total of twelve uprisings had broken out in Austria and the surrounding areas.
Three had occurred recently, and all had been swiftly suppressed. One was small—the smallest involved no more than twenty people. In another, the garrison had been on its guard. For that reason, Count Latour had assigned Austria's best generals to the places most likely to erupt in rebellion.
Only the uprising in Genoa had drawn the largest numbers and lasted the longest. Franz even spotted two familiar names: Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Franz read on for a while and finally understood what had happened. The Austrian Empire had sent Lich to suppress the uprising. That general was quite a character.
During the Napoleonic Wars, he'd been famous as a master of surrender and a French moneybag. He'd been captured by the French Army and its allies eleven times, and each time his family had paid his ransom to get him back to Austria.
And this fellow was all ambition and no ability. Every time the French captured him, he asked the emperor to let him lead troops into battle again.
In the Year of Storms, as governor of Venetia, he'd had twenty thousand troops stationed in Venice. When the citizens rose in rebellion, he hadn't fired a shot. He'd ordered his soldiers to hand over their weapons, keeping only their flags, and leave the city.
Worse still, he'd indirectly caused the destruction of the Austrian Navy. At the time, the previous Austrian naval marshal had died unexpectedly, while his successor was vacationing with a beautiful woman on a Belgian beach.
Without a commander, most of the Austrian Navy's men had scattered like birds and beasts. Only one unknown captain remained, fighting the rebels for five days with fewer than a hundred sailors. In the end, they all died in battle.
If the Austrian Navy's fleet had still been intact, there wouldn't have been the absurd spectacle of seven Genoese warships blockading the Austrian Empire's port of Trieste.
Venice could not have held out for so long, either, and Marshal Radetzky wouldn't have needed to split off troops to guard against Venetian forces cutting the Austrian Army's supply line. More troops could have been sent to the front, and the war might have ended sooner.
Afterward, General Lich wasn't held accountable. Instead, he took command of the Bohemian Army in northern Austria and lived to the age of eighty-five.
This fool had led more than ten thousand men in pursuit of eight hundred, chasing them from Genoa all the way to Rome, and still let more than three hundred escape.
He'd captured just over twenty prisoners and had the gall to take credit for it in the papers. Franz was speechless, and resolved that he would never let a man like that keep drawing a salary while doing nothing.
Mazzini, the mastermind behind the uprising, had successfully escaped to Switzerland. The Swiss Confederation rejected the Austrian and Sardinian governments' demand that he be expelled.
Historically, Mazzini hadn't stayed in Switzerland to prepare another uprising. Instead, he'd crossed the ocean and gone to Britain in search of a path to redemption.
At this point, Garibaldi was merely a hired gunman, and no country had paid him much attention. Yet this obscure mercenary would stir up wave after wave in Italy in the years to come.
He'd stowed away on a merchant ship and eventually reached South America. There, he'd taken part in a small country's war of independence and earned great distinction.
Just as everyone thought Garibaldi would go on enjoying his status as a hero in that South American country,
the country's president suddenly lost his mind and decided to invade a country more than ten times its size, with dozens of times its population.
The outcome was obvious. Garibaldi could only return to Italy.
A short note in an inconspicuous corner read: Friedrich List, from Württemberg, would serve as a special adviser to the great Emperor Francis II for five years.
Franz yawned. Perhaps because he was so young, he'd grown sleepy after reading for only a short while. He put down the newspaper, then slipped into the place where the mountains rose and fell.
Thanks to reader Shenzhou Buwu Tianxia Fengdao for the tip.
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