With the crushing defeat of the Spanish Government Army, and the death of Varna, the military governor of Catalonia...
A wave of surrenders swept through Catalonia. It included not only large numbers of common people who could no longer survive in the areas ruled by the Spanish government, but also great numbers of Spanish Government Army soldiers, as well as Varna's subordinates and trusted followers who feared being dragged down with him.
The Catalonian military camp, which in theory should have had fifty thousand troops, now had fewer than five thousand left. On the streets of Solt City, it was almost impossible to see a single human figure.
The farmers outside the city were also fleeing in batches, and the most frenzied among them were the Spanish serfs on the great estates.
Because wars had never ceased in this life, the Spanish government, in order to win over the nobles, had not promulgated the Emancipation Act. As a result, large numbers of serfs still existed throughout Spain.
And at Franz's instruction, the Spanish Catholic Church spread word everywhere that anyone who fled to the liberated zones of the Austrian Empire could shed their status as serfs and become free people.
Out of a desire for revenge, the Spanish priests even compared Isabella II and her claws and fangs to Arabs from the East.
In the Spain of old, anyone and anything connected to the symbol of Islam would never come to a good end. After all, the moment Spaniards saw that symbol, they would remember the years when they had been ruled by the Arabs.
The rule of the Arabs back then had indeed been cruel, but it still had not reached the extent recorded by the Spanish Catholic Church.
However, the Church had been spreading that propaganda for several