Ferdinand II's son was the future Francesco II. It seemed the former had misunderstood something.
Francesco II was born in 1836, while Franz's younger sister was born in 1835.
That beast! Franz finally understood why Guan Yu had cursed Sun Quan back then.
But from Ferdinand II's perspective, the House of Habsburg was very fond of arranging such marriages. His own son happened to be about the same age as a princess of the House of Habsburg, so he naturally assumed Franz wanted to use this method to control his country.
This fit both Austria's strategic layout and the House of Habsburg's consistent tradition, yet Franz did not think it was any good idea.
Both Ferdinand II and Francesco II had serious problems with their level of governance, yet their pride was extraordinarily high.
However, nineteenth-century Spain was truly unsuited to the industrial age. Spain's resource distribution was highly unreasonable, and its infrastructure was an utter mess. Ferdinand II and Francesco II would most likely make Spain seethe with the wrath of Heaven and the resentment of men as well.
Franz did not want to end up stealing a chicken only to lose a handful of rice.
The reason Franz felt so at ease handing Spain over to Ferdinand II was precisely this. Showing goodwill to the Spanish people in Spain was not only to win hearts and strike at opponents, but also to prepare for the future return of the Habsburgs to Spain.
And after obtaining the Two Sicilies, Franz would no longer have to worry about his backyard catching fire. Italy, too, could only be the Italy of the Habsburgs.
At this time, Northern Italy was far more prosperous than in history, and far more important as well. After all, it was one of the Austrian Empire's only