The shouted rebukes, the blunt threats of force, the naked exchanges and plunder of interests—all of it left Metternich feeling restless. Everything he was doing, seeing, and experiencing now was a complete negation of his entire life.
Metternich missed the elegant games played in those resplendent, gilded palaces. A hint, a double entendre, a carefully worded letter—any one of them could become a fulcrum to pry up the whole world.
Though power remained the guarantee of status, it was by no means everything. Interests, rules, bloodlines, and influence accumulated over thousands of years had interwoven into a vast net; only by teasing apart every strand could one win in the end.
Yet here and now, that magnificent outer garment had been torn to shreds. Metternich was shocked by Archduke Karl Ferdinand's methods. He had never heard of an army that forbade its enemies from surrendering.
But from the soldiers, Metternich learned that this was not the first such suppression of a rebellion. Archduke Karl Ferdinand was, in fact, a soldier who valued honor. At first, he had followed Old Europe's methods, but all he got in return was more rebellion.
Afterward, the mercenaries demonstrated their own methods of putting down rebellions: direct military suppression, accepting only the rebels' unconditional surrender, and utterly disregarding the hostages and mines in rebel hands.
To Archduke Karl Ferdinand, this was merely a common mercenary tactic. In truth, however, it was an order Franz had given.
Unlike those nineteenth-century nobles who had been brainwashed into confusion, Franz understood perfectly well the underlying logic of society. As the saying went, political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
So long as one held the gun barrel tightly enough, even the Qing Dynasty could endure for 268 years. In the eyes of the Qing Dynasty's