That past "bloodletting" was still fresh in the British memory. Silver outflows, inflation, economic crises—the British Government shuddered at the mere thought.
Especially now, with the Austrian Empire on the rise, they found the prospect of such a return even more unacceptable.
In truth, Britain and France simply did not want to join the Austrian Empire in wallowing in the same mire by issuing paper currency. Their economic scale was severely constrained by the amount of precious-metal currency available, so they had to clutch gold and silver tightly in their own hands.
The Austrian Empire, however, had far fewer scruples. Austria in fact had its own internal circulation system, along with strong domestic demand, and did not depend on external markets.
To the Austrian Empire itself, doing business with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not much different from doing business with the Qing Dynasty. The Austrian Empire could not swallow up the entire market, and at this time, the war supplies in its hands had no trouble fetching a price.
Reciprocal tariffs might have been difficult for Britain and France to accept, but to the Austrian Empire, they were no great matter. Since the other side's raw silk and tea were expensive, it could simply raise the prices of the steel, gunpowder, and alum it sold.
(Alum stopped bleeding and thus counted as military supplies at this time; this was mentioned before.)
It was still easy enough to profit from war, but Franz had not expected that Austria was not the only German state reselling supplies to the Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Prussians had actually moved even earlier than he had. If D&H Trading House and Jardine Matheson had not already been operating for years, Franz would have suspected the existence of other transmigrators.
Perhaps Prussia