Franz looked over the map and sighed.
"Doing business with the British is truly exhausting. They spend all day thinking up ways to dig pits for others."
Prince Schwarzenberg, however, was rather unimpressed by this.
"To other countries, they may be formidable pits, but to our Austrian Empire, they are merely a few small puddles.
Sindh and Punjab lie precisely at the crossroads of West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. As long as we occupy this place, our future prospects will be boundless!
New Zealand is also an excellent springboard. And since Australia has gold, it is very likely that New Zealand has gold buried beneath it as well."
Another one who wants to seize the center in a single move. Isn't this Jingzhou?
Franz sighed inwardly.
The helpless look on Franz's face was caught by Prince Schwarzenberg.
Prince Schwarzenberg asked in puzzlement.
"Your Majesty, do you have no interest in Asia?"
"Your Highness, what is so good about a place like Sindh and Punjab, a battlefield open on all sides? We would be under pressure from three directions at once, and no matter who grew strong, they would strike us first. Even so, you think it is a good place?"
What Franz did not say was that, although the Russians had not yet reached India, if Austria plugged this passage in advance, it would make Nicholas I suspicious as well.
Of course, there was another possibility: the Tsar might ask the Austrian Empire for help, demanding that Austria help open a route through Central Asia in the opposite direction.
No matter how Franz thought about it, he found it extremely troublesome.
It was not as though Prince Schwarzenberg had failed to consider the issue of defense. However, with such natural barriers as the Kirthar Mountains and the Thar