In truth, this had to do with the Austrian Empire itself. Because the state was too loose-knit, Austria had always enforced strict household registration and passport systems.
As mentioned earlier when discussing the Zollverein, Austria's old Pinduoduo system had led to checkpoints sprouting everywhere and fees being collected in utter chaos.
At its root, it was all much the same: the Austrian Empire itself had been stitched together from multiple political entities, leaving behind a great many historical problems.
In the past, it had been difficult for an Austrian imperial subject even to move from one village to another. Unless it was for marriage, they had to obtain consent and approval from all sorts of departments—it was harder than traveling abroad in modern times.
In order to join the Zollverein, Franz had directly introduced a Cisleithania passport. With this new type of passport, one could travel unimpeded through most regions of the Austrian Empire.
After ascending the throne, he went further and established an identity card system to replace the old passport system. This allowed Austria's people and Fortune to circulate freely within the Empire.
However, this had no effect whatsoever on the Austrian police. Just as they could inspect passports, they could inspect identity cards.
If they inspected identity cards, wouldn't it be enough simply to have one on you?
Franz could only say that this was far too naive! As long as Austrian police suspected that an identity card might be forged, they could detain you all the same.
Unless one could find a lawyer or convince them that it was unnecessary, their power of detention was practically unlimited.
During Franz's investigation, he even discovered someone who had been locked up for a full ten years, without ever being brought before a court or questioned.
The reason was