Brothers

Franz had long anticipated that the United States government would discard them like worn-out tools, but he felt somewhat powerless to stop it. Theoretically, the Austrian Empire could have taken advantage of the situation to do many things, but in reality, micromanaging from across the Atlantic was impractical.

At the same time, due to the existence of the Nevada Desert, it was unrealistic for Franz to attempt to divert the flow of people on a macro scale; the journey was simply too arduous.

Yet, Franz still underestimated the allure of gold and the sheer misery faced by those "discharged" American veterans.

The intelligence agents he dispatched merely spread a few rumors about California gold, coupled with some recruitment notices from the Austro-Mexican Joint Development Company, and it was enough to drive many desperate American veterans into a frenzy.

Furthermore, some Austrian agents posing as "snakeheads" were treated by those Americans as saviors.

A snakehead refers to someone who specializes in organizing illegal human smuggling for profit, a term used in contrast to "human snake."

"Human snake" specifically refers to those who smuggle themselves into foreign countries. They dare not use normal channels, operating only along rugged mountain paths or under the cover of a pitch-black night, hence the name.

In reality, the road to California was extremely dangerous because the Austrian side had raised a large number of bounty hunters and headhunter tribes to prevent American infiltration tactics.

As the Austro-Mexican Joint Development Company grew, obtaining the status of a legal California citizen became increasingly difficult.

Therefore, to the people of California at this time, those smugglers were not people, but walking money. However, hunting smugglers was not the only way to obtain legal citizenship.

In fact, the system in California was designed by Franz himself, so there were many