Franz was a man of his word. The moment the treaty with the Ottoman Empire was signed, he immediately paid out supplies worth ten million Divine Shields.
This time, the Vienna Government did not shave off so much as a cent. There was no helping the aftereffects of overcapacity: too many supplies had piled up, they could not be sold, and Franz was not wasteful enough to destroy them outright.
Using them in a deal with the Sultan Government could not have been better. If possible, he even wanted to make the same sort of deal with the Russians. Whatever the case, it was better than watching these goods rot away in the warehouses.
This was especially true of agricultural products. These processed goods did not have much of a shelf life. Preservatives of this era were simply too crude; use too much, and people would die.
Even if people did not take food safety seriously, they still could not poison people to death, could they? How could they do something that would smash their own signboard?
Since it concerned their reputation, the Vienna Government kept a very tight grip on it. Not poisoning people to death was the bottom line for food safety; even export goods were no exception.
Of course, that was as far as it went. Higher standards were reserved for high-end foods—for example, products stamped "For Noble Use Only." Their quality was not much worse than that of later generations.
The price gap between goods of the two grades was generally severalfold, even dozens of times over, fully proving that cheap goods were no good goods.
At Vienna Palace, after listening to the Minister of Agriculture's report, Franz pondered for a moment before saying, "Since agricultural export revenue has fallen, then we will create a market