While the rebellions in Milan and Venice were being suppressed, the Austrian Empire launched another harsh crackdown on public security. First, large numbers of members of independence organizations were arrested in Hungary, followed by the destruction of many cult organizations.
In barely a month, the number of arrests exceeded 150,000, frightening Franz into hurriedly calling a halt. If it continued to expand, it would begin to affect the country's economic development.
However, individuals and social groups suspected of participating in the rebellion or harboring separatist tendencies still could not escape calamity.
Their records had never been clean to begin with. So long as the government wanted to find charges, it need not fear failing to find any. As priority targets for suppression, these people were not even qualified for exile to the colonies; all of them were to join the great road-building army.
The plan for more than 90,000 kilometers of railway was not merely a plan. The times were advancing, and a scheme that would have been sheer fantasy several years ago had now become feasible.
As the economy developed rapidly, many railway lines that had originally held no economic value had turned losses into profits. After suffering losses for more than a decade, Austria's railway companies had finally turned themselves around.
Only, by then, the largest shareholder had become the Vienna Government. The contracts originally signed with the government naturally still had to be honored; the essence of bundled operations had never changed.
By 1865, the total railway mileage across the entire New Holy Roman Empire had reached as high as 58,000 kilometers. The price was that wave after wave of unpaid laborers collapsed.
Under normal circumstances, there simply were not that many criminals. The number of people joining the road-building army every year fell far short of