Mahdi Uprising

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, it was 1885.

The shelved grand development plan for the Near East was launched once more, and the world economy had emerged from the Great Depression, charging forward again.

Everything was developing for the better. Adhering to the principle of "concern oneself only with major affairs," Emperor Franz found himself with plenty of free time.

Perhaps because he was getting older, Franz's hobbies had changed as well. At some point, he had become enamored with calligraphy.

A quill pen was clearly unsuitable for practicing calligraphy, and so an incongruous sight came into being: the Holy Roman Emperor, holding a brush and practicing calligraphy.

It was merely a personal hobby. European nobles had no shortage of bizarre pastimes; among the crowd, Franz's little hobby was nothing worth mentioning.

No minister was so full of himself or so eager for trouble that he would interfere with the Emperor's daily life. They were not censors from Great Ming.

Never mind changing pens to write—even if he moved into another imperial palace, no one would come running over to prattle nonsense.

The Emperor's purse had always been separate from the state treasury. In this world, where private property was sacred and inviolable, outsiders had no right to wag their tongues no matter how he spent his own money.

Having completely let himself go, Franz held nothing back when practicing calligraphy, writing whatever came to mind.

Were there fellow transmigrators around, they would discover that many famous quotations and poems from later generations had appeared on paper with startling abruptness.

Fortunately, so much time had passed that many of Franz's memories had grown hazy. What he wrote was usually only a line or two; otherwise, the original authors would have been utterly baffled.

Colonial