Lavalette immediately continued:
"Your Highness, after Vienna abolished domestic tariffs and the guild system, those merchants immediately stopped funding the Liberals.
"And Metternich's civil servant selection system has kept lawyers, journalists, and the like busy preparing for the civil servant exams.
"Now even the Serfs are barely causing trouble. Only a few radical Republicans and the Anti-Secret Police Faction remain active."
He glanced at the Crown Prince and advised:
"Given the current situation, I don't think it is very likely that we can provoke internal chaos in Austria. Perhaps we should stop investing funds."
But Joseph smiled.
"No, this is precisely the best time for you to stir up the situation in Austria."
The Director of Security Bureau froze. "But..."
Joseph said, "Metternich has merely used a snowfall to cover Austria's ravines and mud pits. That does not mean their road has truly become smooth.
"Those old nobles among the Hereditary Officials, guild members, Tax Farmers, local Chambers of Commerce—they may not be doing anything now because Metternich tripled the size of the Secret Police. But that does not mean they have truly accepted the status quo.
"In truth, Metternich has piled several more barrels of Gunpowder into the great house that is Austria.
"Once a spark appears somewhere, the blast will be far more powerful than before."
Metternich truly was a rare political genius in Austrian history. He had keenly identified the obstacles constraining Austria's development and swiftly devised measures to address them.
It was only that he had not touched the root of the problem—or rather, deep down, he did not dare touch those roots at all.
Take the Tax Farmers, for example. Large and small Tax Farmers, along with their Tax Collectors, thugs, and other subordinates, numbered seventy or eighty thousand in total, and they controlled immense