The Music Teacher's Sacrifice

The Silesian Campaign, with both sides routinely fielding vast armies of a hundred thousand men, had already made Joseph realize the urgency of expanding the Royal Guard Legion.

After all, no matter how formidable your fighting strength, it was difficult to win against an enemy four or five times your size.

So he would take advantage of this unexpected windfall to attract a fresh wave of recruits while also boosting the Royal Guard Legion's morale.

Joseph looked at the remaining three carriages, considered briefly, and instructed:

"Deposit the rest in the French Reserve Bank for now. I'll use it to buy military academies once I return."

This was something he had long wanted to do.

At present, France had twelve top military academies. Apart from the Paris Military Academy, however, none were particularly large.

For instance, Napoleon's alma mater, the Brienne Military Academy, had only a little over a hundred students in the entire school. The other military academies were more or less the same.

However, these academies had previously trained noble officers, so their pool of prospective students had always been limited. Their size had therefore been perfectly adequate.

Their small size was actually a good thing for Joseph, since buying them would not be too expensive.

Moreover, most military academies belonged to a particular Local Forces Corps and were usually attached to the army's training field, so there would be no question of the schools being unwilling to be bought-the army's training fields were under the General Staff Headquarters' administration.

Joseph intended to spend two million francs to "buy out" at least ten top military academies, then thoroughly restructure them.

At the very least, commoners had to be allowed to enter military academies too.

Of course, some privileges might still have to be reserved for nobles at first,