Charles's Request

Kobzl and Earl of Rhinefels exchanged glances again, and each saw temptation in the other's eyes.

To be honest, the Rhine-Seine River Treaty had brought Austria absolutely nothing it wanted.

When the agreement had first been signed, everyone in Austria had believed they could use this opportunity to push their products into France and, along the way, seize the South German market.

France had also allowed Austria to impose quite high protective tariffs on its own advantageous industries.

Who could have expected France's industrial development to be so astonishingly fast? In terms of production scale, quality, and cost, it had completely surpassed Austria before long—not to mention the other South German States.

Even Austria's traditional strengths, such as iron smelting and glassmaking, had begun to buckle under French competition.

In the Steel Industry, France had invested heavily in Wallonia, Southern Netherlands, building numerous ironworks with highly advanced smelting techniques. Every day, vast quantities of high-quality iron products were transported from there to the nearby Rhine River, then sold throughout South Germany along the river. From quality to price, they utterly crushed Austrian products.

As for glass products, Austria was still the largest exporter at present, but it had to import chemical raw materials such as Soda Ash and Coloring Agent from France during production—French Soda Ash cost only two-thirds as much as that of other countries, and its output was astonishing. It had already monopolized the European Continent's market. As a result, more than a quarter of Austrian glass profits went to France.

At the same time, the French used the cheap Soda Ash in their hands to slash their own glass production costs. Although their backward techniques meant they could still produce only mid- and low-end products, they had already severely impacted Austria's glass industry.

On the other hand,