The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1207 Tacitus Trap

Harvest the Church. As long as theology and ethics are made compulsory, Franz will be a saint on earth.

Besides compulsory education, bandits in the Transylvanian mountains were also annoying.

In this era, the cost of going into the mountains to suppress bandits was too high. Transylvania was full of mountains. If you wanted to eliminate a group of several hundred bandits, you would often need to mobilize tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops to completely wipe them out. Adding the economic losses caused by blocking the mountain roads, the price was simply astronomical.

To put it simply, the cost outweighs the gain. The damage that a few hundred bandits can cause is very limited, and the cost of mobilizing tens of thousands of regular troops far exceeds the losses that those bandits can cause.

(Due to the influence of some TV dramas, quite a number of people believe that bandits make a living by robbing, and that every day they fight with swords and sabers. In fact, robbing caravans and looting villages are rare cases.

The bandits of this era mostly survived on relatively safe "businesses" such as kidnapping, extortion, and protection fees. They would even farm, hunt, and do business with caravans.

Some even seek refuge with local dignitaries and gentry to serve as their black gloves, while others are simply hired thugs.)
At this time, under the attack of the Austrian Imperial Army, the number of local bandits in Transylvania decreased by more than 50%, looting incidents dropped by 98%, and bandits on the Hungarian Plains were completely wiped out.

Some people suggested that we should consider stopping and investing our money and energy into more meaningful things. After all, Austria was in a period of comprehensive construction at that time, and money and people were needed everywhere.

Some people had long been dissatisfied with Franz's delay in disbanding the army. They felt that this was a manifestation of the emperor's warmongering and militarism, and that it would affect the people's peaceful and prosperous lives.

In fact, more than 90% of the subjects of the Austrian Empire had no idea how many troops the Austrian Empire had, and even many soldiers had no idea of ​​Austria’s military strength, so when it came to things that affected people’s livelihood and well-being, they just had to listen.

Money is a good thing, and development and capital are indeed inseparable. However, the silver and gold accumulated before come in handy at this time.

(Mainly from exploitation and plundering from colonies.)
The total amount of precious metals that Franz put in was just enough to keep up with the scale of the financial expansion of the Austrian Empire, so the economy was generally very healthy.

As for reducing the military, it is a delicate task. If you are not careful, it will lead to complaints and even rebellion.

Franz still followed the previous strategy and demobilized the soldiers on the spot. It happened that the eastern region had been almost empty, so now it was just the right time to let these people fill the vacancies.

Another good thing about the recovered soldiers is that it is easy to organize militias to prevent bandits and robbers from resurfacing.

At the same time, these soldiers who participated in the bandit suppression should also be clear about the attitude of the Austrian Empire towards armed forces that dared to oppose the country and harm the local people.

These demobilized soldiers have money and land, but they are outsiders after all, so they still only need to rely on the country.

Many of these soldiers are bachelors, which can balance the local gender ratio.

They may be vagabonds and smelly beggars in their hometowns, but in the Crown of St. Stephen, they are honorable veterans and warriors of the Empire.

Local smart people will also win over these veterans, which will help them better integrate into local society, but their inherent attributes will inevitably arouse jealousy and dissatisfaction among some people.

In addition, if they marry into the local smart people, it is inevitable that they will be even more disliked and isolated by a certain group of people.

In the future, Franz will develop education and industry in the local area, and they will be the biggest supporters of the Austrian Empire because they have no other choice.

It was a good idea to demobilize the soldiers in the Crown of St. Stephen, but a man has to eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time.

Franz knew very well that bandits were like weeds. If they were not eradicated, they would soon recover and flourish everywhere as soon as a spring breeze blew. Therefore, they must be eradicated. Franz was very determined that there could be no more bandit strongholds in the Austrian Empire. No matter how much it cost, these termites must be wiped out.

So someone came up with a new idea, which was to have the emperor issue an amnesty, thus saving a lot of money.

Of course, they didn't want to let the bandits go, but to lure them out. After all, the most difficult thing to deal with bandits is that they hide in the mountains and their whereabouts are hard to find.

But as long as they left the mountains where they were hiding, it would be like fish out of water, and the Austrian army would be able to take advantage of them at will.

Then, according to the principle of punishing the main culprit, the bandits were dispersed and reorganized, and some of the difficult-to-disciplined ones were sent to mines or road construction teams.

This can not only reduce costs, but also solve the thorny problem of banditry.

I have to say that the person who came up with this method is a genius, but who will make up for the loss of credibility of the government and the royal family?

As an empire, Austria can be unreasonable, but it cannot break its promises.

Perhaps the modern state itself is the representative of democracy and is therefore not afraid of the Tacitus Trap, but the Austrian Empire itself is not a modern state.

Franz's attitude was that all bandits must be tried in public, sentenced and convicted, and all habitual murderers must be put to death, regardless of whether they were coerced or not.

(Tacitus Trap, the original words are "Once the emperor becomes the object of people's hatred, the good and bad things he does will also cause people to hate him.")
The so-called "the main culprit must be punished, those who were forced to follow will not be punished, those who were deceived will be innocent, and those who turned against the enemy will be rewarded" in history mostly only apply to special periods. A teacher once wrote on February 28, 1951:
"The so-called coercion is not to be questioned, which means that those who are forced to participate but do not commit evil deeds, or do not commit serious evil deeds. As for those who are aiding and abetting evil, if there is evidence, they are accomplices and should be convicted. If the principal offender is sentenced to death, the accomplice should be sentenced to at least imprisonment."

Franz could also use this explanation, which is at least much better than no prosecution and amnesty.

The purpose of "the main culprit must be punished, and the accomplices will not be punished" is more to divide and disintegrate and reduce resistance, but Franz has a good tooth, so he wants to try a tough one.

Franz wanted to use all kinds of elite soldiers, new weapons, and hundreds of times the number of troops to make these bandits question their lives.

There are a lot of mountains in the Austrian Empire, so mountain warfare is inevitable in the future. Training with bandits and robbers will always result in fewer casualties than training with the enemy's regular army.

Rather than training, it is more about familiarizing yourself with tactics and mountain combat modes, as well as running-in equipment.

In addition, it is also very difficult to identify accomplices and main culprits. There are many examples in history of people successfully escaping sanctions, or even falsely accusing others and killing them. What's worse, some people have even transformed themselves into official representatives and righteous people.

(This refers to the peasant army in the late Ming Dynasty.

For example:

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others pretended to accept the amnesty offered by Xiong Wencan, the governor-general of the Ming Dynasty who was responsible for suppressing bandits.

The two men used their official positions to collect money and recruit local militia under the guise of suppressing bandits and pacifying the people.

After recovering his strength, he killed officials and rebelled again in the 12th year of Chongzhen.)
Rather than leaving hidden dangers everywhere, it is better to kill people everywhere.

If the problem still cannot be solved, Franz will consider setting up a semi-military and semi-civilian Transylvanian Construction Corps.