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

Chapter 1226 Annoying Business

The most infuriating thing is that the Russian army has no way to deal with the hot air balloons in the sky. They can only rush over to pull out the opponent's cables, or pull them back to the ground.

Rockets have made the Russian army's efforts over the years go to waste. Unless they are stone structures, neither barracks nor warehouses can escape the baptism of rockets.

Although the direct killing power of the British rockets was far less than that of spherical shells, their destructive power was several times that of the latter.

In fact, the blame lies only with the Russians themselves. The designs of their camps and fortresses were often too crude. Although there were normal stone wall bastion structures on the outside, there were often a large number of wooden buildings inside, and there was a lack of adequate fire prevention measures and necessary cellars.

If it were normal times or in the past, there would naturally be no problem, but if the enemy launched a large number of rockets, it would be easy to burn the inside of the fortress to a white ground.

Regular troops that lose supplies often collapse faster than militias because they know what this means. The militia may still hope for a miracle, but the regular troops will only choose to surrender or fight to the death.

War is cruel, for both sides. The huge losses of the Russian army were caused by the corpses of countless Poles. Moreover, the Russian army has always been a nightmare for civilians, and the Polish battlefield at this time was no exception.

There were many examples of the Russian army using Poles as shields on the Polish battlefield, and the massacre of some cities, villages and towns never stopped.

The Poles also used every possible means to kill the Russians, including poisoning, kidnapping, assassination, and even suicide attacks.

Waves of Poles fell, and waves of them joined them. The few who survived became the elite.

However, in the corners that no one cares about, the original leaders of the uprising are constantly decreasing, or more precisely, they are constantly being replaced.

It was naturally impossible for Franz to help the Poles completely selflessly. Instead of being on guard against Polish rebellion all day long, it would be better to directly send people in to control the rebels in his own hands.

This may sound far-fetched, but there have been real cases in history where many Irish national leaders during the Irish independence movement, including the leader of the Irish Republican Army, were actually British spies.

At this time, it was much easier for Franz to plant spies in Russian Poland than in later generations. And the most important thing was that many of Franz's spies were Poles themselves, but they were working for the Austrian Empire.

Like the British, most people in the Austrian imperial government didn't actually care who would win or lose between Poland and Russia, but clearing inventory was really important.

There are more and more arms dealers in the Austrian Empire now, and they will not reduce production or even take holidays directly after the war like the empire's military factories did.

Private arms dealers often frantically increase production capacity in pursuit of profit maximization, and the most direct result is an arms surplus.

The Austrian military throws some orders to the market every year. On the one hand, it helps private arms dealers survive, and on the other hand, it fears that the military monopoly will lead to a lack of competition and innovation, which will in turn lead to institutional corruption.

The series of wars in 1848 made arms dealers taste the sweetness, but after the war, the weapons and production capacity were still there.

The original plan was to re-equip all the troops on the mainland and then send the obsolete equipment to the colonies, which would both reduce waste and strengthen overall combat power.

However, Franz soon discovered a problem. Austria had an overcapacity for arms production, and the colonies simply could not consume so much equipment. Franz's initial idea was to sell these arms to his allies, after all, the fat water should not flow to outsiders.

But reality soon gave him a heavy blow. In the absence of war, countries were unwilling to purchase arms on a large scale. Not only were the purchase orders small, but they all wanted Austria's latest products.

After more than half a year of hard work, the largest order came from Mexico. In order to guard against the Americans and suppress the rebellion at home, Tassan Anna purchased 1.8 rifles, million rounds of lead bullets, and various artillery pieces.
The total price was about 120 million florins. After deducting the shipping costs, the profit margin was acceptable, but the profit was not high. It was not as much as the money earned from reselling furniture from Brazil to Mexico.

The second largest order came from the Omani Empire, which purchased army equipment worth only 50 florins. Compared with army equipment, the Omanis were more interested in buying ships, and they were willing to pay millions of florins for a single warship.

The remaining orders were so small that they could be ignored. Those African tribes could only buy a few hundred guns and one or two cannons.

Among them, the order from the Southern Ming was particularly irritating. They only bought three or five of each weapon and wanted the latest equipment from Austria.

Franz knew without hesitation that the other party was trying to get something for nothing and wanted to take the Austrian equipment back to imitate it.

It’s not that Franz underestimated their intelligence. After all, the technology between the two sides was hundreds of years apart.

Moreover, Franz positioned the Southern Ming as a wedge to be driven into Southeast Asia, with the main purpose of causing trouble for the British. He did not want to foster a Southeast Asian overlord that he could not deal with.

Austria's rubber plantations are mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia. Although trial planting has also been carried out in Africa, the yield is not yet known due to insufficient years.

At least according to later experience, Africa's natural rubber production has never exceeded 10% of the world's total production (usually around 5%), while the production in East Asia and Southeast Asia has always remained above 90% of the world's total rubber production.

The Austrian Empire has not yet mastered the technology to synthesize artificial rubber, and even if it has the technology, it will not be able to replace natural rubber in the short term.

Franz didn't want to take this risk, so he wanted to keep Nanyang in his own hands at all times.

But that woman Zhu Qiongying seemed to have not learned her lesson yet. It seemed that the last lesson was not severe enough. Franz should call her again to let her figure out the situation.

Zhu Qiongying was considered the legitimate emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty at this time, but in front of Franz she was still the puppet that could be manipulated by anyone, just like before.

Of course, he performed a little better this time than last time. At least he fainted after walking only a few steps.

However, for Zhu Qiongying, this time the shock was even greater than the last time. The last time she saw the navy and the underage Franz on the sailing battleship.

This time, what Zhu Qiongying saw was the fleet of Trieste, trains spewing black smoke and making loud rumbling noises, and a Vienna that was in a completely different world.

In the Hall of Mirrors, she met Franz again. At that time, Zhu Qiongying was just an actress who risked her life for revenge, but now she is the true emperor in the eyes of the people of Southern Ming.

It was supposed to be the barbarians who paid homage to the superior state, and it was supposed to be the foreign chiefs who bowed to the emperor. However, when they met again, Zhu Qiongying's knees began to tremble unconsciously, and her instinct told her not to raise her head too high.