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

Chapter 1227: Good Deeds? Business? (Part )

Franz released Zhu Qiongying after fulfilling his agreement. After all, he still needed her to control the Southern Ming Dynasty.

As for what to do if someone in the Southern Ming took the opportunity to rebel? What else could he do? Of course, he had to restore order. After all, he was now the monarch of Austria, not the monarch of the Southern Ming.

After the truce between Austria and Britain, the Austrian Imperial Church's rescue operation began again. This time, there were not only Austrian missionaries, but also priests from Rome, Italy, Spain, and even France.

After all, saving the Irish from Britain was a major event in the Catholic world, so it was normal for people from other countries to come to help. It was abnormal for only the Austrian Empire to be busy unilaterally as before.

At this time, the British top leaders also changed their views on the Austrian rescue operation. Instead of keeping the Irish to harm themselves, it would be better to let them harm other countries.

In fact, compared with providing relief and sending troops to maintain stability, giving it to the Austrian Empire is the cheapest approach.

However, the British government still adhered to its usual inhumane style and deliberately stuffed some elderly, weak, sick and disabled people, as well as criminals, to Austria.

However, the people mainly responsible for the rescue came from the church. They did not have much opinion about these people. At least their attitude was much better than that of others.

Since medicine is a compulsory course in the Austrian Church, Austrian priests are very good at treating patients.

In particular, the herbal medicine advocated by the Austrian Church was particularly effective in treating some strange diseases that seemed very difficult to treat at the time, while common diseases could usually be treated with allicin and quinine.

In fact, most Irish people suffer from poverty diseases, and their symptoms are mostly caused by malnutrition, so often a few full meals can cure a group of people.

As the saying goes, a bystander sees more clearly than a participant. The Irish people who were rescued did not think that things were that simple. People often attribute things they cannot understand to "miracles."

If a formal doctor heard the word "miracle", he would definitely feel very angry. However, for church doctors, it is just the opposite. They are very useful and feel that it is the best verification of their faith.

Of course, the so-called treatment is not a matter of chance. All these treatment cases will be recorded and eventually filed in the church archives.

This is a priceless treasure for empirical medicine. The experience that a family of traditional Chinese medicine often gains after practicing medicine for hundreds of years can be gained in just a few months with the support of the entire church system of the Austrian Empire.

The Irish who were rescued often had an almost fanatical admiration and trust in Austria and the church, and they would be very persistent in completing all the tasks they received.

However, the Austrian Empire's requirements for them were often to cultivate the land, grow food, and protect their homes as much as possible to prevent harassment from wild beasts and black natives.

Most of the colonies of the Austrian Empire did not directly produce daily necessities, but instead purchased them regularly from their own country and sent them to the colonies.

Such a life may be unbearable for wealthy people, but it feels extremely fair to the lower class, especially immigrants like the Irish.

Because there are only a few types of goods, there is not much room for choice, and everyone buys with their own money, so what to buy depends entirely on their own preferences and needs.

If an emergency occurred, the colonial government would directly distribute emergency supplies to everyone. In the event of a war, the shifts would be rotated. Moreover, the Austrians seemed to be particularly law-abiding and rarely bullied outsiders, which made the Irish feel that life was peaceful.

In fact, they didn't know that except for a few unlucky people and adventurers, most of the people in Austria's overseas colonies were exiled prisoners and vagrants who couldn't pay their debts. In the eyes of Austrian officials, these guys' status was not necessarily higher than that of Irish immigrants. Of course, the colonies were not paradise, with terrible mosquitoes, fever, catastrophic climate, various wild animals and hostile tribes, as well as seriously backward infrastructure and extremely scarce leisure activities.

Coupled with the desolate land and heavy physical labor, it would be difficult for people to survive without something like faith.

The initial cost of colonies is huge, of which labor costs account for a considerable proportion. In addition, the population size directly affects the development speed of colonies. Just look at the colonies established by early colonists in Africa.

Many colonies have been established for hundreds of years, but the vast majority of them have a population of no more than a thousand people and no less than a hundred people, and there are even colonies with only dozens of people.

The development of these colonies was incredibly slow. For hundreds of years, they only developed one or two kilometers, or even a few hundred meters around them, and knew nothing about the inland areas.

In fact, this is related to their colonization method. Most of the early African colonists were mainly Portuguese and Dutch. They only wanted to do business, so they just set up trading stations on the coast to exchange European goods for ivory, gold and slaves.

During the same period, the Spaniards and Portuguese spread all over the Americas and even created Latin America.

At that time, there were only about 30,000 British people in the Cape Colony, Britain's most important colony in Africa, while there were already hundreds of thousands of French people in North Africa.

Franz did not plan to set up trading posts or support agents in Africa, so he needed a large population to develop and enrich the colonies.

Over the years, Franz has spared no effort to increase the population of the colonies, painting big pictures, talking about dreams, using money and material rewards, and even coaxing and deceiving people. He also carried out large-scale exiles and even directly designated that a certain group of people must go to the colonies (mostly children of aristocrats).

But they encountered the same problem as the colonists in history: the benefits and costs were inverted, and the more they developed, the more they lost.

The population of the colonies increased slowly, while the cost of maintaining the colonies became increasingly high. To make matters worse, plagues, desertions, and rebellions emerged one after another, and the time and money required to deal with these problems were extremely exaggerated.

Franz had no choice but to relax ethnic and even nationality restrictions. As long as they were willing to abide by colonial laws and obey the orders of the Austrian Empire, even the French were welcome.

But in fact, the largest number of people were attracted to the colonies, and the reason they came to the colonies was very simple: they could no longer survive in their own country.

These people had far fewer material needs than the Germans and Austrians, were relatively easy to discipline, and were more willing to take risks.

So each colony of the Austrian Empire was actually a small Austria, often with residents from several or even a dozen nationalities.

However, the German-speaking population in all colonies must exceed 40% of the white population, which is the red line set by Franz.

If it falls below the red line, not only will assimilation be difficult, but it will also affect all aspects of colonial security, culture, etc.

As for the Irish, they were strictly speaking laborers, and only some of the Irish who performed better and were more assimilated could join the Austrian Empire.

The rest of the people can choose to work in the colonies for the rest of their lives or return to their hometowns.