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

Chapter 1260 Fly for a while
Why do we need to set up a pot? Shouldn't Europeans eat bread?
In fact, that is just a stereotype left to the world by the industrial age. In the mid-nineteenth century, especially in the backward Spanish region, the main food for civilians was still porridge or soup mixed with various vegetables and grains.

And what Franz had to do at this time was to provide relief and win people's hearts, rather than simply provide food.

Soups and porridge cooked in large pots can produce food for large numbers of people in a short period of time using a minimum of raw materials.

This kind of big pot meal can also make the most of existing ingredients, is not restricted by region or season, and is not prone to waste.

Here is a little science: Spanish people do grow rice and they also eat rice.

It was impossible for the Austrian Empire to rely entirely on shipments from its homeland and colonies for its food; it must have purchased some local ingredients.

Rice is one of the local ingredients, so there is nothing wrong with calling it porridge or soup.

However, the rice used here is not the expensive Spanish burrata used in the later Spanish national dish "Paella".

Instead, they were some mixed primitive varieties. Rich people would not touch these inferior rices, and only ordinary people would use them to fill their stomachs. The prices of the two types of rice differed by dozens of times, just like the gap between the rich and the poor in Spain at that time.

Strictly speaking, Spanish paella is a dish, as famous as French snails and pasta. It is usually garnished with shrimp, crab roe, black clams, clams, oysters, squid, caviar, and served with fine wines.

However, brown rice consumed by common people is a staple food, and generally has a poor taste, at least it does not meet the requirements of the upper class.

Because soup and porridge have a variety of raw materials, they can provide a wider variety of nutrients, which is unmatched by bread.

Another reason is that it is easy to make. It only requires the chef to do some simple processing and a small amount of fuel to set up a large pot, while bread requires a series of complicated procedures such as baking and fermentation.

If you really have to make it on site from flour, it would not be easy to eat this meal.

People who have been hungry for a long time will find it easier to digest some warm porridge. If you force them to eat the hard biscuits on the naval ships, some of them will choke to death.

The navy's hard biscuits. Legend has it that sailors could use a kilogram of hard biscuits to kill mice, and even punch a hole in the middle with a nail and hang it in the cabin.

Finally, Franz was not here to do charity. Bread can be stored, but if you want to eat porridge, you must come to the place designated by the Austrians every day to get it.

At that time, it would be much easier for Austria to find civilians to complete work or to carry out propaganda for some purpose.

Doing so would also allow the Spanish to associate this with religious charity, rather than simply viewing it as alms.

Even though Spain has become so rotten, the Spanish are still very proud. Even decades later, the Spanish still have the courage to fight to the death for their dignity.

This was done to respect the dignity of the Spanish and to make it clear to the Austrians what they were doing.

No matter how many talented writers Franz hired to write touching articles in the newspaper, or how much justice and sacredness the war may be portrayed as, it would be better to let people experience it themselves.

The church in the Austrian Empire was powerful, so Franz often added shackles to it to increase control. At the same time, he often asked Archbishop Rauscher to purify the church. The clergy of the Austrian Empire had to abide not only by the laws of the country, but also by the code of the church and any "principles" that might exist in the Bible.

Once a crime is committed, the person will be punished for all three crimes. There is a special investigation agency within the church, and the government will also conduct regular inspections of the church. In addition, there are secret police who are mixed in to monitor the church, and civilians can also report on priests.

However, even under such harsh conditions, shocking cases of corruption and embezzlement often occur within the church.

The identity of a priest is nothing more than a tool to lie down and do bad things. Many people do not believe in the so-called doctrines themselves. No matter how sacred the doctrines are, or how strict the laws are, they cannot stop them from pursuing fame and fortune.

But at this moment, facing those eager and expectant eyes, they felt the so-called "faith" for the first time.

Compared with those smooth and sophisticated priests, those uneducated soldiers from the lower class are much more easily moved.

Now if we tell these soldiers that Franz is deceiving them, they are no different from the countless foreign armies that have invaded Spain before, they are all barbaric butchers.

Then these soldiers would most likely beat him up on the spot and arrest him as a spy.

In fact, Austrian soldiers themselves are not very sensitive to the awareness of ethnicity and country, because the composition of the Austrian army itself is very complex.

Germans, Czechs, Venetians, Lombards, Hungarians, Croats, Serbs, Poles, Ruthenians, Slovenes, Transylvanians, Saxons, Wallachians, Moravians, Namurians, Jews, Gypsies.
And the Germans who don't think they are Germans, the Germans who think they are Italians, the Italians who think they are Germans, the Germans who are obviously Germans but pretend to be Czechs, the Czechs who are obviously Czechs but insist on saying they are Germans, and the Galicians who can't tell whether they are Ruthenians, Poles, or Russians.
There were even foreigners here and there, all sorts of Germans, a mixed bag of Italians, and some odd Irish and French people, and they had long been accustomed to it.

In addition, due to the characteristics of bread itself, many civilians who received gifts would most likely save it for future use.

This will cause a lot of trouble. On the one hand, some people will use the bread that Austria provides to disaster relief victims to disrupt the local economy and cause the price of bread to collapse.

The Austrian Empire was too powerful to be afraid of a few angry unemployed bakers and apprentices.

However, the price collapse in one industry often triggers a series of chain reactions, eventually causing a large-scale collapse or even the economic collapse of an entire region.

This is not alarmist talk, but the result of countless bloody lessons.

The new order has not yet been truly established, and the truly weak cannot even hold on to the bread in their hands.

Franz didn't like to make amends after he'd made a big mistake. He was more likely to be angry than touched.

That was not necessarily the inevitability of history or the cruelty of the times, it could also be due to the incompetence and inaction of European officials at the time.

The morale of the Austrian Expeditionary Force was high, but Franz was not in a hurry to attack. He knew very well that sometimes and in some places, bread was more powerful and more useful than bullets.

Franz needs to let the smell of porridge float for a while
(The temperature has dropped recently, so everyone should take some rest.)
One update, then a rest.