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

Chapter 1262 The faint king
"We are just unlucky to have met such a king."

"Yes, the Austrians actually sent troops. It seems that destiny still lies with the Carlos family."

It was hard to tell whether the generals' expressions were one of relief or helplessness; anyway, the scene was a bit cold.

"God's will? I don't think so. Our Majesty wants us to take Madrid in three months. Do you think this is possible?
The war has been going on for so many years, does anyone really think it can be ended in a few months? "

"I don't know. If the Austrian army can really reach Madrid within three months and attack us from both sides, it's possible."

"He fought from Barcelona to Madrid in three months. Do you think he was Caesar or Napoleon?"

"Who knows?"

The generals were chatting casually, and suddenly someone had an idea in his mind and blurted it out.

"What if the Austrians don't leave? Then all our work will be in vain?"

There have been many invaders in history under the banner of aid. With the current strength of the Carlists, if the Austrians really don't leave, there is nothing they can do.

"Don't worry. This is Spain. Even if they don't want to leave, the British and French won't let them stay."

The general obviously saw things very clearly. After so many years of war, both sides had never been able to achieve a decisive victory. Some people had also realized that there was a big country manipulating the situation behind the scenes and did not want Spain to side with either side.

"I hope the Austrians don't leave. The Habsburgs are much more generous than the Bourbons."

"Yes! I heard that the Emperor of the Austrian Empire would give a sum of money to the meritorious officials every month. In order to prevent them from being reluctant to spend it, he also stipulated that if they could not spend it all this month, they would stop receiving it next month. The condition was that they were not allowed to invest or donate.

The new emperor was fond of extravagance and was always criticized for being too extravagant. So the emperor came up with this idea: if the nobles were extravagant, the royal family would not seem so extravagant.

"What a tyrant! I also want to live under such a tyrant."

"Although the Austrian emperor caused great resentment among the nobles, he enjoyed a very good reputation among the people, especially among the businessmen who wanted to worship him, while economists and the church liked to call him a saint."

Although what these people described was a bit exaggerated, Franz did indeed do similar operations.

Therefore, Franz had a very bad reputation in Britain. After all, such extravagant behavior was considered heresy by Protestants who advocated frugality.

Although Franz was labeled as "extravagant, debauched, absurd and cruel", in an anonymous survey conducted by the British "Times", Franz was the man British women most wanted to marry, with far more votes than the second place.

On the other hand, the progress of the Austrian Empire was far beyond the imagination of Isabella II and the Carlists. After Barcelona, ​​Cádiz and Valencia also chose to surrender.

At this point, the entire Spanish Navy surrendered to the Austrian Empire without firing a single shot.

However, the surrender of the Spanish Navy did not add much combat power to the Austrian Empire. The ships it owned were too old and the navy's training level was also very low.

Friedrich even suggested that Franz simply disband the Spanish navy or incorporate it into the army, so that they would be more useful.

Franz understood what Friedrich meant, but he did not want to disarm Spain. If the ship was broken, he would repair it; if the training was poor, he would improve it.

Since the Austrian Navy will not participate in land battles anyway, it might as well help transform the Spanish Navy.

Franz's order made Friedrich a little confused, but soon an order came that made him even more confused.

The Austrian Army only sent some officers and veterans because the army was generally seasick and many people were afraid of encountering storms or sea monsters at sea.

"Damn it! How can we fight this war!" Friedrich angrily threw the pen on the table.

The naval generals were also very confused, but they did not dare to throw things like Archduke Frederick did.

"Archduke Friedrich, since the army is useless, why not just send our special forces in?

To put it bluntly, Spain is just a bigger island."

To be honest, they are all navy and their land warfare level is really limited, but when it comes to special operations, they are not at all tired.

"That's right! Grand Duke, we can first give the Spaniards a warning."

A group of naval officers proposed dozens of attack plans and debated them endlessly.

Friedrich jumped up repeatedly and hit the heads of his generals one by one.

"Get your heads off! Are you using our naval elite as soldiers? Let them handle the army's affairs themselves.

Our orders were to guard the coastline and sea supply lines.

do you understand? "

"As ordered!"

In fact, the people in the army were also a little confused because their task was to recruit and train one or several armies mainly composed of Spaniards.

Officers in any country in the world would definitely think that the monarch was crazy if they heard such an order, but in the Austrian Empire this was just an uncommon tradition.

Yes, it was a routine practice for the Austrian Empire to recruit soldiers in war zones.

As soon as the Austrian Empire's conscription notice came out, the conscription stations were immediately overcrowded. This was already commonplace for the officers in charge of conscription, after all, the scenes of conscription in the Austrian Empire were even more exaggerated than this.

The Austrian Empire did not withdraw troops from Transylvania to suppress bandits, nor did it send reinforcements to Spain, but chose to continue transporting supplies.

It was foreseeable that 1849 would be a bumper year, so the Austrian Minister of Agriculture was worried about it.

Due to the severe reduction in grain production caused by the war in 1848 and the famine, the Austrian imperial government imported a large amount of grain from the colonies to fill the gap in order to overcome the difficulties.

However, at this time, the civil war in the Austrian Empire had basically ended, agricultural productivity had recovered, and even the cultivated area had expanded. In particular, with the influx of Hungarian grain, the market was clearly saturated.

Unfortunately, Germany and Italy also had good harvests, and grain from the colonies continued to flow into the Austrian Empire.

The bumper harvest in autumn is likely to turn into a disaster for farmers. If farmers reduce their production this year and a natural disaster occurs next year, it will be another terrible disaster.

In fact, whether there will be a food surplus can usually only be judged by experience. Unfortunately, the Minister of Agriculture is not only an agricultural expert, but also an agricultural tycoon, and he has very rich experience in this regard.

What is even more despairing is that the Austrian Empire invented the punch tabulating machine at this time, which made statistics more labor-saving and accurate.

The conclusions drawn from the data further verified his judgment, but fortunately the Austrian Empire declared war on Spain and needed a large amount of supplies.

The Minister of Agriculture sent grain from the colonies directly to Spain, and also sent part of the grain reserves in the national security warehouses to Spain.

This not only solved the risk of food surplus that the Austrian Empire might face, but also contributed to solving the Spanish problem.