shadow of britain

Chapter 537: The Göttingen Conspiracy

Europe today is like a powder keg, and its leaders are like men smoking in the middle of an arsenal. One spark could set off an explosion that would consume us all.

—Clemens von Metternich

University of Göttingen, it’s a sunny day today.

The stone porch outside the superintendent's office is covered with portraits of past presidents and famous professors.

These paintings are either oil paintings or etchings. Through these paintings, Göttingen proudly displays their glorious academic tradition as a traditional German university.

The floor of the corridor was paved with thick stone slabs, and the monotonous and crisp footsteps echoed here.

Although the superintendent's office is often bustling with people during the week, it is usually deserted on Sundays.

But today was an exception. As the footsteps gradually approached, the figure of a young man appeared at the end of the porch.

Bismarck dressed himself up today and put on a formal suit that he had only worn once at the opening ceremony.

He was wearing a well-tailored long-tail coat, the silver buttons on the front of the coat had been polished by him until they sparkled, a clean white turtleneck shirt with a dark black silk bow tie that he had bought after running through the streets of Göttingen, and a gold chain for a pocket watch that half peeked out from the vest pocket of his shirt jacket.

He stopped in front of the door of the school supervisor's office and saw the school emblem and the Latin school motto 'In publica commoda' (For the public interest) inlaid on the door frame. Bismarck felt that his arm knocking on the door was a little heavy.

He took a deep breath and recited the speech he had prepared last night in his mind before he finally mustered up the courage to knock on the door.

Boom boom boom!
"Professor Hastings, I am Otto von Bismarck, a sophomore in the law school. May I come in, please?"

However, after a long time, Bismarck did not hear any response from anyone in the office.

He frowned and knocked on the door again, but this time the door was pushed open.

This was the first time Bismarck saw what the school supervisor's office looked like. Usually he went to the courtroom to punish the student committee.

The first thing that caught my eye was a heavy oak desk with a smooth and spacious tabletop, on which were placed ink bottles, quill pens, letters, and some beautifully bound books. Behind the desk was a high-backed chair made of dark leather, with carved grooves on the armrests - those delicate patterns.

On both sides of the office are tall bookshelves filled with a wide variety of academic works on law, philosophy, history, etc. Judging from the covers, most of these books are written in Latin, German and French, and are very exquisitely bound. Some of the book covers even have the book titles and author names written in gold foil.

Next to the bookshelf, there was a small ladder, probably to help Hastings get books from a high place. Even though he was as tall as Bismarck, the three-meter-high bookshelf was still a bit out of reach for him.

When Bismarck saw that Arthur was not in the office, his slightly nervous mood quickly relaxed.

He walked into the office with his hands behind his back, occasionally taking a book from the bookshelf and flipping through it, and sometimes sitting down in the high-backed chair reserved for the school supervisor and fiddling with the small globe on the table out of boredom.

"Huh? What is this?"

Bismarck stretched out a finger to stop the rotating globe, and he found that several special places were marked with ink on the globe, arranged from north to south: Devonport and Plymouth in Britain, the Portuguese colony of Cape Verde Islands, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Montevideo in Uruguay, Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe in Argentina.

However, these marks must have been drawn a long time ago, because the ink marks on these cities look obviously dry.

The newest mark on the globe appears to be on Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America.

When Bismarck was wondering what these inexplicable circles meant, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a wax-sealed letter on the table. The handwriting on the cover of the letter was quite arrogant, and it clearly read in English: Sent from Tierra del Fuego.

"Huh?" Bismarck scratched his head.

Could it be possible that this fellow Arthur Hastings had some connection with the natives of Tierra del Fuego?
Or, does he have business in South America?

He's secretly a slave trader?!
"Oh, my God!"

Such an astonishing fact surprised even a courageous young man like Bismarck.

An Englishman, but actually a slave trader!
Didn’t the newspaper say that the British government had announced this year the complete abolition of slavery at home and in its overseas colonies?
Where does he get the courage to do such a business?
But Bismarck changed his mind and realized that this might be a good business.

Because he remembered that the British government abolished slavery by paying to buy back slaves from slave owners. If he could transfer a batch of slaves from others before the redemption work was completed, he could make a lot of money from the difference.

It is not surprising that Bismarck had such an idea, because when the Prussian government announced the abolition of serfdom more than ten years ago, some Junker landlords were doing similar business.

In the October Decree of 1807, Prussia stipulated that peasants were no longer the property of the lords. They had the right to independently manage their farmland and could migrate and marry freely.

However, in order to compensate the losses of the land nobles, the peasants needed to redeem the land use rights that originally belonged to the lords through redemption. Redemption included three methods: land redemption, labor redemption, and cash redemption.

Among them, land redemption means that farmers can choose to give up part of their land use rights in exchange for full ownership of the remaining land.

For example, if a serf cultivated 100 acres of land, he might give up 50 acres of land to the landlord in exchange for full ownership of the remaining 50 acres. This was a more common redemption method, but since not all serfs had the right to lease 100 acres, some chose labor redemption and cash redemption.

Labor redemption literally means that the peasant provides the landlord with a certain number of years of unpaid labor in exchange for freedom.

Cash redemption is even simpler. You can pay for your freedom in one lump sum or in installments.

However, most farmers cannot pay so much money at one time, so the mainstream choice is to pay in installments over 20 or 30 years, which is similar to the modern loan repayment model.

However, some Junker landlords were in poor financial condition, so if someone was willing to pay them a one-time payment of 70 to 80 percent, they would be happy to transfer the loan contracts of these farmers.

The total cost of the slavery abolition and redemption bill introduced by Britain this year was over 1000 million pounds, so most slave owners received compensation in installments from the government.

Therefore, Bismarck boldly guessed that there would definitely be people engaged in the business of exchanging cash for loans. It must be said that Bismarck's guess was very correct. At present, there are indeed many people in Britain who are engaged in this business, or to be more precise, those who are engaged in this business are from the City of London.

Bankers unanimously believe that this type of government-backed installment compensation is unlikely to lead to debt default, and that the creditworthiness of this type of compensation can be ranked on the same level as that of British government bonds, both of which are very high-quality financial management products.

So, as long as someone is willing to sell a contract, they will take it.

But unfortunately, Arthur had no intention of getting involved in such matters.

On the one hand, this was due to moral concerns. The bankers in the City of Finance might not care about their reputation, but Sir Arthur Hastings, who had both good and bad reputations in London, had to care.

On the other hand, this is due to political considerations. Arthur became famous for his fight against Fred and the Barbary pirates' slave trade. A respectable York gentleman would not slap himself in the face just to get a few silver coins.

Not to mention, he had discovered a whole new way to get rich some time ago. Compared with running slave redemption contracts, supporting the Italian Revolution not only earned him fame, but also made money much faster.

But as an 18-year-old Prussian youth, Bismarck certainly could not imagine that in the diplomatic field he longed for, those diplomats who looked like fools were talking in French about big businesses that were more profitable than the slave trade.

In the process of supporting Young Italy's activities, Mr. August Schneider, Assistant Under-Secretary of the British Foreign Office, donated £3000, Mr. Wilhelm von Krommel, Cultural Counselor of the Austrian Imperial Embassy in France, donated £4000, and Arthur Hastings, the "conscience" of the European diplomatic community, donated £2500.

As for why Arthur only received 2500 pounds, it was because he felt guilty, so after weighing the pros and cons, he secretly gave 500 pounds in cash to Garibaldi and repeatedly warned him not to disclose the connection between the British Foreign Office and Young Italy.

Before leaving, Garibaldi did not forget to thank Arthur and sincerely apologized to Arthur on behalf of Mazzini: "This ten thousand francs is of great help to us. Sorry, Arthur, we should not have doubted you before."

Bismarck stared at the strange-looking envelope on the table for a long time and felt his fingers itching. He really wanted to see what kind of business the proctor was doing in private.

He hesitated for a long time, and suddenly heard a burst of laughter coming from the window behind him.

Bismarck tiptoed to the window, opened a crack in the curtains, and saw two gentlemen standing on the boulevard outside the window, smoking.

One of them was Mr. Arthur Hastings, and the other looked unfamiliar and his origin was unknown.

However, judging from the language used by both parties in the conversation, the unfamiliar face should also be British.

Although Bismarck was not very interested in his majors, he was a genius in languages. At the age of 18, he had mastered French, English and Latin, and could even understand Italian and Russian.

Bismarck leaned against the wall and put his ear to the window through the curtains, trying to hear as clearly as possible what the two guys were saying.

"Arthur, it seems that you have adapted well in Göttingen. Look at your black robe, you really look like a scholar."

"To be honest, I still prefer the uniform of Scotland Yard. It's much more spirited than this robe."

"Hahaha! It's okay. Aren't you planning to test your police reform plan in Göttingen? On the surface, it's a student union, but in fact it's a police organization. How did you come up with such a dirty trick?"

"This is not surprising. For the police, it is a routine operation to plant informants in opposition organizations. And my experience in France has also given me a lot of inspiration. Mr. Vidocq told me that in those so-called revolutionary organizations, many people climbed to the leadership just to sell them out, so as to get themselves a job or some pension money."

"So you intend to implement French experience in Hanover, not British wisdom?"

"Well... I personally think that there are some differences between continental countries and maritime countries like Britain. Therefore, the French experience may be more suitable for Hanover than the British experience. The student union in Göttingen is just a pilot project. If this pilot project is successful enough, I will later suggest that the Governor-General write the experience here into the new constitution of the Kingdom of Hanover."

"Arthur, I have to say that I was still feeling pained by the loss of such an outstanding figure as you in the Foreign Office. But now it seems that the Internal Affairs Agency is your final destination. You can do these things in college, I dare not imagine how much you will achieve if you are sent to run the Ministry of Internal Affairs."

"August, don't flatter me. I just happened to find that the University of Göttingen is very suitable for this. To be honest, I found a good guy these days, Otto von Bismarck, who will definitely have a bright future. Without his help, I might not have made up my mind to reopen the student organization of the University of Göttingen."

"Arthur, you always manage to do things so humorously. You say you want to give them freedom, but in fact you want to open a branch of Scotland Yard in Göttingen. What do you plan to name the Göttingen Student Union? New Scotland Yard?"

"No, I'm going to call it: Göttinger Enthusiasten für Soziales Tun und Aktivitten Planung Organisation (Göttingen Social Enthusiasists and Event Planners Organisation)."

“Isn’t this name a bit too long?”

"I also think it's too long, so I plan to just call it by its abbreviation."

"What's the abbreviation?"

"Gestapo."

"Gestapo? Oh, man, did you know that this abbreviation can also represent another agency? It can also be the abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police)?"

"Oh, August, you really reminded me of that. Sorry, my German is not very good?"

"No, quite the opposite. Arthur, I think your German level might be a little too good right now. Hahaha!"

"August, I'm not being modest. I really feel that my German needs to be improved. For example, I can't understand this student file in my hand, and I was thinking of asking you for help."

"Hmm? Whose student file is this? There's too much dust on it."

"It's normal to have a lot of dust. After all, it's been decades since this student graduated from Göttingen. August, take him with you. Although this may not necessarily work, for a diplomat who is about to go to observe the Munich Conference, knowing more is better than knowing nothing."

"This is... Clemens von Metternich! This is Metternich's student file when he was studying at the University of Göttingen?! Arthur, you really can always help me out of my urgent needs. With this file, even if I don't make any progress in Munich, I can extract some irrelevant information from this file and write a report, which I can hand in when I return to London. You are such a good friend! When I come back from Munich, I will treat you to a bath."

"August." Arthur exhaled a puff of smoke and tapped Schneider's shoulder with the back of his hand: "Who are we talking to?"

(End of this chapter)