War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

For the time being, smuggling between Austria and India seems to be an uneconomical deal, but in terms of the long-term development of the empire, it is undoubtedly a clever move. After all, with the continuous development of the industrial age, exchanges between the East and the West are inevitable. will continue to deepen.

And a fire in the backyard is definitely the most distressing way for the British. After all, India is the UK's financial and tax center, and it also profoundly affects the geopolitical pattern.

It was the British occupation of India that greatly increased the cost for Western powers to travel to the Far East, which contributed to the subsequent rise of the United States and Japan.

Due to Franz's influence in this time and space, technology is developing faster than in history, and rubber will be one of the most important raw materials in the industry in the future.

Franz would not give up such an important source of raw materials in Southeast Asia to others, otherwise he would suffer the same fate as Germany.

Even if Austria defeated the British at sea, it would be impossible to send a fleet to escort resources all the way from Southeast Asia to Europe.

Otherwise, even if Franz builds an invincible army, they will eventually perish due to constant consumption. If you want to change your destiny against nature, you can't just follow the crowd.

Forewarned is forearmed, without prejudging the waste. Franz didn't want to wait too long to figure out how to solve the problem. Of course, this would doom him to a very tiring life.

April 17, 1842, Bombay.

The dilapidated harbor in front of us was the Mumbai Port, the most prosperous harbor on the Indian subcontinent in the past.

When the huge warship of the Austrian Empire sailed into the harbor, it did not cause much of a sensation. Instead, it was deathly quiet. Even the merchants hawking were weak, and the goods sold were even mediocre, with only some salted fish and wine.

The surrounding buildings are all rickety, as if they were pieced together with lumber, but what's even more frightening is that such dilapidated buildings can still stand, which is really amazing.

It has been a month since the tsunami, and Mumbai at this time is even more dilapidated and less repaired than the Kolkata we left before.

Although this is also related to the fact that Mumbai is closer to the epicenter and suffers more serious damage, this efficiency is still horrifyingly low.

In fact, the rapid resumption of operations of the Port of Calcutta was mainly due to the forced intervention and efficient management model of the Austrian Empire.

The work efficiency of people in this era is inherently low, coupled with the fact that merchants who believe in "free trade" are raising prices, and the British colonial government's haphazard command has made the progress of rescue and recovery work very slow.

Of course, what really makes people depressed is not just these, that is, the port authority prohibits dock workers from sitting on the ground and raising prices. The consequences for violators will be corpses hanging on the huge terrace when entering the bay.

And because of the previous tsunami, almost no one was spared except those foreign merchant ships and fishing boats that happened to go fishing in the deep sea. This resulted in overcrowding in the port docks, and of course the Royal Navy would certainly enjoy priority treatment. This makes the already dissatisfied people even more dissatisfied.

For nineteenth-century merchants, ships and their cargo were all they had, and these people were willing to do anything to preserve their fortunes.

Therefore, when the crew who had nothing to do and were waiting for replenishment of supplies just got off the ship, they immediately became the object of competition among many parties, and the originally lifeless port also regained its vitality.

However, Franz was not interested in bringing goods to these merchants. After all, the Port of Mumbai was similar to the previous Calcutta, both of which were world-famous for black goods.

Franz has no interest at all in becoming an accomplice of drug dealers, and the Austrian Empire has done anti-drug work for so many years. Wouldn't it be a slap in the face to be associated with these people at this time?

Although Archduke Friedrich, the commander of the Austrian Imperial Navy, seems a bit undisciplined, his soldiers rarely act too undisciplined. After all, the navy's salary is very high (about 1.4 to 1.5 times that of the army). And Friedrich never showed mercy when he killed people.

Sure enough, without the permission of the commander, let alone bringing people on board, even a piece of cargo would not work. Moreover, 90% of these black goods were shipped to the East, which was exactly the opposite direction to Franz and his party.

But even so, a businessman still stopped a low-level officer who seemed to be more talkative and stuffed something into his hand.

Naturally, this could not escape Franz's eyes. After all, this was what he had been staring at in the cabin.

The low-level officer looked at the money in his hand and thought about what the other party said. Although he felt it was outrageous, it was a good thing for the Austrian Empire, so he reluctantly agreed.

"Then it's up to you." The businessman looked very humble and spoke in Dutch, but in the opinion of the Italian officer, it was no different from German. Anyway, he could understand a little bit, but not quite.

"I can only report to the officer above me. As for what he said, I have no choice." The officer just told the truth. He was just one of the boiler chiefs of the Venetia, just a lieutenant. It was usually impossible for him to meet the fleet commander since he was always on the lower deck.

However, the fleet commander Friedrich often led people to inspect various warships, so the lieutenant felt that his immediate boss should be able to talk to Archduke Friedrich.

The businessman opposite was obviously a smart man, and he immediately took out a few more gold coins and stuffed them into his hand.

"Please help me. Please bring my message to the fleet commander of your country. If you can do it, you can come to me at the Poseidon Trident Hotel and I will pay you double the reward. My name is Ben Ni Erbin.”

The lieutenant was very satisfied with the merchant's generosity, so he turned and walked towards the flagship. After all, Friedrich was observing the city from the bow.

"What a fragile city! These idiots actually built the fort so far away. What's the use? Will the enemy march close to the coastline when attacking?"

Friedrich carefully observed the distribution pattern of Bombay's ten batteries, nine of which were forward batteries, covering the main battery.

In theory, this is correct. However, those forts built on the mountainside were too far from the entrance to the sea, and they lost the advantage of flanking the enemy with the fleet in the bay.

Because the design of this kind of fort in the bay actually uses the advantage of the reverse slope to avoid enemy artillery fire, forming an angle with the civil war ships in the bay to cover the enemies entering the bay.

However, the fort in Bombay Bay has very obvious shortcomings. It is more than five kilometers away from the mouth of the bay. The range of most of the artillery in this period did not exceed 3 kilometers, and the artillery in Bombay Bay was obviously some outdated artillery. In other words, the ten forts here, including the main fort, were completely furnished.

Faced with such a port with obvious flaws, Friedrich could not conquer it, which really made him sigh.

At this time Friedrich's adjutant reported to him.

"Report!"

"explain!"

"Lieutenant Barras, the boiler chief, said that there is a businessman who wants to be the governor of Slaveburg in the Austrian Empire."

(Slave Castle is located in Tanzania, East Africa and is a famous slave trading center.)