War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz was a little angry and a little depressed. He just wanted to improve basic education. He spent tens of millions of florins on it in six years, but why are there still so many problems?

What's even more terrible is that it has not yet reached the real promotion stage, but is only in the large-scale pilot stage.

Pilot education cannot be generalized in rural and mountainous Austria. Especially regarding the issue of free meals, various previous reports made Franz think that this was a waste of time and a hotbed of corruption.

However, the reality is that since schools stopped providing free meals, there has been a wave of dropouts in mountainous areas. The only reason is that it is too difficult for students in mountainous areas to eat.

The mountain school in Franz's imagination was only a few hundred meters away from a village. In fact, there are only a few or a dozen children in a village. In order to save costs, children from several or even a dozen villages usually share one primary school.

Then the problem comes. These children need to walk more than ten miles or even dozens of miles of mountain roads every day. This exaggerated journey is very scary for ordinary people.

Moreover, there were wolves in many mountainous areas of Austria at that time. The wolves in Tyrol were actually about the same size as coyotes and foxes. Their combat power could not defeat a child in a single combat, so as long as they were equipped with a wooden stick or a hiking pole, they were enough to deal with it. , maybe you can add extra food in the evening, but the gray wolves in the Balkans are not something that children can deal with on their own.

Compared with these difficulties, eating is a big problem. These children need to bring their own food and fuel. The most important of these is corn. In fact, Europe's rapid population development is due to these two crops, potatoes and corn.

However, people in the mountains did not eat corn at that time. Nowadays, the muscular man holding a basin and eating corn salad is advertised on the Internet every day. In fact, there was not much difference between the way Europeans and Easterners ate corn at that time. Pancakes made of cornmeal or batter.

Cornmeal or a mixture of wheat bran and wheat is the staple food of children in mountainous areas. The so-called vegetables are some unknown wild vegetables plus some ferns and beans. Some wealthy families may bring some raw pickled lard.

Pickled lard is actually very popular in Central and Eastern Europe now. It is a paste made from pig fat and pig skin. It is horribly greasy and is usually packed in jars or sealed. In the leather bag.

As for offal, only rich people can afford it.

When eating, make a little lard and smear it on the corn tortillas, or mix it into the batter, which makes those children feel very happy.

Then let’s talk about fuel. In fact, the mountains are not full of trees as imagined. Just cut them down and pick them up. In fact, not all vegetation is suitable for firewood. The most suitable ones are actually the dead branches and fallen leaves, because It has little moisture and is easy to burn, and it is not easy to smoke and choke people.

The church's brain circuit is always relatively novel. They also understand that it is not easy for children to go to school, to eat, and to walk on mountain roads all day long is very hard and dangerous.

So they began to build monasteries, especially in mountains far away from the worldly world, which in theory were more suitable for spiritual cultivation.

But the problem is that this place also needs to be used as a school, and the school is precisely a window that must communicate with the outside world.

In fact, Franz didn't care about the affairs of the monks and priests. For the time being, this method seemed feasible, because the monastery was large enough and it was borne by the church, so the Austrian government would not block it.

At the same time, the monastery can also solve the problem of food and housing for the children, not to mention the problem of declining birthrate or population surge in the future. After all, bigger means more flexibility.

However, more monasteries and allowing children to experience too much religious atmosphere may lead to an increase in Catholic influence, and some priests themselves are a threat to children.

Franz had asked Archbishop Rauscher to "purify" the clergy more than once, and the latter became the first archbishop in Austria's history to launch a comprehensive war on church corruption, abuse of power, and personal ethics.

In fact, it is somewhat inaccurate to say this. Not all priests in history turned a blind eye to the problems of the church, but Rauscher was the one with the highest status and the longest life.

Moreover, it was said that it was an all-out war, but in fact, only a few high-level church officials were dealt with, and the punishments they received were very light. However, the punishment becomes more severe at the lower level, including execution, scalping, and even burning at the stake, just like a medieval tribunal.

In fact, what the Austrian Church did was exactly what the Holy See did not dare to do at this time, because the rule of the Papal State itself was not stable, and the Inquisition was naturally not courageous enough.

Franz knew very well how easy it was to use the church in the front, but how painful it was to peel it off in the back. It cannot be done by just saying "Science eliminates superstition". It will even take decades and the blood of thousands of people to do it.

As for rural areas, usually the most difficult people to deal with are not the local aristocrats, but the so-called "village tyrants". When the nobles heard the words government, royal family, and church put together, they had no time to curry favor and how could they dare to refuse.

But these nobles also have their own selfish motives, which is to give away some uncontrollable land to the school. In theory, these lands belong to the nobility, but in fact they are jointly cultivated by some farmers and are also called public lands.

Theoretically speaking, there is no need to pay taxes on crops, burning, and pasture on this part of the land, so the nobles will have little benefit.

At the same time, due to hundreds of years of evolution, serfdom has changed and collapsed in parts of Austria, and these so-called public lands were occupied by some powerful farmers.

Coupled with the French Revolution, the power of the Austrian aristocracy was greatly weakened. In fact, when Napoleon attacked Austria, he also used this trick of dividing the land against local tyrants, and the effect was very significant.

At this time, some of these public lands were occupied by one family or several families, and these people were usually the most "powerful" people in the village, or the kind of "tyrants" that no one dared to offend.

Although the declining nobles cannot do anything to these people, these people do not dare to do anything to the local nobles.

As for facing the imperial power, imperial government, and church, they don't have so many scruples. After all, the sky is high and the emperor is far away.

Although they dare not be tough, it is still easy for them to prevent all the children in the village from going to school. The Austrian church was still very influential in this era, and a large number of similar incidents were reported to Vienna.

Although Franz was unhappy, he set aside a sum of money to compensate those who had been using the public land.

But this did not have any effect. On the contrary, the situation became more and more intense. Some people demanded more compensation, some demanded that the school be demolished, and some even led people to surround the school and beat students and teachers.

Franz was even more unhappy now. He planned to let the Astartes who had just returned from Chenla serve as principals in various places, and then assign a few veterans to the school as janitors and handymen.

Although he is a janitor and handyman, his income is actually much higher than the local average. After all, there is no pension at this time.

In an era without war, people over the age of thirty would be asked to retire by the Austrian military. Even if they performed very well, they would not be over thirty-five, so Austria could have a large number of outstanding veterans to recruit.

The veterans who can be re-employed by the royal family are naturally the best in the Austrian army. Some of them don't want to fight, some don't want to go to other countries to perform tasks, and some simply look down on the mercenary profession, so they gave up joining Umbrella as a mercenary. Opportunity.

These people often have excellent military skills, but they don't know anything else, so releasing these people into society is both wasteful and destabilizing.

Franz simply arranged some jobs for them as a reward for these veterans who had served the country all these years. And it also leaves a way out for the Austrian Empire. After all, these people can be drafted into the army again at any time.

Soon people discovered that there was a tough man in black robe with a sinister face who ate snakes alive in the school, as well as a group of doormen who looked like they were not easy to mess with.

To be honest, Franz disliked Austria's land system at this time. The cost of infrastructure construction was too high. But you can’t be too hasty. After all, you have to eat one bite at a time, and the road has to be walked step by step.

In addition, those who dare to directly attack the school, no matter what the reason is, will be arrested first, and then interrogated in detail.

In addition, although basic education has not yet been fully launched in Austria, some businessmen with a keen sense of smell have already sensed the business opportunities.

For example, the prices of pencils and paper have increased, but they have quickly returned to their previous levels. After all, it is easy to expand production capacity for these things.

Although Franz hoped that education could become a cause of the Austrian Empire, history so far has proved that only "profitable" can be more "inspiring".

At least at this time, Austria is not qualified to choose its own model. After all, many places in education are still blank.

And if there was any rapid development in Austria's paper and printing industries at this time, I am afraid that by 1848 there would be more pamphlets advocating the overthrow of the Habsburg royal family and the dissolution of the Austrian Empire.

It is much easier to promote education in cities than in "remote villages", and most citizens are willing to let their children receive education.

As long as it is free, more than 80% of urban children will choose to go to school. The rest are too poor and have to let their children work to support their families.

In fact, Austrian education in the German region is relatively backward. This is not because Austria does not pay attention to it, but because it is too large, the infrastructure is relatively backward, the cost is high, and there is no strong executor.

For basic education in the city, Franz is planning to reopen those public schools from the era of Queen Theresa. Although this will not solve the problem of schooling for all school-age children, it can reduce the illiteracy rate in Austria to a certain extent.

Compared with Austria's domestic education, Franz did not need to worry about education in overseas colonies.

Although assimilation education was carried out, the local nobles and businessmen squeezed in regardless of their heads. The children of chiefs and priests in Africa were even proud of being able to go to school. For ordinary indigenous people, only a very small number of indigenous people who were very close to the Austrian colonists had the opportunity to go to school.

In the Chenla area, it was even more exaggerated. Since it was a clerical state, Franz adopted a selection system in order to check and balance, but also to stabilize his rule.

Thousands of people gathered in the square. They were the elite selected from all over Chenla. After that, they had to undergo rigorous tests for several days to check whether they were loyal and talented.

In the end, only a hundred people could qualify as voters and be re-educated.

The main reason is that the territory managed by the church is getting larger and larger, the number of "voters" is insufficient, and there is insufficient room for advancement for ordinary people. The solidification of classes is very fatal even for the clerical state.

After all, if people cannot see hope, they will tend to destroy themselves, or destroy the world. But neither of them is what Franz wants to see. What he needs is living blood and a beating heart.

Due to the sparsely populated area and inconvenient transportation in Central America, education has become extremely luxurious. However, fortunately, the immigrants here are mainly Austrian German-speaking people and the Dutch, so Franz does not need to worry about assimilation.

As for the local aborigines, Franz adopted the policy of vacating the cage and replacing the birds with birds, and moved them to Mexico. On the one hand, Mexico is willing to accept it, and on the other hand, it is also because this is the most thorough solution for localization.

The terrain in Central America was perfect for guerrilla warfare, and it was rich in products. Franz did not want to get stuck in an endless security war.

As for the indigenous people who are unwilling to leave Central America, they can either be moved to the coast to dilute the population for easier control, or sent to the mountains to become truly marginalized people.

Of course, those churches that couldn't be deceived and the Austrian government couldn't drive them away had to rely on the army to move them. It's just that before all this, the local elites will drive away the people and then implement Franz's plan.

In fact, the local area itself has conflicts between pure-blood whites, mixed-race whites, and indigenous peoples. The first two take it for granted that Austria is on their side.

Therefore, the indigenous people will inevitably be the target of attack by all parties, and they will be the first to be eliminated.

Then there are those self-righteous and deep-rooted Hispanic pure-blood whites. Franz does not want these guys to compete with the Austrian Empire for influence, so they are also targets that will inevitably be suppressed.

Finally, there are the mixed-race whites. Most of these people feel inferior and do not have much power, but their numbers are not large. After the indigenous people and pure-blood whites are eliminated, they can only rely on the new ruler of the Austrian Empire.

Moreover, these people's positions are not very firm, and they have no so-called national consciousness, so it is easiest to assimilate.

Of course, since most of these people can speak Spanish, they will also be selected and sent to the Austrian Empire to study. They will eventually be sent to other countries in Latin America to collect intelligence for the Austrian Empire and become its pawns.

Franz needs this system of studying abroad for further study. After all, he is looking at the whole world and the future. It is very necessary to continuously cultivate talents and select spies for the Austrian Empire.

Of course, objectively speaking, this approach also promotes the spread of civilization and science and technology, which is a good thing for all mankind.

As for the issue that some people think that Austria may turn black, there is actually no need to worry too much. At this time, Europeans felt the same way when looking at Africans as they did when looking at gorillas.