Chapter 121 Royal Territory

"Did they do anything strange to you last night?" Perhaps fearing that Franz's self-esteem would be hurt, Mrs. Sophie asked cautiously.

"No." Franz clearly showed an impatient attitude, and it was obvious that he knew what Mrs. Sophie was talking about.

But Mrs. Sophie was not at ease and asked again.

"Then you didn't do anything strange to them."

"." Franz was speechless for a while.

When Talia came back, she found that Mrs. Sophie had fallen asleep on Franz's bed.

It seems that in the continuous high temperature weather, no matter who it is, the quality of sleep is greatly affected.

"Talia, if you are in a bad mood, you can go to the academy more often. The court life is still too depressing for you. The academy will open next year at the latest. You can pay more attention to it. I have asked my mother to write the pass."

Franz handed the pass to Talia, and Talia was still very excited, because "being an official" has always been her dream, but she couldn't be happy.

Franz did not pay too much attention to Talia. He always had very low requirements for Talia because Talia was his only helper and his only friend.

In the past, Franz could not directly come forward for many things, and he had to go through Talia's hands to achieve them. Now Franz already has his own attendant. Although the loyalty of this attendant is still unknown, his ability is still beyond doubt.

As Franz grows older, there will be more and more people around him, and Franz's layout is too large. Talia and Ajani are both very outstanding women, but they are still far from assisting Franz.

What Franz needs is a complete team and professional talents.

After the opening of the Vienna Royal Women's Academy, Talia may be able to provide some talents for Franz, of course, the fastest thing is a few years later.

As for whether he can provide talents and how many talents he can provide, Franz is not sure yet, and he doesn't care. After all, this is just one of the many big nets he has cast.

Hungary was the most severely affected by drought in the Austrian Empire, but there was no sign of trouble from the Hungarian nobles.

In fact, the drought in Hungary was a good thing for the Hungarian landlords.

Because serfdom was out of date, the real nobles had already adopted a new model.

They hired professional farm brokers from Austria to manage their farms.

The crops grown were no longer simple wheat and rye, but a crop rotation system was adopted to grow green fodder in addition to grain, and also corn, rapeseed, beets, sunflowers and potatoes to replace single grain crops.

At the same time, large-scale mechanization also greatly reduced the demand for agricultural labor. A skilled worker with two donkeys and a harvester could complete the work of fifty serfs in one day.

The agriculture in Hungary at this time was extremely rough. The dirty, earthy Hungarian grain and the long, short, greasy and dirty wool were rarely sought in the market and could only be sold at a low price.

The utilization rate of cultivated land was low. Because of poor market sales, one-third of the cultivated land had been idle for many years. There were also a large number of land suitable for cultivation that was artificially prohibited from being reclaimed as hunting grounds for the nobles.

In addition, due to the influence of Austria's joining the German Customs Union, Hungary could hardly make money from grain, so it was better to grow cash crops such as beets.

Peasants harvested crops with sickles, threshed with horse-drawn rollers, and hid the grain in cellars. It was no different from the Middle Ages.

Starving serfs to death in Austria was a felony, but farmers were not protected by this law. That's why there was a strange scene where Hungarian landlords encouraged serfs to escape and then paid to hire landless farmers.

So in order to save costs, the nobles drove the serfs to rotten land that was not suitable for large-scale production and let them fend for themselves.

As for the method of annexing land, it was also very simple and crude. For example, when collecting taxes, they did not collect in kind, but asked farmers to pay in money instead.

Or they first forcibly purchased farmers' crops at a low price, and then asked farmers to pay taxes in kind. If they could not pay, they would be fined heavily. Or they asked farmers who grew grain to pay beef and mutton, and so on.

In this way, the nobles could obtain large tracts of land and convert farmers with land into their hired farmers.

It was not only the free peasants who were persecuted by the nobles, but also the small nobles. They were completely unable to resist the risks in agriculture. As long as there were a few fluctuations in agriculture, they would become the so-called "nobles in single clothes".

What the Hungarian nobles hated most was their obligations as slave owners. They had to treat the sick serfs and provide relief to the serfs. If a serf starved to death, they would be severely punished, and even had to leave enough woodland and pasture for the serfs to cut firewood and graze livestock.

If they could use this natural disaster to let the serfs voluntarily give up their status, it would be a great help to them.

But why did the nobles oppose the liberation of serfs? Because the Austrian government was not stupid, it had long stipulated in the law that the liberated serfs must obtain a piece of land.

Because serfs would definitely not survive without land, and if a large group of people who could not survive were allowed to wander around the country, then the final result would be only one, that is, the peasant uprising. Austria, which had experienced the Hussite War, did not want to experience it again.

For Hungarian landlords and nobles, once the land was distributed to farmers, it would be difficult for farms to be connected for large-scale production. The so-called redemption policy of the Austrian Empire was as far away as the debt of the Austrian Empire. Serfs were simply unable to pay it off at one time and it often took decades.

There is another very strange thing about Hungary, that is, until World War II, they still had large tracts of uncultivated wasteland.

This is why after the Soviets took over, Hungarian agriculture could achieve a miracle of six times.

The price of wasteland in Hungary is shockingly low, but due to various reasons such as policies and ethnicity, ordinary people dare not buy land in Hungary at all, even if they buy it, they dare not go.

However, Franz's family has a very special status. Even if they buy land in Hungary, no blind officials will interfere, and no robbers will want to take the royal territory.

For example, Vojvodina was once an area where people were mourning, starving, bandits were rampant, and wild beasts were everywhere.

However, after Austria took over Vojvodina in the early eighteenth century, Vojvodina, as a royal territory, became one of the richest regions in the entire Balkans.

Franz wanted to buy land in Hungary and build a royal estate, which would not only solve the refugee problem but also increase food production. Why not?

What's even more bizarre about Hungary is that there are not only a lot of wastelands here, but also a lot of wastelands without owners. These wastelands belong to Hungary, but not to the king of Hungary.

So Franz still needs a little help, such as a nobleman who is willing to claim these wastelands and sell them to the royal family.

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