Chapter 253 The Storm Subsides Temporarily

It is well known that in any era, the peasants love to fight against the local tyrants and divide the land.

The reason why so many serfs showed uncontrollable excitement on their faces when they saw the house on fire was not because they were cruel and ruthless by nature, but because the shackles on them - the indentures disappeared with the fire.

They naively thought that as long as the indentures were burned, they could get rid of the shackles of their current status.

In fact, the nobles had already registered the identities of the serfs. Even if the indentures were gone, they could go to the Hungarian government to get a copy.

In other words, unless the serfs and the nobles went to the government for notarization together, even if the nobles died and the indentures were gone, they were still the property of the nobles.

But this short-lived freedom and beautiful dream still made the serfs intoxicated.

The repeated setbacks of the "horse bandits" and the gradual pressure from the Austrian Empire made Kossuth's position precarious.

At this time, some pro-Austrian nobles came out and called for an end to the terrorist actions and cooperation with the empire to develop the economy, such as building a railway from Vienna to Budapest, so that more jobs could be provided to the Hungarians. As for serfdom, it was the lifeblood of the small and medium nobles, so naturally no one would mention it.

It was impossible to build a railway, but no one wanted to continue fighting.

Someone once suggested that the Royal Dragon Knights and Archduke Karl's guards should be eliminated to avenge the dead young people.

But that person was criticized on the spot. Not to mention how difficult it was to defeat these two troops, just saying that annihilating them would be equivalent to declaring war on the Austrian aristocracy.

No one would be stupid enough to think that the Habsburg royal family could rule Hungary by relying on a piece of paper, not to mention that the Neretanian nobles, who were also full of martial virtues, were by no means easy to mess with. Most of them were born as military nobles, and their generations had long and rich war experience, especially in the civil war.

Although the Austrian nobles often colluded with the French and Prussians, they never compromised with the Hungarians.

It was the royal family and the government that compromised with Hungary. Since the time of Queen Theresa, the military has always had plans to unify Hungary by force, such as the famous "U Plan".

Why is it U Plan, not A, B, C, D, E, F Plan? It has been planned for a long time, and it is just a matter of time.

The pressure from the nobles and the government is fine. The real reason for the temporary dissolution of the "Hungarian Legion" is the proactive strategy adopted by Albrecht.

Under normal circumstances, it is illegal to execute people without approval, but given that the other party has a huge bonus of royal status, and every time there are a large number of serfs as witnesses, it cannot be inferred by common sense.

If the crime is just raising private soldiers without reporting, it is okay, but allowing slaves to plunder and attack merchants cannot be washed away.

On the vast Hungarian Plain, there is nothing more terrifying than cavalry. They come and go like the wind and can run hundreds of kilometers a day.

Unless they hide in the city, no family's mansion can stop a regiment-level cavalry raid.

In fact, it was common for Hungarian nobles to have dozens or even hundreds of thugs at home, and many manors had forts.

A fort is a small castle made of bricks and stones, which can resist bandits and robbers. It has food and water inside, and can even protect itself in low-intensity wars.

However, in the 19th century, not to mention this kind of fort, even a standard castle like the Bastille could not withstand the bombardment of artillery fire.

However, when performing a raid, the commander usually does not require the riders to carry such heavy weapons in order not to affect the marching speed, which also caused some of the enemy to be fearless in the early stage.

(Cavalry artillery is not equal to cavalry. Some people must say that cavalry forced marches do not run all the time, but cavalry artillery is light and has weight.)

However, judging from the experience of fighting during this period, Archduke Albrecht undoubtedly has a way to knock open the shell of the fort. So the upper echelons of the Hungarian Legion decided to disband temporarily in order to wait for an opportunity.

After all, Albrecht could not always take his 5,000 men to guard the German immigrants in the royal manor for a long time.

A bandit stronghold that had just been wiped out by Albrecht.

In the ruins, the soil began to loosen, and gradually the movement became larger and larger, as if a green plant was about to break out of the soil.

With a "bang", the wooden board was lifted up, and Itamar inside was lying on the ground, breathing fresh air in big gulps, like a fish lacking oxygen.

In fact, many noble houses have such cellars for hiding people. He fled into the cellar as soon as the fire broke out, so he was able to escape.

At this time, Itamar was horrified to find that two figures were walking towards him.

At first, Itamar was very panicked, but when the other party approached, he found that it was actually two serfs from his family, and he couldn't help but say angrily.

"Damn it, don't help me up."

The two serfs didn't say anything, and one of them walked straight behind Itamar and stretched out his hand, but the other party didn't want to help him up, but held his arm.

"Hurry up, Dan!" The serf behind Itamar shouted.

Matthew raised the hoe in his hand high, and Itamar immediately struggled.

"Matthew! Dan! Are you all crazy? I am Master Itamar!"

However, the two serfs did not listen to his explanation. The hoe fell on their master's head. Then they tied him up with hemp rope and threw him into the cellar again.

Matthew put the lid of the cellar back on, and Dan brought a big stone from the side to press on it. Then they began to fill the soil until it was completely buried.

Although their hands were shaking and they were afraid of being liquidated, in order not to return to the past, they still mustered up the courage to send the noble lord who crawled out of the ground back to the cellar.

In the days that followed, Albrecht and his soldiers trained new recruits in royal estates everywhere.

These German immigrants and Hungarian refugees were very cooperative. After all, after experiencing so many ups and downs, even the weakest people learned to be strong.

(The Hungarian refugees were caused by the previous floods, not by Franz's looting of the population. I've written about this in the previous chapters, so if you skip reading, don't always criticize the protagonist for being inhumane and deliberately burning people's fields. You won't see my reply, so I'll just say it in the article.)

The purpose of training militias is to defend the country. Although these militias don't know what the country is, they know the importance of defending their homes, and they know that if there is no so-called country, weak people like them don't even have the opportunity to defend their homes.

The militias trained very seriously, but Albrecht and his officers were still very harsh, not just a problem of the military training style of this era.

More importantly, they all knew that they couldn't stay here to protect those farmers all the time. Soldiers also have feelings, but they obey discipline more than feelings.

A strong army must have iron discipline, otherwise it can only be guaranteed to be undefeated unless there is a generation gap in weapons or a huge disparity in strength.

Although Albrecht hoped that these civilians would never need to appear on the battlefield, because that would be a dereliction of duty as a soldier.

It's just that after listening to Franz's "Total War" theory, Albrecht began to understand his father's approach.

Total War was actually proposed by Ludendorff, a German general during World War I, and is essentially an extension of On War.

What Albrecht saw and heard in Hungary made him realize that day might not be too far away.