Chapter 325 Mysterious Merchant

For the time being, smuggling between Austria and India is not a very cost-effective business, but from the perspective of the long-term development of the empire, this is undoubtedly a good move. After all, with the continuous development of the industrial age, the exchanges between the East and the West will inevitably continue to deepen.

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

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

Due to the influence of Franz, the speed of technological development in this time and space is faster than in history, and rubber will be one of the most important raw materials in industry in the future.

Franz will not hand over such an important raw material production area in Southeast Asia, otherwise he will suffer the same fate as Germany in the past.

Even if Austria defeated the British at sea, it would not be possible to send a fleet to escort resources all the way from Southeast Asia to Europe.

Otherwise, even if Franz built an invincible army, they would eventually perish in constant consumption. If you want to change your fate, you can't go with the flow.

Everything is prepared, and if not, it will be wasted. Franz didn't want to find a way to solve the problem when the time came, of course, this destined him to live a very tiring life.

April 17, 1842, Mumbai.

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

When the huge warships of the Austrian Empire entered the harbor, it did not cause much sensation, but was dead quiet. Even the merchants who were hawking were listless, and the goods they sold were even more mediocre, with only some salted fish and wine.

The surrounding buildings were all crooked, as if they were randomly pieced together with wood, but what was more terrifying was that such dilapidated buildings could still stand, which was really amazing.

It had been a month since the tsunami, and Mumbai was even more dilapidated and less repaired than Kolkata, which he had left before.

Although this was also related to the fact that Mumbai was closer to the epicenter and suffered more serious damage, this efficiency was still frighteningly low.

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

People in this era were already inefficient, and the merchants who believed in "free trade" raised prices, and the British colonial government's random command made the progress of rescue and recovery work very slow.

Of course, what really made people depressed was not just these, that is, the Port Authority prohibited the workers at the dock from raising prices. The fate of violators was the bodies 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 deep-sea fishing. This led to overcrowding in the port docks, and of course the British Royal Navy would inevitably enjoy priority treatment. This made the already dissatisfied people even more dissatisfied.

For merchants in the 19th century, ships and the goods on the ships were their entire wealth, and for this reason these people were willing to pay everything to keep their wealth.

So when the crew members who were waiting for supplies and had nothing to do got off the ship, they immediately became the object of competition among many parties, and the originally lifeless port 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, and both were famous for black goods.

Franz had no interest in being an accomplice of drug dealers, and the Austrian Empire had been doing drug control work for so many years before. If he was involved with these people at this time, wouldn’t it be a slap in his face?

Although Archduke Friedrich, the commander of the Austrian Imperial Navy, looked a little casual, his soldiers rarely behaved too casually. After all, the treatment of the navy was very high (about 1.4 to 1.5 times that of the army), and Friedrich never showed mercy when killing people.

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

But even so, a merchant still stopped a junior officer who looked easy to talk to and stuffed something into his hand.

This naturally did not escape Franz's eyes, after all, he had been staring at this in the cabin.

The junior 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 please." The merchant looked very humble and used Dutch, but in the eyes of the Italian officer, it was no different from German. Anyway, he could understand a little, but not quite.

"I can only report to my superior officer. As for what he said, I can't do anything." The officer just told the truth. He was just one of the boiler masters of the Venice, just a lieutenant. It was usually impossible for him to meet the fleet commander who was always on the bottom deck.

However, the fleet commander Friedrich often took people to inspect various places on the warship, so the lieutenant felt that his immediate superior should be able to talk to Archduke Friedrich.

The merchant on the other side was obviously a smart man. He immediately took out a few more gold coins and stuffed them into the other party's hand.

"Please help me, please be sure to convey my words to your fleet commander. If you can do it, you can come to the Trident of Poseidon to find me, and I will pay you double the reward. My name is Benny 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 at the bow.

"What a fragile city! These idiots actually built the fort so far away, what's the use? Will the enemy attack along the coastline?"

Friedrich carefully observed the distribution of the ten forts in Mumbai, nine of which were front-line forts to cover the main fort.

In theory, this is correct. However, those forts built on the mountainside are too far away from the estuary, and they lose the advantage of attacking the enemy together with the fleet in the bay.

Because the design of this fort in the bay actually uses the advantage of the reverse slope to avoid enemy fire, and forms an angle with the warships in the bay to cover the enemy entering the bay.

However, the fort in Bombay Bay had a very obvious defect, which was more than five kilometers away from the bay mouth. Most of the artillery in this period had a range of no more than 3 kilometers, and the artillery in Bombay Bay was obviously some outdated artillery, which means that the ten artillery here, including the main artillery, were completely for show.

Facing such a port with obvious defects, Friedrich was unable to conquer it, which really made him sigh.

At this time, Friedrich's adjutant reported to him.

"Report!"

"Say!"

"Lieutenant Barras, the boiler chief, said that a businessman wanted to be the governor of the Austrian Empire's prisoner fort."

(The prisoner fort is located in Tanzania, East Africa, and is a famous slave trade center.)